The Boat Builder

The Boat Builder. Stephen Adam. 1877-80. The Maryhill Burgh Halls, Glasgow. Click on image to enlarge it.

“Provost Robertson opened the new Halls on 26 April 1878. A previous occupant of the burghal office was Provost Swan in 1856, Maryhill’s first, and he provides some evidence for the theory of the panels as, in part, a form of advertising. He was from the family which owned the canal boatyard at Kelvin Dock, depicted in one of the panels, The Boat Builder. The worker shown is a ship’s carpenter with his plane and shaping adze. Kelvin Dock, dating from the 1790s, was run as a boatyard by Swan & Co. in the 1850s and lasted in production until the 1920s. The boatyard built ironclad puffers, but the vessel shown is a wooden canal barge, with a swan motif” — Ian R. Mitchell

Photograph courtesy of the Maryhill Burgh Halls Trust and Glasgow Life/Glasgow Museums. You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.

Bibliography

Gossman, Lionel. “Stephen Adam’s Celebration of Industrial Labor.” Victorian Web.


Last modified 11 June 2016