The house at 145 Buccleuch Street was built in 1892 by speculative builders keen to monopolise on Glasgow’s swift industrial boom. Agnes Toward and her mother, Mrs Agnes Reid Toward who was a dressmaker, moved here in 1911. Miss Toward grew up to become a shorthand typist for a firm of shipping merchants and coal exporters called Prentice, Service & Henderson. She never married and worked on into
her 70s –today she would be seen as an independent career woman. From her extensive archive, we see that she enjoyed taking holidays in Largs, baking, going to church and taking regular theatre trips to watch musicals. You can still see her sign in the stair, with its proud boast of ‘no fitting required’. Mrs Toward passed away in 1939, and her daughter remained living there until 1965 when her failing health required her to move to long-term hospital care. When Agnes died ten years later she left a set of chairs in her will to a church elder, Mr Sam Davidson. When he visited the house to collect them he brought with him his niece Anna, who was instantly struck by the need to preserve the house and its contents, and persuaded the owners to sell it to her. She lived there for seven years before selling it to the Trust in 1982. The Tenement House today, gives visitors from all over the world an opportunity to travel back in time and learn all about Glasgow's past and tenement life, with a specific focus on women's history. As well as the Towards time capsule to visit, we have a lovely shop that stocks Scottish makers products, exhibitions spaces and an archive. We are a National Trust for Scotland property, looked after thanks to the generosity of our members and donors.
