This thesis attempts to describe, explain, analyse and assess the contribution of five teaching religious orders to the development of Catholic education in Glasgow from 1847, when, with the arrival of the Franciscan Sisters, Catholic religious life returned to Glasgow for the first time since the Reformation until 1918 and the passing of the landmark Education (Scotland) Act. It concentrates on the influence and achievements of the religious orders in their role as teachers and managers of a number of primary, secondary and night schools in Glasgow as well as the role of the Sisters of Notre Dame in their particular role as educators of Catholic teachers in Glasgow. In 1918 Catholics in Scotland reversed the decision they took in 1872 to remain outside the national system of education. From 1918 Religious education according to use and wont was to be allowed within well-defined limits, but would not be fostered by the civil authority, and provision was made for a revision of the teacher-training system. The thesis argues that the work of five religious orders, the Franciscans, the Sisters of Mercy, the Marists, the Jesuits and The Sisters of Notre Dame in Catholic education in Glasgow, made it feasible for Catholic schools to remain outside the state system after the 1872 Education (Scotland) Act and until the passing of the 1918 Education (Scotland) Act. Throughout the 46 years 1872-1918 the root problem for Catholic education was finding money to subsidise Catholic schools. The key to the grants was efficiency. The source of efficiency in schools was the Training College. As a result, the story of Catholic education up to 1918 is largely one of how the increasing financial burden, without any relief from the rates to which they contributed, was borne by every section of the Catholic community in the endeavour to provide their children with an education comparable to that given in the more favoured and progressive rated schools. The thesis argues that it was largely the contribution of the religious orders to Catholic education in Glasgow during the second half of the nineteenth century and until 1918 that enabled Catholics to achieve what they did in the 1918 Education (Scotland) Act. 1 The success of the 1918 Act from the perspective of the Catholic community in Glasgow therefore can be attributed largely to the work of the religious orders in Glasgow.