Singer in light and shade

This Singer treadle sewing machine stands in the porch - and this is just to prove what a sunny day it has been in Edinburgh.

But it does give me the chance to say that my great-grandfather was a Singer agent at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. First of all in Liverpool, and then he moved to Sanquhar in Upper Nithsdale, Dumfries-shire. This machine comes from towards the end of his time with the company.

Singer got under way in New York in 1851 - founded, unsurprisingly, by a Mr Singer. In 1867 they decided that UK demand was high enough to justify opening a small plant there. Glasgow was initially chosen as the region was famous for iron making industries, and had plenty of cheap labour. Through the decades the company flourished in Clydebank - even achieving the distinction of getting their own passenger station on the British Rail network!

So much for the light. In the shade is the story of how the 11,000 workers at the largest factory of Singer, in Clydebank, went on strike in March-April 1911, ceasing to work in solidarity of 12 female colleagues protesting against work process reorganization. Following the end of the strike, Singer fired 400 workers, including all strike leaders and purported members of the IWGB, among whom was Arthur McManus, who later went on to become the first chairman of the Communist Party of Great Britain between 1920 and 1922.

So you might say that Singer's free-market approach to employment furthered the Communist cause in 1920's Britain. But then, that cause came and went too.....

It's a complex old world, isn't it?