We've added a new page and news category (Organization) about the Johnstone History Society itself. You'll find all you need to know, and perhaps a wee bit more, about the Society, its origiins, its people, and how you can participate. You will find a link below and in the News table of contents.

All this will be coordinated by Iain Murray, who hasna... Continues...

With the 80th anniversary of VE day fast approaching I though this would be a good time to highlight an excellent article by Angela Gillespie which describes the celebrations that took place in Johnstone 80 years ago. You can access the original article from the research tab but I have taken the liberty of reprinting the text below.

VE Day
The war in... Continues...

Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming Mary & Dick Kelly to the museum. Mary’s great-great grandparents Robert and Margaret Cumnock had lived and worked in Johnstone at one of the cotton mills before emigrating to America. The 1841 Census shows Robert as a cotton spinner with an address listed as Hagg in Johnstone.

The family arrived in Boston in... Continues...

Johnstone was one of Scotland’s quickest growing towns in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The town, of course, was planned by George Houston, Esq, the local laird, and the first houses were built in 1782. Johnstone prospered and, eleven years later in 1793, it was described as “a neat and regularly built village.”

The town... Continues...

The following photograph of the public park football team from 1954 was uploaded to the Johnstone history Facebook page and is surely worth reposting here.