By Kirsty Gilchrist
The Scottish Maritime Museum collection includes ropewalk machinery previously used at the Gourock Ropework Company in Port Glasgow. The machinery consists of three mechanical parts which made up one of the longest ropewalks in Scotland.
How it works…
Bales of fibres were divided and cleaned by feeding them through the hatchelling machinery.
These combed out fibres were then wrapped around a worker’s waist, with the first twist tied to the rotating hook.
These hooks would then be rotated by hand by another worker as the first worker walked backwards, causing the fibres to be twisted into yarn.
Several of the completed lengths of yarn were then attached to the hooks and twisted together by the same process to form the final ropes.
The length of the ropewalk determined the length of the rope, so the buildings were very long.
Gourock Ropework Company
British colonisation throughout the 18th century created a significant shipping industry in Glasgow. This resulted in higher demands for rope and sailcloth for shipbuilding, and specialist companies in Scotland were formed to meet this demand.
Gourock Ropeworks was one of the largest businesses of its kind in the world for many years during the 19th century. Known worldwide for manufacturing ropes, canvas and sailcloth, the company closed in the mid-1970s after producing hemp mooring ropes for the largest class of vessel, including ocean liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. The buildings in Port Glasgow formerly housing the ropeworks have now been converted into flats.
Women Ropemakers
At Gourock Ropeworks, and other similar companies, women made up a large part of the workforce as they could be paid lower wages than men. Exact figures for Gourock Ropeworks are unknown, but a London ropework factory in 1895 paid working women approximately 9 shillings per week compared to a man’s wage of 15-30 shillings.
The job role for women at the ropeworks involved feeding long bundles of hemp fibre into the machinery which was very dangerous; there was always a risk of hair, clothes or fingers getting caught in the large machine.
The working-class women in this industry would have significantly lower life expectancies as the hemp fibre in the air caused long-term lung conditions like “pousse”, which is similar to emphysema or byssinosis.
Significant strikes took place in the early 20th century in various industrial cities due to poor working conditions and wages being cut. Striking had a successful impact on the ropework industry, allowing for unions to be formed and employee welfare to be acknowledged by large companies. For example, Belfast Ropework Company began organising social and sporting events for their workers in the 1930s.
Today, the ropes used on ships are mostly made of artificial fibres like nylon, and many small, traditional ropeworks have been closed.
For more information about this topic, have a look at the Lloyds Register Foundation online exhibition: https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/whats-on/rewriting-women-into-maritime-history/online-exhibitions/female-ropemakers#
Thank you to Daisy from Greenwood Academy for compiling research for this blog post.
Sources:
https://www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/news/25046864.now-port-glasgows-gourock-ropeworks-30-years-ago/
https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/cfdf5fa3-dd0e-33eb-a1bd-34dcbbb7d016
Photographs: © Scottish Maritime Museum
