Glasgow's industrial might was enabled by the vast reserves of natural resources that could be found in the immediate area.

The Romans worked the lead mines of Lanarkshire, and gold from the area was being collected in the Middle Ages.

Later centuries witnessed the mass exploitation of blackband ironstone, limestone, sandstone, fire-clay, and ordinary clay for making bricks.

Mining for coal had been known around Paisley since the 12th Century. By the 16th, coal was being worked in Craigton, Drumoyne and Cambuslang, amongst many other places.

By 1908 Lanarkshire was producing more than 17million tons of coal, making it the most productive county in Scotland.

In addition to the mine in George Square, there was another at the top of Langside Road, near Queen's Park.

A horizontal mine entrance near Baldernock was accessed from behind a waterfall.

Up until 1799, all the miners in the Cambuslang pits were de facto slaves, the property of the mine owner, the Duke Of Hamilton.

Men who dared to leave the job could be charged with theft and vagrancy, because they had 'stolen' themselves from their master.

Mick McGahey, pictured, the former leader of the National Union Of Mineworkers in Scotland , worked in the pits at Cambuslang. A memorial to him stands in the local Main Street.

McGahey was born in Shotts. He left school at the age of 14 one Friday – he already knew that at 7am the following Monday he would be starting work down the Gateside pit in Cambuslang.

On March 15, 1851, the Victoria pit of Nitshill Colliery became the site of Scotland's worst mining disaster when 61 men and boys died in an explosion.

Many sets of fathers and sons, or brothers, perished. A belated commemoration sculpture was erected next to Nitshill war memorial.