Springburn Virtual Museum

Community life

Socialist Sunday School group, outside the Labour Party's Unity Hall in Ayr Street, c 1913

The Socialist Sunday School movement grew out of the Great Dock Strike in London in 1892. Soup kitchens had been organised for strikers and their families, and Mrs Mary Gray, seeing that the children had little or no education, held classes for them. She taught them the causes of their poverty, and that socialism was a way of improving their lot, as well as improving themselves. By 1912 there were 120 branches of the Socialist Sunday School.

The Socialist Sunday Schools were seen as recruiting ground for adult socialist organisations, teaching children ethics and social responsibility, through the 'gospel' of socialism, embodied in ten basic precepts. Socialism was taught to be compatible with Christianity, but not with the Christian dogma which was preached in religious churches of the day.

Many Socialist Sunday Schools found difficulty in hiring halls from local authorities, as the Establishment saw them as subversive and poisoning the minds of young people with anti-religious teachings. However, the Springburn branch met for many years in the Labour Party's Unity Hall in Ayr Street and later in Albert Primary School.

Source: Glasgow City Archives