TEN people died in Glasgow in January 1949 after inadvertently drinking methyl alcohol, used for industrial purposes, at New Year parties in Blackhill and Townhead. They had believed it to be an ordinary alcoholic beverage, an inquiry heard.

The photograph shows the funeral cortege of three of those who died in Blackhill. Hundreds of people waited an hour in the rain in order to pay their respects.

At the inquiry, formal verdicts were returned by the jury, that the deaths had resulted from methyl alcohol poisoning. A rider was added to the effect that the methyl alcohol had been stolen by an employee from Strathclyde Chemical Works. A Chief Inspector from the Northern Division said the man had initially denied knowledge of the liquor but after being questioned had ultimately admitted having stolen and distributed it. There was no evidence of his having tried to sell it, the inspector added. The inquiry heard that some of the methyl alcohol had been coloured by being mixed with lemonade, tea, or other soft drinks.

The man had been detained in hospital for several days after drinking the alcohol. “I suppose,” the sheriff remarked, “he was not trying to do any harm when he took it himself?” “That is so,” the inspector replied. A chargehand at the works’ formaldehyde department said employees had been warned that methyl alcohol was highly dangerous and was not in any way to be used as a beverage.