Dundee has long been a port city and owes much of its prosperity to its location on the Tay. Its small harbour was developed by the Council and then taken over by the Dundee Harbour Trust in the early 19th Century. It was then enlarged to accommodate more traffic and larger vessels. Many people in Dundee were then employed in industries at the harbour as well on the ships bound for foreign and British ports. This guide lists some of the records you can use to trace someone who served on board a ship. Please note that someone who was from Dundee may not have always served on a Dundee based ship ..read more

Jute in Dundee was big business for nearly 100 years. Its one of the things the city is most known for. Its no surprise then that one of the most frequently asked questions at the archives is “How do I find out which jute mill someone worked in?”. This has inspired us to start a new blog series, answering your most frequently asked questions or popular family history topics. So lets start with jute mill records. First thing I will say is that if you are looking to find out where your ancestor worked – don’t expect too much. Whilst there are some records there are not many that have survived. W ..read more

As we have seen from our previous posts the Caird Hall was open for performances and events from September 1921. There were discussions about holding an official opening in that year but arrangements seem to have been difficult. As the Duke of York (later George VI) was visiting Scotland in November 1921 a request was put in to have him open the hall. Sadly he couldn’t make it. This was probably a good thing, as the main entrance and the collonade wasn’t finished yet. So for all of the events in 1921 and probably most of 1922 the audience entered from Shore Terrace and up what is now a fire ex ..read more

In our last blog we discussed some the early events held at the Caird Hall. There is one event that we’d like to look at in a bit more detail. At the Caird Hall Management Committee meeting on 21st December 1921 there was a complaint heard from Methven Simpson. They had organised for an Orchestra to perform at the Caird Hall between 21st and 26th November. Trouble was that due to the fact that the Hall wasn’t fully complete yet (the main entrance and pillars hadn’t been finished) there was still work going on in the building. Methven Simpson wanted a refund as the performances had been interru ..read more

As many of you will know the Caird Hall was officially opened on 26th October 1923, which is why we are celebrating the centenary later this month. However we should have really been celebrating the centenary of the opening of the hall a couple of years ago, as the Caird Hall first opened for events on 4th September 1921. So what was the first event? The first public event at the Caird Hall was a Labour Party “rally”, similar to the modern day conference. The hall was apparently full with 4000 people in attendance. The Courier noted that there was a “fair representation of women” in the hall ..read more

In last week’s post we looked at the process of building the Caird Hall and why it took so long. This week we thought we would take a look at what we were able to find out about the people who were actually involved with the construction. We know the names of the companies – the Yorkshire Hennebique Contracting Company and Neil McLeod & Sons. However as neither were locally based the vast majority of their workforce was employed locally. Sadly no detailed lists of the people who worked on site have survived, however there are some other sources we can use to find some information – the new ..read more

The foundation stone for the Caird Hall was laid on 10th July 1914 by King George V and Queen Mary. However further work on the building didn’t start immediately. It took about a year to start work on the rest of the building. This was mostly due to the fact that the plans for the building hadn’t yet been completed, but also there were no contracts in place for the foundations and other parts of the construction. The site is ready for construction, 13th April 1915 Ref: TC/CHA/59 The original design of a civic centre on the reclaimed land from the docks was swept aside by Sir James Caird. He pa ..read more

Last week we posted about the event of the laying of the foundation stone for the Caird Hall. Today I would like to focus on one particular picture of that event (the one above). And more precisely one person in that picture. Although you can’t see it in the version above, in the album all of these pictures are pasted into, there is a notation pointing to the man in the boater hat – the one on the right next to the man in the flat cap. As this album was created and kept by the Engineer’s Department he might have something to do with them. Now we can’t see his face or very much in the way of id ..read more

In April 1914 Dundee Corporation agreed to accept James Key Caird’s offer of £100,000 to pay for the new City Hall they had planned. Although the plans needed to be altered, reviewed and approved by the Council, Caird arranged for the laying of the foundation stone for the building in July that year. By this time Caird and James Thomson, the City Architect and Engineer had agreed on the rough design and location of the hall, final detailed plans had yet to be drawn up. It had been announced back in March that the King and Queen were scheduled to visit Dundee so why not get them to lay a founda ..read more

From idea to opening many people were involved with the project to plan and build what later became the Caird Hall, however there were two men who were largely responsible for it taking the shape that it did. In fact both were called James. They were James Key Caird who donated £100,000 to the Council towards the building of a civic hall, and James Thomson, the City Architect and Engineer who designed the building. So just who were these two men? Last time we looked at Sir James Caird, now lets look at the ideas man, James Thomson James Thomson James Thomson was born on 4th August 1852 in Newi ..read more