Blog at the Ballast

In the spirit of the many Christmas dinners and roast potatoes that will be being had right now, I though I'd share this picture of the Roman unloading potatoes. It was built in 1904 by J & J Hay, boatbuilders based in Kirkintilloch.  As well as building boats the company also operated a lighterage business, that is the the conveyance or loading and unloading of...

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Flickr has had a new feature for while called galleries which allow you to "curate" a gallery of your own from other people's collection. As today is the last posting day for the UK and its beginning to feel very christmassy, I've put together a gallery called 'Christmas Post'.  These are images from other archive and library collections on Flickr.  This is my favourite image from...

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I've posted about the earlier Pibroch here and here before but this a picture of the diesel motored Pibroch built in 1957.  Both Pibrochs were one of Dan's most photographed subjects and this picture with the little van on the middle of the boat just makes me smile. It was built as the earlier one had been by Scotts of Bowling and was...

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Earlier this year, I wrote an article about the Ballast Trust for an Italian online journal called Culture e Impresa.  This is a journal that publishes articles related to culture and business and is linked to the Centre for Corporate Culture in Milan.  At the moment the article is only up in Italian but a full english translation of the journal will be...

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This weeks photo is the first Railway related image.  It is from the "miscellaneous" collection of photographs and postcards that Bill accumulated and that we now have in several filing cabinets. It is of a crane locomotive built by Dubs & Co. locomotive manufacturers in Glasgow from 1863 to 1903 when it amalgamated with Neilson, Reid & Co. and Sharp, Stewart & Co. to...

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Exciting news for me today as one of our images on Flickr has been favourited! It's the picture of the brigadier, which I have also posted about here on the blog and I'm delighted that someone has found it and liked it.  It's also very good timing as I was thinking today about my goals for our account on Flickr and what images I...

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A mystery photo this Friday as all I know about this picture is that it has Elizabeth written on the back.  I think that probably refers to one of the larger boats in the background rather than the small one that the two boys are playing on. ...

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My boxes for box listing arrived this week.  They were a barginous £1.05 per box and are still a fairly decent size 40 x 33.5 x 25cm. This means that I can now begin box listing the accessions in the outstore.  "A box list is a finding aid that describes the size and the contents of each box in a very generalized way."*  It...

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I've mentioned before that the National Maritime Museum had put some of its collections online.  Well, I discovered at the weekend that this website by Surface View also has images from the NMM available to order as large-scale wall murals, prints or blinds. This means that you can have an images from the plans for the Mauretania (1907), HMS Fearless and even the...

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This week's photo is of a tug called the Brigadier. It was built by George Brown and Company in Greenock in 1960.  Full details about it here. ...

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I was in Calais last weekend (13-15 November) for the E-Faith conference.  It's a get together of volunteers and volunteer associations to discuss and share information about the safeguarding of industrial and technical heritage.  The meeting was held at the Museum of Lace in Calais, which is a beautiful building that combined an original factory with a modern extension that incorporated a jacquard card design...

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So, I forgot to put a photo up on Friday but there was a reason.  David Powell the BACS Surveying Officer and I were putting the final touches to a National Strategy for Business Archives in Scotland before it goes out to consultation.  More information about the strategy is on the Business Archives Scotland blog.  It explains why we are developing a strategy and how...

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Today I'm travelling to Calais for the E-FAITH meeting this weekend.  I thought it would be appropriate to choose something French themed if such a thing existed in the Dan McDonald collection.  A quick search of the catalogue turned up two candidates who at least have relevant names. The first is 'France' built in 1890 by D & W Henderson.  More information about...

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This week I'm off to Calais on Friday for the E-Faith weekend on Industrial and Technical Heritage (programme here).  I'll be talking briefly about how the Ballast Trust works and the way in which we have been able to make use of volunteers and staff with specialist knowledge to process technical records.  Details of other papers and reports are available here. I'm also...

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In amongst the photographs and negatives of different ships, there are also images of views and cities and appropriately for this week, two pictures of fireworks. I'm not sure if these are bonfire night fireworks that Dan took pictures of, it seems unlikely but I thought they would be appropriate for this weeks photo. ...

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Following up from last weeks HMS Defender, I've found pictures of a ship called Defender although its not a Royal Navy ship. This is a 1915 cargo vessel, built by Connell & Co. in Scotstoun. It was built for T & J Harrisons who were a merchant shipping company operating out of Liverpool.  Information about the Defender's career as well as details about...

