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Welcome

Welcome to the Heatherbank Museum of Social Work Website.

Following University decisions, the public gallery of Heatherbank Museum closed permanently on December 23rd 2004.

All the print, archive and artefact holdings as shown on the website remain available for consultation through Research Collections of which Heatherbank is a part. For further information contact Carole McCallum.

The Heatherbank Museum is the only Museum totally dedicated to Social Work and welfare in Europe. The Museum tells the story of many aspects of social care and social welfare developments mainly in Scotland, but including the other home countries where appropriate, over the past 200 years.

Interesting Facts from the Museum's Collections

Housing

After 1862 all houses in Glasgow under 2000 cubic feet had to have a metal ticket fastened to the door which allowed each adult 400 cubic feet of living space.
Poorhouses

Barnhill Poorhouse, which was situated a mile away from the Museum, was the largest occupied building in Scotland in the late 19th Century, housing 2,500 people.
The Church The Church of Scotland is the largest voluntary Social Work agency in Scotland, employing over 1600 people.
Health The Green Ladies, Glasgow's Health Visitor scheme, began in 1907 and by 1918 employed 20 people, supported however by 350 volunteers.
Childcare Between 1868 and 1930 100,000 children were migrated from the UK to Canada and today over 10% of Canadian families are descended from these children.
Crime Duke Street Prison, less than half a mile away from the Museum, was demolished in the years after 1955 following protests at conditions for women prisoners by the Scottish patriot, Wendy Wood.
Disability Following the Second World War, Group Captain Leonard Cheshire introduced a new element into the care for people with physical disabilities; participation in decision making.
Work Each worker in the mills at New Lanark had a 'silent monitor' above his Bench which recorded his previous day's conduct.

The last exhibition in the museum gallery was called Badge It, it consisted of over 1800 badges, from the collection of a private enthusiast. Most of the badges come from trade unions, the labour movemement, and other areas of left wing political activism.

History

Heatherbank Museum of Social Work was founded in 1975 by Colin and Rosemary Harvey. Its first site was as part of their early Victorian house and the adjacent coach-house situated in Milngavie, seven miles north of Glasgow. By 1993 both Colin and Rosemary had died and the following year the Museum moved to Glasgow Caledonian University. In 1996 the University took over responsibility for the funding of the Museum and in 1999 new premises were developed on the main campus in the city centre.

Mission Statement

The Museum has always existed to increase public awareness of the social welfare needs of society, particularly those who are disadvantaged.

Key aims

  • To help educate and challenge society to understand the caring professions and those needing care
  • To act as a resource for the study of the history of social work and welfare
  • To rescue and preserve artefacts and documents from discontinued social work institutions
  • To collect books, pictures, journals, pamphlets, ephemera etc on the history of social work

 

Last Updated: 27 July, 2010
Edited by: Web Team

From the Museum

photo: Alastair and new acquisitions

The now retired curator, the Rev Alastair Ramage sits in the 1895 chair from the RSPCC, a recent acquisition

photo: collecting box

Collecting Box : The archive of Children 1st is deposited in the University

photo: Newgate prison

Newgate : Prison visiting was hard in the past. Heatherbank has many images of prisons.

photo: RSSPCC collection tin

Large Collecting Box : Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children collected in shops with these boxes.

photo: Trent Hall collecting tin

Loaf Box : A very suitable collecting box to provide free breakfasts to hungry people