Industry
The main employment in the village came, historically, from the steelworks which existed on the shores of nearby Kilbirnie Loch. This, however, has been closed and the site is now home to various small businesses. During the course of its life, the Iron Works there were owned by Merry and Cunninghame, Colvilles, and British Steel, finally closing in the early nineteen-eighties. In 1892 Merry and Cunninghame's interest in Glengarnock had finished and Glengarnock Iron and Steel Co. was formed. From 1900 to 1914 there were periods of trade depression and when war was declared in 1914 the plant was idle. The Ministry of Munitions instructed them to produce munitions for the war. David Colville purchased the plant in 1916. Perhaps the 1930s was the first time people started to leave; economic depression and the means test which had been newly introduced left a lot of people poor, so they moved in the hope of better lives elsewhere. Riots were breaking out at that time. In 1978 the works, by then owned by the British Steel Corporation, employed just 200 people. Staff magazines from the entire period have been preserved and are held by the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. These throws an interesting light on the period. Ironically some of the buildings of the old steel works still lie empty on the site and one of them even has the Steel Works War Memorial still on the wall with names of the fallen during the two great wars, who were employees of the steel works.
Various industries and businesses are situated today at the Lochshore Industrial Estate and Glengarnock Business Park in Caledonian Road, and in the village itself.
Read more about this topic: Glengarnock
Famous quotes containing the word industry:
“As our boys and men are all expecting to be Presidents, so our girls and women must all hold themselves in readiness to preside in the White House; and in no city in the world can honest industry be more at a discount than in this capital of the government of the people.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)
“My plan of instruction is extremely simple and limited. They learn, on week-days, such coarse works as may fit them for servants. I allow of no writing for the poor. My object is not to make fanatics, but to train up the lower classes in habits of industry and piety.”
—Hannah More (1745–1833)
“Whatever I may be, I want to be elsewhere than on paper. My art and my industry have been employed in making myself good for something; my studies, in teaching me to do, not to write. I have put all my efforts into forming my life. That is my trade and my work.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)