,
HISTORY OF GLASGOW
VOLUME III
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MCMXXXIV
HISTORY OF
GLASGOW
VOLUME III
FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE
PASSING OF THE REFORM ACTS
1832-33
BY
GEORGE EYRE-TODD
J.P., F.S.A. SCOT.
EDITOR OF ' ' THE BOOK OF GLASGOW CATHEDRAL "
AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF GLASGOW," "FAMOUS SCOTTISH BURGHS '
"THE HIGHLAND CLANS OF SCOTLAND: THEIR HISTORY
AND TRADITIONS," ETC.
GLASGOW
JACKSON, WYLIE & CO.
PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY
1934
V
PREFACE
THIS is the third volume of the History of Glasgow, produced
under the aegis of the Corporation of the city in pursuance of
their resolution of 6th September, 1917. The three volumes
cover the period from the earliest times to the passing of the
Reform Acts of 1832 and 1833 and afford a detailed account
of the origin and development of burghal life in Scotland. The
first volume dealt with the burgh as a possession of the
bishopric. The second volume, covering the period between
the Reformation and the Revolution, detailed the change from
an ecclesiastical dependency to a trading community. The
third volume tells the story of the free burgh and the men who,
during nearly a century and a half, by their genius and energy,
built up its fortunes and reputation and made Glasgow one of
the great cities of the world.
Of these men the present volume takes particular account.
There is tragedy in the fact that so few of these makers of
prosperity have representatives in the community to-day. We
still have a Speirs of Elderslie, an Oswald of Auchencruive, a
Buchanan of Drumpellier, and a few more. But of Walter
Gibson of Balgray and Balshagrie, John Anderson of Dowhill,
William Macdowall of Castle Semple, Allan Dreghorn of Ruchill,
Patrick Colquhoun of Kelvingrove, and a score of others, hardly
more than a memory now remains. Each of them gave notable
service in his time, and in each case the story of endeavour
and achievement, and sometimes, alas, of ultimate catastrophe,
forms a human document of real and permanent interest.
vi PREFACE
In those years the story of Glasgow was not the story of
Glasgow alone. The city played its part stoutly in the general
affairs of the kingdom. From the first it supported strongly
the Revolution Settlement and the House of Hanover. Its
fortunes were deeply involved in events like the Darien Expedi-
tion and the revolt of the American colonies. Its development
of the steam engine and the steam ship contributed more than
anything else to the making of modern Britain. And if its
contribution, by riot and mass meeting, to the passing of the
Reform Acts was not entirely a matter to be proud of, that
contribution affords a typical illustration of the spirit of the
time.
It was long a popular and plausible complaint that history
dealt too exclusively with matters of battles, dynasties, and
statecraft, and too little with the life, actions, and achievements
of ordinary folk. To that reproach the annals of Glasgow go
a long way to provide an answer. The records of the Town
Council itself, which furnish the main source of information
for the narrative contained in this volume, afford a close and
intimate picture of burgess life in Scotland in the eighteenth
century. Full use has also been made in these pages of side-
lights furnished by such works as Chambers's Domestic Annals
of Scotland, Henry Grey Graham's Social Life of Scotland in the
Eighteenth Century, and The Social and Industrial History of
Scotland, by Professor James Mackinnon, as well as the colour-
ful descriptions of such first-hand recorders as Daniel Defoe,
" Jupiter " Carlyle, James Strang, the author of Glasgow and
its Clubs, and Senex, author of Glasgow Past and Present.
From such materials an impression may be got, in fairly abun-
dant detail, of the character, habits, and circumstances of the
burgess life of the period.
For valuable suggestions, elucidations, and information the
writer has been indebted to a number of friends, notably to
Mr. A. C. Scott, Town-Clerk Depute and Keeper of the Sasines ;
PREFACE vii
to ex-Bailie Ninian MacWhannell ; and to Dr. Harry Lumsden,
Clerk to the Trades House, whose scholarly edition of the
Trades House records forms the most recent addition to the
printed materials of Glasgow's history. Most especially must
be acknowledged the interest and extreme kindness of the
Town Clerk, Mr. David Stenhouse, whose careful reading of
the whole work, as it passed through the press, has been of
the utmost value. To these gentlemen I tender my most
grateful thanks.
GEORGE EYRE-TODD.
AUCHENLARICH, i6th April, 1934.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
After the Revolution : Glasgow a Free Burgh - i
CHAPTER II
Clearing Old Scores - 10
CHAPTER III
John Anderson, younger, of Dowhill - 20
CHAPTER IV
The Darien Expedition - 28
CHAPTER V
Land Purchases and Municipal Trading - 36
CHAPTER VI
Domestic Annals - 44
CHAPTER VII
Provost Walter Gibson and his Troubles - 55
CHAPTER VIII
Union Riots in Glasgow - 61
CHAPTER IX
Glasgow at the Union 72
CHAPTER X
Town Council Activities - - - - - - - -.80
x CONTENTS
CHAPTER XI
PAGE
Glasgow in " the '15 " 86
CHAPTER XII
The Rise of Industry and Trade 94
CHAPTER XIII
Social Life and Manners - 103
CHAPTER XIV
College Life - - - 112
CHAPTER XV
A Glasgow Jacobite : John Walkinshaw of Barrowfield - - 121
CHAPTER XVI
The Shawfield Riot - 129
CHAPTER XVII
Campbell of Shawfield and his Compensation - 142
CHAPTER XVIII
Colonel William Macdowall and the West India Trade - - 150
CHAPTER XIX
James Macrae, Governor of Madras, and Glasgow's First Eques-
trian Statue - 1 60
CHAPTER XX
Results of Reviving Trade - - 171
CHAPTER XXI
The Year of the Great Frost - 178
CHAPTER XXII
The Elzevirs of Scotland and the Foulis Academy - - 189
CONTENTS xi
CHAPTER XXIII
Certain Benefactions - 195
CHAPTER XXIV
Prince Charles Edward and Glasgow - - 204
CHAPTER XXV
The Rise of Banking and the Deepening of the Clyde 215
CHAPTER XXVI
The First Glasgow Strikes, Trade Unions, Fire Brigade, and
Theatres - - 228
CHAPTER XXVII
" The Tobacco Lords " - - 237
CHAPTER XXVIII
Borrowing and Bridge Building - - 249
CHAPTER XXIX
A Typical Glasgow Family - 257
CHAPTER XXX
Prosperous Years - 265
CHAPTER XXXI
James Watt : Canals and the Steam Engine - - 277
CHAPTER XXXII
Revolt of the American Colonies - - 285
CHAPTER XXXIII
Manufactures and Manufacturers - - 295
CHAPTER XXXIV
Cudbear, Turkey Red, and Bleaching Powder - - 33
xii CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXXV
The Coming of Cotton James Monteith and David Dale - - 309
PAGE
CHAPTER XXXVI
Provost Patrick Colquhoun and the First Chamber of Commerce 320
CHAPTER XXXVII
Glasgow in 1783 327
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Hard Times, Town Planning, and Institution Building 335
CHAPTER XXXIX
The Eighties and Nineties 346
CHAPTER XL
The Oldest Glasgow Charity - 355
CHAPTER XLI
In the Time of the French Revolution - 363
CHAPTER XLII
Anderson's University - 373
CHAPTER XLIII
Learning and Literature - - 379
CHAPTER XLIV
War with France - - 394
CHAPTER XLV
Glasgow Wells and Water Supply - 402
CHAPTER XLVI
A Police Act and a Third Canal - 409
CHAPTER XLVII
Dr. James Cleland and Sir John Moore - - 422
CONTENTS xiii
CHAPTER XLVIII PAGE
Kirkman Finlay, Henry Bell, and David Napier - 433
CHAPTER XLIX
After Waterloo ; Dr. Chalmers ; the Radical Rising - - 44 1
CHAPTER L
The Convention of Burghs ; the Resurrectionists ; George IV.
in Scotland - - 45^
CHAPTER LI
The Last Years of the Old Regime 4 6 5
CHAPTER LI I
Reform - - 47 8
INDEX 4 8 9
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
The City of Glasgow, c. 1820 From drawing by J. Clark frontispiece
Cottages in High Street From water-colour drawing by Andrew
Donaldson, 1817 - 16
Port-Glasgow from the South-east in 1768 From engraving by
R. Paul. By permission of Dr. W. MacArthur - 32
View of Old Bridge, with approach from River to Water Port,
c. 1776 From original pen-and-ink sketch by James Brown 48
Frontispiece and Title-page of A View of the City of Glasgow by
John McUre - 64
The Shawfield Mansion From water-colour drawing by
Thomas Fairbairn - 96
Adam Smith, 1723-1790 From Tassie medallion in the Hun-
terian Library. Reproduced by permission of The Univer-
sity of Glasgow - 112
Residence of the Campbells of Blythswood, Bridgegate - 128
The Town's Hospital, Great Clyde Street - 176
Robert Foulis From a medallion by James Tassie in the
Scottish National Portrait Gallery - 192
Interior of the Foulis Academy of the Fine Arts in Glasgow
University From the engraving after David Allan - - 208
Robert (Robin) Carrick From a painting in the possession of
the Carrick-Buchanan family. Reproduced by permission
from The History of the Union Bank - - 220
Five Pound Note of the Ship Bank. Paid by the Union Bank of
Scotland in 1907 Reproduced by permission from The
History of the Union Bank - 224
Provost Andrew Cochrane - 216
Grahamston Argyle Street in 1793 - - 232
Argyle Street between Union Street and Queen Street in 1793 - 232
xv
xvi ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Alexander Speirs of Elderslie Reproduced by permission from
the portrait in the Merchants House of Glasgow - 240
A West India Merchant Old Glasgow Costume - 248
James Watt, 1736-1819 From oil painting by John Graham
Gilbert. Reproduced by permission of the University of
Glasgow - 272
Provost Archibald Ingram Reproduced by permission from
the sculpture in the Merchants House of Glasgow - 304
David Dale From medallion by James Tassie - - 320
House of James Ewing, Dean of Guild, 1831, on site now occupied
by Queen Street Railway Station - 352
Professor John Anderson, 1726-1796 From the oil painting in
the Royal Technical College - 368
The Dry gate, with the Cathedral, 1832 From oil painting by
Horatio MacCulloch, R.S.A. - 384
William Hunter, 1718-1783 From the portrait in the Hunterian
Museum. Reproduced by permission of the University of
Glasgow - 392
Port Dundas with Canal House and Passage Boat From water-
colour drawing by Robert Carrick - - 400
Sir John Moore From the portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence - 416
Kirkman Finlay From the portrait by John Graham Gilbert,
R.S.A. 432
The Comet Pictorial representation from the ' Comet ' Cen-
tenary Supplement, 24th July, 1912. Reproduced by per-
mission of the Editor of The Glasgow Herald - - 440
The Clyde below Govan, showing Govan Church and Mr. Morris
Pollock's Silk Mill From lithograph by David Allan, 1835 448
Glasgow Fair about 1832 By John Knox - 464
A Policeman Old Glasgow Costume - 480
A Group of Glasgow Men : A. S. Dalglish, Sir James Campbell,
Bailie Alston, James Oswald - - 484
Plan of Glasgow showing Parliamentary Boundaries in 1832 - 504
HISTORY OF GLASGOW
CHAPTER I
AFTER THE REVOLUTION : GLASGOW A FREE BURGH
WHEN, in the last days of 1688, James VII and II fled to France,
and his elder daughter Mary and his nephew William of Orange
seated themselves on the throne, considerable disturbance took
place in Scotland. On the two previous occasions when revolu-
tion was in the air Glasgow had been the centre of events.
The General Assembly of 1638, which abolished Episcopacy
and began the uprising against Charles I, was held in Glasgow
Cathedral ; and the meeting of the Privy Council in 1662,
which enforced acknowledgment of the bishops, and " outed "
some three hundred and fifty ministers who would not con-
form to the law, took place in the fore hall of Glasgow College.
When, at the Revolution, the process was once again reversed,
and the Covenanters and Presbyterians became the dominant
party, the Parliament House in Edinburgh was the head-
quarters of action. Nevertheless, Glasgow, as the headquarters
of the west country, which was the stronghold of the Covenant,
became the scene of significant happenings.
The signal was given when the declaration of the Prince of
Orange of loth October, 1688, was proclaimed at Glasgow,
Irvine, Ayr, and other western burghs. A few weeks afterwards,
on 3oth November, the young Earl of Loudoun and other
students of Glasgow University burned the effigies of the Pope and
A I H.G. III.
2 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the archbishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow without opposition. 1
Ten days later the serious riot occurred in Edinburgh, when
the mob stormed Holyroodhouse, killed fourteen soldiers of the
garrison, and plundered and destroyed the Abbey chapel, which
had been refitted for Roman Catholic services by King James. 2
From Christmas onwards there was constant mob action against
the Episcopal clergy, and this lawlessness was chiefly conspicu-
ous in the western parts of the country, where the popular
feeling could be most easily inflamed against the " curates," as
the parish ministers were nicknamed, who had conformed to
the law and accepted ordination by the bishops. Some three
hundred of these ministers were " rabbled out," often with
circumstances of great cruelty. 3 Several of the acts which took
place in Glasgow and its neighbourhood are detailed in two
letters by the Rev. John Sage, one of the ministers of the city
at the time. 4 Mr. Russell, minister of Govan, was assaulted
in his own house by a number of men, who cruelly beat his
wife and daughter, carried off the poor's box, and threatened
him with more severe treatment if he ever preached in the
parish church again. A similar party attacked the manse of
Cathcart. Mr. Finnic, the minister, was from home, but they
thrust his wife, with her four or five young children out of the
house, threw out all the furniture, and only after much entreaty
allowed her and her children to shelter from the inclemency of
the weather in an outhouse. The same outrage was perpetrated
upon Mr. Boyd, the minister of Carmunnock, and his family,
as also on Mr. Milne, minister of Cadder, to the north of the city.
Mrs. Ross, wife of the minister of Renfrew, was expelled from
her house, with her infant only three days old ; and in the
absence of Mr. Stirling, minister of Baldernock, a party of
1 Wodrow, iv. 472. z Ibid. 474.
3 Chambers, Domestic Annals, iii. 6.
4 Sage was appointed by the Town Council 23rd August, 1684. See Hist.
Glasg. ii. 402.
RABBLING OF CLERGY AND QUAKERS 3
armed Cameronians surrounded his manse, declared to his wife
that they would " cut off her Popish nose," and with most
indecent language put her and her servants in terror for their
lives. Similar treatment was meted out to the minister of the
Barony parish, and within the city itself the clergy with their
wives and children were placed in the utmost hazard. 5 A mob
of zealots even broke into the Cathedral itself during service,
assaulted the magistrates and congregation, and wounded a
number of persons.
The Quakers in Glasgow were also subjected to the roughest
hooliganism. In their petition to the Privy Council they
remarked that " it was matter of surprise that those who had
complained most " of oppression under King James " should
now be found acting the parts of their own persecutors against
the petitioners [the Quakers]." In Glasgow " their usage had
been liker French dragoons' usage, and furious rabbling than
anything that dare own the title of Christianity." That usage
included " beating, stoning, dragging, and the like, from the
rabble." Even the magistrates, they complained, connived at
the outrage. On I2th November, " being met together in their
hired house for no other end under heaven than to wait upon
and worship their God," a company of Presbyterian church
elders, " attended with the rude rabble of the town, haled
them to James Sloss, bailie, who, for no other cause than their
said meeting, dragged them to prison, where some of them were
kept the space of eight days." Meanwhile their meeting house
was plundered and the seats were carried off. 6
Many of the ministers in the West of Scotland were still
worse treated. The minister of Kilmarnock was kept exposed
to the winter cold for several hours without covering, while his
5 An Account of the Persecution of the Church in Scotland and The Case of
the Present Afflicted Clergy in Scotland, quoted in the History of the Scottish
Episcopal Church from the Revolution to the Present Time, by John Parker
Lawson, M.A., pp. 66, 89.
Reg. Priv. Coun. ; Chambers's Domestic Annals, iii. 58.
4 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
beadle was made to tear his gown to pieces from his shoulders,
and his Book of Common Prayer, as a work " full of super-
stition and idolatry," was burned in the market place. The
minister of Ballantrae was struck in the face with the butt of
a musket and thrust at with a sword, while his wife, then in a
delicate condition, was rudely assaulted. The minister of
Kells was tied almost naked to a cart in the market place at
four in the morning, and would have perished but for the
kindness of a poor woman. The family of the minister of Keir
were expelled from their house, and the furniture thrown after
them, though three of the children were dangerously ill. Two
of them died in consequence. And the minister of Kilpatrick
Easter was struck and abused, had his furniture smashed, and
was thrust out of doors with his family. 7
That the ministers of the Glasgow churches were not even
worse treated by the " rabblers " was due partly perhaps to the
fact that there was a strong military force in the city at the
time. One of the last acts of the Government of James VII.
had been to accept the offer of the magistrates of Glasgow to
raise ten companies of a hundred and twenty men each, " for
the service of the King and securing the peace of the city,"
and the appointment of officers and raising of the companies
had been immediately proceeded with. 8 Three months later
this Glasgow regiment, probably as a result of the Revolution
then taking place, refused to obey the magistrates, who there-
upon ordered its disbandment. At the same time, however,
they appointed a town guard of sixty men, to go on duty
nightly " for preventing of st calling and accident all fyre." 9
7 Domestic Annals, iii. 67, 68.
8 Burgh Records, i3th and i6th Oct., 1688. Among the captains of com-
panies was the Provost, Walter Gibson, famous as the originator of the red
herring industry, and John Walkinshaw, younger of Barrowfield, who, with
his youngest daughter, Clementina, was afterwards to play a conspicuous
part in Jacobite history.
9 Ibid. 23rd Jan., 1689.
MILITARY IN GLASGOW 5
Two months later still, on 22nd March, 1689, by order of Parlia-
ment, one of the magistrates, John Anderson of Dowhill,
brought from Stirling Castle to Glasgow four thousand muskets,
one thousand picks, a hundred barrels of powder, " with match
and bandoliers conform," and a hundred chests of ball. These
were lodged in the Tolbooth, and the Dean of Guild was ordered,
in case of necessity, to draw together the fencible men in the
town, and keep watch and ward for the security of the citizens. 10
Shortly afterwards, further to secure the keeping of the
peace, the Earl of Argyll's and the Earl of Glencairn's regi-
ments were quartered in Glasgow. Trouble presently arose
with these. Their pay having fallen into arrears, they threat-
ened to take free quarters unless the magistrates advanced the
money. The demand, however, was complied with on the
Earls' security, and the trouble ceased. 1
It is not generally known how near Scotland came to having
its episcopal system of church government continued under
William and Mary. The weight of opinion in the country was
pretty evenly divided between prelacy and presbyterianism,
and if the bishops of Scotland had decided promptly to support
the new Government, as the majority of the English bishops
did, it seems quite probable that William would have continued
episcopacy as the established church of the realm, in the same
way as he did in England, with liberty to dissenters to worship
after their own fashion. 2
But Dr. Rose, Bishop of Edinburgh, had been sent south,
at news of the landing of the Prince of Orange, with an address
of allegiance to King James. It was while he was on the way
that the flight of James and the assumption of the government
by William took place, and when the bishop had an interview
10 Act. Part. ix. p. 18. * Burgh Records, loth Aug., 1689.
2 According to Jupiter Carlyle, the Presbyterian minister of Inveresk a
hundred years later, two-thirds of the people of Scotland at the Revolution
were Episcopal. Autobiography of Alexander Carlyle, p. 249. Hist. Scot. Epis.
