From our archives 50 years ago

5 years ago

Pope Francis has sent a special envoy to Glasgow to mark the 400th anniversary of the martyrdom of St John Ogilvie, Scotland’s only post-reformation canonised Catholic martyr. Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’connor, the former Archbishop of Westminster, was asked by the Pope to attend the ceremony at St Aloysius Church, Glasgow last night, as well as a mass at St Andrew’s Cathedral today, which is St John Ogilvie’s feast day.

10 years ago

Former newspaper editor Max Hastings, pictured, has turned his nose up at Glasgow by refusing to appear on a television show in the city. He was asked to appear on the BBC’S The Culture Show, which is filmed in Glasgow, but refused to travel north.

Hastings also made a sweeping attack on BBC director general Mark Thompson, criticising the policy of outsourcing much of the programme-making to regional centres, including Glasgow and Manchester.

25 years ago

Celtic Football Club yesterday launched a £727,000 damages claim against Lou Macari, listing a catalogue of alleged incompetence on the part of the club’s former manager. As part of the action, Celtic allege that the team’s failure to qualify for Europe under his ill-fated stewardship cost the club more than £380,000. The action by Celtic in the Court of Session is a counter-claim to the former manager’s action in the same court for £431,000. Mr Macari is claiming breach of contract over his dismissal in June last year.

Four Rennie Mackintosh chairs which were once in Miss Cranston’s Willow tearooms in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, fetched a total of £820 yesterday when they were auctioned at Sohtheby’s, London, in a sale of decorative art. The chairs, designed for Miss Cranston in 1904 by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the famous Scottish architect and designer, were the first of their kind to come into the saleroom. They had been expected to fetch between £600 and £700.

100 years ago

Today the grave closes over Mr James Scott Stewart, the doyen of the Glasgow artists. He was born at Falkirk in 1831, and came as a young man to Glasgow, where he painted with considerable success portraits, figure subjects and landscapes. For many years he has been the sole survivor of the West of Scotland Academy, which ceased to exist when the Glasgow Institute (now the Royal Glasgow Institute) of Fine Arts came into being. Of this body Mr Stewart was an original member and a most regular exhibitor.