The exterior of the Glasgow Reformatory for Girls at Chapelton, Bearsden. At the time when this photograph was taken, in 1975, the institution had closed, and was awaiting demolition. It is now the site of the Asda supermarket in Bearsden.
Reformatories were residential boarding institutions for children who had committed offences deemed worthy of a prison sentence had they been adults. The Glasgow Reformatory for Girls, run by Glasgow Corporation, was set up around 1870. A site was chosen which would hopefully remove the children from unhealthy city influences. The reformatory was to be set "at a distance from all other institutions and not on the same line of road with boys' schools".
In addition to girls who had fallen foul of the courts, others with problems such as malnourishment and mental subnormality were housed at Chapelton. The term "reformatory" was superseded by "approved school" and later "List D School".
Reference: Heatherbank Museum of Social Work, print 879a
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow Caledonian University, Research Collections, Heatherbank Museum of Social Work
Keywords:
approved schools, girls, Glasgow Reformatory for Girls, institutions, List D Schools, reformatories, social welfare, supermarkets, young offenders
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