Church, pp. 45, 91, 98 ; Cook's Hist. Ch. of Scot. iii. 419, 420, 422, 432.
6 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
with the Prince, he could only respond to the latter's approach
in a half-hearted fashion. When the bishop was announced
William came a few steps forward from his company, and said,
" My Lord, are you going for Scotland ? " ' Yes, Sir," replied
the bishop, " if you have any commands for me." " I hope,"
said the Prince, " you will be kind to me, and follow the
example of England." To this the bishop could only reply,
" Sir, I will serve you so far as law, reason, or conscience shall
allow me." Whereupon William instantly turned from the
bishop in silence, and mingled with his friends, and Dr. Rose
immediately retired. 3
That interview probably decided the ecclesiastical destiny
of Scotland. Events then followed rapidly in the Scottish settle-
ment. On 7th January, 1690, William called all the Scottish
noblemen and gentlemen in London to meet him at St. James's,
and asked their advice regarding the northern kingdom. Next
day they tendered an address. In consequence a convention
of the Scottish Estates was summoned in Edinburgh, and on
nth April that convention offered the crown of Scotland to
William and Mary, abolished episcopacy, and rescinded the
forfeiture of Argyll. 4
The tables were now effectively turned, and the Covenanters
were not slow to visit upon their opponents all the rigours of
which they had complained so bitterly when these were dealt
out to themselves.
It is curious to note how closely history repeated itself then
in Scotland within the space of a few years. Where the Govern-
ments of Charles II. and James VII. had to deal with the
hostile risings of the Covenanters, backed by the country's
enemies in Holland, which culminated in the battles of Rullion
Green, Drumclog, Bothwell Bridge, and Ayr's Moss, and the
8 Hist. Scot. Epis. Church, pp. 44, 91 ; Stephen's Hist, of Ch. of Scotland,
hi. 378 and on.
4 Wodrow, iv. 476 ; A ct. Part. Scot. ix. 37.
EPISCOPALIANS IMPRISONED 7
futile invasion by Argyll, the Government of King William
had to deal with the Jacobite rising under Viscount Dundee,
backed by the hoped-for support of France and Ireland, which
came to a head at the battle of Killiecrankie. Almost the same
measures of precaution and repression followed in each case.
By King William's Government large numbers of " suspect
persons " of all ranks were thrown into prison, where they were
kept without trial for years in the most dreadful circum-
stances. The Privy Council Registers of the time are full of
petitions from these unfortunate persons, praying to have the
conditions of their captivity relieved. Chambers in his Domestic
Annals recounts the cases of a number of distinguished men
who were thus crowded in the miserable dungeons of Edin-
burgh Tolbooth and other gaols and strongholds throughout
the country. 5 Among them was Captain John Slezer, author
of that interesting work, the Theatmm Scotiae, which contains
the earliest pictures we possess of the city of Glasgow. A still
more notable prisoner was the Archbishop of Glasgow, John
Paterson. He had used his utmost endeavours to secure the
concurrence of the bishops and the consent of Parliament to
King James's wishes for the removal of the penal laws against
nonjurors. But as the King's proposal was to afford liberty
not only to Presbyterians, but to Independents and Roman
Catholics as well, it was anathema to the Covenanters, and the
Archbishop was kept a close prisoner in Edinburgh Castle for
many months, without being able even to talk with his friends.
He was not released till January i6g3. 6
These events brought about an opportunity for the further
widening of the liberties of Glasgow. Hitherto the town had
held the status of a community on the Church lands, for which
the bishops and archbishops had secured the privileges, suc-
cessively, of a burgh of barony, a burgh of regality, and a royal
burgh. The method of appointing the provost and magistrates
5 Vol. iii. p. ii. Domestic Annals, iii. 12.
8 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
had been for the Town Council to present to the archbishop
chosen lists or leets of suitable burgesses, and for the arch-
bishop to select from these the individuals who should act as
provost and bailies, or magistrates, for the ensuing year. Two
of the bailies were chosen from the merchants' guild and one
from the crafts. The newly-appointed magistrates and those
of the two preceding years then met, along with certain co-
opted persons to fill up vacancies, and elected thirteen mer-
chants and twelve craftsmen to be councillors for the year.
The Town Council was therefore a close corporation, nominating
its successors, mostly out of its own number, from Michaelmas
till Michaelmas. More than once, during the seventeenth
century, the king or the archbishop had broken through this
arrangement, and had ordered the appointment of a provost,
magistrates, and council who could be relied upon to support
certain political views. King William did this now. Shortly
after his accession he ordered an election of the bailies, dean
of guild, treasurer, and town council by the poll of all burgesses
bearing burden, " skott and lott," but excluding honorary
burgesses, town's servants, pensioners, and beadsmen, or
licensed beggars, the persons so elected to continue in office
till the usual election period at the following Michaelmas. This
election, singularly before the age in its method, duly took
place on 3rd July. The magistrates and council then, per-
ceiving the king's attitude, proceeded to turn the situation to
account by asking for a valuable concession. A commission
was drawn up, directing John Anderson, Younger, of Dowhill,
one of the most capable members of council, to proceed to
London and petition King William and Queen Mary to grant the
city the free election of its own magistrates, in the same way as
other royal burghs of the kingdom . 7 Anderson proved his ability
by securing from the king at Hampton Court, within a month,
a preliminary letter authorising the town to choose its own
7 Bnrgh Records, 26th Aug., 1689.
FREE ELECTION OF MAGISTRATES 9
provost and magistrates for the following year, and on the
strength of this the bailies and council carried out their first
free election under the new regime on ist October, 1689. At
that election Dowhill himself was chosen provost. A more
formal letter of gift, secured at Kensington on 4th January
following, continued the privilege through all time coming.
This duly passed the Great Seal, and was confirmed by Act of
Parliament on I4th June, and the first election under its
authority took place on 30th September, 1690. 8 For the
carrying through of his purpose the provost spent 145 days in
London, and his expenses over the business amounted to 3673
Scots. 9
8 Act. Part. Scot. ix. p. 153 ; Burgh Records, 3oth Sept., 1690.
. Burgh Records, ist Feb., 1691. Particulars of the negotiations regarding
the free election of magistrates are given in the Leven and Melville Papers
(Bannatyne Club), pp. 74, 85, 86, 142-4, 237-8.
CHAPTER II
CLEARING OLD SCORES
ALTHOUGH Glasgow saw no such clash of arms within its gates
at the Revolution as it had seen at the Reformation and dur-
ing the risings of the Covenanters, it was conscious constantly,
for a considerable time, of the ominous sough of war. During
1689 and 1690, with the coming and going of regiments, and
billeting of troops on the inhabitants, it must have borne much
the appearance of an armed camp. While Dundee's rising for
King James threatened the peace of the country, it was evi-
dently thought necessary to guard the western passes by which
a force might descend from the Highlands into the low country.
One of these passes was at Balmaha on the eastern side of Loch
Lomond, not more than twenty-three miles from Glasgow
itself. It was a pass to be made notorious presently by the
cattle-lifting and blackmailing exploits of Rob Roy. To
frustrate a descent the Government placed a garrison at the
mansion of Drumikill, near Dry men. The Highlanders evi-
dently adopted the plan of starving out the unwelcome gar-
rison, and Captain Stewart, its commander, was forced to send
a message into the city, saying he was in straits. The magis-
trates thereupon despatched in relief eight bolls of meal, for
which, it is recorded, they paid 61 135. 4d. Scots, with twenty-
eight shillings for carriage. 1
There is mention, in the town's records, of Danish and
English troops quartered in the city. 5912 Scots were dis-
1 Burgh Records, 27th Sept., 1690.
10
KILLIECRANKIE AND LONDONDERRY n
tributed among citizens who had had their crops eaten and
destroyed by the English forces when they lay at Glasgow in
September, 1689, and for the sums these forces were owing the
townspeople for meat, drink, and other requirements. 150
were paid Lieutenant William Duff to prevent his company
taking free quarters among the inhabitants, and a slightly
larger sum was paid to a writer in Edinburgh for raising a
criminal action against certain officers and their servants in
Sir James Leslie's regiment, at the instance of Elizabeth
Cochrane, for the killing of her husband, John Reid, a wright.
24 Scots was paid for the loss of a horse requisitioned by one
of the Danish officers to ride express to England, and never
returned ; and the tenants in Gorbals had to be recompensed
for damage done by the Duke of Gordon's men, who " did eat
and destroy the lands there." So constant were the demands
for his services in billeting troops and the like, that a quarter-
master was regularly employed by the magistrates, and the
salary of 10 sterling was paid him yearly. 2
Not least interesting is the fact that a Glasgow merchant,
John Simpson, was commissioned and paid to hire four pilots
at Greenock and convey them to Leith for the purpose of
bringing four of King William's ships of war from that port
round the north of Scotland to Londonderry in August, 1689.
Londonderry had already been relieved, and the famous siege
raised, on 28th July, but, though too late to help that achieve-
ment, these ships of war formed a valuable addition to the fleet
which co-operated in the final overthrow of the Jacobite cause
in Ireland. 3
A few months later another request of similar sort, in con-
nection with the same campaign, was sent to Glasgow. On
27th July, the day before the relief of Londonderry, King
2 Ibid. 6th April, 23rd May and 5th Sept., 1691, 2oth June and i5th Sept.,
1692.
3 Ibid. I5th Sept., 1692.
12 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
James's general, Viscount Dundee, had fallen at Killiecrankie,
in the moment of victory, and shortly afterwards the repulse
of his clansmen at Dunkeld had ended for the time the Jacobite
menace in Scotland. Troops could therefore be spared for the
Irish war, and in the spring King William was preparing for
the final effort of that campaign. The provost of Glasgow was
accordingly requested to charter two vessels for two months or
longer for the transport of six hundred soldiers, with their pro-
visions. Complying with this request, two vessels were char-
tered from Glasgow merchants, the Unitie, of 150 tons, belong-
ing to William Walkinshaw and partners, and the James, of
no tons, belonging to Thomas Peter and partners. The charge
was twelve shillings sterling per ton per month, and payment
was to be made out of the excise duties of Glasgow itself.
These vessels no doubt carried from the Clyde a contingent of
the troops which fought for King William at the Battle of the
Boyne. 4
It was probably as a result of this military atmosphere that
the first Volunteer movement started in the city. There had,
of course, been previous offers made by the magistrates to raise
troops, but it was only in May, 160,2, that a number of private
persons came forward with the offer to form an armed and
mounted company " to ride when desired," on condition that
their horses should be stabled and fed at the town's expense
while on active service. The offer was duly accepted by the
magistrates. 5
A great clearing up of old scores by the Town Council
naturally followed the new settlement of the crown and the
abolition of the episcopal system, with the change over to a new
party in the management of the town's affairs.
The first act of the new council was to take note of certain
abuses consequent on the election of keepers of taverns and
change-houses to be magistrates and deacon-conveners. In
4 Burgh Records, 2ist April, 1690. 5 Ibid. I2th May, 1692.
DEFALCATIONS OF PROVOST BARNES 13
order to gain favour, it appeared, poor people had been induced
to spend money needlessly in these places, and had been led
into debauchery and drunkenness. It was therefore enacted
that no keeper of a tavern or change-house should be eligible
for the post of provost, bailie, dean of guild, or deacon-convener,
under a penalty of 1000 Scots. 6
There had been trouble also with the chamberlains of
Provand. By their remissions these agents had allowed the
tenants of the town's lands in that property to fall into arrears
of rent to the amount of 20,000. As a short and sharp cure,
which was probably effective, the salaries of these chamberlains
were stopped till they should secure the clearing of the accounts,
and legal action was directed to be taken for the return of
salaries already paid, to cover certain doubtful intromissions in
the books. 7
But the worst case of all was that of a late provost of the
city, John Barnes. During his terms of office in 1683 and 1685
Barnes had scattered the town's moneys in rather questionable
payments with a profuse hand, and he had borrowed large
sums of money on his own account, which the magistrates and
council were afterwards induced to declare a free gift for his
great pains and trouble in the town's affairs. 8 Action had been
taken by the Town Council, and the case decided against
Barnes in the Court of Session in 1685. 9 These moneys the
magistrates roundly named embezzlements, and called Barnes
to account for their repayment. Action was taken before the
Privy Council in Edinburgh. As a result Barnes was im-
prisoned in the Tolbooth there till he should find caution to
the amount of 1000 sterling for the clearing of the charge.
It was resolved also to prosecute the magistrates and town
councillors who had acted with Barnes, and who had joined
with such suspicious alacrity in his squandering of the town's
c Burgh Records, 4th Oct., 1690. 7 Ibid. 5th Sept., 1690.
8 Hist. Glas. ii. 414. 9 Morrison's Dictionary of Decisions, p. 2515.
14 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
money. A request which the ex-provost made, after he had
lain several months in prison, to be set free on his own bond or
parole was refused, until he should give a frank account of the
ways in which he had disposed of the embezzled money, and
of the " fines " or burgess fees which had been paid into his
hands. 10 As no further notice of the matter appears, it may
be supposed that Barnes was one of those who languished hope-
lessly in Edinburgh Tolbooth till released by death or some
state amnesty.
Another considerable intromission with the city's funds was
apparently at the same time abandoned as a bad debt. Since
the Earl of Argyll refused to repay the 10,000 merks and
10,000 Scots borrowed by his father from the funds of Hutche-
sons' Hospital and the Blackfriars Kirk respectively, 1 he had
himself, like that father, suffered the doom of execution and
forfeiture, and although his son's title had been restored by
the Scottish Parliament, it was either considered hopeless to
pursue him for the debt, or undesirable to trouble the repre-
sentative of a family which had suffered so severely in the
cause of the political party which was now at last in power.
Whatever the reason, the town clerk was instructed on 2nd
June, 1690, to lay up the Marquess's bonds among the other
town's papers, and Glasgow remained permanently the poorer
by a substantial sum. 2
But the most significant clearing of scores lay in the Town
Council's dealings with the ministers of the Glasgow churches.
Most of these ministers seem to have conformed to the new
order, but there appears to have been considerable delay in
10 Burgh Records, 29th Mar., 2nd June, nth Aug., 1690.
1 Hist. Glas. ii. 395.
2 This matter was raised again ten years later, when it was proposed to
reverse the forfeiture of the Marquess of Argyll. The magistrates then
agreed to be content with such sums only as might be received from the
Marquess of Huntly and others of the Marquess' debtors. Burgh Records,
23rd Dec., 1700.
MINISTERS' STIPENDS DELAYED 15
paying the stipends of several. There is a note of settlement
with half a dozen on i8th April, 1691, but there was clearly a
disposition to deal more hardly with others. In their case the
provost was commissioned to go to Edinburgh, and not only
to defend the town against their claims before the Privy
Council, but to endeavour to have the ministers themselves
suspended. 3 One of these last, Alexander Milne, had held a
charge in Glasgow for over twenty years, but it was only at
the intercession of several influential persons, who were " the
toune's freinds," and upon his giving a receipt clearing the
burgh of all further claims, that the magistrates agreed to pay
him a thousand merks. 4 A similar transaction took place with
George Buchanan, who did not get a settlement of his stipend
for 1688 till August, 1691. In consequence of the suspension or
ousting of ministers a number of the pulpits seem to have been
occupied for a time by temporary preachers, whose remunera-
tion is recorded in the Town Council minutes ; and between
April, 1691, and March, 1692, the magistrates invited no fewer
than four new ministers to serve the churches of the city. The
uniform stipend offered, it is interesting to note, was 1000
Scots (83 6s. 8d. stg.), with 80 for house rent, and the Town
Council was generous in paying the cost of removing the new
minister's furniture from his previous abode.
Curiously enough, while the magistrates displayed an eager
anxiety to rid themselves of the obligation to submit a list of
burgesses to the archbishop, or whoever came in his place as
superior of the burgh, for his nomination of a provost, they
were ready, without being asked, to submit a list of ministers
to the Presbytery for the nomination of one of the number to
fill the pulpit of a city church. 5 What was a right grudgingly
conceded in the former case was a homage willingly proffered
in the latter.
3 Ibid. 1 3th and 25th April, 1691. Ibid, gth May, 1691.
5 Ibid. 1 6th Mar., 1691.
16 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
On the whole the treatment, by the Town Council, of the
ministers of the city churches who were willing to come to
terms and to conform to the new order, appears to have been
not unfair. The city fathers had always shown a respectful
regard for the spiritual guides of the community. John Gibson,
the Glasgow historian of the eighteenth century, definitely
states that their stipends were among the most generous in
Scotland. 6
None the less, the finances of the burgh were at that time
giving the city fathers considerable anxiety. A bomb was
burst upon the Town Council when the Dean of Guild tabled
a minute of the Merchants House detailing the town's debts,
and pointing out that these amounted to the large sum of
200,000. For the defraying of the debts the merchants sug-
gested that Parliament should be asked for powers to sell the
whole public goods of the town, and at the same time it was
agreed to levy a duty of thirty shillings on every brewing of
malt, as well as on every butt of sack and butt of brandy, and
twenty-four shillings on every barrel of mum beer consumed
within the burgh. Faced by the facts, the city fathers at once
agreed to the measures proposed all except the maltmen,
who shrewdly saw in the suggested duties the beginning of a
burden upon their trade which was destined to grow heavier
from that day till this. Nor were they long in seeing their
apprehensions begin to be fulfilled. No more than fifteen
months later, when it was found difficult to levy cess and other
public burdens by means of a direct tax, the magistrates re-
sorted to the easy plan of increasing the duty payable upon
every " masking " of malt and every tun of wine consumed
within the burgh. 7
6 Gibson's Hist. p. 130. When one of the town's ministers, Alexander
Hastie, retired in 1711 on account of old age and infirmity, the Town Council
made him an annual allowance of 540 Scots. Burgh Records, 28th June,
1711.
7 Ibid. 8th Aug., 1689, 29th Nov., 1690.
I
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FARMING OF COUNTY REVENUES 17
Another novel and rather daring device for raising money
to pay the debts of the burgh was also resorted to. It had been
the custom of the magistrates for many years to farm out the
various sources of revenue of the burgh, such as the toll at the
bridge and the dues at the weigh-house or tron, to individual
renters for an annual payment. The Town Council now set
out to become themselves farmers of revenue on a larger scale
for behoof of the town. Among various innovations the new
Government had proceeded to impose excise duties for the
purpose of securing a regular revenue, throughout the country.
