Famous Disasters

Glasgow’s past has its share of tragedy, and this chapter records the disasters that shaped the city’s memory and, often, its laws. Some came from the river: in July 1883 the steamer Daphne capsized at her launch from Alexander Stephen’s yard at Linthouse, drowning 124 of the men and boys aboard. Others came from fire. The Cheapside Street whisky bond fire of 28 March 1960 killed nineteen firefighters and salvage men, the worst peacetime loss in the history of the British fire service, and in 1968 the James Watt Street fire killed 22 workers trapped behind barred windows. Historic fires covers the great blazes of earlier centuries.

Football has suffered its own disasters. In 1902 part of a wooden terrace collapsed at Ibrox during a match between Scotland and England, killing 25 people. In January 1971 a crush on Stairway 13 at Ibrox killed 66 supporters at the end of an Old Firm game; the Wheatley inquiry that followed led to the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975.

Recent decades have brought tragedies that the city still mourns. The Stockline Plastics factory explosion in Maryhill in May 2004 killed nine people. In November 2013 a police helicopter crashed onto the roof of the Clutha bar, killing ten. In December 2014 a bin lorry went out of control in George Square, killing six. The Mackintosh Building at the Glasgow School of Art burned twice, in 2014 and again, devastatingly, in 2018.

Glasgow floods completes the chapter. Each article sets out what happened, why, and what changed afterwards, and remembers the people who lost their lives.