Secrets of Glasgow's very own 'Domesday Book' revealed

Glasgow Times

27-05-2025

This tongue-in-cheek title is an ode to the oldest government record held in The National Archives.
The original Domesday Book is a survey of English land in the eleventh century and is perhaps the most well-known archive item in the UK.
Sadly, Glasgow's Domesday Book cannot boast such an illustrious history.
(Image: Glasgow City Archives)
Our volume consists of biographical notes and cross-referenced newspaper obituaries of Glasgow councillors.
It was compiled by local authority officials to cover 1890 to 1975 but also includes retrospective information back to the 1850s.
As such, it's an invaluable launchpad for any research into councillors for Glasgow Corporation and its predecessor, Glasgow Town Council. Me and my colleagues have used it many times over the years to help questing researchers.
(Image: Glasgow City Archives)
Understandably, many people are interested in the careers of former Lord Provosts. The origins of this civic role date from medieval times when Glasgow was a burgh. In modern times, Glasgow's Lord Provost has been the city's principal civic representative at home.
I wrote recently about James Welsh, who served as Lord Provost during the Second World War until November 1945.
James Welsh (Image: Glasgow City Archives)
The Domesday Book provides an excellent, though brief, summary of his political career in the city.
He began in 1913 and completed thirty-six years of public service, many of those spent representing the people in the wards of Dalmarnock and Maryhill. In addition, he was elected as the MP for Paisley in 1929.
(Image: Glasgow City Archives)
His entry also notes that he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow in October 1945. Last year, we took in his official and personal papers which chronicled his time in office.
When I started out as a new archivist at Glasgow City Archives, part of what intrigued me about the Glasgow Domesday Book (apart from its name) was that it was the first internal finding aid within an archive collection itself that I had come across.
Finding aids are key for any collections-based service like ours. To help researchers, we create catalogues (hard copy and online) and indexes (names, places, subjects, organisations and buildings among other terms) as well as making use of internal finding aids like the Domesday Book.
It is an archive item itself but was compiled as a finding aid by clerks from the Town Council (later, Glasgow Corporation).
The clerks would have gone through meeting minutes, obituaries and other sources to summarise the careers of former councillors for use by future researchers.
The Glasgow Domesday Book is a manuscript volume and was clearly a living document, being added to throughout the years by various clerks. In the entry for James Welsh, you can see that there are examples of several different clerks' handwriting.
As a finding aid, the Domesday Book helps researchers to navigate their way through our other sources searching for these same councillors.
For example, the Book gives dates which helps users to narrow down their search of our Glasgow Corporation minutes.
It also helps them to find their councillor in our annually printed lists of magistrates and town councillors of Glasgow, a source which confirms which committees each councillor served on and when.
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If a councillor became Lord Provost, then researchers can use the archives of the Lord Provost's Office.
These are a rich resource which include correspondence, press-cutting books, committee minutes, files on public events as well as photos of civic occasions.
Some films presented to the Lord Provost are held on deposit at the National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive.
As many Lord Provosts were merchants or business owners, some of their personal papers have survived to form part of our collections. For example, we hold the family trust volumes of Sir James Bain (born in 1818) and the papers of Sir James King (born in 1830) during his time in office.
Interestingly, the Domesday Book doesn't record other notable information. For example, Dame Jean Roberts, a former teacher, was the first female Lord Provost and served from 1960 to 1963.
One of her predecessors in the role, Sir Patrick Dollan, was the first person from an Irish-Catholic background to hold the office when he became Lord Provost in 1938. Neither entry records these facts.
Nevertheless, the Glasgow Domesday Book is outstanding in its own way, forming one of the many access points into the collections of Glasgow City Archives.