In the levying of these duties the ingenious city fathers of
Glasgow saw an opportunity, and proceeded to introduce
themselves as middlemen. They took a lease for two years, at
a fixed rent of 65,000 Scots yearly, of the inland excise duties
of the shires of Lanark, Ayr, Renfrew, Bute, Dunbarton, and
Stirling. They did not actually levy the duties themselves, but
proceeded to farm out the several shires to third parties, with
the idea of securing a profit by the enterprise. But, while a
profit of a thousand pounds Scots and three guineas yearly was
made out of sub-letting the excise of Stirlingshire, the duties
of the shires of Renfrew, Bute, and Dunbarton, let to Thomas
Crawford, younger of Cartsburn, produced no more than the
sum paid for them, and there appears to have been some diffi-
culty in securing a party to take over the duties of Ayrshire
and Lanarkshire. On the whole the adventure does not
appear to have proved so successful or profitable as to tempt
the magistrates to repeat it. 8
More promising, as a means of raising money, was a pro-
posal to sell the lands of Provan, lying to the north and east of
the city. These lands had contributed the revenue for one of
the ancient prebendaries of the Cathedral, and had been
possessed by King James IV. himself when he served as " Canon
of Balernock and Laird of Provan." For many years before
8 Ibid. 1 4th Dec., 1689.
B H.G. in.
i8 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the Reformation members of the Baillie family had held the
prebend, and in 1565 its two thousand and odd acres were
granted by Queen Mary to Sir William Baillie, President of the
College of Justice. By the marriage of Elizabeth Baillie, the
" Air of Pro van," the property passed to Hamilton of Silverton-
hill, and in 1667 it was acquired from Sir Robert Hamilton,
grandson of that pair, by the magistrates and town council of
Glasgow. 9 We have just seen that the magistrates were find-
ing difficulty in collecting the rents of the estate, which were in
arrears to the extent of some 1600 sterling. They apparently
therefore entertained the idea of selling the property. 10 The
Duke of Hamilton made an offer to purchase the land, includ-
ing the arrears of rent, for 100,000 merks (5554 143. 3d. stg.),
and the town council agreed to accept the offer. 1 But an
agreement had already been made to dispose of the lands to
William Go van of Drumquhassle. and as he apparently declined
to forego his bargain, it was concluded to hand them over to
that individual for a payment of 77,000 merks and an annual
feu-duty of 1000 merks, which, capitalised at twenty-six years'
purchase, would make the price 103,000 merks 3000 merks
more than were offered by the Duke. 2 The whole transaction
9 Burgh Records, 2nd May, 1668. Lugton's Old Lodgings of Glasgow, pp.
35, 37, 41 ; Charters and Documents, ii. 350.
10 The Commissioners appointed in 1835 to enquire into the state of the
municipal corporations in Scotland animadverted on this transaction. " Per-
mission," they stated, " was, in 1691, given to the Corporation of Glasgow,
by the Convention of Royal Burghs, to sell lands of great value, because heavy
burdens had been ' occasioned by the vast soums that have been borrowed
by the late magistrates, and the misapplying and dilapidation of the town's
patrimony, in suffering their debts to swell, and employing their common
store for their own sinistrous ends and uses.' These lands were accordingly
sold, avowedly in consequence of the malversation of the magistrates. Had
this not happened, the burgh would now, in addition to its present estate,
have been in the possession of lands worth from ^100,000 to 150,000 a sum
sufficient to have relieved the inhabitants of almost all the burghal taxes that
now press on them." Report, p. 31.
1 Burgh Records, 25th April, 1691.
9 Jbid. 1 5th May, 1691,
DISPOSING OF PROVAN ESTATE 19
seems to have been badly managed, however, and to have
come to nothing, for in the following year the lands were leased
to three other parties, George Buchanan, maltman ; Robert
Buchanan, baxter ; and Thomas Hamilton, maltman, for eleven
years, at a rent of 5400 merks yearly 3 From that time the
details of management of the estate, houses and lands, were a
constant care and anxiety to the magistrates, who had to
defend their property from dilapidations and encroachments,
to straighten marches, drain bogs, compensate improvements,
etc. It was not till thirty-eight years later that the great
estate was finally disposed of by feuing, the price being fixed
at twenty-six years' purchase after the deduction of teind, and
an annual feu-duty of one-third of the rent. 4 The proceeds
were then wisely directed by the magistrates to be used entirely
for the payment of the town's debts. The superiorities of
Pro van were finally themselves sold in 1777. 5
3 Ibid. 2oth June, 1692.
4 Ibid, igth Aug., 1729, ist May, 1733. See infra, p. 147.
r> Regality Club, 3rd Series, p. 12.
CHAPTER III
JOHN ANDERSON, YOUNGER, OF DOWHILL
THE most active and capable of the managers of the civic
affairs in the latter years of the seventeenth century has hardly
till now received the attention which his services and somewhat
dramatic career seem to deserve. The Andersons of Dowhill
were merchants whose family estate lay close to the burgh
boundary on the east. They represented the Andersons of
Stobcross, who held that property on Clydeside as rentallers
under the Archbishop as early as 1545. x The Dowhill, or Dew-
hill, is mentioned in the twelfth-century Life of St. Mungo as a
favourite resort of that holy man. It rose beyond the Molendinar,
on the line of the present Gallowgate, and was the site, in the
feudal centuries, of a fane known as Little St. Mungo's Kirk.
In the middle of the eighteenth century it became the site of the
famous Saracen Head Inn. Dowhill estate extended from the
Molendinar eastward to the Butts, and from the Gallowgate
northward to the College grounds. The Andersons of Dowhill
come into the limelight of Glasgow history as men of substance
in the years following the Restoration of Charles II. McUre, the
earliest Glasgow historian, says they were the first to import
cherry sack direct to Glasgow. That delicacy had previously
been procured only through Leith and Edinburgh. In 1663
and again in 1665, probably to preserve the amenities of his
own estate adjoining, John Anderson, elder, took a lease of the
grass of Little St. Mungo's Kirkyard at the rent of a rix-dollar.
1 Mitchell, Old Glasgow Essays, p. 179 ; Senex, Old Glasgow, p. 16.
20
THE ANDERSONS OF DOWHILL 21
His position as a man of substance is shown by the fact that
in 1665 he advanced considerable sums for the purchase of
land by the town. Among his other enterprises he was a partner
with Sir George Maxwell in the famous Whalefishing Company
of 1667.2 He was provost in 1655 and again in 1667, and
it was under his guidance that in the latter year the burgh
acquired the great estate of Provan from Sir Robert Hamilton
of Silvertonhill. Among his possessions the laird of Dowhill
owned a tenement in the Saltmarket, which was destroyed in
the great fire of 1677. In rebuilding it two years later he
availed himself of the subsidy, amounting to 1507 Scots,
offered by the magistrates, and when a dispute occurred be-
tween him and his neighbour regarding a mutual gable, the
magistrates built the gable and deducted the cost from their
subsidy. 3 More was to be heard of this tenement at a later date.
In his latter days the fortunes of this worthy man seem to have
suffered something like eclipse, for in 1684 he was reduced to
supplicate the Town Council, in view of his heavy loss by the
fire, the decay of trade, and " the ill condition he was in," to
forgive him a debt of 370. This they duly did.
But much more notable than John Anderson, elder, was
John Anderson, younger, of Dowhill. There are records of his
disbursing sums for the town's purposes in 1665 and 1666.
When the magistrates were looking for a location for a new
harbour on the firth in 1667 he was commissioned to go to
Greenock with the provost and the deacon-convener to settle
the purchase of the lands of Kilburnie. He was chosen a bailie
in 1666 and in 1683, and in 1669 he was elected Dean of Guild.
In the following year he was sent to London to endeavour to
secure for the burgh from Charles II. the free election of its
own magistrates, as well as the rights of the bailiary and
barony of Glasgow, with liberty to spend what he pleased in
3 Cleland's Annals, ii. 367.
3 Burgh Records of dates named ; Regality Club Transactions, i. 1-7.
22 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the enterprise. And in 1677, after the great fire, he was one
of the commission sent to Edinburgh to secure help from the
Privy Council for the rebuilding of the town. But his greatest
triumph was his mission to London in 1689 already described,
in which he obtained from King William that right of free
election of the provost and magistrates which had been coveted
by Glasgow since the Reformation. His success on that occa-
sion was probably helped by the fact that he was of the party
which supported the Revolution. He had suffered for his views
in 1671 when his leet for the election of magistrates was
rejected, and in 1674, when his complaint on the subject was
over-ruled, and he was excluded from the council for refusing
to take the Declaration. Also, during the provostship of the
notorious John Barnes in 1685, he had been deposed from the
town council for non-attendance at its meetings.
In recognition of his success in London, Dowhill was
appointed Commissioner to the meeting of the Estates in
other words the burgh's member of Parliament, in August, 1689,
and was elected Provost in October.
He was appointed to the office of chief magistrate no fewer
than four times, 4 and during his terms of office and out of them
did much notable service to the city. Among the acts of his
provostship was the vindication of the rights of certain incor-
porations of trades. In particular the Incorporation of Surgeons
secured a decision which carried them a long way towards the
position which safeguards the public against the imposition of
unqualified practitioners at the present day. In 1679 the
Town Council, without the consent of the Surgeons' Incorpora-
tion, had granted permission to a Mr. Henry Marshall to practise
as a surgeon in the burgh. Now, twelve years later, in their
appeal to the magistrates, the Faculty cited the grant by King
James VI. in 1599, empowering them to make rules for the
4 The provost's term of office was then two years. Anderson was elected
in 1689, 1695, 1699, and 1703.
AN UNQUALIFIED PRACTITIONER 23
admission of members, and the exclusion of unqualified persons.
In the case of a dearth of practitioners the magistrates had
power to invite a surgeon to settle in the city, but he must pay
the usual burgess fee and pass the professional tests of the
Faculty. Marshall, though from his title of " Mr.," evidently
a university graduate, had not apparently fulfilled these
requirements, and the Faculty demanded the withdrawal of
the licence granted him by the magistrates. With this demand
Provost Anderson, with his bailies and council, complied. The
licence was withdrawn. At the same time the Incorporation
of Surgeons was earnestly desired to use Marshall " civillie and
discreetlie," as, it may be hoped, they did. 5
In similar fashion the Incorporation of Coopers complained
of infringement of their privileges. Their rule was that no
piece of cooper-work should be brought into the burgh by an
outsider, and exposed for sale, without being submitted to the
deacon and other masters of the craft. If it failed to meet their
approval as an efficient piece of work it was subject to im-
mediate confiscation by the magistrates, and its " inbringer "
was liable to fine and other punishment. In defiance of this
rule, it appears, several persons had gone out of the town to
have cooper-work made and repaired, and had brought it back
for use without due submission. There were evidently coopers
outside the town, who were doing the work more cheaply than
the Glasgow craftsmen, and the latter, seeing their monopoly
in danger, demanded that the prices should be those fixed by
their own deacon. They also demanded that the coopers work-
ing at Port-Glasgow in the time of the fishing should, like the
craftsmen in Glasgow itself, be required to subscribe twopence
Scots weekly to a benevolent fund, half to be used for their own
poor and the other half to be remitted for the poor of the craft
in the city. A further complaint was that the coopers of
Gorbals had " forestalled " the market by buying rungs,
5 Burgh Records, gth May, 1691.
24 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
staves, and splits in wholesale quantities without these being
first exposed for public sale. This they demanded should be
forbidden under a penalty of ten merks each upon buyer and
seller for every offence. This petition also was granted, after
due consideration, by Provost Anderson and his council. They
placed it on record that they thought the demands " reasonable
and just," a verdict which would seem to show that the ex-
clusive policy of trade unions at the present day is not so
modern as some people may imagine. 6
Two criminal events which occurred in Glasgow in his time
show the character of Provost Anderson of Dowhill in another
interesting light. A certain James Peadie was provost when
the former of these took place. By some action which does not
transpire, Peadie had given offence to Robert Brock, a gold-
smith and former bailie of the town, and in consequence, in
the house of a certain widow, and in the presence of the provost
and several other persons, Brock had told the provost exactly
what he thought of him. The opinion appears to have been
expressed in somewhat lurid language " In manifest con-
tempt of their Majesties authoritie, represented in the magis-
strats, and without all regard to his burges oath, without all
fear of God," he did " revile, slander, and defame the said James
Peadie, proveist, by calling him ane villaine, ane rascall, ane
cheat, ane knave, void of all religion and fear of God, ane wolfe
in sheepes cloathing, and that he had bein the cause of ruine
to the said Robert Brock and his familie." Brock had gone
even further, and declared that the provost had hazarded the
ruin of his soul by bringing him to take the name of God in
vain, a thing which he had not done for four years past, till
provoked to do so by Peadie.
At that time it was a serious matter to shew discourtesy
to a magistrate. Even to fail in raising the bonnet to a bailie
when passing him in the street might involve unpleasant con-
6 Burgh Records, isth May, 1691.
MURDER OF TOWN CLERK 25
sequences. The outrageous behaviour of Brock therefore was
made the subject of formal trial before two of the magistrates.
The goldsmith was duly summoned at his own house and by
the " crying " of " three severall oy esses " at the market
cross, and afterwards from the top of the Tolbooth stair ; but
he failed to appear, and the trial went on without him. Three
respectable witnesses, duly sworn and " purged of partiall
counsell," testified against him. The two first agreed without
hesitation to every point made against the accused, and rather
revelled in repeating his most opprobrious words. The third
witness was Anderson of Dowhill, and his evidence was in
notable contrast. He weighed his words, testified only to the
exact expressions he had himself heard, and reduced a charge
of threatening to assault to the mere shaking of his staff in
defiance by the accused man.
In the upshot the charge was found fully proven. Brock
was fined five hundred merks, deprived of his rights as a bur-
gess and guild brother, and ordered to be detained in prison
till he should pay the fine. 7 He evidently, however, made his
peace afterwards with the magistrates, for he frequently in
later years was employed on jeweller's work by them.
The incident illustrates not only the custom and attitude
of mind of the time, but the calm judicial temper of John
Anderson of Dowhill.
The second occurrence of the kind in which Dowhill played
a part was much more serious. It arose out of nothing less
than the murder of the Town Clerk. The facts of the tragedy
were dramatic enough. A certain Major Menzies, commanding
Lord Lindsay's regiment, then quartered in Glasgow, had
seized and imprisoned several burgesses on the plea that they
were deserters. On complaint being made, the magistrates
desired the Major to bring the accused persons before them for
trial. This he absolutely refused to do. A conference was then
7 Ibid. I4th Aug., 1693.
26 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
arranged, at which the provost, two of the bailies, and the
Town-Clerk, Mr. Robert Park, met Major Menzies and three of
his captains in the Town Clerk's office. In the course of the dis-
cussion a dispute arose. Menzies struck the Town Clerk with his
cane, and, the latter springing to his feet, there was a struggle.
The two were separated by the company, then, while the Town
Clerk was being held by Captain Jarvis, the Major drew his
sword and ran him through the body, so that he died instantly.
Menzies then marched off, sword in hand, to the guard-house,
called out his men, drew them up, with loaded muskets three
files deep across the street, and set them to guard the passes,
while he mounted his horse and escaped. 8
One of the Lords of the Privy Council, Mr. Francis Mont-
gomery, who happened to be at hand, forthwith ordered such
of the inhabitants as could soonest get ready to pursue and
apprehend the murderer. In obedience to this order John
Anderson, of Dowhill, with Robert Stevenson, glazier, and John
Gillespie, a tailor and burgess, set forth, and came upon the
Major, skulking in a garden at Rainfield, near the site of the
present Constitutional Club. 9 They charged him with the
murder, and desired him to yield himself prisoner, but he
refused, and came at them with a drawn sword. In the
emergency of the moment a shot was fired, and Menzies fell
dead.
In consequence of this unfortunate affair the three pursuers
were tried for murder in the High Court of Justiciary at Edin-
burgh. The fatal shot had apparently been fired by Gillespie,
and part of the charge against the three was that Menzies had
offered to surrender. The Town Council, however, sent three of
its magistrates to witness for the defence, and the Court found
the prisoners' defence sufficient and discharged them from the
8 The large round table at which the Town Clerk was sitting when this
tragic event took place is now in the refectory room of the South Court at
the Judiciary Buildings in Jocelyn Square.
9 J. O. Mitchell, Regality Club Papers, i. 3.
LEGAL EXPENSES 27
bar. 10 The town's expenses in connection with the trial, in
which no fewer than seventy-four witnesses were retained,
amounted to 3540 os. 4d. Scots. The fees to advocates, clerks
of justiciary and macers came to 1027 5 s - 4^- 1
10 Collection of Trials by Hugo Arnot, pp. 163-9 ; Burgh Records, 2nd Nov.,
1694.
1 Burgh Records, 2 3rd Feb., 1695.
CHAPTER IV
THE DARIEN EXPEDITION
ANDERSON was again chosen Provost in October, 1695, and it
was while he held the office, and probably largely at his sug-
gestion, that the burgh took part in a great national under-
taking whose prospects were as promising as its denouement
was disastrous.
It was a time of mighty financial schemes, in which two
Scotsmen played conspicuous roles. In France John Law of
Lauriston, having fled from England to escape the consequences
of his fatal duel with Beau Wilson, established the Banque
Generale, floated the great Mississippi Scheme, was appointed
Controller General of the Finances, and after stirring the whole
nation to a frenzy of speculation with his golden projects, saw the
glittering fabric crash to ruin, and fled to Venice from the fury
of the people, with a single diamond for his sole possession. In
England the South Sea Company had a similar origin. Started
by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, as a means of extinguishing
the floating National Debt, then amounting to 10,000,000, it was
granted a monopoly of trading in the South Seas, and the dazzling
dreams of wealth awaiting exploitation in South America brought
about a furore of speculation in the shares, till these rose from
100 to 1000. But all the trading that the Company did was
the sending of one ship on a single voyage, and when the
inevitable crash came thousands were reduced to utter ruin. 1
1 A very full account of both the Mississippi scheme and the South Sea
Company is given in Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, vol. i., by
Charles Mackay, LL.D.
28
THE COMPANY OF SCOTLAND 29
Both of these schemes appear to have been inspired by the
earlier enterprise of William Paterson, a native of Dumfries-
shire. After founding the Bank of England, of which he
became a director in 1694, he withdrew in 1695, in the opinion
that the bank's operations were too narrow in scope. An enter-
prise just then being started in Scotland seemed to offer much
greater possibilities. Two Edinburgh merchants, James
Balfour and Bailie Robert Blackwood, were floating a great
mercantile project, " The Company of Scotland trading to
Africa and the Indies." In this project Paterson's genius saw
the possibility of a great national achievement. He joined the
company, and forthwith turned its energies in a still more
promising direction, which was neither Indian nor African.
His idea was perfectly sound to plant on the Isthmus of
Darien a colony, which should form the entrepot of trade for
two oceans and two continents.
The enterprise offered to Scottish merchants an outlet un-
hampered by the English navigation law, which decreed that
trade with English ports and colonies must be carried on only
in English ships. The Company was established by Act of the
Scottish Parliament in 1695, and was granted a monopoly of
the trade of Asia, Africa, and America for thirty-two years.
