The+Scottish+Cremation+Society+Ltd

=The Scottish Cremation Society Ltd=

Company Number: SC002101 Date of Incorporation: 22 December 1890 Contact Details: Allan house, 25 Bothwell Street, Glasgow, G2 6NL Operating Details: Active Other names (if known): The Scottish Burial Reform and Cremation Society Limited Function of Company*: Funeral and related activities (9303) Headquarters/Base of Operations Location: Glasgow Area of Operation: Glasgow


 * Taken from Standard Industrial Classification 2003, as used by Companies House in 2010

Records
Held By: Private

Scope/type: Minute Books 1888-present; Cremation records 1895-present

Conditions governing access/use: Privately held, contact the Registrar at the above address for access. Access considered on a case by case basis.

Related records: There is a BT2 file held at the National Archives of Scotland (BT2/2101) despite the main records still being held at Companies House. The NAS also have court files and correspondence with James Hunter Annandale and the Company in 1900.

Company History
Glasgow Crematorium was opened in 1895 after the Scottish Burial Reform and Cremation Society (1888) was established as an educational body, designed to promote cremation as a more sanitary form of disposal for a fast growing population.

It became the UK’s third crematorium and Scotland’s first after a long search for an appropriate piece of land. However, when the land at Glasgow’s Western Necropolis was bought in 1893, it was two years before the first cremation took place on April 13th 1895.

The Crematorium was built in the gothic revival style. The architect used only the finest materials, including red sandstone and rare marble and included fine carvings, dogtooth ornament and a ‘descending catafalque’ which the Directors considered to be less of a departure from a traditional earth burial.

Cremations were extremely slow to catch on and, after ten years, only 191 had actually been carried out. After a further 30 years the annual figure was still only 346 but that did not deter the Society and, in 1936, they set to work doubling the capacity of the chapel to 100 and building four additional floors onto the Columbarium. In the late 1940’s, as a result of increasing popularity, a second chapel was commissioned, opening as an extension of the existing buildings in 1954.

Wall space in the Chapel was widely used for memorial plaques but by 1953 the space was entirely used up and it was therefore decided to instruct FG Marshall Limited to provide a Book of Remembrance that continues to be in use to this day.

More recently, in 1995, the Chapel suffered fire damage and extensive works were required to replace the original roof. In the same year two Tabo Inex cremators were installed, finally coming into use in 1996. In 1997 the new Chapel was refurbished and the Book of Remembrance was relocated to the arcade area at the rear of the old chapel while its old room was converted into a waiting area. And, finally in 2007, The Old Chapel has been the subject of an extensive refurbishment programme.

History taken from the company website