Singer and the Singer Clock

If one name shaped modern Clydebank, it was Singer. In the 1880s the American Singer company chose a site at Kilbowie, on the edge of what was then a small settlement, to build a vast new sewing-machine factory – and the town grew up around it.

At its height the works was one of the largest sewing-machine factories in the world, turning out machines by the million and employing many thousands of local men and women. For generations, to live in Clydebank was very often to work, in some way, for Singer. The connection ran so deep that the local railway station still carries the name today.

The clock that watched over the town

Towering above the factory stood the Singer clock – an enormous four-faced timepiece, among the largest in the world, whose hands could be read from streets all around. It became the town's best-known landmark and, for many, a symbol of Clydebank itself.

Life at the works was not without struggle. In 1911 the factory saw one of the era's most famous industrial disputes, when thousands of workers downed tools in solidarity with their colleagues – a moment still remembered in the story of the Clyde's working people.

After nearly a century, the factory closed in 1980, and in time the great clock came down with it. But the skills, the pride and the sense of community that Singer helped forge never really left Clydebank.