The scheme at once became popular. From motives of patriot-
ism not less than from motives of gain, nobility, gentry, mer-
chants, burghs, and public bodies all hastened to take shares.
400,000, half the wealth of Scotland, were subscribed, though
only 220,000 were actually paid up.
Of that amount quite a considerable portion came from
Glasgow. By a special Act of Parliament Royal Burghs were
empowered to invest money in the enterprise, and on 5th
March, 1696, the Magistrates and Town Council, " taking to
their consideration that the company of this nation for trading
to Africa and the Indies . . . seems to be very promising, and
apparently may tend to the honour and profit of the Kingdom,
30 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
and particularly to the great advantage of this Burgh to share
therein . . . therefore . . . with consent of the merchants and
trades, their respective houses (previously convened for giving
advice in the said matter) do resolve and conclude to stock in
and adventure for this Burgh and common good thereof . . . the
sum of three thousand pounds sterling money." The city
fathers further " commissionat, appoint, and give full power
to John Anderson of Dowhill, provost, to subscryve the said
company, their books of subscription, for the said sum." 2
Following the example of the Town Council, many Glasgow
merchants and other citizens also took up stock, and altogether
56,000 sterling were subscribed in the city. Among the private
subscribers, Anderson himself took 1000 of stock. The Town
Council took a lead in appointing members of the committee
of management of the Company, and commissioned Provost
Anderson to submit the names of Glasgow holders of stock for
election to the board of fifty directors. They further appointed
Anderson himself to represent the Town Council on that board. 3
Even the wisdom of the University was tempted to specu-
late in the great enterprise. On the advice of Principal Dunlop
it took shares to the amount of a thousand pounds. Dunlop
himself invested a similar sum, while three of the regents ven-
tured a hundred pounds each. The Principal's support was
recognized by his appointment as a director. 4
Evidently Anderson did his best to secure that the expedi-
tion should sail from the Clyde, for he spent 89 i6s. lod. " in
going with Mr. Paterson to view the river." Meanwhile the
Company acted as a bank, lending out its spare capital at
reasonable interest, and Glasgow borrowed 500 sterling for
the purpose of paying off debt." 5
2 Burgh Records under date.
3 Ibid. 28th March, 25th April and i6th May, 1696.
4 Coutts, History of the University, p. 183.
5 Burgh Records, 4th July and 5th Oct., 1696. The Company offered to
lend members two-thirds of their paid-up stock.
DISASTER IN DARIEN 31
Delay was caused by the jealous clamour of the English
trading corporations, which secured the disapproval of the
English Parliament and the disfavour of King William towards
the scheme, with the withdrawal of most of the English and
Dutch subscriptions, amounting to 300,000 and 200,000
respectively. But on 25th July, 1698, five ships sailed from
Leith for Panama with twelve hundred colonists on board.
The story of the disaster is well enough known. The snag
in the enterprise lay in the fact that no attempt had been made
to secure the goodwill of Spain, then dominant in that part of
the world. Between the refusal of the English colonies in
America to supply provisions, quarrels among its own leaders,
the armed hostilities of the Spaniards, and the deadly effects
of the climate, the colony melted away, and, when a second
and third expedition, which sailed from the Clyde with Paterson
himself on board, reached the spot, there was nothing to be
seen but a collection of graves. Of the 2700 colonists who alto-
gether went out, not more than thirty ever reached Scotland
again. Among these was Paterson, who for a time was rendered
lunatic by his misfortunes.
Glasgow, no doubt, derived some profit from the outfitting
of the later ships of the expedition the last of them, the
Speedy Return, was fitted out and furnished with a crew by
William Arbuckle, a Glasgow merchant. But one can picture
the consternation in the city when news arrived from Greenock
in the last days of June, 1700, that Captain Campbell of Fonab
had anchored his little vessel there with remnants of the aban-
doned enterprise on board. Seven months later the town council
petitioned Parliament to appoint a committee to enquire into
the Company's affairs, and meanwhile to stop all processes and
executions for further payments until examination was made. 6
But the Company of Scotland had not yet given up the
ghost. Rumours had reached this country of enormous profits
6 Burgh Records, 2Qth June, 1700, nth Jan., 1701.
32 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
made by New York ships trading with the pirate settlements
in Madagascar. One vessel, the Nassau, in 1698 had netted no
less a sum than 30,000 for its owners from a single voyage.
Lured by such prospects the Company determined on some-
thing like a gambler's throw. It fitted out at Port-Glasgow
two vessels, the Content and the Speedy Return, loaded them
with barrels of flour and beer, hogsheads of tobacco and
buccaneer guns, looking-glasses and silk-looped hats, ivory-
hafted knives and gold waistcoat buttons, and sent them out
to the pirates' fortified settlement of St. Mary's on the Mada-
gascar coast. There they disposed of their goods and did some
business in the slave trade. But one day, when Captain
Drummond and Captain Stewart were on shore, the pirates took
possession of the ships, and that ended the venture as far as
the Company of Scotland was concerned. 7
Eventually, of course, Glasgow recovered most of the capital
invested in the great venture. When the Articles of Union
between Scotland and England were being arranged in 1706,
it was agreed that England should pay to Scotland an " Equi-
valent " of 400,000 to compensate for the amount of England's
debt about to be taken over by Scotland. At the same time
it was insisted that the Company of Scotland, with its far-
reaching privileges, should be wound up. It was arranged,
therefore, that the greater part of the " Equivalent " should
be devoted to paying out the stockholders of the Company,
with interest. 8 Glasgow appears to have received its share of
this money very promptly. The Burgh Records of i6th and
26th September, 1707, mention a visit of the Provost and
7 The books and documents of the Company of Scotland are preserved in
the Scottish National Library. A monograph on the subject by John Hill
Burton was printed for the Bannatyne Club. More recently the Darien
Shipping Papers were edited for the Scottish History Society by Dr. G. P.
Insh, and the story is fully told in the same writer's work, The Company of
Scotland, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1932.
8 Hill Burton, Hist. Scot. viii. 132.
x
ffl
KEEPER OF THE TOWN'S ACCOUNTS 33
Dean of Guild to Edinburgh, to receive " the toun's part of the
Affrican money," 2114 155. 7|d. sterling altogether, and the
payment of 20 Scots to James Little] ohn, carrier, for con-
veying it home to Glasgow.
The people of Glasgow meanwhile do not seem to have
blamed Provost Anderson for their heavy loss in this great
venture, for he was chosen Provost again in 1699 and 1703 ;
but as age pressed upon him, and it looks as if he had fallen on
less prosperous days, he seems to have suffered a change of
regard. As with many of the merchant adventurers of those
times, with their fortunes on the sea, his affairs may have been
subject to serious fluctuations. As early as 1669, after the
death of his first wife, Marion Darroch, the Town Council
remitted to him the feu-duties of Camlachie, which had been
hers in life-rent. 9 A few years later, in 1684, he advanced
money " to plenish the General's lodging " and to " outreik "
the militia horses with a year's maintenance. 10 Later still,
however, there are signs that he was not without the need of
money. In 1692, some irregularities having occurred, Anderson
and four others were appointed to report on the position of
the town's affairs. On the recommendation of that committee
the Town Council " concludit and agreed " that a special set of
account books, a journal and a ledger, should be kept, in
addition to the public register, shewing at a glance the town's
debts and credits, revenues and payments. For the keeping
of these books it was declared, " there can be no fitter person
gottine then John Andersone, late proveist." Anderson under-
took the work, and agreed to accept an allowance " for his
9 Burgh Records, loth Aug.
10 Ibid. 26th and 2yth Sept. Notwithstanding his many services there
seems to have been a party in the city disposed to question the acts of the
worthy provost. In January, 1701, these persons, led by a certain George
Lockhart, presented two petitions to Parliament. The first complained that
he had carried out an election of council without consulting the Merchants
and Trades Houses ; the second declaring that he did not truly represent
the inhabitants as their parliamentary representative. Parliament, however,
shelved the petitions. Crawford, Sketch of the Trades' House, p. 90.
c H.G. in.
34 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
pains." A year later he produced the books, which shewed
the town's accounts so clearly, and proved so satisfactory,
especially since they shewed that a considerable debt had been
paid off, that it was agreed to pay him a salary of 15 sterling
a year for his trouble, and to continue him in the appointment.
The salary was afterwards increased to 20, probably because
the keeping of books for the excise was added to the work.
Dowhill kept the books and drew the emolument till 1708. In
that year the Town Council reviewed all the salaries and pensions
it was paying, and while continuing all the others, decided that,
as the city had a regular treasurer, it was unnecessary to con-
tinue the payment to Anderson. Apparently there had been
some trouble with DowhilTs son, another John Anderson
younger, and a certain Matthew Gilmour, for the accounts
had not been entered during their treasurership. Anderson was
therefore directed to post the books up to date, balance them,
and deliver them to the Magistrates. 1
By that time Dowhill was an old man. A little later he is
mentioned as " deceist." He had married again, and at his
death had left his widow, Marion Hay, life-rented in " that
great tenement of land " at the head of the Saltmarket which
has been already mentioned. She was living there with her
children in May, 1715, when a sudden conflagration occurred,
and it was again reduced to ashes. The disaster was serious
for Marion Hay, who had not means to rebuild the tenement.
Four months afterwards the five shopkeepers on the ground
floor petitioned the magistrates to have the dangerous walls
taken down and to grant them authority to cover their shops
from the weather. And a year later the widow herself petitioned
for help to rebuild the property. She and her children and
servants, she explained, had escaped only with their lives and
in their shirts, all her furniture had been destroyed, along with
1 Burgh Records, isth Mar., i5th Sept., 1692 ; iQth Aug., 28th Oct., 1694 ;
1 7th Feb. 1708,
DOWHILL'S DESCENDANTS 35
the writs and titles of the Dowhill properties, and she could
not even sell the tenement for lack of the necessary deeds. In
support of her petition she cited the services rendered by her
late husband to the city. After consideration the Magistrates
and Council agreed that for the decorum of the city a tenement
in so conspicuous a position should be rebuilt, and they under-
took to make a grant of two thousand merks Scots if the
building was completed and roofed before the first of June in
the following year. Apparently no time was lost, for on 2ist
May, 1717, the treasurer was instructed to pay the 2000 merks
to " Lady Dowhill/' the work having then been finished. 2
This action was all the more creditable to the city fathers and
is witness to the esteem in which the memory of John Anderson
was held, when it is remembered that the town was just then
wrestling with the expenses incurred on account of the Jacobite
rising under the Earl of Mar.
Anderson left four daughters, two by each marriage. Of
these, Marion, a daughter by his second marriage, seems to
have inherited the tenement in Saltmarket. She married the
Rev. Charles Moore, minister of Stirling, and was mother of
Dr. Moore the friend of Robert Burns, and grandmother of Sir
John Moore, the hero of Corunna. Another daughter, Christian,
married John Gibson, merchant and bailie, and after her hus-
band's death, being reduced to penury, was granted an allowance
of 25 Scots quarterly by the Town Council for her subsistence. 3
Still another daughter, Barbara, was with her numerous children
reduced to great straits by a reverse in the circumstances of her
husband, Mr. William Fogo of Killorn, " now a prisoner in Stir-
ling tolbooth, where he is like to continue for life." In view of
her father's services to the city the Town Council in 1754 granted
her a pension of 12 sterling, stipulating that it should not be
subject to her husband's jus mariti or the claims of his creditors.
2 Ibid. 26th Aug., 1715 ; 2yth Aug., 1716.
3 Ibid. 29th Jan. 1725 ; i5th June, 1750.
CHAPTER V
LAND PURCHASES AND MUNICIPAL TRADING
IN the troubled years which followed the Revolution Glasgow
does not appear to have prospered very greatly. The popula-
tion, which in 1688 numbered 11,943, was no more than 12,766
twenty years later, when a census was taken. 1 Rising pleasantly
on its sunny brae-face from the river bank, with gardens about
its houses, scenting the air with apple-blossom in spring, and
with cornfields around, rustling golden in autumn, it was really
a garden city. East of the Molendinar, on the riverside, the
New Green, painfully repurchased from its many smallholders,
was being brought into condition by cropping and grazing,
while the Old Green, which stretched westward from the
Molendinar to St. Theneu's or St. Enoch's Burn, was being
encroached upon by buildings like the Merchants Hospital
and industries like the rope-work, which gave its first name to
the present Howard Street Ropework Lane. 2 In the hundred
years since 1588, when the West Port was moved from the spot
which is now the foot of Candleriggs to the head of the Stock-
wellgait, the crofts on the south side of St. Theneu's Gait, or
Trongate, had been slowly built upon. Just outside the port
on the west side of the Stockwellgait stood the tower of the
Halls of Fulbar, which was only taken down at the end of the
nineteenth century, and farther west, by the side of St. Theneu's
1 Denholm, Hist, of Glasg. 1804, says the population had been 14,600 in
1660.
2 Burgh Records, 5th Dec., 1696 ; lyth April, 1697.
36
LAY-OUT OF GLASGOW 37
Burn, stood the ruin of St. Theneu's Chapel, the site of the
later St. Enoch's Church. On the north side of Trongate the
Long Croft, which extended from the back of the High Street
houses westward to the Cow Loan, which is now Queen Street,
had also been considerably built upon. There the Candleriggs,
with the " soaperie " of the Whalefishing Company near its
head, 3 had been opened up, and Hutchesons' Hospital, with
its acre of garden behind, stood on the site of the present
Hutcheson Street. Beyond the Cow Loan to St. Theneu's
Burn, which crosses Argyll Street at the foot of Mitchell Lane,
lay the Pallioun Croft, so called, it is said, from the pavilions
or tents of the Regent Moray's army which encamped there
before the battle of Langside ; and along the thoroughfare, as
far as the little bridge over St. Theneu's Burn, stood certain
malt kilns, whose owners were accused of throwing their straw
into the roadway, and choking the " syre " or gutter.
On the south side of the river the town had acquired in
1650 the Gorbals part of Sir George Elphinstone's barony of
Blythswood. 4 Eastward along the Gallowgate lay the estates
of a number of well-known Glasgow families, Dowhill, Clay-
thorn, Barrowfield. On the north-east the great estate of
Provan had been acquired in 1667, as we have seen, rather
with a view to controlling the supply of water from Hoggan-
field Loch to the town's mills than for the purpose of extending
the city. The town also included the beautiful Rottenrow and
its sequestered old manses, with their sunny gardens sloping
to the south on the Deanside brae. This " tennandry of Rotten-
row," between forty and fifty acres in extent, had been the
first extension of the burgh's boundaries, granted to the
Magistrates by James VI. in 1613 as a reward for their pre-
servation of the Cathedral and bridge. 5 The ground was mostly
8 The Soaperie was burned in 1777 and the business given up. Cleland's
Annals, ii. 367.
4 Regality Club Publications, iv. 1-60. 5 Glasgow Charters, ii. pp. 284-91.
38 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
in private possession, but the magistrates drew from it certain
rents and feu-duties.
Between this " tennandry " of Rottenrow and the Long
Croft and Pavilion Croft, and extending westward over the
sites of the present City Chambers and George Square, stretched
the lands of Ramshorn and Meadowflat. Again and again these
lands had had their crops eaten and destroyed by troops
quartered in the city. As late as November, 1693, the town
paid the tenant 100 i6s. for corn eaten and carried off the
ground by the English regiment commanded by Sir John
Lanier. The owner of the acres, Ninian Hill of Lambhill, was
probably sick of such troubles, and he offered the land to the
burgh at twenty-two years' purchase, the rent being estimated
at ten merks per boll of crop. The Magistrates, in considering
the offer, displayed a praiseworthy zeal for the preservation of
the town's amenities. They feared that the land might be
purchased by someone who " might perhaps improve the samine
to the prejudice of the burgh." They accordingly agreed to
acquire it at twenty years' purchase, a sum of 20,300 merks,
with a gratuity of fifteen guineas to " LambhilTs lady." The
transaction, curiously, was carried out with the funds of " the
three hospitals," the Merchants', the Trades', and Hutchesons'.
who were to have the land divided equally among them ; but in
the end, partly for the reason that the estate had belonged
previously to George Hutcheson of Lambhill, the founder of
Hutchesons' Hospital, the entire property was acquired for
that trust, burdened with a feu-duty of 4 payable to the
burgh and certain conditions preventing it from being " im-
proved " to the prejudice of the town. 6
This vicarious purchase of Ramshorn and Meadowflat was
only one of several curious financial transactions of the Glasgow
Magistrates and Councillors at that time. On the plea of diffi-
6 Burgh Records, 13th Sept., lyth Nov., 1693 ; yth Feb., i2th May, 1694 '
3ist Aug., 1696 ; ist Oct., 1709.
SUGAR HOUSES 39
culty in paying the town's debts, letters were procured from
the King to the Privy Council authorising the Magistrates to
continue the levy for the use of the burgh of the two pennies
excise duty on each pint of ale and beer brewed or sold in the
town, for the space of thirteen years. 7 Apparently the city
fathers saw in this grant the opening of a golden fountain.
They promptly decided that " it could not be expected that
such ane great gift might be obtained without expence and
charge and the gratifieing of persons in public trust." They
accordingly directed that the city treasurer be provided with a
thousand pounds sterling, besides ten guineas already sent to
him in Edinburgh, for the payment of gratuities to certain
persons who had been instrumental in securing the grant for
the city. As they did not actually possess the thousand pounds
they proposed to give away, they proceeded to borrow that
sum, and gave bonds to nine individuals who lent them the
money. 8
Of similar character was the transaction, already recorded,
which was carried through a little later with the Darien Com-
pany. Though the Town Council subscribed for 3000 of stock
in the undertaking, the entire sum does not appear to have
been called up, and meanwhile the magistrates availed them-
selves of the Company's offer, and borrowed 500 sterling for
the payment of the city's debts. 9
At the same time the merchants of Glasgow had been mak-
ing their way into new avenues of trade. At the time of the
Revolution one of the chief industries of the town was sugar
refining. Since 1667, when the first factory, the Wester Sugar-
house, was built in Bell's Wynd and Candleriggs, the business
had been considerably exploited. The Easter Sugar-house was
built on the south side of Gallowgate in 1669, and was followed
7 Glasgow Charters and Documents, ii. 249-51.
8 Burgh Records, 25th Sept., 1693.
9 Ibid. 5th Oct., 1696.
40 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
by the South Sugar-house in Stock well Street, and another in
King Street. 10 These sugar-houses not only supplied the
greater part of Scotland with their commodity, but enjoyed
the privilege of distilling spirits from their molasses, free from
all duty and excise. 1 When it was proposed to set up an
additional sugar factory in 1701, there was projected, in con-
nection with it, a work " for distilling brandy and other spirits
from all manner of grain of the growth of this kingdom," and
it was added " the distillery will both be profitable for con-
sumption of the product of the kingdom, and for trade for
the coast of Guinea and America, seeing that no trade can be
managed to the places foresaid, or the East Indies, without
great quantities of the foresaid liquors." 2
Tobacco also had begun to bring to the city a stream of
wealth that was to flow for a hundred years. The trade was
hampered at first by the curious communal by-law that all
cargoes must first be offered to the Magistrates and Council, and
that no bargain must be made for their purchase wholesale by
an individual. Thus, on loth January, 1674, the city fathers
deputed the Dean of Guild and Deacon Convener to " sight "
a cargo offered to the town by William Johnstone and William
Bouk, which included forty hogsheads of Virginia leaf tobacco,
twelve barrels roll and cut, at thirty-six pounds per cent.
