Red Clydeside

Key political figures of the Red Clydeside period

William Gallacher (sixth from right, back row) at St Mirren primary school, Paisley

1890-1893

Willie Gallacher was born in Paisley on Christmas Day 1881, the son of an Irish father and a Highland mother. His father, John Gallacher, was a master baker by trade but died when his son was still young. The death of the main breadwinner in working-class families in the late nineteenth century invariably meant a family's descent into poverty, and the Gallacher family proved no exception. The burden of supporting the family moved to Gallacher's mother who was forced to take in washing to make extra money to feed and her clothe a family which consisted of Willie and his six brothers and sisters.

Gallacher initially attended St Mirren Roman Catholic primary school in Paisley. Between the ages of nine and 12 he attended the local protestant secondary, Camphill School, his mother having decided to move him there because of its better academic reputation. As was the norm for working-class boys at this time, Gallacher left school aged 12 and started work as a grocer's delivery boy, providing a welcome additional wage for a family struggling to make ends meet. He left this job following a dispute with his employers and began an apprenticeship as a brass finisher in a sanitary engineering works at the age of 14.

In his teens, Gallacher began to take an active interest in religion, attending Bible classes and joining several Paisley choirs: the Wallneuk Mission Choir and the Mission Hall Choir of the Free Middle Church. He also became active in the temperance movement during this period, joining the Independent Order of Good Templars. Gallacher's strong and lasting hatred of alcohol stemmed from his own father's alcoholism and the subsequent distress and misery it caused his mother. He always blamed his mother's death at the age of 54 on the hardship and poverty brought on by his father's fondness for hard liquor.

Source: Maxton Collection, Paisley Museum and Art Galleries