The Unjust Conviction of the Glasgow Fire Monkeys

Horses were once used to pull fire engines through the streets of Glasgow, but they weren't the only animals in the city's fire service. The first fire ladders long enough to reach higher than two storeys weren't strong enough to support people, so in the west of the city, with its many multi-storey tenement buildings, specially-trained monkeys were employed to carry hoses up the ladders and fight fires on their upper floors.

These fire monkeys, as they were called, lived alongside the firemen in the old Glasgow West Fire Station on Cranston Street in Anderston where they were viewed as such an important part of the fire-fighting team that even when improvements in ladder technology meant their services were no longer strictly required, they remained in their jobs. This came to an end on the 20th of July 1969 when a blaze broke out in a fruit warehouse here on Minerva Street. After the fire had been extinguished, it was discovered that half a million pounds worth of bananas had vanished. The fire monkeys were arrested and quickly convicted of stealing the bananas, even though there was absolutely no evidence to support their involvement.

A decade later, an investigative report published in the Glasgow Herald newspaper revealed that the missing fruit had actually been stolen by the warehouse manager, who had then started the inferno in an attempt to cover up his crime. Despite this new evidence, and widespread protests across the city in the summer of 1979, the UK government refused to overturn their conviction. The monkey you can see hanging on the wires above this street is a reminder of the injustice suffered by the Glasgow West fire monkeys and the continuing battle to finally clear their names.
This plaque was erected by the Glasgow Information and Kultural Identity Taskforce (GlaIKIT)