Springburn Virtual Museum

Railway industry

Tracers, North British Locomotive Company, c 1910

Tracers made copies of the engineering drawings produced by the draughtsmen. These copies were then distributed to different departments. This was a highly skilled job and a three-year course was required. Some tracers went on to become draughtswomen.

Henry Dübs introduced the idea of employing women as tracers at his Queen's Park Works, which he set up after leaving Neilson and Company in 1863. The practice continued after Dübs' death in 1876, and after the formation of the North British Locomotive Company.

There was great indignation at the impropriety of a mixed-sex workforce, but Dübs insisted that women would be better than men at the job (and could be paid less). The sexes were kept strictly segregated, and even into the 1960s former tracers recalled that there was still disapproval of men and women mixing during working hours.

Source: Glasgow City Archives