Northern & Scottish Airways
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of over 1,000 objects relating to the company Northern & Scottish Airways. These objects date from 1935 to around 1947. On 5 December 1935 Northern and Scottish Airways, owned by George Nicholson, started a twice weekly flight from Glasgow to Skye. The twin-engine six-seater de Havilland Dragon took 1½ hours to fly from Renfrew to Glenbrittle for a fare of £3 5s. It provided not only a valuable service to business men and tourists but also a much needed air ambulance. A network was built up serving such places as Barra, Belfast, Campbeltown, Inverness, Islay, North Uist, Perth, Skye, South Uist and Tiree. On 12 August 1937, Scottish Airways Ltd was formed to merge the operations of Northern & Scottish Airlines with Highland Airways Ltd. When war was declared in 1939 all internal air travel had to be suspended. The services to the islands were later re-instated but it was not until 1947 that the company was merged, along with other independent airline companies, to form British European Airways Corporation. The bulk of this collection was donated by the nephew of the Marketing Manager for Scottish Airways, Laura McDougall. She was no longer needed once war was declared and simply cleared her office of this material. It is very important material to the history of flight in Scotland. It consists of newspaper cuttings; business cards; photographs; posters; labels and leaflets. Other interesting material comes from Eric Starling’s family as he was a pioneer for many of the Scottish Air routes and spent a long career flying with many Scottish companies that flew the Scottish Air Ambulance Service and BEA thereafter.
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