The Robert Grieves Photographic Archive
Copies of all photographs are available for sale and publication, please phone for details.
"Probably the most extensive collection of Scottish road transport images in private hands......a collection of this type relies on a lifelong dedicated enthusiasm which is volunteered"
So said Nicholas Oddie a Consultant from Bonhams the Auctioneers when he first saw Robert Grieves' vast Collection of motoring transport images. Robert Grieves has had a mission in his life - to record and preserve Scotland's motoring history. He has collected photographs and ephemera for over 40 years. He started collecting when he was 10. His lifetimes dedication has produced an Archive of extraordinary width and breadth covering every aspect of Scottish road transport.
The Heritage Lottery fund went further and described the Collection as "A collection of historic merit and importance that should be housed properly and conserved as a single collection and not dispersed" This unique collection is now being preserved, with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund, by the Scottish Motor Museum Trust, in the Vale of Leven and it will now be preserved in it entirety and will not be dispersed.But this is not just a collection of bus or motor car images, it is much more. It is an archive of social history showing how life changed with the time the motor arrived. Robert has described his collection as "like a tour around Scotland showing glimpses of our motoring past"; for unlike many motoring archives Robert's vehicles are shown in real locations, all giving a strong Scottish appeal.
Scenes like these are still being gathered by Robert, photographs from the 1890s to the 1970s.The value of archives like these lies is their completeness. Often collections like this are broken up to be sold and lost forever. Certainly it is far more lucrative for a collector to sell his images individually rather than as the complete collection. Perhaps justifying this with the thought that they are being sold off so that everyone can buy and enjoy a little part of his collection ! But they will never again be available as a research tool for the public to see and enjoy. Indeed, they may end up in some foreign country, recently the Middle East has become the home of some British photo archives. It is with this in mind that Robert Grieves decided to offer his lifetime collection to the Scottish Motor Museum Trust. Through the generosity of the Heritage Lottery Fund, and the South West of Scotland Vintage Car Club, the public will soon be able to enjoy the collection through the world wide web.
The Collection is vast at about 20,000 images and, indeed, there is other ephemera as well, such a company minute books, timetables and adverts.
The Scottish Motor Museum Trust is digitizing and cataloguing Robert's Collection with help of volunteers, eventually allowing access either on line or from the originals at West Dunbartonshire Library Headquarters. Our on line facilities will be provided by SCRAN (The Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network), available to Schools and Further Education establishments for free or for a small fee to private individuals for their own research.
Robert collecting began in the 50s when, like many others small boys, he was given a camera, a Kodak Brownie, and started taking his own photographs. His hobby was identifying buses and he added written captions to his photographs. The photographic collection grew, he went to his local bus companies, Cunninghams of Paisley, Patons of Renfrew and Smiths of Barrhead - all now long absorbed into larger companies.
He begged and was given old unwanted photographs and ephemera. The "archive" history of these companies is now preserved and illustrated in The Robert Grieves Archive, and probably no where else - without Roberts young enthusiasm much of the illustrated history of Scotland motoring past would have been lost forever.
Here are to be found the early bus companies who gave the masses of Scotland cheap transport and a chance for the first time to get to know their own countryside. Railway lines were few and far between. No longer were the working classes restricted to visiting an area within walking or bicycling distance of their own village or town. The bicycle boom encouraged exploration but it was the cheap charabanc of the 20s that opened up Scotland. Robert's Archive shows us these real people, the places they went to and, of course, the vehicles they travelled about in.In the 60s the Paisley bus companies got used to seeing the enthusiastic schoolboy Robert Grieves in their depots. They began to hear about his collection of old photographs, postcards and timetables - and gave him more and so the collection moved from a shoebox into a few folding files. At 17 Robert's Collection became local news when the Paisley Daily Express carried a story about the Photographic Collection and Robert buying a 1930 Albion bus for restoration!
And so the collection grew, Robert's interest expanded; commercial vehicles were added to the bus collection and then cars. When Robert first started collecting buses and lorries they were still being made in Scotland by the world famous Albion company. Car production was long gone, but soon to see a brief revival with the Rootes Bros car factory in Linwood. The Imps made there are not forgotten in the Robert Grieves Collection. The Collection now covers cars both of Scottish and English origin.
When Robert left school he went to work in the office of Western SMT (Scottish Motor Traction), a bus company of course. One of his tasks was to accompany the depots taking's on a special bus run to the bank. Robert, forever looking at the chance of a photograph, couldn't resist the opportunity of adding this bus to his collection. He asked the driver if he, himself, could move the bus into a good position for a photograph. Unfortunately Robert had no driving licence and few driving skills. His attempt to move the bus resulted in hitting a high kerb and losing control he and the bus descended 20 ft down a grassy bank - no photos exist. The bus had to be towed out - for Robert the result was worse - a court appearance and a driving ban for 6th months. This 18 year old who couldn't drive made the decision to move jobs. Despite this experience, or perhaps because of it, the Archive has a fascinating selection of pictures of vehicle accidents and crashes!
Robert moved to Grahams of Hawkshead as a conductor and office boy and then moved to Mcbraynes buses where he conducted on the Glasgow to Tarbet route over the Rest and be Thankful, starting at at 9.30 in the morning and finishing at Tarbert at 6.30.
The photo collection expanded and at 21 Robert was at last legally allowed to take his public service vehicle licence - with the General Bus Company in Glasgow. Three years later, he left for Australia on the œ10 assisted passage scheme, his photo collection left in good keeping for his return. He arrived in Melbourne as a tram driver and soon moved to Sydney and Brisbane to drive buses. A few years later he returned to Scotland travelling overland via Singapore, Afghanistan and India, by bus, of course.
It is now 25 years since Robert returned to Paisley and he has been collecting material ever since. Some photographs were saved just before they were to be sent to the skip. As Robert became known more and more people pointed the way to photographs and collections of interest. Perhaps the most fascinating collection was found in the loft of the now defunct coach operators Smiths of Kirkcaldy. Their old bus garage was to be knocked down so that the M74 could map its course to the South. Inside were all the records of the company photographs and memorabilia.
The most valuable single items in the collection are probably the minute books of the various now defunct Scottish bus companies. These documents are in effect public property and now preserved for historians in the future. Robert even collected his own vintage car a 1922 Bullnose Morris, which he restored It had belonged to two farming sisters who had owned the cars for 35 years.
 |
Encouraged by others Robert started to write articles for magazines and even publish his own books using his vast Archive. At first these were specialist bus publications but in 1988 a general motoring book appeared, Motoring Memories - dedicated to those "who reminisce about their first car". The 5000 printed sold quickly.
 |
 |
His publishing company is called XS Publications, XS being the motor vehicle registration letters of Paisley licensing district - Robert's home town. Altogether Robert has written 15 or so books on buses, commercial vehicles and motor cars.
With the acquisition of the Robert Grieves Archive by the Scottish Motor Museum Trust the future of this unique Archive is assured. Robert's books continue with his "Wheels Around" series published by Stenlake Publications which regularly go into re-prints. The Trust carries on the 18 month project to digitize, file and catalogue the Robert Grieves Archive. We are always looking for volunteers to help with the project, help is needed in scanning the photographs, cataloguing them, idenitfying the locations and vehicles and filing - either from home (with or without your own computer) or at the premises in Alexandria, near Dumbarton; in a building which was in 1905 the largest and still is the most palatial motor car works ever built. Home of Scotland's Argyll car and now the Robert Grieves Archive.
Please let us know if you can help with this worthwhile project
|
