The Battle for George Square 1919: Myth, Memory and the Military in Red Clydeside

Gordon Barclay and Louise Heren scrutinize contemporary evidence to reveal a complex, contested Battle of George Square narrative.

The Battle of George Square, a riot during the Forty Hours Strike in Glasgow, on 31 January 1919, is routinely claimed to be one of the most iconic events in Scottish working-class history. It is also the most mythologised. For a century, the narrative created for the defence of the strike leaders charged with incitement to riot – an ‘unprovoked attack on a peaceful crowd’ as an act of oppression – has been repeated uncritically by academic and popular writers. Mythology has almost completely replaced reality, most notably in the Scottish education system, where educational materials have been described by two prominent historians as, ‘arrant propaganda’ and a ‘perversion of history’.

Now, Gordon Barclay and Louise Heren have undertaken a meticulous examination of the contemporary evidence to tell a more complex story. In doing so they examine the ways writers have failed to subject the celebratory mythology of this iconic event to adequate scrutiny. They document the creation of the mythology, from the writings of the strike leaders to those who use the mythology of the Battle to promote their own politics. They also examine the legal basis and reality of the military deployment to Glasgow in the aftermath of the riot.

Gordon Barclay graduated in archaeology from Edinburgh University (MA 1976, PhD 2001), and subsequently worked at Historic Scotland, firstly directing excavations and then as a Principal Inspector running the archaeology and scheduling programmes. He retired at the end of 2009 as Head of Policy. He has been editor of Scotland's premier archaeological journal, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and FORT, the journal of the Fortress Studies Group.