" guid and bad." 3 On 20th January, 1677, the Magistrates
granted liberty to Hugh Buick, writer in Edinburgh, to sell
four hogsheads of Virginia, which he had offered to the town,
to whom he pleased. And on 2Qth August, 1681, an offer was
made by Richard Bucklie of no less than 105 hogsheads of
10 Trans. Glasg. Arch. Society, ist Series, i. 354.
1 Gibson's Hist, of Glasgow, 246 ; Chambers's Dom. Annals, iii. 126.
2 Dom. Annals, iii. 127.
3 Burgh Records. As shewing the other commodities then being imported,
the cargo also included eight casks of casnutt sugar at 16 i6s. per cent., four
thousand pounds weight of ginger at 18 per cent, and a ton of unground
logwood at ^120 per ton.
EARLY TOBACCO TRADE 41
Virginia leaf tobacco, with some leaf tobacco in bulk, and
three barrels roll tobacco. In this case the prices were, for the
hogshead tobacco 243. sterling per hundredweight, for the
bulk tobacco 205., and for the roll tobacco 303., in other words
from about 2|d. to 4d. per pound. On certain suspicions
Bucklie was ordered to store his cargo in Glasgow, and give
his oath as to whether he had offered or sold any of the con-
signment elsewhere.
Yet again, on i5th May, 1691, complaint was made to the
Town Council that a certain William Corse and his partners had
bought from a stranger, who was not a freeman of any burgh,
a ship's load of tobacco, without making an offer of it to the
town. As a result the said William and his partners in crime
were cited to appear before the magistrates to be fined and
otherwise punished. 4
Restrictions and impediments of this kind placed in the
way of trade and industry by a communal town council made
commerce on a large scale, of course, impossible. 5 The activities
of the city fathers were salutary and valuable while they were
devoted to the duties of domestic government, the safeguarding
of person and property, the provision of education, the secur-
ing of amenities, the settlement of disputes, and the like. The
magistrates were within their province when they suppressed
a practice which had grown to be a nuisance, that of parties
masquerading and serenading through the streets in the night-
time, creating disturbance, and offering " insolencies " to
the guards and other persons. 6 They were providing for a
known want in allowing Margaret Hamilton, cook, to continue
during her lifetime her employment of serving the town's
inhabitants with meat and drink keeping " ane taverne and
ane cookerie "otherwise apparently the town's first restau-
rant. Margaret agreed to pay fifty merks for the privilege, and
4 Burgh Records. 6 Ibid, igth April, aoth April, aist Sept., 1695.
8 Ibid. 1 2th Sept., 1691.
42 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
was granted the same rights as the widow of a burgess. 7 They
honoured the city's notable tradition of musical culture by
engaging Mr. Lewis de France to " teach the inhabitants in
toune to sing musick." Mr. Lewis agreed " to take onlie
fourtein shilling per moneth, for ane hour in the day, from
these that comes to the schooll, and fourtein shilling for wryt-
ing the threttein comon tunes and some psalmes, the schollars
furnishing bookes." He also " condescended " to teach such
poor in the town as the Magistrates should direct. 8 For this
the Magistrates agreed to pay him 100 Scots yearly, and to
prohibit the teaching of music by any other public school.
They were no doubt supplying a felt want when they granted
a certain Mr. John Pujolas the sum of 5 sterling to help the
printing of a French grammar, and agreed to pay him 100
yearly for the encouragement of his teaching of French. 9
They were within their province in ordering a register of deaths
within the city to be kept. The first registrar received for
remuneration the sum of thirty shillings Scots weekly. 10 And
they might be excused the little luxury of having the seats of
the council in Kirk strewn with flowers, and a similar provision
made for the table in the council chamber. The flowers were
got from the garden of the Merchants Hospital in Briggate,
and cost the Magistrates no more than twelve shillings Scots
yearly. 1 It is true, the Magistrates provided mills for grinding
the corn of the burgesses. But they were sufficiently well
advised not to carry on the business themselves, but to lease
the mills to individuals whose interest it was to cultivate the
approval of their customers. In succeeding years the rental of
these mills continued to increase, and in 1691 it amounted to
8750 merks, with fifty bolls of ground malt. 2
These activities might all be regarded as within the purview
7 Burgh Records, 23rd May, 1691. 8 Ibid 24th Sept., 1691.
9 Ibid. 29th Nov., 1690. 10 Ibid, isth Oct., 1692.
1 Ibid. 4th Oct., 1691. z Ibid. 2nd June, 1691.
MUNICIPAL HINDRANCE TO TRADE 43
of civic legislation and administration. It was only when the
city fathers went outside this natural province, and proceeded
to interfere with trade, that they became a hindrance to the
development of the town's prosperity. In no case do they
appear to have exercised their option to purchase goods brought
to the city in wholesale quantities, but the restrictions as to
price which they used their option to impose, must have dis-
couraged enterprise and sent commerce elsewhere for a hundred
and fifty years.
Notwithstanding these obstacles, however, the Glasgow mer-
chants had begun to think of trade in larger terms. Walter
Gibson's ventures to France and America were examples of
this. So far the chief trade of Scotland had been with Holland,
Denmark, and Norway. For that reason the shipping was
mostly from the east coast ports. Leith, Montrose, and the
little harbours round the Fife coast were the scenes of the
country's main export and import trade. Hence James V.'s
description of Fife as " a rough Scots blanket fringed with
gold."
But Glasgow was awakening to possibilities in other direc-
tions. The founding of Port-Glasgow as a civic harbour on
the open estuary of the Clyde in 1668 was an evidence of this ;
and everything may be said to have been ready for the great
event which happened presently, and which threw open to
Glasgow merchant enterprise the whole trading possibilities of
the New World across the Atlantic.
CHAPTER VI
DOMESTIC ANNALS
As the seventeenth century drew to a close, signs of change
were to be noted in many of the conditions of life in Glasgow.
The strange superstition regarding demoniacal possession and
the possibility of making a pact with Satan, which for four hun-
dred years smeared the page of Christian history with its cruel
stain, was to demand victims in Scotland for another quarter
of a century. 1 As late as the month of October, 1696, the
relatives of Christian Shaw of Bargarran brought that child to
Glasgow to consult an eminent physician, named Brisbane,
regarding the curious symptoms from which she suffered.
Brisbane sensibly attributed the symptoms to hypochondria,
but a commission of the Privy Council presided over by Lord
Blantyre, and an assize court at Paisley, in which the Lord
Advocate Steuart acted as prosecutor, declared for witchcraft,
and in consequence on loth June, 1697, five poor creatures
were hanged and burned on Paisley Gallow Green. 2 The death
of these unfortunates, however, did not end the witch hunt.
In the following year Glasgow Town Council paid 66 8s. Scots
for the maintenance in the Tolbooth of certain witches and
warlocks, imprisoned there by order of the commissioners at
Paisley. 3
1 The last case of witch-burning in Scotland took place at Dornoch in
1722. Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft, ninth letter.
2 " The Renfrewshire Witches," Chambers's Domestic Annals, iii. 167.
3 Burgh Records, i2th March, 1698.
44
" GARDYLOO " 45
But while this superstition still claimed victims, another
affliction which had for centuries been still more serious had
apparently quite died out. The ghastly disease of leprosy had
become a thing of the past. In 1694 the council considered
an application for a feu of the old leper house, known as St.
Ninian's Hospital, at the south end of Glasgow bridge, and
five years later, in the grant of a precept of dare constat to the
heirs of a certain Claud Paul, the buildings of the hospital were
stated to be ruinous. 4 Thus almost certainly had passed away,
from the burgh and neighbourhood of Glasgow at any rate, a
disease which in its deadly ravages had included no less a victim
than King Robert the Bruce himself.
This change may no doubt be accounted for, to a consider-
able extent, by a growing consciousness of the need for more
cleanly habits among the people themselves. Everyone has
heard of the shocking custom which persisted in Edinburgh
till comparatively late in the eighteenth century. There, any
time after ten at night, the passenger in the street might hear
the cry of " Gardyloo ! " and despite his shout of " Haud your
hand ! " might find himself drenched in a moment with the
contents of a bucket of filth discharged by a servant from some
window in a tenement far overhead. The same disgusting
custom prevailed in Glasgow, but was stopped by the magis-
trates at a much earlier period. In 1696 the city fathers,
" taking to consideration the many complaints made by the
inhabitants of the growing and abounding nestiness and filthi-
ness of the place," forbade the heads of families to allow the
throwing from their windows, front or back, by day or night,
of any waste matter, liquid or solid, on pain of being fined five
merks for each offence. 5 Thus the passer-by was relieved, at a
comparatively early period, of the possibility of receiving these
unasked blessings descending from above, and MclJre the his-
4 Ibid. 2yth Jan., 1694 '< T 4 tn Aug., 1699.
6 Ibid. 1 6th Jan., 1696.
46 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
torian, writing in 1736, was able to rejoice in the " odoriferous
smell " of the orchards and gardens which mingled so pleasantly
with the tenements and houses of the burgh.
There was still, to be sure, a sufficiently old-world spirit
about the Magistrates, who, after fining and committing to
prison certain burgesses who, " being too late frae their respec-
tive families," had assaulted the town's sentries, added a
clause to their sentence " In regaird the morn is the Lord's
Day, allowes them to goe at libertie till Tuesday nixt, at eleven
of the clock in the forenoon," when they were duly to return
to the Tolbooth, and remain there till they paid their fines. 6
At the same time a distinctly modern note was sounded by
the occurrence of a strike of the bakers in the burgh. The
movement appears to have been a concerted rebellion of the
craft against the authority of the Town Council. In October,
1695, according to custom, the Magistrates had made their
annual regulation. The twelve-penny loaf was to weigh 9 ozs.
5 drops 12 grains, and it was, of course, to be of standard
quality. In the following June, no doubt in consequence of
complaints by the burgesses, thirteen of the baxters, probably
all the members of the craft, were imprisoned by the provost 1
for " making insufficient bread, and for not furnishing the
market as formerly " ; and they were ordered to be kept in
prison till they had given their bond to supply the citizens with
such " good and sufficient bread " as was furnished by the
bakers of Edinburgh, under a penalty of 100 Scots for each
offence. The baxters refused to give the bond, and applied to
the Town Council for their freedom. They had evidently sup-
porters in the council on whom they relied. " By some mis-
take," or more probably with connivance, " some of the
bailies " took upon themselves to set the delinquents at liberty
6 Burgh Records, 2ist Mar., 1696 ; I2th Mar., 1698.
7 This was one of the many instances in which Anderson of Dowhill, as
Provost, showed his ability to act with promptitude and firmness in an
emergency.
BAKERS' REVOLT 47
without giving the required bond. The council, however,
ordered them to be re-imprisoned till the security was given
in the terms arranged with their agent in Edinburgh, the only
concession being a reduction of the penalty to fifty pounds. 8
The ringleader of the strike was evidently a certain Alex-
ander Thomson, and the Town Council next proceeded to deal
with him. He was charged at the instance of the procurator-
fiscal with " utering many vyle and ignominious words against,
and insolent carriage and behaviour towards, the pro vest."
On acknowledging the truth of the charge, he was fined five
hundred merks, deprived of his burgess privileges, and ordered
to stand for an hour at the head of the Tolbooth stair, the place
where public proclamations were made, with his head un-
covered and a paper fixed to his forehead describing his offence.
He was further ordered to remain in prison till his fine was paid,
and afterwards to leave the burgh and never to return. 9
This firm handling settled the main trouble with the
baxters. But the recalcitrance of the craft had gone a step
further. In defiance of public rights, and notwithstanding an
agreement made by themselves, the baxters had raised their
mill dam on the Kelvin to such a level that it deprived the town's
mill above it of the fall of water necessary to drive its wheel.
Here, again, the Magistrates and Council took prompt action.
On examination the dam was found to have been raised twelve
inches above the stipulated level. Thereupon the baxters,
being threatened with a fine of five hundred merks, acknow-
ledged their fault and placed themselves at the discretion of the
council. They were then ordered to reduce their dam to the
proper level, and keep it at that, under a penalty of a thousand
merks. A committee was appointed to see the work done, and
the baxters were provided with a gauge, of which a duplicate
was kept by the Town Clerk. The baxters evidently realised
8 Burgh Records, 2yth June, 1696.
9 Ibid. 4th July, 1696.
48 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
that the council was not to be trifled with, for the level of the
dam was reduced within a month. 10
In the absence of a banking system throughout the country
the Government still made its payments in the manner of the
feudal centuries, not by the remitting of money from a central
fund, but by local payments out of the readiest moneys levied
in the district. Thus the Magistrates of Glasgow are found
paying two sums of fifty pounds sterling each to the officers
of Colonel Douglas's regiment, and charging the amount against
" the Mertimess supplie," or taxation due to Government at
nth November ; and a month later they record the payment
of 450 Scots to Lieut. -Colonel Hamilton, to be taken out of
the half-year's stipend of the Barony parish, then vacant, and
therefore in the hands of its patron, the King. 1
Again and again it appears that the levying of regular
" supply," or taxes for Government purposes, which had been
introduced since the Revolution, was felt as a drawback to the
prosperity of the burgh. Under this pressure the Magistrates
were driven both to economise expenditure and to seek new
sources of revenue. In 1695 they passed a resolution which
must have borne hardly upon a number of persons. ' Taking
to consideration the present low condition of this burgh/' the
city fathers, at one stroke, " rescinded and annulled " all
pensions granted before the year 1690. 2
The Town Council next turned its attention to the cost of
maintaining its harbours at the Broomielaw and Port-Glasgow.
That charge, it was felt, could no longer be borne by the
" Common Good " funds of the burgh, " now brought so low, as
said is." With the approval of the Merchants House and the
Trades House, the Magistrates therefore proceeded to institute
harbour dues. The highest charge was 12 Scots for vessels
loading or unloading at the quay of Port-Glasgow. This was
10 Burgh Records, 26th June, 24th July, yth Aug., i8th Sept., 1697.
1 Ibid. 2ist Nov., 1 9th Dec., 1696. z Ibid. 26th Oct., 1695.
CART LICENCES AND TOLLS 49
for burgesses only ; strangers and unfreemen were to pay
double. At the same time the Council took the opportunity to
make rules for the management of the harbours. For the
carrying out of these at Port-Glasgow the bailie of that place
was made responsible. Among other matters, masters of
vessels were not to cast ballast or dirt overboard in the river
or roadstead, no anchor was to be laid in the water without a
buoy attached, and cursing and swearing were to be punished
by the bailie " conform to the Acts of Parliament."
The city fathers also took notice of the damage done to the
paving of the streets by the iron-shod carts of the burgesses
and of incomers. Within and without the ports, the record
declares, the streets, causeways, and highways were " exceed-
ingly damnified and ruined " by this traffic, and it was felt to
be just that a charge should be made to relieve the Common
Good of the burden of upkeep. Upon burgesses the charge was
laid in the form of an annual payment of 2 Scots for each
shod cart, unfreemen paying double, while for strangers carting
loads into the town the charge was in form of a toll two
shillings or four shillings Scots in and out, according to distance. 3
Thirty-three years later, in 1728, "considering the great
dammage which the streets of this city, and avenues thereof
sustain thro a late method of fixing the iron bands to the
trades of carts by square-headed stob naills," the magistrates
strictly prohibited this practice. 4
To this rule a curious exception was made. Carts belonging
to the Duchess of Hamilton and her town of Hamilton were
admitted free. The exception was probably allowed in recogni-
tion of the kindness of the Duchess Anne, who, after the battle
of Bothwell Bridge, is said to have saved the lives of hundreds
of the fleeing Covenanters by sending a request to the Duke of
Monmouth asking him to " spare the game in her coverts."
The Duchess, moreover, had quite recently given the handsome
3 Ibid. 30th Nov., 2nd Dec., 1695. * Ibid. 2ist Oct., 1728.
D H.G. in.
50 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
sum of 18,000 merks to provide bursaries in Glasgow Uni-
versity. 5
These tolls and dues were not levied directly by the
Magistrates, but, like the other dues of the burgh, were leased
by public auction to a private collector. 6
By this time, also, notwithstanding its various almshouses,
like St. Nicholas, Hutchesons', the Merchants, and the Trades
House, the town was feeling the burden of the growing number
of poor. The Merchants and Trades " stented " or taxed
themselves for the support of their own decayed members,
but there was another unattached class also to be provided
for. Under Provost Anderson of Dowhill the Magistrates pro-
ceeded to grasp this nettle vigorously. First, to prevent the
exploiting of its charity, the Town Council appointed constables
to keep strange beggars out of the city. 7 Then it appointed a
committee, the first managers of the poor in Glasgow, em-
powered that committee to purchase or build almshouses and
infirmaries, and drew up a set of rules of management which
remains a model to the present day. All poor or disabled
persons who applied were to be admitted, all foundlings were
to be taken in charge, and all idle and vagabond persons who
could give no account of their method of living were to be
apprehended. They were to be provided with lodging, cloth-
ing, washing, and sufficient wholesome food, detained for
specified periods of years, set to work at various employments,
and, in case of refusal, chastised by corporal or other punish-
ment, " not extending to life, limbs, or mutilation of any
member." For maintenance, three-fourths of the ordinary
collections at the church doors were assigned, and the super-
visors were empowered to raise any further necessary sum by
levying a rate of not more than one per cent, on the income
of every inhabitant of the burgh. The younger poor were to
5 Burgh Records, gth Jan., 1697 ; 27th Sept., 1694.
6 Ibid. 1 6th May, 1696. 7 Ibid, i^ih Mar., 1696.
BUILDING SUBSIDIES 51
receive Christian instruction and to be bred up in some useful
trade or employment. 8
Curiously enough, while the members of the Merchants
House and of the General Kirk Session unanimously approved
of these proposals, the majority of the Trades objected. The
Magistrates and Town Council, however, finding that " the
generality of the inhabitants were cheerful in concurring/'
ratified the arrangement, and secured the approval of the
Privy Council, which included Sir John Maxwell of Nether
Pollok. The order was thereupon put into action. 9
But while the Magistrates and Town Council felt it necessary
to curtail waste and extravagance in those difficult years, they
did not hesitate to expend money when the expense appeared
to be necessary, or likely to bring a profitable return. We have
seen how they invested a handsome sum in the adventures of the
Company of Scotland. A year previously they made a grant
of 12,000 Scots to the Trades House, to help the building of
its great tenement at the corner of Saltmarket and Gallow-
gate, the spot where the restored Market Cross of Glasgow now
stands. 10 This was part of the great effort to secure the re-
building of parts of the city which had been ruined by the con-
flagration of 1677. The building also balanced the Merchants
House tenement, at the opposite corner of Saltmarket and Tron-
gate, for the building of which the Town Council had made a
grant thirteen years before. 1
As a further inducement to house-building, curiously sug-
gestive of procedure in the twentieth century, the city fathers
further decreed that tenements and houses built on the main
8 Ibid. 6th March, 1697. 9 Ibid. 2oth March, 2ist Aug., 1697.
10 Ibid. 2oth March, 1695. The building, known as Tradesland, was
demolished in 1824.
