Qualla: Glasgow City Chambers

Glasgow City Chambers: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jean Marie Desbois aka Malost, CC BY-SA 3.0. Look up from the east side of George Square and you will see her: a figure in flowing robes, arm extended, perched at the apex of the Glasgow City Chambers' tower. Glaswegians call her Glasgow's Statue of Liberty, because she looks remarkably like the much larger one in New York harbour. Her real name is Truth. James Alexander Ewing sculpted her in the 1880s, alongside her companions Riches and Honour, to crown a Beaux-Arts palace built to announce, in stone and bronze, that Glasgow had become the Second City of the Empire.

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Image: Jean Marie Desbois aka Malost | CC BY-SA 3.0

Glasgow City Chambers: Outgrowing the Tolbooth

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Allan, CC BY-SA 2.0. By the early nineteenth century the old Glasgow Tolbooth at Glasgow Cross, with its medieval steeple still standing today, had become hopelessly too small for the city's swelling administrative ambitions. The Tolbooth was sold in 1814, except for the steeple. The council moved fi...

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Image: James Allan | CC BY-SA 2.0

Glasgow City Chambers: A Palace for the Second City

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rosser1954 Roger Griffith, Public domain. Queen Victoria inaugurated the building in August 1888. The first council meeting took place inside in October 1889. The Beaux-Arts style chosen by Young was an interpretation of Renaissance Classicism, layered with Italianate detail and dense with ornament, and it was meant to e...

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Image: Rosser1954 Roger Griffith | Public domain

Glasgow City Chambers: Inside the Halls

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The original uploader was SElephant at Chinese Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0. Step through the main entrance and you stand on a floor inlaid with a mosaic of Glasgow's coat of arms, redone in the 1950s when the arms were last modified. The four emblems are St Mungo's bird, tree, bell, and fish, all from the legends of the city's patron saint. A double stai...

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Image: The original uploader was SElephant at Chinese Wikipedia. | CC BY-SA 3.0

Glasgow City Chambers: Still Working

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit TomZoy, CC BY-SA 4.0. An extension was added across John Street in 1912, linked back to the main block by twin archways. The building has housed Glasgow Town Council, then the Glasgow Corporation from 1895, then Glasgow District Council under the Strathclyde Region from May 1975, and since April 1996 ...

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Image: TomZoy | CC BY-SA 4.0