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Once you start looking for them, there are actually a few engineering, railway or shipping archive related stories each week.  On a Monday, I'll round up any I can find that might be of interest here: 18th century ship logs used for climate change research Launch of HMS Defender A triumph of Victorian engineering - the anniversary of Loch Katrine aquaduct (exhibition, news article and...

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We've been doing some moving around this week so the scanner is still out of operation.  This means that I can't share the photos of earlier HMS Defenders that Dan McDonald took.  However, once we're all sorted out I'll get them up so we can compare the different defenders. The upside of this is that I have a new office and we're getting...

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As I said yesterday I was fortunate enough to get tickets to attend my first ship launch, that of HMS Defender at the BVT Surface Fleet yard in Govan.  This visit helped me to get a sense of the scales involved in building a ship this size and gave me some background context to the work that we do. The Ballast Trust has processed...

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At this very moment I should be witnessing the launch of HMS Defender from the Govan yard of BVT Surface Fleet. image from here HMS Defender is a Type 45 Destroyer.  It is the eighth ship in the Royal Navy to bear the name Defender, the first was built in 1797 at Limehouse.  It is the the third Destroyer named Defender to have been built on the...

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Today's image is a pretty poor quality one of Saltcoats Harbour.  I would have scanned in a better one but we've spent the whole day moving the office around and the scanner isn't set up again yet. Saltcoats Harbour was built by Robert Cunninghame primarily for the export of his Uncle's Stevenston coal to Ireland. The outer pier was added around 1800, at...

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There have been several news articles about the City of Adelaide / Carrick over the last few days.  This is because of Peter Maddison's on-ship protest to save it from destruction and to try and arrange a relocation to Sunderland. News articles: Sunderland Echo BBC The Scotsman The ship was built in 1864, before the Cutty Sark and was used to transport emigrants...

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This week's photo was taken by Dan nearly 87 years ago to the day on 7 October 1922.  It is of the sailing ship the Clackmannanshire.  It was built in 1884 by Robert & Co. in Port Glasgow for a company called Thomas Law & Co. in Glasgow. She was scrapped in 1923, only a year after this picture was taken. ...

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The photo this week is one of Dan McDonald's most recognisable images as it was used on the back cover of one of his publications. The Turk was built in 1929 by J&J Hay of Kirkintilloch whose archives are in East Dunbartonshire (details here) ...

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The University of Glasgow has put together a pack of plans for the Lusitania.  "Each pack comprises full-size, rolled paper copies of the nine key plans for model-makers, plus an A3 colour poster of striking images, all at a 35% discount on the individual cost of these items." More details are available on their blog and website. ...

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Apologies for the lack of post last Friday.  My forward planning didn't work and as I was in Hawick all day I wasn't able to put one up. I was in Hawick talking about this blog, the Glasgow University one and how to use web 2.0 technologies in archives.  If you're interested my slides from the day are up here. ...

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This Sunday the Lighthouse in Glasgow is screening a free showing of Seawards the Great Ships. The 1960 oscar winning documentary about shipbuilding on the Clyde.Full details on the screening here and more information about the film itself here. ...

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These are some pictures of a ship called the 'Alert', it has been tricky to find information about it. According to the Lloyds Registers that Southampton have digitised there are 9 entries for ships named 'Alert' and the Clydebuilt database has 10. Without knowing the tonnage or date of build its impossible for me to decide which of these entries this images relate...

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The National Maritime Museum has put online its Admiralty collection of sailing warship plans, commonly known as the 'Sailing Navy collection'.  This means that 711 plans are available to look at online covering the period from 1700 to the 1900s. The collection can be viewed here. You can browse through the entire collection or by maker or century if you wish to narrow it down.  Once you've...

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Fairfield Shipyard Offices will be open this weekend as part of the Glasgow doors open day range of events.  Details about when they are open and how to get there are available here. Another building that is open as part of the weekend is Maxwell Park Station (information here), something for the Caledonian Railway fans out there. ...

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There were two Baron Vernons built on the clyde (see Clydebuilt database here and here), but these pictures are of a ship which was launch as the Dunmore Head in Belfast. She was bought by Hugh Hogarth & Sons and renamed the Baron Vernon. In May 1923 she was involved in a collision with the ss Metagama on the Clyde and she was...

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Today's image is of a paddle steamer, the Columba.Built in 1878 by J & G Thomson of Clydebank, she was owned by David MacBrayne and was the first of the David Hutchison & Co. company's ships to be built in steel. She was eventually scrapped in 1936.There are several references to the Columba being one of the most graceful paddlers on the Clyde...

