EDWARDIAN GALA
Ian Miller
9 February 2005

Eighty members of the Old Gala Club Assembled in the Upper Volunteer Hall to hear our President, Mr. Ian Miller, give a talk on "Edwardian Gala". Ian first set the national and international scene. After Victoria’s long reign Britain ruled a fifth of the globe and people were proud to be British. We had built most of the world’s railways and shipping, we invented concentration camps during the Boer War and we sent our soldiers to fight it with inadequate equipment (cf. Iraq - nothing changes). We regarded the French as our main enemy as we had done since Napoleon’s time though Germany was our main competition in metals, chemicals and even textiles. We invaded Tibet and Japan invaded Russia. We both won. For the man in the street much progress was made. Gillette marketed the first razor with a replicable blade, Marconi sent a signal across the Atlantic, London set up a Board to advise on traffic congestion, Einstein invented the Theory of Relativity, Rudyard Kipling got the Nobel Prize for Literature and Rutherford got it for Science, Blériot flew the Channel, and the Labour Party was invented.

In Gala the town was functioning as it had since 1879 with a Town Council of 5 Wards, a Police Commissioner, a Superintendent and 9 constables. Although we had had a proper water supply since 1879, the night soil carts that tipped their contents straight into the Gala Water were only superseded in 1900. GPs were in private practice and the 1d post was delivered 5 times a day from our much-admired Post Office in Channel Street Built in 1894. The telephone service, which had come to Gala in 1887, had built up to 300 subscribers. Adam Purvis, founded in 1900, became the first garage in Gala though they would still shoe your horse for you and they were also the first people to hire out cars. The textile industry was in crisis having employed 20,000 people in the 1880s and early 1890s and exported 90% of the product; the McKinley Tariffs slapped 100% tax on imports into the USA and employment dropped to 13,000. This led many Galaleans to emigrate to the Dominions with assisted passages. There were 4 Boys Brigade Companies and the Boy Scouts were founded. Silent films were shown in the Volunteer Hall and skating was popular on the rink in Roxburgh Street.

Ian then gave a comprehensive slide show of old Gala including Overhaugh Street where there were many fights outside the Gluepot, Scott Street in 1905 with its railings, Bank Street with private gardens where the public gardens now are, the Kings Temperance Hotel, the High Street with gas lights and extremely muddy under foot, the old corn mill where the fountain is now, and the Merket Cross under two feet of snow. Worthy Galaleans included Dr. Oliver, the first Principal of the College of Textiles, John Scott who retired in 1906 after serving as a postman for 50 years, D.G. Stalker as the Duke of Plaza Toro in the Gondoliers, G.T.Sanderson who founded Gala opera, Robert Espie, a veteran of the Indian Mutiny taken in 1908, and in the same year Mr R.A.Moar, Gala’s first Scout Master and Sir John (with Lady) Barran our Liberal MP. Groups included Crimean War veterans, local mill girls, Dorward’s seamstresses (1910), the Gala 1st XV (1907), the Curling Club (1901), Gala Harriers (1910), the Ancient Cricketers (Mossilee v. Selkirk in 1907), Gala golfers, Gala v. Selkirk Tug of War (1907), the Rifle Club on Meigle Hill and the Gala Hearts Football Club.

To finish the show Ian put on a nostalgic mixture of slides including Maggie Laurie's Sweetie Shop in Bank Street Brae, John Ingles & Co. Grossers, John Mill Paperhanger, the Gala Band of Hope (1907), Boleside station (1901), a train crossing the Leaderfoot viaduct, Gala’s Fire Engine drawn by horses but with a "modern" steam powered pump, the 1908 train crash when a beer train hit the back of a paper train (and several barrels of beer mysteriously disappeared), the Parish Church in Melrose (1908) before it burnt down, the much lamented old Town Hall now a car park, the May Queen’s Parade (1908), an elephant and a camel on the Old Melrose Road and a flock of sheep and goats in the town square in Melrose - we were truly rural in King Edward’s day!