Nursing Homes in Marywood Square

I have now been approached by three people regarding relatives, or themselves, being born in a nursing home in Marywood Square, including Hilary, the wife of Mike Stanger, founder of The Strathbungo Society back in the 1970s.

So here’s what I know, should anyone else ask.

Dawsholm Nursing Home

Margaret G Dawson rented premises at 8 Marywood Square from the architect James Money and opened her nursing home in November 1934 .

Newspaper cutting: A Special announcement. Nurse Dawson begs to intimate she has opened a nursing home. Our motto Consideration, Comfort, Cleanliness

Advert in the Jewish Echo, 9 Nov 1934. Source: BNA

While the Post Office Directory always called it the Dawson Nursing Home, Dawsholm was the correct name from the start. The nursing home features in numerous birth announcements in the press from the 1930s. This is the earliest I have found:

Birth - Urquhart - At Dawsholm Nursing Home, 8 Marywood Square, Strathbungo, Glasgow on the 24th inst., to Mr and Mrs Angus Urquhart, a daughter

Birth announcement in the Inverness Courier, 26 July 1935. Source: British Newspaper Archive

In 1939 the home moved from No 8 to No 20 Marywood Square, perhaps as a consequence of the death of Mr Money in April that year , and even the PO Directory recorded it as Dawsholm Nursing Home from then on.

The last reference to the home I can find is a stillbirth recorded on the Scottish Jewish Cemeteries website in February 1954 .

The Glasgow District Nursing Association

There was a further nursing organisation at 34 Marywood Square. The property was acquired around 1925 by the The Higginbotham Sick Poor Nursing Association, which soon became The Glasgow District Nursing Association.

Ball in aid of Glasgow District Nursing Association

Wishaw Press 15 Oct 1926. Source: BNA

While the association regularly advertised for staff, including maternity staff, their aim was “nursing the sick poor in their own homes”, and the house appears to have been a base for district nurses rather than a nursing home per se. It was still in use as a centre for district nursing for the Greater Glasgow Health Board in 1976.

The property was subdivided into three flats in 1986.

Oxton House Residential Nursing Home

A brief mention for the current nursing home in Marywood Square, which began at 14 Marywood Square, and in 1998 extended into the neighbouring flatted houses at 16 and 18, and provides 34 rooms for its elderly residents.

References

1.
Special Opening Anncuncement. 1934 Nov 9 [cited 2025 May 16]; Available from: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0006134/19341109/329/0017
1.
Glenduffhill Cemetery. Scottish Jewish Cemeteries [Internet]. [cited 2024 Jul 10]. Available from: https://scottishjewishcemeteries.org/burial/b-glen-a4-inf-036/
1.
James Money - Dictionary of Scottish Architects [Internet]. [cited 2024 Jul 10]. Available from: https://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=202598

6 Comments

  1. Beautiful cast iron railings ! Haven’t seen that photo before – were they removed in WW2 ?

  2. Jean Penrice

    May 7, 2025 at 5:04 am

    Looking at my birth certificate I saw that I was born at 20 Marywood Square on 18 April 1954. Thank you for the picture and information. I am a retired artist, although still painting and Inow live in New Zealand.

  3. I was a pupil at Miss Allpress’s Secretarial College in Marywood Square in 1955. Can’t recall the number and no information forthcoming. I do remember there was a number of Jewish girls there.

    • Ah, I know that one! A Marywood Square resident told me about it recently. She had trained there too, and about the same time. Allpress Business School, 19 Marywood Square. Opened around 1940. Also around 1910 a Theodore Allpress ran a shorthand & typing school at 77 Kilmarnock Road in Shawlands. Perhaps he was Miss Allpress’s father.

      • Theodore S Allpress was from England. He worked as a ship owner’s clerk initially, living in Battlefield Gardens in 1901, but by 1905 had opened a school of shorthand at 77 Kilmarnock Road. In the 1930s he moved it to Queens Drive.

        He married Louise and had a daughter, Daisy, b 1890 in England. She became involved in the business and later took it over. She moved to Marywood Square, first at 37, then 47, and at some time in the 40s moved the business from Queens Drive to premises at 19 Marywood Square.

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