The story of Glasgow’s Magdalene Institution

The Lochburn Magdalene Institution closed in 1960. Some older, local people still remember “The Laundry” where the “bad girls” were.

By Anni Donaldson

Whatever fun 16-year-old Elsie was having in Parry’s notorious theatre on Dunlop Street in January 1860 came to an abrupt end when the police raided the place.  Parry’s unlicensed, highly popular and very risqué shows were “always crowded with the most abandoned youth of both sexes”.

The last thing on young Elsie’s mind as she was enjoying herself was that she was being led astray.  But the police who took her away to be tested for venereal diseases in the Lock Hospital certainly thought so.  Elsie and another young girl Lizzie were picked up around the same time. They were eventually admitted to the city’s Magdalene Institution at Lochburn House, Maryhill.  Both had fallen victim to the city’s notorious Glasgow System - ideal candidates for incarceration, “saving” and “reform”.