1 The Merchants' House tenement contained a coffee-house which evidently
was Glasgow's first Exchange. The Town Council made it a grant of 3 per
annum for the provision of newsletters till its own Town Hall and coffee-house
next the Tolbooth were opened in 1738. Ibid. 3ist May, 1718 ; ist July, 1719 ;
ist Oct., 1720 ; vol. vi. p. xiii.
52 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
streets to a certain standard should be free of taxation for a
period of ten years. 2
The Magistrates in the same spirit took in hand an impor-
tant work of restoration on their own account. In 1670 the
old kirk of the Blackfriars beside the College in High Street
had been struck by lightning. Its steeple had been rent from
top to bottom, its roof slates scattered, its gables broken, and
its interior fired. 3 The damage might have been repaired at
once, as a sum of 10,000 had been subscribed in 1635 for the
endowment of the kirk when it was taken over from the
University. But that sum had been lent to the leader of the
Covenanters, the Marquess of Argyll, and, as we have seen,
could not be recovered. The building had therefore remained
a ruin. In 1698, however, the need for another place of worship
had become pressing. The Magistrates were finding difficulty
in securing ministers for the five existing kirks because of the
extraordinary size of the congregations. There were 9994
" examinable persons " then in the city. 4 The College autho-
rities were therefore approached, and agreed to pay a sixth
part of the cost of restoring the kirk, that cost being esti-
mated at 10,000 Scots ; 5 the Town Council arranged to devote
the seat rents of the other churches to the work, and a further
sum was raised, by the ingenuity of the Dean of Guild, from the
sale of burial-places to the citizens. The College stipulated that
it should have the use of the church for graduation and other
ceremonies, as well as the next best seat to that of the Magis-
trates, and the exclusive privilege of burying in the north-east
corner of the churchyard. On the other hand, it agreed to allocate
certain rooms in the College itself to the sons of burgesses. 6
z Burgh Records, 2oth April, 1699. 8 Law's Memorials, p. 33.
4 Burgh Records, i3th Sept., 1701.
5 The actual cost of the building was ^21,308 35. 8d. Scots.
6 Burgh Records, 3rd Dec., 1698 ; 6th May, 1699. Charters and Documents,
ii. 274.
FIRST GLASGOW BOWLING-GREEN 53
With a sixth kirk thus provided the Magistrates and general
kirk session proceeded to divide the city into six separate
parishes, of which the largest contained 1777 examinable
persons, and the smallest i6o7. 7
At the same time the more secular amenities of life were not
neglected. As an ornament to the town, and for the good of
the burgesses and strangers sojourning within their gates, the
city fathers thought it desirable to have a bowling green laid out,
and they feued a piece of waste ground at the corner of Candle-
riggs and Bell's Wynd to a certain Mungo Cochrane, merchant,
for the purpose. The yearly feu-duty was 24 Scots, or 2
sterling. 8 By way of provision, also, for the growing maritime
interests of Glasgow, the magistrates secured and subsidised
a certain Robert Whytingdale to teach the art of navigation
along with book-keeping, arithmetic, and writing. They also
encouraged one Delles Debois, a Protestant refugee, who had
been a merchant in Rochelle, to settle in the town and teach
the French language. And they even permitted the settlement
of a dancing master, though this was with the distinct under-
standing that he should " behave himself soberly, keep no
balls, and permit no promiscuous dancing of young men and
young women together." 9
Matters of courtesy and hospitality also were not neglected.
There is the echo of a forgotten tragedy in the record of a
deputation sent to Kilwinning to attend the burial of the two
Masters of Montgomerie in April, 1696, while a more cheerful
note is struck in the accounts for entertainments given to
various noblemen and others who visited the city. Thus when
the Marquess of Montrose was entertained and made a burgess
in 1698, confections and fruits were provided, as well as a
white-flowered ribbon with a gold fringe for his burgess ticket ;
and there was similar provision for " treats " given at later
7 Burgh Records, i8th Aug., isth Sept., 1701. 8 Ibid. i3th April, 1695.
Ibid. 7th Dec., 1695 ; *9th Feb., 1698 ; nth Nov., 1699.
54 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
dates to the Earl of Argyll, Sir Hew Dalrymple, President of
the Court of Session, the Earl of Donegal, the Duke of Hamil-
ton, and certain ladies. As these " treats " cost no more
than about 7 sterling on each occasion, the call for economy
was not seriously slighted. 10 Much more expensive was the gift
of two hogsheads of wine to Lord Blantyre, but the transaction
was really a matter of business, for it was definitely stated to be
in settlement of all disputes between the town and his lordship. 1
At the same period several other important settlements
were carried through. These settlements, it is interesting to
note, were effected by the energetic and far-seeing provost,
John Anderson of Dowhill, and still further increase the surprise
that his name has not been more generally recognised as that
of a benefactor to the city.
On 20 th January, 1700, Anderson reported to the Town
Council that he had met in Edinburgh Tobias Smollett of Bon-
hill, Provost of Dunbarton, and that, in consultation with the
King's Advocate, they had drawn up an agreement. By that
agreement Dunbarton resigned to Glasgow all rights to levy
harbour dues and charges of any kind on the river, except
those on stranger vessels at Kirkpatrick quay, and also gave
up the right to the first offer of goods imported in wholesale
quantities. It was further agreed that vessels and goods
belonging to the burgesses of each town should be free of all
dues and customs at the other. By way of compensation to
Dunbarton, Glasgow agreed to pay 4500 merks. 2 Thus at last
was cleared away, by the tactful efforts of this very capable
provost, one of the chief obstacles which barred the path of
Glasgow to the open sea and to the golden regions of prosperous
trade which were just then about to open in the West.
10 Burgh Records, 23rd Nov., 1698 ; I4th Aug., 1699 ; 2oth June and 24th
Oct., 1700 ; 8th May, 1701.
1 Ibid. 1 8th Aug. 1694.
2 Ibid. 2oth Jan., 29th June, 1700. Charters and Documents, ii. 280, 289.
CHAPTER VII
PROVOST WALTER GIBSON AND HIS TROUBLES
AT the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of
the eighteenth the population of Glasgow was still almost
entirely what it had been since the time of St. Mungo, Cymric
or British in blood and spirit. The invasion of Highlanders,
Gaelic and Norse, from the glens of the north and the western
isles, which forms so strong and valuable an element to-day,
had not yet begun. In the lists of provosts who filled the
civic chair from 1649 till 1707, Campbell is the only High-
land name. Names like Wallace and Porterfield, Bell and
Barnes, Peadie and Napier and Montgomerie, sufficiently
attest descent from the ancient natives of Strathclyde. 1 The
kinship of the citizens was mostly with the stout folk farmers
and shepherds, Covenanters and Whigs, of the shires of Lanark,
Renfrew, Ayr, and Dumfries. They were probably, therefore,
not so greatly moved to indignation as some writers have sup-
posed at the news of the massacre by King William's Govern-
ment of some thirty-eight of the Macdonalds of Glencoe. They
might even regard that massacre as no very unjust retribution,
in the fashion of the Highlanders themselves, on a tribe of
cattle thieves and outlaws, who were, besides, adherents of what
they considered the idolatrous faith of Rome.
Glasgow folk were probably much more deeply stirred to
wrath by King William's treatment of the Darien Expedition,
in which so large a part of the hard-gotten savings of the
1 Charters and Documents, ii. 633.
55
56 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
citizens had been lost. It was by the influence of King William
and his English Government that the Dutch and English stock-
holders had withdrawn their money from the enterprise, and
it was by the definite commands of that same King and
Government that the English colonists in Jamaica and Virginia
refused to sell provisions to the starving Scottish colonists in
Panama. 2 There was no doubt also that the Spaniards who
finally extinguished the settlement at Darien were encouraged
by the knowledge that the Company of Scotland was dis-
approved of, and unsupported by, the English King.
The disaster of Darien, there is reason to believe, threw a
darker cloud over the fortunes and lives of many of the citizens
of Glasgow than has yet been fully understood. One noted
merchant of the city whose fortunes were already in difficulty
at that time was the enterprising Walter Gibson. This great
trader's original business of malt-making had brought him for-
tune, and his later industry of red-herring curing at Gourock has
often been referred to, along with his astonishingly successful
traffic with France for brandy and salt. McUre gives Walter
Gibson's as the first name among the partners of a great com-
pany trading to Virginia, Barbadoes, New England, St. Chris-
topher's, Montserrat, " and other colonies in America." When
disaster in the end overtook him, no doubt there were many
who shook their heads, and attributed his troubles to the hand
of Providence as a punishment for his part in transporting in
his ships large numbers of Covenanters taken in the battles of
Bothwell Bridge and Ayr's Moss, who were sentenced to slavery
2 After the Union of the Crowns the Scots were permitted to settle in the
plantations, and enjoy the privileges of English natives. From the time of
the Darien adventure they began to be rudely treated. Many of them in
public offices, justices of the peace and members of the council, were turned
out, and sometimes they were rejected upon juries, etc. The goods and ships
of Scotsmen were confiscated in the plantations, and this was sometimes
done when the owners of them resided in London. The Case of Scotsmen
residing in England and in the English Plantations, pp. 4, 5 (Edinburgh, 1703).
The History of Great Britain during the Reign of Queen Anne, by Thos. Somer-
ville, p. 149.
WALTER GIBSON'S ESTATES 57
in the American plantations. Whatever his methods, Gibson
accumulated a great fortune and acquired a goodly estate.
His various possessions included a piece of ground at Dun-
duskie Point, Gourock, which was probably the site of his
fish-curing enterprise, for it contained " a tower, houses, salt-
pans, and fishings." He also owned " that great new-builded
tenement, high and laigh, back and foir, on the west side of
the Saltmercat Street," 3 and, along with salmon cruives and
fishings on the Kelvin and coal seams and pits at Camlachie,
he was laird of Meikle Govan and Bellahouston, Balshagrie,
Whiteinch-meadow, Balgray, Hyndland, Partick, Partick
Bridge-end, and Clayslap or Overton, on which Glasgow Uni-
versity is now built. 4 His politics, apparently, were not those
of the Revolution party. He was the second of the provosts
John Barnes was the first who were imposed upon the city
by the direct action of James VII. But he was evidently no
partisan, for at news of the landing of William of Orange and
flight of King James, he drew up an address from the magis-
strates to the Prince which the Town Council entrusted to his
discretion to despatch or retain. 5
The first intimation that the affairs of the ex-provost were
embarrassed occurs when the attention of the magistrates was
drawn to the fact that certain considerable debts which he
owed to the town, and which he had been allowed ample time
to pay, had not been settled. Several other creditors, it ap-
peared, had taken legal action to secure payment, and to protect
3 " This magnificent structure, admired by all foreigners and strangers,
standing upon eighteen stately pillars or arches, and adorned with several
orders of architecture " (McUre's History, McVean's ed. p. 126) collapsed with
a mighty crash on Sunday, i6th Feb., 1823. The occupants had previously
been warned out, and only one man was killed. Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 414.
The mansion was the work of the famous architect, Sir William Bruce,
designer ot the Merchants' House in Briggate and the later part of Holyrood-
house. From it the thoroughfare at whose corner it stood, the modern Prince's
Street, took its original name of Gibson's Wynd.
4 Burgh Records, 3oth June, 1704. 6 Ibid. 24th Jan. 1689.
58 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the city's interest the Town Council resolved to do the same. 6
Gibson somehow managed to stave off the evil day for nine
years. The magistrates proceeded to put in force a decree of
the Lords of Session, and, for payment of the debt 5000 merks
Scots to dispose of all the late provost's properties to two pur-
chasers, Mungo Cochrane, merchant, and Andrew Gibson,
tenant in Hillhead of Partick. Final action, however, was still
delayed, for the deed was not to be delivered till it was signed
by the consenters and the 5000 merks had been paid. 7
Worse was still to follow. Four years later still the debt had
not yet been settled, and Walter Gibson was a prisoner in the
Tolbooth. As there was some prospect that, if he were released
from confinement he might be able to arrange certain diffi-
culties with Mungo Cochrane which stood in the way of a
settlement, he was allowed out on giving sureties to re-enter
prison when required. Finally, after meetings with him, the
Town Council agreed to accept 4500 merks as payment in full
of the debt of 5000, and the disposition of the ex-provost's
lands and properties was accordingly completed and handed
over to Mungo Cochrane and Andrew Gibson. 8
Gibson was still active in 1713 when some interference with
the flow of water to the town's mills on the Kelvin brought
him again into debate with the magistrates, but the account
of his difficulties already detailed is enough to show the un-
happy change of fortune which befell some even of the most
substantial citizens in those uncertain years.
Only two new industries of any importance appear to have
6 Burgh Records, igth Oct. 1695. 7 Ibid- 3th June, 1704.
8 Ibid. 2oth June, 1708 ; ist Jan. and i3th Sept. 1709. Curiously, though
the Town Council obtained its decree of adjudication in 1697, the lands do
not appear to have actually gone out of Gibson's possession. In 1720 he dis-
poned Whiteinch to Robert Bogle and Balshagray to Matthew Crawford.
These purchasers, however, fortified their titles by further dispositions from
Andrew Gibson of Hillhead and Margaret, daughter of Mungo Cochrane. A
similar series of transactions occurred a few years later in the case of John
Walkinshaw, the Jacobite, and the disposal of his estate of Barrowfield.
ROPEWORK AND BOTTLE FACTORY 59
been begun in Glasgow in those years. In 1696 a company
secured a " Tack " or lease of the whole of the Old Green,
except a part at the eastern end reserved for a timber yard,
for the purpose of establishing a rope manufactory. The
rent, curiously, was to be 10 sterling if the dykes about the
Green continued to be maintained by the magistrates, or 100
Scots (8 6s. 8d. stg.) if the company undertook the upkeep.
The magistrates retained the right of public walking on the
Green, of drying clothes there, and of holding the annual
" roups " or auctions of the town's dues and customs on the
ground. 9
The second enterprise was a glass work " for makeing
botles, window glasses, and others." For this purpose James
Montgomerie, younger, and his partners, merchants of the
town, were granted a lease, for three times nineteen years, of
the ground between St. Enoch's Burn and the Broomielaw,
and they proceeded to set up a factory whose chief feature, a
kiln known as " the Bottle-house him," formed an outstanding
landmark of the city for a hundred years. 10
The outstanding industries of Glasgow then comprised
' ' suggaries, roapary, soapary, and glassary. ' ' To these four must
be added the still older industry of malt-making. This busi-
ness must have been fairly extensive, for ale was made, not
only by the brewster wives who kept taverns, but by large
numbers of the private citizens, by whom it was used both as
a beverage and as an accompaniment, in the scarcity of milk,
to the universal dish of oatmeal porridge. It was to follow this
business that George Buchanan, younger son of the laird of
Gartacharan, near Drymen, came to Glasgow during the
" killing times " of the last Stewart king. He had his maltkiln
on St. Theneu's gait, near the foot of the present Buchanan
Street, and was deacon-convener and visitor of his trade in
9 Ibid. 29th Nov. 1696 ; lyth April, 1697.
10 Ibid. 29th June, 1700.
60 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
1691, 1692 and I694. 1 The other " incorporations " of the
Trades House were rather crafts than industries.
The state of trade in the town led to considerable murmur-
ing in 1701, the inhabitants complaining that certain direct
taxes were being levied upon them, and urging that the revenues
of the burgh from its " Common Good/' or civic properties,
dues and tolls, should be enough to pay all its expenses. By
way of reply to this complaint the magistrates caused a state-
ment of revenue and expenses to be drawn up. This showed the
revenue for the past year to have been 21,175 133. 4d. Scots,
while the expenditure had been 3113 75. more, or 24,289
os. 4d. The heaviest item on the side of expenditure was
8722 of interest upon the town's debt, which amounted to the
substantial sum for that time of 158,584 Scots or 13,215 6s. 8d.
sterling. 2
1 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 3 ; The Making of Buchanan Street^
p. 41.
2 Burgh Records, 2ist Nov. 1701.
CHAPTER VIII
UNION RIOTS IN GLASGOW
IN December 1701 the Town Council debated the method to
be taken for addressing the King regarding the serious decay
of trade in Glasgow, 1 but the project was stopped by the death
of William on the eighth of the following March. Queen Mary
having died eight years earlier, the crown passed at once to
her younger sister, who then became Queen Anne. The Council
duly covered the King's seat and its own in the High Kirk
with seventy-six ells of black baize, and, headed by the Provost,
Hugh Montgomerie of Busby, took the oath of allegiance to the
new sovereign. Already, while this was being done, Queen
Anne herself had revived the project which was to become the
most important act of her reign, and was to open a new era of
prosperity for Glasgow and of progress for Scotland. On the
nth of March, the third day after her accession, in her first
speech to Parliament, the Queen recommended the opening of
negotiations for a union of the Parliaments of England and
Scotland.
1 The economic condition of the Northern Kingdom altogether had reached
a depth of very serious depression. Dr. Thomas Somerville, author of The
History of Great Britain during the Reign of Queen Anne, has painted it in
sombre colours. " The history of Scotland," he says, " from the union of
the two crowns, exhibits a gradual tendency to national depression, which,
at the accession of Queen Anne, had reached an extremity almost incapable
of any aggravation or redress. Science and literature languished ; commerce,
manufactures, and population declined ; luxury, from the example of a more
opulent neighbourhood, advanced with rapid steps among the higher ranks.
The specie of the country was drained, and poverty, like a gangrene, had
overspread the whole body of the people." p. 147.
61
62 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
The idea was not new. All the world knows how Edward I.
had effected his purpose, by crafty and overbearing methods
and with disastrous results. James VI., on his accession to the
English crown, had at once made a proposal for an incorporat-
ing union of the kingdoms, and actually assumed the name of
King of Great Britain. 2 Fifty years later, during his domina-
tion in both kingdoms, Oliver Cromwell carried the transaction
through, and governed the two countries as a single republic,
which was only broken up again at the Restoration. Latest of
all, King William, in his first communication to the Scottish
Parliament, had pointed out the advantages of a union, and
the Scots had appointed commissioners to complete the project.
