Housing Management Department

Tenancies Rental rolls: organised by housing scheme, very incomplete and in different formats, but including descriptions of subjects, names and designations of tenants and rents, 1921 - 1956, 1963 - 1964;

Draft rolls: a larger and more nearly complete series, also in different formats, but including some or all of the following information on applicants: former address, size of house, former rent, household composition and household income, 1922 - 1972;

Sub-let books: in fact records of re-lets, i.e., tenancies subsequent to those of the first occupants of houses, with information on the names and new addresses of previous tenants, as well as the names, designations and previous addresses of new tenants, 1926 - 1934;

Warnings and removal notices books, 1941 - 1945, 1955 - 1957;

Abstract schedule books for Tollcross (Sandyhills) and Coplawhill, (abstracts of particulars from applications for tenancies), c1920; Similar abstract from applications in alphabetical order of schemes (S-Y only), 1933 - 1938;

Particulars of staff at various periods, c1930 - c1945;

Applications for employment, 1942 - 1951;

General files of correspondence and memoranda on subjects including model lodging houses, redevelopment areas, requisitioned properties, departmental organisation, planning, rents, house types, site acquisition, etc., c1890 - c1970;

Newscuttings, c1900 - 1915, 1925 - 1936;

Pamphlets on housing, 1896 - 1961;

Abstracts of account, 1891 - 1925;

Miscellanea including memoranda concerning the management of city properties, c1895 - 1914, reports on the progress of works, 1898 - 1921, plans of labourers' dwellings in Juvenal St, Liverpool, 1892, a rota for tenants' use of washing and drying rooms, undated, and a record of leases, 1897 - 1902.

The early history of the provision and management of public housing in Glasgow is that of the City Improvements Trust (1866-1895). On the amalgamation of the Trust with the Corporation it became the City Improvements Department. By 1914 the trust and the department had already built over 2000 houses. After the First World War, however, the Corporation began to build houses on an entirely new scale under the provisions of the Housing (Scotland) Acts from 1919 onwards.

In September 1919 a Director of Housing was appointed, to head a new Housing Department. Thereafter the division of responsibilities was essentially that the Director of Housing was responsible for the provision of new houses and their maintenance, while the Manager of the City Improvements Department was responsible for the letting and factoring of the houses (both those built under the City Improvement Acts and the much larger number built under the Housing Acts).

In June 1950 the Housing Committee re-designated the General Manager of the City Improvements Department as City Factor, and changed the name of the department accordingly. In November 1966 these became the Housing Manager and Housing Management Department respectively. They continued under these titles until 1975, when the department transferred to Glasgow District Council.

(Chronology of the department's name: Improvement Department, became City Improvements Department (1895); renamed City Factor's Department (1950), then Housing Management Department (1966).)

[Description adapted from Scottish Archive Network]

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No records created directly by the Housing Department are held in the Archives, although its activities are very fully recorded elsewhere, especially among the records of the Town Clerk's Department. The responsibilities of the Directors of Housing were initially very wide, including the acquisition of land for housing, the layout of the housing schemes, design and construction of the houses, and their maintenance thereafter. This remained the case until after the Second World War. From 31 March 1953, however, the Housing Department ceased to exist. Its Architectural and Technical Sections passed to the recently formed City Architect's Department. A new Housing and Works Department was created, whose functions were restricted to the actual building of houses and the maintenance and repair of Corporation property. It was renamed the Building Department in December 1966 and retained that name until local government reorganisation in 1975, when it transferred, along with the housing stock, to Glasgow District Council.

Descriptive list available at Glasgow City Archives.

Application for reproduction should be made to the Archivist.

This material has been appraised in line with standard GB243 procedures. 

No further accruals expected.

Glasgow City Archives, D-TC7/12, Housing Department Reports

Glasgow City Archives, F14, Improvements Trust

J Cunnison and J B S Gilfillan (eds.), 'The Third Statistical Account of Scotland: Glasgow' (Glasgow, 1958), pp.448-474.