Place:Motherwell, Lanarkshire, Scotland

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Motherwell ('Tobar na Màthar' in Gaelic) is a large town and former burgh in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, south east of Glasgow. The town was a burgh from 1865 until it merged with the burgh of Wishaw in 1920.

Motherwell was noted as the steel production capital of Scotland, nicknamed Steelopolis, with its skyline dominated by the water tower and three cooling towers of the Ravenscraig steel plant which closed in 1992. The Ravenscraig plant had one of the longest continuous casting, hot rolling, steel production facilities in the world before it was decommissioned. The closure of Ravenscraig signalled the end of large scale steel making in Scotland. In the past decade, Motherwell has to an extent recovered from the high unemployment and economic decline brought about by this collapse of heavy industry. A number of call centres and business parks such as Strathclyde Business Park have since set up in the region. Large employers include William Grant & Sons.

Motherwell is the headquarters for both North Lanarkshire Council, which is one of Scotland's most populous local authority areas, and of Strathclyde Police "N" division. These organisations cover an overall population of 327,000 people (93,000 in Motherwell and Wishaw) throughout the 183 square miles of North Lanarkshire.

Other attractions and sites within Motherwell District are Carfin Pilgrimage Centre and Carfin Grotto. The Grotto was built in nearby Carfin, in the 1920s, mainly by local residents and miners and was originally for the benefit of the Catholic Community, holding Processions and Pilgrimages most Sundays throughout the year and, in its heyday, saw many thousands attend open-air masses. Others who regularly use the Grotto are from the large Lithuanian and Polish communities who had settled in the area, although many travelled from around Britain to attend. The one disappointment for the local Catholic community was when Pope John Paul II visited Scotland in the 1980s and had hoped that he would visit the only Catholic Shrine in the country but were rewarded only with a "flypast" by his helicopter.

Motherwell Football Club was established in 1886. Known as the "Steelmen" because of the history of steel making in the area, they play in the Scottish Premier League from their home ground at Fir Park. They are managed by Maurice Malpas, who took over from Terry Butcher at the end of the 2005/06 season.

One of the town's most well-known "sons" is James Keir Hardie (1856 - 1915) who was born a few miles outside of Motherwell, and is one of the founders of the modern Labour Party.

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