Bowls in Glasgow’s Southside

Citation

Haynes R (2013) Bowls in Glasgow’s Southside. Sport Heritage: From Sporting Past to Future Wellbeing Blog [Blog post] 13.02.2013. https://sportheritage.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/bowls-in-glasgows-southside/

Abstract
Bowls is known to have been played in Glasgow since the 17th Century, and the Thomas Taylor Company, formed in 1770, is the world’s oldest bowls manufacturer. As Ged O’Brian in Played in Glasgow makes clear, the Glasgow public turned its public spaces conserved by its Victorian aldermen in to new sporting facilities from which new sports practices and sports clubs could emerge. This was particularly the case with bowls, which flourished in the south side of the city as its new (increasingly middle-class) population grew through the late-19th in to the early 20th centuries extending the city southward in to Pollokshields, Cathcart, Mount Florida, Shawlands and Langside. The popularity of bowls, Ged Obrien notes, became so great that by 1929 there were 33 private and 11 public greens within a 1.25 mile radius.

Keywords
bowls; Glasgow;

People

Professor Richard Haynes

Professor, Communications, Media and Culture