About The Club

More Club History

The Club’s origins lie in a joint stock company, Partickhill Bowling and Tennis Association Limited, registered on 16 September 1904, by seven original shareholders, with the object of purchasing land to be used for leisure. They subsequently issued 3,000 shares, each valued at one pound Sterling. Among the original seven shareholders was Baillie John Dansken, a property surveyor, who became a director of the Association and the first president of the bowling club.

A keen astronomer, Dansken lived at 2 Hillside Gardens (now 9 Turnberry Road); he was a partner in John Dansken & Purdie, a firm of surveyors still operating. He had an observatory on the site of what is now the car park of the town houses which border the north end of the present bowling green. An obituary appeared in the 1906 report to the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society:

“John Dansken was born at Glasgow in 1836, and educated at the Athenæum and Glasgow University. His profession, in which he became well known, was that of a surveyor; in later life he took a considerable share in public affairs, and was placed on the Commission of the Peace for Lanarkshire. He was an enthusiastic amateur astronomer, and built for himself an excellent private observatory containing a 13-inch reflector, several refractors, and a transit instrument. He also formed a valuable collection of astronomical books. He was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1892, and died suddenly on the 1st of November 1905.”

John’s successor as president was Charles R. Murray, an iron and steel merchant and colliery furnisher, who lived at Woodbank, 56 Partickhill Road.

The grounds of the bowling and tennis clubs were officially opened on Saturday 29th April 1905 by the Right Hon. James Parker Smith (son of Archibald Smith of Jordanhill), lawyer and the Liberal Unionist MP for Partick. The first jack and ball were thrown by Mrs Mary Smith.

The present Partickhill Bowling and Community Club was established in 2017, following a period during which the tennis courts fell into disuse and membership of the bowling club reduced to an unsustainable number. Proceeds of the sale of the former tennis courts were used to improve the bowling green and environs and renovate the pavilion.

The mission of the club today remains the same as envisaged in 2017: to encourage participation in the sport of bowls, to provide a congenial space for leisure and cultural activities, and to manage on behalf of the local community a green space in an urban setting.