The Templeton Carpet Factory sits next to the People’s Palace and Glasgow Green. It was commissioned in the late 1880s and is designed on the Doge’s Palace in Venice. Construction began on the factory in 1888. Late the following year, disaster struck.
November 1, 1889 was a cold evening. The winds were high. So high, in fact,
that they blew down a large section of the eastern extension to the factory. The
ruins fell onto the neighbouring weaving shed, causing the shed to collapse.
The workers in that shed were almost all women of the east end of Glasgow. They
were trapped in the ruins. While 32 injured women were rescued by the Eastern
and Central Fire Brigades, another 29 women sadly lost their lives. Some of the
dead were girls as young as 12 and 14. This disaster is the greatest peace time
tragedy for the East End of Glasgow. A memorial garden is incorporated into the
grounds of the former factory and paving stones list the names of the women who
perished.
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