All the fun of the Glasgow Fair as a city shut down for summer
Glasgow traditionally came to a standstill in the last fortnight of July with a mass exodus from the city, writes Crystal Chesters
It may be hard to imagine now, but the whole city of Glasgow went into virtual shutdown for the last two weeks of July as workers downed tools for a much-needed summer break with their families.
This year, Friday 12 July would have traditionally marked the start of the Glasgow Fair Fortnight, the two weeks when factories, shipyards and businesses would close and a mass exodus of the city began.
While the third Monday of July is still a public holiday, Glasgow Fair Monday, the tradition of the twoweek holiday, which dates back to the 12th century, has largely faded through time.
The Glasgow Fair began in 1190 when Bishop Jocelin got permission from King William the Lion to hold an annual fair during which traders could buy and sell livestock, goods and even servants, free from tolls and under the protection of the king.
It later developed into a raucous festival of amusements, with travelling performers, circus and theatre shows, melodramas and penny gaffs.
By the 1800s, the Glasgow Fair had become a fortnight-long holiday with workers leaving the grimy confines of the city to head “doon the watter” of the Firth of Clyde.
On the first Saturday of the holiday, trains, steamers and later ferries would be packed with families heading to destinations such as Ayr, Largs, Troon, Rothesay, Saltcoats, Dunoon, Bo’ness, and as far afield as Portobello, Aberdeen, Blackpool and Whitley Bay.
Records show that on the first Saturday of the Fair in 1855, a total of 41 steamers left the Broomielaw with an estimated 14,350 people leaving
the city via the Clyde alone. A further 26,000 people took a train out of Glasgow that day.
Despite many heading out of the city, the festivities in Glasgow during the 1800s were going strong, and thousands would make a beeline for Glasgow Green from towns outside like Barrhead and Hamilton.
In 1871 the show moved from Glasgow Cathedral to the Vinegarhill area of Glasgow Green, close to where the Forge Shopping Centre is today.
According to a report in the Paisley Herald and Renfrewshire Advertiser, this was to prevent visitors being exposed to the lewd behaviour and heavy drinking that went on at the Fair with hopes that removing the shows would hopefully “lead to their abolition”.
“It leaves the Green to be devoted to its legitimate purpose without exposing visitors to the pernicious influence of the shows, and to contact with the concentrated rascality of the city,” the report added.
Calls were made to ban the break or at least the festivities on Glasgow Green.
The Magdalene Institution of Glasgow, which worked to reform prostitutes and other ‘fallen women’, campaigned for its abolition in the mid-1800s due its so-called corrupting influence.
Newspapers too spread their disdain for the festivities.
The newspaper described some of the crowd as “barefooted match sellers and stair sleepers of the city .... and the artful dodgers, the thieves, loose women and dangerous scum of Glasgow some five years hence.”
Nevertheless, the popularity of the Glasgow Fair persisted until around the 1960s but as the city’s manufacturing industry started to fade, so too did the summer tradition given it was no longer financially feasible for businesses to shut down for two full weeks in July.
Meanwhile, new generations of workers opted for office jobs. The rise of cheap package holidays in the 1970s and 80s compounded this trend. But the memories of the Glasgow Fair live on in the hearts of many Glaswegians, who still talk fondly about the days when they could pack their bags and leave for a week or two.