FROM THE ARCHIVES

25 YEARS AGO The Government yesterday gave the go-ahead for the £15m replacement for Glasgow Royal Maternity Hospital. It will be built on one of two sites being considered by the health board at the Royal Infirmary.

One is a podium which was included for the purpose when the infirmary’s new block was being built at Alexandra Parade. The alternative is a vacant site-formerly occupied by the old out-patients’ department and now a car park – which may pose fewer construction problems than trying to build on to the new block. 50 YEARS AGO Preliminary work has begun on a new wholesale fruit market for Glasgow on the site of the former Blochairn steel works in the Royston district of the city. To mark the occasion a plaque was unveiled yesterday on the site by Councillor John A. Dunne, convener of Glasgow Corporation markets committee. 100 YEARS AGO In a special Order of the Day to his troops the Emperor Nicholas announces that the time for peace has not yet arrived; for Germany, having chosen to go to war, must not be allowed to make peace at will. The Imperial Order goes on to describe the growth of the strength of the Allies and to point out that Germany is feeling that the hour of her complete defeat is near, “and near also the hour of retribution for all her wrongdoings and for the violation of moral laws.” 150 YEARS AGO At the Justice of Peace Court yesterday, Daniel Gordon Mackay, watchmaker and jeweller in Glasgow, was charged with having, at five o’clock on the morning of the 1st inst., forcibly passed a toll-bar at Kirkintilloch, in a carriage drawn by one horse, with intent to evade payment of the toll, being 4d. The charge was found proven, and the defendant was amerced in a penalty of £5, besides costs to the amount of £3,11s 6d.