The project
In the mid-19th century, there was a growing fashion within the arts to create ‘bird’s eye view’ illustrations of British cities. One the most celebrated of these is Thomas Sulman’s sketch of Glasgow, depicting the city on the cusp of becoming the ‘Second City of the Empire’, and owned by the Glasgow City Heritage Trust (GCHT) Gallus Glasgow is a contemporary perspective of Victorian Glasgow created through the digitisation and animation of Sulman’s original drawing. This fascinating, interactive online resource takes visitors on a digital journey through Glasgow’s development from 1864 through fifty subsequent years. Alongside the digital map, an outreach programme supported GCHT to help Glasgow’s communities better understand and appreciate their city’s historic built environment with a view to protecting and maintaining it for future generations.
The partnership
Norbulk Shipping UK Ltd is a global organisation with offices in several cities, including in Glasgow’s Merchant City. While carrying out renovation work to their offices there, Norbulk applied for and received grant-aid from GCHT and from their a working partnership blossomed. Not only did the two organisations share huge enthusiasm for Glasgow’s built heritage but Norbulk also had a version of Sulman’s Glasgow illustration hanging in their offices! This started a conversation about a partnership opportunities… and led to the successful delivery of the Gallus Glasgow project.
A key deliverable of the project was an outreach programme focused on educating and involving communities across Glasgow. With the project being delivered during lockdown in 2020, this meant implanting a robust marketing strategy, which was successfully achieved due to match funding from the C&BS Fund. This additional investment ensured GCHT could engage the services of a digital marketing expert to help facilitate the development of a comprehensive digital outreach strategy, enhancing engagement with the target audience and maximising the project’s impact.
The positive outcomes
The project was a resounding success with the C&BS funded marketing strategy helping to achieve an impressive total reach of 538,661 impressions across social media platforms and 8,500 visitors accessing the digital version of the map. Users overwhelmingly provided positive feedback on the Gallus Glasgow project with 88.6% of respondents providing a score of 4 or 5 out of 5 when asked if they had learned about Glasgow’s heritage via the project. In addition to this, the project led to GCHT entering another fruitful partnership, this time with Glasgow City Council’s Education Improvement Service who involved GCHT in providing appropriate teaching resources about the project to five schools. This further highlights the success of the project and its goal to raise awareness and appreciation of Glasgow’s heritage, contributing to the city’s cultural identity and preservation efforts.