Archive Past Projects
Public Health & The Built Environment
On the 23rd August 2017, as part of our Centenary Celebrations of the opening of the Baths in 1917, we held a Conference on Public Health & The Built Environment. Invited speakers spoke about the reasons why public baths & wash-houses were developed in the UK, including the cholera pandemic in the 1800’s.
The purpose of the conference was to bring together a diverse audience and set of speakers to consider: the context in which Govanhill Baths was built; the importance of municipal swimming baths & wash houses; their impact on public health and amateur swimming in Scotland; their architectural importance and what all this means today as Govanhill Baths is redeveloped into a community led Health and Wellbeing Centre. Speakers came from Glasgow, Aberdeen, Manchester and Stoke on Trent. They brought with them a wide variety of knowledge and skills from architecture, conservation and public health to historical archives and amateur swimming. With representatives from the academic, archives, museum, heritage and voluntary sectors .
You can watch all the presentations and Q&A’s on the Govanhill Baths Youtube channel by following the links below.
Enjoy!!
Conference Schedule & links to video documentation.
Click to view full playlist on YouTube
10.00 Registration and refreshments
10.20 Introduction & Welcome
Niall Murphy (Govanhill Baths Community Trust & Glasgow City Heritage Trust)
Click to view presentation on YouTube
10.35 Govanhill, Glasgow in the 1910’s – 1920’s
Isobel McDonald (Glasgow Museums)
Click to view presentation on YouTube
10.50 Cataloguing Glasgow’s Public Health Records
Alison Scott (Glasgow City Archives)
Click to view presentation on YouTube
11.05 Glasgow’s Public health in the time of War
Simon Walker (Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare, University of Strathclyde)
Click to view presentation on YouTube
11.35 Q&A / 11.45 Refreshment break
12.00 Scottish baths 1868-1914 : and their conservation
Douglas Campbell (Aberdeen City Heritage Trust)
Click to view presentation on YouTube
12.30 Sharing Memories of Baths and Wash Houses
Carl Evans (Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive)
Click to view presentation on YouTube
13.00 Q&A / 13.10 Networking lunch
14.00 Victoria Baths & Historic Pools of Britain
Gill Wright (Victoria Baths, Manchester and Historic Pools of Britain)
Click to view presentation on YouTube
14.30 Learning to Swim in Govanhill & Amateur Swimming in Scotland
Paul Donald (Scottish Swimming and Kingston Amateur Swimming Club)
15.00 Q&A and closing remarks
Paula Larkin (Govanhill Baths Archive)
Click to view presentation on YouTube