All these movements of a hundred years, however, had been
frustrated by the reluctance of the English merchants to admit
Scotland to the advantages of their foreign trade. It was only
upon the arrival of another consideration, a real danger to
themselves, that these English merchants showed eagerness to
secure the union. Queen Anne was without a direct heir. Her
last remaining child, the Duke of Gloucester, had died two
years before her accession. In the event of her own death there
was the possibility of serious trouble over the inheritance of
the crown, and the English saw with alarm the likelihood of
disastrous results if once more there should be separate kings
ruling on the two sides of the Border. In England a recent
Act had settled the crown on the House of Hanover, but no
such Act had been passed in Scotland, and in the event of
Queen Anne's death it seemed quite possible that the northern
kingdom might invite the actual nearest heir, Her Majesty's
half-brother James, to occupy the throne. England was then
at war with France, and the issue was doubtful. The battle of
Blenheim had not yet been fought. And if the weight of Scot-
2 Magna Britannia was the name given by the ancient geographers to the
larger of the British Isles, to distinguish it from Britannia Parva, the smaller
isle, which is now Ireland.
BARGAINING FOR UNION 63
land were thrown into the balance in favour of the fleur-de-lys
the prospect would be serious indeed. In this emergency
Queen Anne's first Parliament at once appointed a commission
to treat with Scotland for a union.
But the English were not yet prepared to meet Scotland on
equal terms. While anxious to obtain for themselves the
political security which a union would give, and to admit
certain products of Scotland which would be helpful to their
own manufactures, they proposed to shut out other Scottish
products, such as wool, which might compete with their own ;
they refused to allow Scottish merchants to trade with the
English plantations in America ; and they insisted that the
Company of Scotland must cease its operations. 3 In view of
the unfairness of these terms it is not surprising that on Qth
September, 1703, the Scottish Parliament withdrew its com-
missioners, and in emphatic language declared their commission
to be " terminate and extinct."
Among the Scottish commissioners whose labours were thus
suddenly cut short was Hugh Montgomerie of Busby, the
Provost of Glasgow, on account of whose expenses, before he
set out for London, the Town Council ordered 2000 merks to
be borrowed and placed in his hand, and at the same time
obliged themselves to meet any bills he might draw upon them. 4
Scotland was now dangerously exasperated. When the
next Parliament met, in May 1703, a political firebrand, of
strong republican views, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, led a
definite crusade of hostility against England. The English
Parliament had settled the succession to the crown of that
country on the Princess Sophia, wife of the Elector of Hanover,
and daughter of the Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James VI.
and I. Now the Scottish Parliament passed an Act of Security
declaring that Scotland would choose a different sovereign
unless its demands were satisfied. There were rumours of
Hill Burton, viii. 82. Burgh Records, loth Oct. 1702.
64 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
a great tinchel or deer drive by the Highland chiefs in
Lochaber, at which a rising for " James VIII." was to be
planned, and certain stormy petrels of the Jacobite court in
France, like the notorious Lord Lovat, were known to be in
the country. 5
But the exasperation of the people of Scotland was most
alarmingly shown by a tragic event at Edinburgh. The
Annandale, a ship belonging to the Company of Scotland,
which had been fitted out for a voyage to the East Indies, had
been seized in the Thames at the instance of the English East
India Company. At the moment when the passion of Scotland
was excited to flaming point by this outrage, an English vessel,
the Worcester, trading to India, was driven by stress of weather
into the Firth of Forth. The ship looked like a pirate, with
her guns and numerous crew, and strange rumours regarding
her began to be passed from mouth to mouth. Some of her
sailors when in liquor made strange statements. In particular
a black slave described how, off the Coromandel coast, the
Worcester had captured a ship with English-speaking men on
board, had thrown the crew into the sea, and had sold the
vessel to a native trader. The people of Edinburgh, with rising
resentment, identified the lost ship with one belonging to their
own African Company, and Green, the master of the Worcester,
and his crew, fifteen men in all, were seized, tried, and con-
demned to execution. The evidence was flimsy, and the
Government would have reprieved the prisoners, but a furious
mob surged round the Tolbooth, and demanded their lives.
The Government yielded, and Green, his mate, and the gunner
of the ship were dragged to Leith, amid the curses and pelting
of the crowd, and there hanged, while they protested their
innocence to the last. 6
6 The Duke of Queensbery's Letters, nth Aug. 1703; i4th Jan. 1704.
Somerville's Queen Anne, p. 179.
6 Defoe, Hist, of Union, p. 78.
FRONTISPIECE AND TITLE-PAGE OF A VIEW OF THE
CITY OF GLASGOW " BY JOHN MCURE.
SCOTLAND PREPARING FOR WAR 65
That was in April 1705. Meanwhile, under the Act of
Security of the previous year, and in order to be prepared to
resist any further English aggressions, including the attempt
to force the English choice of a monarch on Scotland, every
man in the country who could bear arms was being trained by
monthly drills. In Glasgow captains, lieutenants, and ensigns
were appointed for the various companies, and severe penalties
were imposed on any who did not accept their appointment
and fulfil their duties. Certain Glasgow merchants, also,
anticipating a demand for munitions of war, began to import
gunpowder on a considerable scale, and the magistrates took
the opportunity to lay in large supplies. 7 Nothing seemed
more likely than that, should the Queen die, the two kingdoms
would be embroiled almost immediately in the flames of war.
With these facts in view the English Parliament and the
English nation at last saw it to be their interest to arrange
a union of the kingdoms on something like equal terms.
Commissioners were accordingly appointed, thirty-one on each
side, and after secret and exciting labours, which lasted
for a week more than two months, a scheme of union was
produced.
When the details of this scheme were made known in
Scotland a storm of opposition at once broke out. The country
was treated to a shower of pamphlets which declared that the
commissioners had been bribed, and had sold their country.
What Scotsmen had wanted was a federal, not an incorporating
union, and the arrangement which had been made placed the
kingdom, it was averred, for ever under the heel of its ancient
enemies, the English. 8 Behind the storm was the whole force
and interest of the Jacobite party, who saw in the union a
destruction of their hopes that Scotland as a separate kingdom
might see a restoration of the direct line of its ancient Stewart
7 Burgh Records, I2th and iyth Feb. 1704.
8 Hill Burton, viii. 137.
E H.G. in.
66 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
kings, in the person of the Queen's brother, as James VIII.
The Presbyterians also, and especially the Covenanters of the
west, were enraged at the thought that they were to be placed
once more under the rule of bishops, who comprised an impor-
tant part of the House of Lords.
The first act of physical violence took place in Edinburgh
itself. On 23rd October, 1706, while Parliament was sitting
to consider the measure, a rabble gathered in the streets of
the capital, hooted and stoned the High Commissioner,
and smashed the doors and broke the windows of the Lord
Provost, Sir Patrick Johnstone, who had been one of the
commissioners at the drawing up of the treaty. Further
trouble was only averted by the bringing of troops from the
castle into the city, and the posting of guards of soldiers in
the streets. 9
It was not long before the bad example of the capital was
followed in Glasgow. Here an address was drawn up urging
the Government to abandon the project of union, and the
magistrates were asked to give it their official sanction. This,
under the direction of the Lord Advocate, they refused to do,
and, on the refusal being made known, a ferment began to rise
in the city. In the midst of the public excitement and fever,
the General Assembly thought fit to appoint the keeping of a
national fast. In Glasgow there was a popular preacher, the
Rev. James Clark, minister of the Tron Kirk, who seems to
have inherited the instincts and proclivities of John Knox.
He chose for his text Ezra, ch. viii, v. 21 : " Then I proclaimed
a fast there, at the river of Ahava, that we might afflict our-
selves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and
for our little ones, and for all our substance." His congregation
were already irritated and excited enough, when, waxing
eloquent in his peroration, he declared that addresses would
not do, prayers were not enough, exertions of another kind
9 Defoe, p. 238 ; Lochhart Papers, vol. i. p. 163.
A WEAK PROVOST 67
were needed. " Wherefore," he concluded, " up and be valiant
for the city of our God ! "
The sermon ended about eleven o'clock, and by one o'clock
the drum was beating in the back streets, and the mob was
getting together in dangerous fashion. As an indication of its
temper it burned the Articles of Union at the Cross. 10 Next
day, the 7th of November, the crowd, led by some of the
deacons of the trades, surged round the Tolbooth, shouting,
raging, throwing stones, and raising a great uproar. Finding
the Provost had escaped from the building, the rioters rushed
to his private house, where they seized all the arms in his
possession, some twenty-five muskets, with other property.
They then proceeded to break the windows of the laird of
Blackhouse, who had advised against them.
Provost Aird meanwhile, with rather more discretion than
valour, fled to Edinburgh. He returned when all was quiet,
but the trouble soon broke out again. A little firmness on the
Provost's part would probably have prevented any disturbance,
but he was of the sort that fails to be firm out of fear that it
may provoke reprisals. The result which followed was that
which may always be expected from such a policy. To con-
ciliate the populace Aird released from the Tolbooth a man
who had stolen one of his muskets, and took a bond from him
to appear when called upon. Scenting weakness at once, as a
mob always does, the crowd stormed into the Town Clerk's
chamber, and demanded that the bond be given up. The
leader was one Finlay, " a loose sort of fellow," without
employment, who had once been a sergeant in Dunbarton's
regiment in Flanders, and whose mother kept a " changehouse "
or small tavern in the outskirts of the town. Thinking to
pacify the rabble, the Provost yielded again, and gave up the
bond. The only result, however, was to make the crowd more
insolent. When the Provost came out of the Tolbooth they
10 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. xiv,
68 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
assailed him with villainous language, hustled him, and covered
him with dirt. Seeing it impossible to reach his own house, he
dashed up a common stair, and took refuge in a house, where
they failed to find him. Defoe, who tells the whole story,
declares that if they had found him they would have murdered
him. But the Provost was hid, somewhat ingloriously, like
Falstaff, in a bed folded up against the wall, which they never
thought of taking down ; and, having escaped the danger, he
was conveyed out of town next day by his friends, and retired
for a second time to Edinburgh.
By that time the mob had obtained complete mastery of
the town. No magistrate durst show his face, and all the
houses of the burgh were searched for arms. It was only at
last, when the magistrates saw the citizens disarmed and the
rabble possessed of their weapons, with the prospect that they
might seize their houses, wives, and wealth, that they took
heart of grace and ordered the captains of the city companies
to call out their reliable men. When the rabble, headed by
Finlay, next attacked the Tolbooth they were surprised to find
it defended. At the first sally, and the firing of a few shots,
the rioters dispersed and fled, and they were soon cleared from
the piazzas and closes.
Finlay then, who had established a guard of his own in the
castle ruins near the Cathedral, declared that he would march
upon Edinburgh, and force the abandonment of the union.
He set off with a company of forty-five men.
Meanwhile the Government, seeing the danger of the
situation, hastily, on 2gth November, passed an Act repealing
the order to train companies, and ordering the return of arms
to the magazines. When this was read from the usual place of
proclamation, the head of the Tolbooth stair, the riot broke
out again. The officers were stoned, the town guard was dis-
armed, and the mob, breaking into the Tolbooth, possessed
itself of two hundred and fifty halberts stored there. They
RIOTERS MARCH TO KILSYTH 69
then marched about the town, with a drum beating at their
head, breaking doors and windows, entering and plundering
houses, and carrying the spoil to their headquarters at the
castle.
While these scenes were being enacted in Glasgow Finlay
and his party had reached Kilsyth. They found no signs there
of the great contingents of malcontents which they had ex-
pected to join their march from different parts of the country.
On the other hand, they heard that a body of some two hundred
dragoons was on the way from Edinburgh to suppress the
rising. Finlay then marched his men to Hamilton, hoping to
find another muster there. There was no news of it, however,
and so, says Defoe, " he bestowed a volley of curses upon
them," and marched back to Glasgow, where he arrived, " to
the no small mortification of his fellows," on the day after the
plundering riot above described.
The marchers made haste to hand over their weapons, not
to the magistrates, but to certain deacons of crafts, who, it
appears, had been secretly their friends, and hastily dispersed
to their homes. Within two hours afterwards the dragoons
entered the town. They seized Finlay and a comrade, one
Montgomery, whom they found sitting with him by his
mother's fire. They then rode to the cross, and cleared the
streets, and presently, finding nothing further to do, rather
inadvisedly marched away again by Kilsyth to Edinburgh
with their prisoners.
But no sooner were the soldiers out of the town than the
mob gathered again, and, knowing that they had only the
pusillanimous magistrates to deal with, demanded that the
Town Council should send a deputation to Edinburgh to
secure the release of Finlay and his friend. Faced by force
majeure, the magistrates again yielded, and sent two of their
number, with several of the deacons of trades, to interview the
Government. That deputation received short shrift from the
70 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Chancellor, but by the time its members returned to Glasgow
the outbreak had died away. 1
At the same time another demonstration was being made
in the west country. On 20th November a party of Covenanters,
several hundreds strong, rode into Dumfries, drew up in
military order at the cross, and burned the Articles of Union.
Arrangements were also made for a great rising, to be led by
one Cunningham of Eckatt. The malcontents were to meet at
Hamilton, eight thousand strong, march upon Edinburgh, and
disperse the Parliament. On being told, however, that they
were being used as cats'-paws by their old enemies the Jacobites,
the Covenanters lost enthusiasm, and, when only four hundred
appeared at the rendezvous, they abandoned the project. 2 It
was this party which Finlay had hoped to meet when he led
his men from Kilsyth to Hamilton.
Provost John Aird and his bailies cannot be said to have
made anything like a heroic appearance during these troubles,
but it is agreeable to know that their incapacity and pusil-
lanimity have had no counterpart in the civic annals, either
before or since. A notable feature of the occasion was the
action taken by John Bowman, Dean of Guild, and George
Buchanan, Deacon-Convener. In the midst of the disturbances
these gentlemen called their respective houses together, and
drew up a list of emergency measures for quelling the tumult
and protecting life and property. These they submitted to the
provost and magistrates on i8th November, but the necessary
firmness seems to have been lacking on the part of the city
fathers to make them effective. 3
On i6th January, 1707, the Act of Union passed through
1 The fullest account of these riots is given by Defoe in his History of the
Union, pp. 267-280. Details are also given in the Hist. MSS. Com. Report,
XV. pt. iv. p. 352, and in The Union 0/1707, published by the Glasgow Herald
in 1907.
2 Memoirs of Ker of Kersland, vol. i.
3 Burgh Records, i8th Nov. 1706.
UNION ACCOMPLISHED 71
its final stages in the Parliament House in Edinburgh, and was
duly touched with the sceptre by the Queen's High Commis-
sioner. Notwithstanding the opposition it received from the
populace of Glasgow, the Act was to form one of the most
important turning-points in the fortunes of the city, opening
up for it a new era of prosperity through the golden gateways
of the West.
CHAPTER IX
GLASGOW AT THE UNION
THE main purpose of the Union of the Parliaments of Scotland
and England, which was consummated in 1707, was, of course,
political, to obviate the possibility of a renewal of the old
conflicts between the kingdoms which had proved so ruinous
for three centuries. For full discovery of the other advantages
and disadvantages time was required. The material gain was
not all, by any means, upon the side of Scotland. The Union,
for instance, opened the rich Scottish fisheries to English
enterprise. It also enabled England to take a hand in the
Scottish wool trade. Hitherto, by the export of Scottish wool,
the industrialists of Holland and Sweden had been enabled to
establish in these countries manufactures which competed
severely with the woollen products of England. On the other
hand, while Scotland benefited in many ways, the advantages
were not at all equally distributed. Edinburgh, for example,
lost much of the prestige and wealth which accrued from the
meeting there of all the most notable people of the country to
attend the Parliament. The harbour towns of the East Coast,
too, which once prospered so greatly upon their trade with the
Scandinavian countries and the Baltic, began presently to find
their commerce diverted into other channels. Little is left
to-day, at Culross and Pittenweem, Crail and Anstruther, of the
busy traffic which tempted James V. to describe Fife as " a
rough Scots blanket fringed with gold." The part of Scotland
which profited most from the Union was undoubtedly the west,
72
GLASGOW PAYS M.P.'S EXPENSES 73
and especially the city of Glasgow. Other towns in the west,
such as Dumfries and Ayr and Dunbarton, had an equal oppor-
tunity with the ancient archbishop's burgh on the Clyde. In-
deed, Glasgow had many handicaps, chiefly by reason of its
inland position. But the imagination, shrewdness, and enter-
prise of its citizens enabled them to see and seize the happy
chance. As the trade with America opened to them, they rose
to the occasion, and began to lay the foundations of a great
business overseas.
This development of trade did not, of course, come about
quite immediately. In common with the other royal burghs
of the country, Glasgow continued for some time to suffer from
severe depression. The Union at first, indeed, rather increased
than diminished its burdens. Of the four burghs, Glasgow,
Rutherglen, Renfrew, and Dunbarton, which united to send a
member to Parliament, Glasgow was much the most important.
Probably for this reason, at the first election, on 26th May,
1708, the Provost of Glasgow, Robert Rodger, was chosen as
representative, 1 and from that date onward constant entries
appear in the records of considerable sums paid by the city for
its Provost's attendance in London.
That attendance had a serious effect upon the private
fortunes of at least one worthy citizen upon whom this some-
what doubtful honour was conferred. In 1716, after the death
of Thomas Smith, merchant and Dean of Guild, who had
represented the four burghs in Parliament for several years,
his widow was reduced to petition the magistrates and council
for assistance on the ground that her husband's attention to
public business, and frequent long absences in London, had
brought about the neglect and decay of his private affairs, so
that nothing remained for the subsistence of herself and her son.
After enquiry the Town Council authorised the investment of
2000 merks for behoof of the boy, then seven years of age. 2
1 Burgh Records, 25th May, 1708. z Ibid. 27th Aug. 1716.
74 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
The city itself, just after the Union, petitioned the Conven-
tion of Royal Burghs for help, and actually obtained a gratuity
of 1000 merks on the curious ground of respect for Robert
Rodger, its Provost and Member of Parliament. 3
The reading of the Council minutes gives one the impression
from time to time that the city fathers of those days were by
no means ashamed to " make a poor mouth " when the per-
formance seemed likely to prove profitable. At the time of the
Union, however, they seem to have had fair reason for their
complaint. In an appeal made to the Convention of Burghs
in 1711 against an addition of i los. to the proportion of the
tax roll payable by Glasgow, the commissioner for the city
recounted some considerable disheartenments. He estimated
that the city merchants had made a loss of more than 30,000
in their trading during the three previous years, and he pointed
to the fact that during the current year they had lost four of
their West India ships, and feared the loss of more. 4
The population, nevertheless, continued to increase. Accord-
ing to the census ordered by the magistrates in 1708, a year
after the Union, it was 12,766 only 818 more than it had
been in 1688. But four years later, in 1712, it had increased to
13,832. In this latter year the rental of the built portion of
the city was 7840 sterling, while that of the burgh roods, lands,
mills, and New Green was 1068, altogether 8908 sterling. 5
In the national tax roll of 1714, the proportion payable by
Edinburgh was 40, that of Glasgow 16 143., while Ruther-
glen's was 55., Irvine's I2S., Rothesay's 43., and Dunbarton's
and Renfrew's 6s. each. 6
As a matter of fact, though the city was suffering from
serious depression at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
3 Convention Records, iv. 466.
4 Ibid. v. 7-9 ; Burgh Records, soth Aug. 1711.
5 Ibid. 27th May, 1712 ; Convention Records, v. 54 ; Brown's Hist. ii. 88-97*
6 Convention Records, v. 139-40.
NEW INDUSTRIES 75
the seeds of prosperity had been sown and a spirit of enterprise
was in the air. In 1699, for example, William Cochrane of
Ochiltree, John Alexander of Blackhouse, William Dunlop,
Principal of the University, Mungo Cochrane, merchant, and
a number of others, applied to the Privy Council to have the
privileges and immunities of a manufactory granted to a
woollen mill they proposed to set up in Glasgow. Their inten-
tion was to produce damasks, half-silks, draughts, friezes,
druggets, tartans, crapes, russets, etc., from Scottish wool, as
good as any imported and "at as easie a rate," and they
expected by this means to keep within the kingdom a vast
sum of money as much as 10,000 a year then being sent
abroad, chiefly to Ireland, for such stuffs. 7
In the same year a similar application was made by a
company of English traders, who had brought English work-
men to the city, and proposed to set up a hardware factory for
the production of such articles as pins, needles, scissors, scythes,
tobacco boxes, and knives. And in the year following a com-
pany of Glasgow merchants applied for and received a licence
for a factory of similar goods, by which they expected not only
to retain much money within the country, but to give employ-
ment to " many poor and young boys who are in these hard
and dear times a burden to the kingdom."
