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Victorian
Dundee
Jute, Jam & Journalism
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Towards the end
of the Victorian era, Dundee was famous for its three Js - Jute,
Jam and Journalism.
Factsheet
- Jute
 In
the 18th century the city was already an established centre
of textile production, mainly in linen, and made huge quantities
of sail cloth for Europe. By the 1830s, jute was produced to
supplement linen production and gradually took over until the
city became known as ‘Juteopolis’. The rapid rise
in the industry was matched by the growth in population: Dundee
expanded fourfold in the 19th century and 50,000 people were
employed in the mills and factories at its height. Jute production
declined in the 1920s mainly due to fierce competition from
the Indian jute industry. The Dundee industry is now completely
gone and the city has suffered badly as a result.
-
The Verdant
Works is a restored 19th century jute mill and a living history
museum preserving Dundee’s long association with the
Jute Trade. Find out
about the beginnings of the jute trade in India, experience
the harsh
conditions workers were subjected to in the mills through
film shows and
interactive computers, and discover why the industry fell
into decline.
- Jam
The story goes that it was a Dundee woman, Janet Keillor,
who discovered
marmalade in the late 1700s. She came upon the recipe through
trying to
find a use for bitter Seville oranges. Her recipe was developed
by her son,
James Keillor, who opened Keillor’s factory, famous the
world over for
producing jams and marmalades.
-
Journalism
DC Thomson, publishers of The Beano, The Dandy, The Sunday
Post and the People’s Friend, was established in 1905
and still employs around 2000 people to this day. The home
of Dennis the Menace and the Bash Street Kids is the Courier
Building, headquarters of DC Thomson on the west side of Albert
Square.
- Albert
Square itself has the grandest Albert Memorial outside London,
built by the city’s merchants and industrialists in 1867.
Beside the memorial is the McManus Galleries, the city’s
main museum and Art Gallery.
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Dundee
was also a major centre of the whaling industry in Victorian
times and whale oil was used in jute production to soften
the jute fibres before weaving. This became less viable by
the late 19th century when excessive hunting exhausted the
Arctic's whale stocks.
-
 Dundee's
expertise in constructing whaling ships that could withstand
extreme weather conditions led to it becoming the 'City of
Discovery'. In 1899 the National Antarctic Expedition Committee
commissioned the Dundee Shipbuilding Company to construct
an adapted whaler: the Royal Research Ship, Discovery. In
March 1901 the ship was launched, taking Captain Scott on
his first voyage to the Antarctic. The ship is still in Dundee
today at Discovery Point, where the story is told of Captain
Scott's polar expeditions, including the ill-fated attempt
of 1910.
- The other
landmark which dominates the city of Dundee is her bridge over
the Tay. The Tay Rail Bridge was opened in 1878 and was the
longest bridge in the world on completion at over two miles
long. It was a mammoth undertaking and cost a massive £300,000
to build. However, in December of the same year, the centre
of the bridge collapsed during a storm while a train was crossing -
75 people were killed. An enquiry found the bridge had serious
design faults. Incredibly, girders from the collapsed bridge
were salvaged and used in the construction of a new railway
bridge, which was completed in 1887. You can still see the piers
of the original bridge beside its replacement today.
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