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As I wrote about last week, I attended an information session for the Archives Pace Setter Scheme in Edinburgh.I had been attending so I could report back to University of Glasgow colleagues and wasn't sure if there was any scope for the Ballast Trust to participate in the scheme. After finding out more though, I think that there in facts lots of things...

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This week's photo is the first military photogaph I've included. Dan's collection does have a number of images of military craft but it was often harder to photograph these ships during the wartime for obvious reasons and they are definitely outnumbered by the puffers and sailing vessels.This is picture of the HMS Geranium which was a Flower class corvette launched in 1940 and...

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Today I'm in Edinburgh attending an information session on the archive pace setter scheme. This is one of the things I'm doing with my University of Glasgow hat on rather than purely for the Ballast Trust. So I'll be reporting back to colleagues at the University when I am in on Tuesday about the scheme and what it means for them.However, as the...

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This week's photo is another puffer photographed by Dan called the Arran Rose. It was built as the 'Garmoyle' by William Denny & Brothers in 1904 but renamed for the final time as Arran Rose in 1946. Other previous names were Stronshira (1921) and North Inch (1919). It was renamed the Arran Rose when it was bought by the Arran Sea Transport and...

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Accessioning is the name given to the formal process which documents the transfer of a collection from client repository or other source to the Ballast Trust for storage and/or processing.It is one of the most important steps as the information created and captured at the accessioning stage will help to shape how the collection is managed and processed.Until recently the Ballast Trust has...

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This week's photo is of a Puffer, the Strongbow. It was built in 1927 by Scotts of Bowling to be used by the tug company Steel & Bennie Ltd.Full information about the tug is available on the Clydebuilt database here. ...

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Today's picture is of a tall ship with a very interesting history. The Padua was built in 1926, not on the Clyde, but in Bremerhaven-Wesermünde. I'm assuming that Dan McDonald photographed her on a visit or stopover in Scotland. The Padua was commissioned as a cargoship for the German shipping company F. Laeisz of Hamburg who specialised in the South American nitrate trade....

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The Ballast Trust has a backlog of nearly 400 linear metres. This is made up of around 15 distinct collections ranging from 90 linear metres down to just 2 linear metres. It is my job as Archivist to decide how to tackle the backlog, making best use of the expertise we have from other staff and volunteers and what our priorities should be.There...

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So far I've focused on the shipping side of things on the blog which is not very representative of what the Ballast Trust does. Particularly not the work of our 3 volunteers who are all processing railway collections. I thought this podcast by The National Archives at Kew on "God's Wonderful Railway" would help balance things out. It is a recording of a...

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This is a picture of Vehicle Ferryboat No. 4 outside A & J Inglis Ltd in Glasgow. I've not had much luck finding out any other information about this so comments welcome. **Update** I've since discovered that this was built by Ferguson Brothers in Port Glasgow in 1938 for the Clyde Navigation Trust.  It was used on the route between Govan and Partick.  More...

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As a recently qualified archivist, one of the things I like most about my job at the Ballast Trust is that I get to think about how the Trust should do everything. This is a great opportunity to start at the beginning and think about access policies, accession databases, forms and cataloguing procedures. However, before I tackled the detail of documenting how we...

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The Ballast Trust is based in Johnstone and has been since 1992 when Bill Lind bought a former furniture factory belonging to James E Robertson & Sons Ltd. Before this, the Trust worked from the Joiners shop at the Kingston Yard of Scott-Lithgows and before that at Malcolms of Brookfield.The original purpose of the site means that we have plenty of room. The...

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This image shows the shipyard of Archibald McMillan & Son at Dumbarton.The ship in the middle of the image is the Kana, built for the Moss Hutchison Line in 1929 to transport cargo.The records of Archibald McMillan & Son are held by Glasgow City Archives. The company was established in 1834 by Archibald McMillan and his son, John, and stopped building ships in...

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These are two images from a ship called Uncle Ned. I chose these images mainly because I liked the look of the figurehead as I was going through potential images for today's post. He's quite a dapper chap. However, when it came to finding out anything about the ship, it was tricky. There was no information on the back of the print except...

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This is a picture of the men unloading whisky from the Pibroch at Bunnahabhain Distillery on Islay in 1952.This is a picture of the first Pibroch, which was built by Scotts of Bowling in 1923. She was commissioned by the Mackie brothers, owner of the White Horse Distillery of Lagavulin and served them and their successors, Scottish Malt Distillers carrying coal and barley...

