Letters / Any family connection?
I have been cataloguing papers of the late Lollie Graham.
Among them is a card dated 1969 by one George Houston, of 35 Banavie Road, Glasgow W1, declining to be Labour candidate for Orkney and Shetland at the forthcoming general election. This is George Frederick Barclay Houston (1920-1996), who was at that point a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Economy at Glasgow University.
Houston was a conscientious objector during World War Two, then taught at Glasgow. He became titular Professor of Political Economy there in 1970 and retired in 1984. He was an active member of the Communist Party, and worked with the Scottish Farmers Union, the Milk Marketing Board, and the Highlands and Islands Development Board. He wrote A History of the Scottish Farm Workers, 1800-1850, published by Oxford in 1954.
I recall the late T.A. Robertson mentioning Houston to me, as a friend, and he was clearly a friend of Lollie. In his card to Lollie he says that he had just visited Shetland – the first time he had done so since 1947. I would be very grateful if any of your readers can tell me if George Houston had any Shetland family connection.
Brian Smith
Shetland Museum and Archives
brian@shetland-archives.org.uk
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