Gavieside Co-operatives
GAVIESIDE CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY 1873-1928
The village was a row of 108 back to back cottages also known as Gavieside Row or Fells Row (after the Mr Fells, the first proprietor). It was built in the late 1860s to provide accomodation for the workers in the Gavieside Paraffin Oil Work, one of several works that opened when Young's patent to extract oil from shale lapsed. When the first owner, West Calder Oil Company, failed in 1878 due to American competition. Young's Paraffin Light & Mineral Oil Company bought the village to accomodate their workers in the shale fields. The council refused to take over the cottages due to a lack of amenities in the cottages, so the village was demolished in the 1940s and the residents moved to Polbeth. The school serving as a primary school until 1948 and as nursery school until 1961. The location of the village was encorporated into Five Sisters Zoo, just outside Polbeth.
The map on the right shows the village in 1895. At this time Polbeth was a small village just to the south east of Gavieside that expanded towards the Edinburgh Road (the A71), the road at the bottom of the map section.
The society was formed in 1873 by workers at Gavieside[1]. To boost profits a licence was obtained o sell porter and ale that year[2], which was given up later. The secretary was fined £2 in 1892 for keeping 294lb of explosive in the store at Gavieside Row[3]. The society was started for the benfit of the people in Gavieside and made no attempts to expand and in 1923 had 103 members.
The society was dissolved in 1928 as it was having to draw on it's reserves to continue in business [4]. The members recieved a final dividend of 1s 8d.
| GAVIESIDE CO-OPE SOCY LIMITED | ||
|---|---|---|
| File:GsideCoop.1S.jpg | ||
| Source | (DRR) | |
| Filename | GsideCoop.1S | |
| Value | 1/- | |
| Add Desc. | ||
| Size (mm) | 21 | |
| Manufacture | Brass | |
| Notes | ||