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The PS Waverley is one of the most famous of the Clyde paddle steamers and is now the last sea-going paddle steamer in the world. I'm posting images of it today because the Waverley's Clyde sailings start again today, you can find out more about the timetable here.In the Dan McDonald collection we only have images of the original Waverley, built in 1899...

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As promised last week, here's an image to make up for the photoless Friday the 19th!This is a picture of men at work on the Malabar. This was a ship built by Barclay, Curle and Company, Scotstoun and launched on 9 July 1925. More information about the MV Malabar's career can be found here and how it came to be shipwrecked in 1931...

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No image today (I'll post one on Tuesday to make up for it) as I'm out of the office. Instead I thought I'd write a little bit about how I put the Friday photos together and find out about the images.So, step 1. I go into our stationary cupboard which has several small filing cabinets full of Dan McDonald's photographs, slides and negatives....

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StoryBox is being used by the River Clyde exhibition to capture people's memories and experiences of life on the Clyde. Several stories have been submitted already and include memories of a Clyde engineer, tales about the Renfrew Ferry and some background information about the filming of the opening sequence of Seawards the Great Ships. Which incidentally is being shown on 20th September at...

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The Lighthouse in Glasgow is running an exhibition in partnership with Scottish Screen Archive about the River Clyde and films (both documentary and amateur) made about it in the period 1912 to 1971.The exhibition is called the Clyde: Films of the River 1912 - 1971 and features films and images from the Scottish Screen Archive.The exhibition starts this Saturday 20 June and will...

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This image is of one of the boats that covered the Govan ferry crossing leaving from the ferry terminal at Govan graving docks. There are several pictures on Scran that show these types of boats and the entrance steps which have helped me to confirm that my guess-timation is correct.The style of boat suggests that this was taken in the late 1970s when...

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Its International Archives Day today and Glasgow University have developed a new online collections map to show the international nature of their collections. "Through the collections map, users can gain an appreciation of the impact of Scottish businesses on the development of the world economy and the influence that University of Glasgow, its staff and students have had on the history and development...

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Transcribing diary entries as blog posts is an excellent way of re-purposing the information in diaries into an online format and there are lots of good examples of this about:Diary of Samuel PepysGeorge Orwell's DiariesHarry Lamin's WWI lettersUnfortunately, the Ballast Trust doesn't have any diaries or log books in its collections but the Voyage of the Vampire is a great ship related example...

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Finally a picture of the type of boat that Dan McDonald was famous for, a puffer. This one is the Pibroch built in 1923 by Scots and Sons, Bowling.There were two Pibroch puffers but this is the first one and was according to this site built "for the Mackie Bros, of the White Horse Distillery of Lagavulin, Islay. She served them and their...

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The Lord of the Isles II was a paddle steamer built by D & W Henderson, Partick in 1891. She was owned by the Glasgow & Inverary Steamboat Company and put on the Glasgow to Inverary route to replace the Lord of the Isles I.She was scrapped in 1928 after serving on the following routes: Glasgow to Lochgoilhead, Glasgow to Bute cruises and...

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The Ballast Trust is supported in what it does by the work of its volunteers. Without them it would be very difficult for us to make sense of the material we work with.At the beginning of the year the National Council on Archives carried out a survey of volunteers in archives, which 3 of the volunteers with the Trust completed surveys for. Because...

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I have limited resources today so cannot upload any new photos for the Friday photo post. Instead I thought I would focus on the picture used in the header for the blog. This is a picture of several cranes outside (I think) what is now BAE System in Govan. The yard itself was founded in the 1860s by Randolph, Elder & Co and...

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The Aberdeen built ships project aims to make information about Aberdeen's shipbuilding heritage accessible to the widest possible audience through their website (here).They have also started series of podcasts to act as an introduction to the collections held by the Aberdeen Maritime Museum. You can subscribe to the feed here.I'm personally a big fan of all things web 2.0 and I think this...

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The Dan McDonald collection was acquired by Bill Lind on 6th March 1996 and processed at the Trust by 1997. The following text has been taken from the introduction to the catalogue and provides an explaination by Bill of how the collection was processed and what was known about it.Unfortunately, no form of negative register or other record was available, which might have...

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This weeks photo is of fishing boats from Carradale, Kintyre moored in front of George V bridge in Glasgow. It was taken on 1 April 1939. ...

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