Port Glasgow Library building on LEGO® donation
Port Glasgow’s proud seafaring heritage is being remembered and celebrated – in the form of LEGO® bricks.
Staff at Port Glasgow Library had been researching local hero Chippy McNish, the Port man who was part of the famous crew of Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition aboard the Endurance.
Senior library assistant Jac Wilks realised that the LEGO® Group made a model of the Endurance lifeboat - which Chippy helped to modify and rescue the stricken crew - but it has now been discontinued.
She contacted the LEGO® Group directly to see if there was any way of acquiring a model.
And she was delighted when the toy giant actually sent her a free boxed model. The lifeboat model has now been built and it now stands pride of place in the library safely inside a display case.
Library staff plan to use it as a source of inspiration for visitors as part of their storytelling about Chippy McNish and as a resource for their LEGO Club, which meets on Saturday mornings.
Vice-convener of education and communities, Councillor Natasha McGuire said: “This is a wonderful story and even more fitting that it’s celebrating a Port Glasgow hero during the town’s 250th anniversary year.
“Chippy McNish is well known to everyone in the Port and this is an engaging way to tell his fascinating story to children and young people.
“The LEGO club is just one of the many activities at our libraries with a packed summer of fun planned including the popular Summer Reading Challenge.
“Thank you to LEGO for their generous donation and I’m sure this model will be prized at the library for many years.”
For more information on activities during the summer holidays at Inverclyde Council’s libraries, click on the link in the Related Links section of this page.
Port Glasgow born Harry ‘Chippy’ McNish was the carpenter on Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. He modified the lifeboat ‘James Caird’ enabling Shackleton and five crew, including McNish, to sail 800 miles over open seas for help.
The modifications played an essential part in the rescue of the entire crew but is sometimes forgotten in the retelling of this great adventure, Chippy was one of only four crew members denied a Polar Medal.
A model of the Caird is on display at The Watt Institution in Greenock.
The origins of Port Glasgow date back to the late sixteenth century when the authorities in Glasgow purchased land by the village of Newark to establish a port for the city.
The Port Glasgow (Improvement) Act 1775 defined the burgh’s municipal responsibilities and its authority to raise duty.
The Act was passed on 22 May 1775 and Port Glasgow was born.
For the latest on all the Port Glasgow 250 activities, check out discoverinverclyde.com