Then in February 1701 the privileges of a manufactory were
granted to two other sets of petitioners. Matthew and Daniel
Campbell, merchants in Glasgow, proposed to establish an
additional sugar refinery, and in connection with it a work
" for distilling brandy and other spirits from all manner of
grain of the growth of this kingdom." For their purpose they
had brought foreign experts to the city, and they pointed out
that " the distillery will both be profitable for the consumption
of the product of this kingdom, and for trade for the coast of
Guinea and America, seeing that no trade can be managed to
7 Reg. Priv. Council, 2ist Dec. 1699.
76 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the places foresaid, or the East Indies, without great quantities
of the foresaid liquors."
The other proposal which received the sanction of the
Privy Council was for a soap-work in connection with a glass-
work. A Glasgow merchant, James Montgomery, younger,
pointed to the cost and hazard of bringing bottles from works
at Leith and Morison's Haven to the west country. He also
pointed to the abundance, in the West Highlands, of ferns and
wood ashes, " which serve for little or no other use, and may
be manufactured, first into good white soap, which is nowhere
made in the kingdom to perfection, and the remains of these
wood ashes, after the soap is made, is a most excellent material
for making glass." 8
Instances like these show that the spirit of industrial enter-
prise was already kindling in Glasgow, and waiting only the
breath of opportunity to burst into vigorous flame. Mean-
while several of the matters which came up for decision in the
management of the public affairs of the city throw interesting
light on the everyday life of the time.
One of the most serious blemishes in the public life of the
early eighteenth century is more than hinted at again and
again in the burgh records of Glasgow. Officials of the Govern-
ment were clearly not above accepting gifts from parties bring-
ing requests and disputes before them. The value of the gifts,
too, appears to have become more considerable as time went
8 Reg. Priv. Council, 1701. Chambers's Domestic Annals, iii. 126-8. Two
of the persons chiefly concerned with these proposals were among the most
notable Glasgow citizens of that time. Daniel Campbell of Shawfield was
the future M.P. for the city, who built, before 1712, the famous Shawfield
Mansion opposite the Stockwell in Trongate, which was to play a considerable
part in Glasgow history, and who afterwards with its compensation money
purchased the island of Islay. Mungo Cochrane was the purchaser, along
with Andrew Gibson of Hillhead, of the great estates of the unfortunate
Provost Walter Gibson. He was also lessee of the city's great property of
Provan, part of which, at Riddrie, he enclosed with a stone wall. He had,
besides, many other prosperous interests in Glasgow. Burgh Records, igthDec.
1712, etc.
' THE TOWN'S FRIENDS " 77
on. Evidently the city fathers and their agents in Edinburgh
in the seventeenth century were fully assured that business
could be expedited, and probably decided in their favour, by
a timely gift to the persons in authority, and there are accord-
ingly frequent entries of payments for a keg of herrings and
the like, sent as presents to " the town's friends." After the
seat of government was removed to London a keg of herrings
was apparently no longer regarded as a sufficient gift. A
hogshead of wine was now de rigueur, and the hogshead cost two
hundred merks (11 55. sterling). 9
Another questionable proceeding, which might have proved
dangerous to the liberties of the burgh if carried too far, was a
disposition to grant valuable public favours at the mere request
of some nobleman or person of importance. Thus again and
again individuals were admitted to burgess rank and privileges,
without payment, at the desire of personages like the Duke of
Montrose, Lord Pollok, and the Duchess of Hamilton. 10
Among these personages the Duchess of Hamilton had a special
pull upon the city by reason of the fact that she was High
Sheriff of Lanarkshire, and so entitled to act as returning
officer at the election of a member of Parliament by the four
burghs of Glasgow, Dunbarton, Renfrew, and Rutherglen. 1
By virtue of the ownership of Provan the magistrates and
Town Council also claimed the right to appoint a commissioner
to vote for a member of Parliament for the county. This right
9 Burgh Records, i8th Sept. 1707.
10 Ibid. i7th Sept., i8th Dec. 1707 ; ist Jan., ist Oct. 1709 ; soth Sept.
1710.
1 Ibid. 24th Oct. 1710. The Duchess had also a claim upon the goodwill
of the city by reason of her gift, already noted (page 49), of 18,000 merks
for college bursaries. This great lady was the last of the original house of
Hamilton. By her marriage to a younger son of the first Marquess of Douglas
her titles and estates passed into possession of that great house, and on the
extinction of the senior line, in the person of the Duke of Douglas in 1760,
her descendant inherited the honours and chiefship of the Douglases, which
the Duke of Hamilton holds at the present day. The Duchess died in 1716.
78 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
was refused on one occasion, the landed heritors probably
resenting the intrusion of burgess influence into county affairs.
It is indignantly recorded in the Town Council minutes that
" at the last meeting of the freeholders of the said shire at
Lanark for electing of their commissioner to serve in the
ensuing parliament the commissioner for this burgh was most
unjustly and illegally turned out, and the vote for this burgh
as freeholder of the lands of Provan refused to be received by
a majority, of whom several were not qualified conform to
law." 2 The magistrates took measures, however, to enforce
the burgh's right, and were apparently successful, for, at the
next election, Thomas Smith, Dean of Guild, was appointed,
" for the lands of Provan and others," to attend a meeting of
the barons and freeholders at Lanark to elect a " commissioner/'
or member of Parliament for the county. 3
It will be noted that the people at large had no voice in the
election of their representatives. Democracy had at one time
been the order of affairs, but had been found wanting, and had
been abolished. Down to the year 1469 the whole community
had voted in the election of the Town Council. An Act of
Parliament in that year, ' however, narrated "the gret truble
and contensione " which occurred at elections, " throw rnulti-
tud and clamor of commonis sympil personis," and ordered
that at the yearly elections thereafter the old Town Council
should choose the new. A full account of the method of elec-
tion was furnished in 1711 in response to an order of the Con-
vention of Royal Burghs, that each royal burgh should send in
its " sett," the rules under which it conducted its election.
According to this " sett," the Glasgow Town Council then con-
sisted of a provost, three bailies, thirteen councillors of the
merchant rank, and twelve of the trades rank. There were a
dean of guild, a deacon-convener, a treasurer, and a master of
work, who might be chosen either from the members of council
2 Burgh Records, 2yth Oct. 1713. 3 Ibid. 22nd Feb. 1715.
METHOD OF CIVIC ELECTION 79
or from outside. In the latter case they became additional
members of council. The elections began on the first Tuesday
after Michaelmas, and were continued on the following Friday
and Wednesday. First the old council elected the new provost
and two bailies out of the merchant rank, and one bailie out
of the crafts rank ; then the new provost and bailies, with the
provosts and bailies of the two previous years, and others
brought in, if necessary, to make up the number of twelve,
chose thirteen merchants and twelve craftsmen as councillors,
and afterwards the new magistrates and councillors, along with
the deacons of the fourteen crafts and an equal number of
merchants, chose the dean of guild, the deacon-convener, the
treasurer, the master of work, the bailie of Gorbals, the water
bailie, and remaining office-bearers. 4
4 Ibid. 22nd Oct. 1711.
CHAPTER X
TOWN COUNCIL ACTIVITIES
AMONG the questions which came up for decision by the Town
Council immediately after the Union was the dispute between
the barbers and surgeons. In 1656 these practitioners had, on
their joint application, been erected into a craft, with a deacon
of their own, by the city fathers. Since then, however, serious
differences had grown up between them. The surgeons had
come to regard themselves as of higher qualifications than the
barbers, and to resist the claim of the barbers to admit to the
craft, and to the practice of surgery, individuals who had not
proved their possession of these qualifications. Apparently the
surgeons had been inclined to carry matters with a high hand,
and to exclude from membership of the craft men of the more
humble calling.
It was a delicate question for the Town Council to settle,
for the barbers still performed certain of the simpler operations
of surgery, such as blood-letting. But the Council, after hear-
ing the report of a committee, decided very wisely. All the
qualified barbers who had been excluded were to be admitted
to the craft, and their apprentices were to be " booked " from
the date of their indentures. At the same time the barbers
were to take no part in judging the qualifications of surgeons
for admission to the craft, and barbers and surgeons were to
have equal rights to vote and to hold office. 1 Thus was patched
up for a time the rent which in the end was to separate the
1 Burgh Records, i6th Sept. 1707 ; 4th Jan. 1714.
80
CONTROL OF PRICES 81
learned profession of surgery from the humbler business of the
barber of later times.
Further calls for the exercise of wise judgment arose out of
the custom of the time by which the Town Council fixed the
prices of the various necessaries of life, such as candles and ale
and bread. The advocates of a similar practice at the present
day the control of prices by public authority may find much
to interest them in the working of the system in the eighteenth
century.
In October 1707 the magistrates and council ordered that
the twelve-penny loaf should weigh 14 ounces, and that the
price of candles should be 463. 8d. per stone. In each case they
appear to have fixed an impossible price. The candle-makers
were the first to show their disapproval. Michael Smith, in the
presence of the council, " in a rude and unbecoming way,"
declared that he would not obey the statute, while Archibald
Allason as boldly stated that he would evade the order by
going to live in the Gorbals, buying his tallow elsewhere than
from the fleshers of the burgh, and making his candles and
selling them as he chose. To secure obedience the magistrates
imprisoned the rebellious candle-makers in the Tolbooth, and
it was only after a month's seclusion that they agreed to obey
the edict of the council.
The bakers were less violent and more successful in their
protest. They took pains to show that, as the price of wheat
had risen to 10 Scots per boll, it was not possible to make
the I2d. loaf of the weight ordered. The magistrates then
reconsidered the facts, and found it advisable to reduce the
weight of the loaf to " eleven ounces and three drops." 2
In similar fashion modern ideas as to a common responsibility
for the upkeep of roads and bridges were forestalled two hun-
dred years before the era of tar macadam. In 1712 the Town
Council agreed to contribute to the repair of Inchbelly bridge
2 Ibid, nth Oct. 1707 ; 22nd Jan. 1708.
F H.G. III.
82 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
and of the road between it and Kilsyth, which had become
impassable under the traffic between Glasgow and Edinburgh.
They also, on the representation of the Earl of Wigtown,
agreed to join in a petition to Parliament for the rebuilding of
the bridge at Kirkintilloch, which had been destroyed by a
great flood. For the repair of Calder bridge, one end of which
was in Stirlingshire and the other in Lanarkshire, they agreed
to contribute 5 sterling. They paid John Campbell of Blyths-
wood 5 sterling towards laying a causeway at Inchinnan.
For the rebuilding of bridges in Upper Clydesdale, which
carried the traffic to England, they paid William Baillie of
Littlegill 10 sterling, on condition that the inhabitants of
Glasgow should be allowed to pass free of toll. And they even
sent 10 to Elgin to help in the building of a harbour at Lossie-
mouth. 3
In the absence also of any such device as insurance against
fire, the Town Council again and again, as in the case of the
widow of John Anderson of Dowhill, granted a sum of money
to help the rebuilding of a tenement, and even to help the
owner of the damaged property if in straits. 4
From first to last the magistrates maintained a lively
interest in education. The Grammar School was, of course,
their particular care, and they did not hesitate to cashier the
" doctors," or masters there, if their services proved unsatis-
factory. In 1717 they summarily discharged the second and
third doctors, and directed Mr. George Skirvin, the rector, to
write to a schoolmaster in Bathgate, whom they proposed to
appoint as second " doctor," in place of one of the dismissed.
But they also took a wider purview. The fortunes of the city
were largely on the sea, and by way of securing the necessary
supply of skilled ship-masters the city fathers agreed to pay
3 Burgh Records, 24th Jan. 1712 ; 2yth Feb. 1713 ; 4th Jan. and 2nd July,
1714 ; 3rd Jan. 1717 ; i6th Oct. 1708.
4 Ibid, 24th Jan. and 27th May, 1712,
DIFFERENCE WITH GORBALS 83
one James Muir a yearly " pension," or allowance, of 100
Scots for his encouragement in teaching mathematics and
navigation in the burgh. 5 Three years later they commissioned
the provost, while in London, to secure a teacher of writing,
arithmetic, and book-keeping, and they agreed to pay the man
thus secured, a certain Thomas Mew, a salary of twenty pounds
for the first year and fifteen pounds for each year afterwards. 6
And again, on the suggestion of the principal of the University,
and " for the good of the place," one John Grandpre was
induced to come from Edinburgh and open a school for the
teaching of French, at a salary of 12 los. sterling yearly. 7
At the same time the Town Council was not less active and
efficient in maintaining its vested rights. A notable occurrence
of those years was the attempt of the inhabitants of Gorbals
to act as an independent community. As feuars on the burgh's
property they were thirled to the town's mills. That is, they
were obliged to have their malt and other grain ground at these
mills, and in this way to contribute to the " Common Good " of
the city. In 1715, however, they proceeded to set up a mill
of their own, and to use it for the grinding of their malt.
It was the first beginning of a recalcitrance which might
have led to the setting up of an independent community on the
opposite bank of the Clyde. But the Town Council was equal
to the occasion. It promptly withdrew from the inhabitants
of Gorbals the valuable privilege of crossing Glasgow bridge
free of toll, and it directed the bailie of Gorbals to withdraw
the permission to keep a school in the town's chapel or prison
in Gorbals, which was to return to its use as a prison only.
These measures helped to bring the feuars of Gorbals to reason,
and their case became still further urgent when they saw the
road through their village sink deeper and deeper in mire for
lack of means to repair it properly.
5 Ibid. 1 8th Sept. 1707. Ibid, igth Aug. 1710.
7 Ibid, ist April, 1714.
84 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
It was not, however, till two years later, on the intervention
of two lords of justiciary and a lord of session, Sir John Maxwell
of Pollok, that the quarrel was finally settled. On the Gorbals
feuars promising before these lords, who were " all justices of
the peace," to return to the use of the town's mills, and also
to cart the necessary stones and sand, the magistrates and
council agreed to repair and causeway the main road through
the village. 8
Shortly before this the lords of justiciary were required to
intervene in another curious Glasgow affair. In a circuit court
at Jedburgh, eight gipsies, six of them women, some of them
aged, and one of them with a child, had been sentenced to be
transported to the plantations, as " habit and repute gipsies,
sorners, etc." They had been brought to Glasgow and lodged
in the Tolbooth to await shipment, but no shipowner or ship-
master would take them on the mere prospect of receiving
payment for them from the colonists. Glasgow promptly
complained of the burden of supporting criminals with whose
delinquencies the city had no concern, and the lords of justi-
ciary, considering that it would cost more to keep the gipsies
in prison than to pay for their transport, agreed to expend 13
for their passage to Virginia. The merchants who agreed to
accept the freight were James Lees, Charles Crawford, and
Robert Buntine of Ardoch, and the Border nomads were duly
embarked on the good ship Greenock, James Watson, com-
mander, and sent to form part of the population of the New
World. 9
No more than two months after this incident the Tolbooth
was apparently the scene of another occurrence, which may
have furnished Sir Walter Scott with the suggestion for the
scene in his romance of Rob Roy, which has made the old prison
and court-house of Glasgow famous for all time. The Highland
8 Burgh Records, i2th Apr. 1715 ; 2ist May, 1717.
9 Ibid, ist Jan. 1715.
' THE DOUGAL CRATUR " 85
cateran might quite well, indeed, have been the actual moving
cause of the incident. In the year 1715 he was, as a matter of
fact, at the height of his activities, and the novelist was not
exercising much stretch of fancy in making him appear
mysteriously in the Tolbooth of Glasgow.
The incident which Scott describes seems to have been
pretty much the incident which actually occurred. All the
world remembers how Rob Roy's henchman, " the Dougal
Cratur," as turnkey of the prison, first secured his chief's escape
from the dungeon, and then returned to throw his keys with
derision and defiance at Bailie Nicol Jarvie's feet. The actual
sequel to the story would seem to be furnished by the Town
Council records. These narrate that the town's jailor, James
Montgomery, had made a habit of absenting himself from his
post, and had entrusted the keeping of the prison to a servant
who had given no guarantee for his good faith. The behaviour
of that servant had proved unsatisfactory, and the magistrates
had found it necessary to place the keys in the hands of one
of the town's officers. The Town Council thereupon required
Montgomery to find caution within a week, both for himself and
for any new servant he might appoint, on pain of immediate dis-
missal from his post. With this demand the jailor immediately
complied, among his sureties being such well-known personages
as Sir James Hamilton of Rosehall, Colin Campbell of Blyths-
wood, John Walkinshaw of Barrowfield, and John Wallace of
Elderslie. 10 Sir Walter Scott, in one of his many visits to Glas-
gow, may have been told details of the occurrence which have
now been forgotten. The incident seems to be only another
proof of the closeness with which the Waverley Novels, even
in matters of minor detail, were founded on historic fact.
10 Ibid. 28th March and I2th April, 1715.
CHAPTER XI
GLASGOW IN " THE '15 "
ALL other actions necessary for carrying on the affairs of the
city were now to be called upon to give place to the first and
supreme duty of all good government, an effort to protect
the community from the threatened attack of an outside
enemy.
On ist August, 1714, Queen Anne died. Had her half-
brother James been of a more energetic and enterprising dis-
position, or had he been inclined to adopt the Protestant
faith, he might have made an immediate bid for the throne,
which would not have been without some prospects of success.
But he was none of these things. He let the psychological and
vital moment pass. Thenceforth he was to be no more than
" the Chevalier " or " the Pretender," according to the politics
of the parties who made use of his name. His second cousin,
the Elector of Hanover, great-grandson of James VI., and a
Protestant, was duly proclaimed in Scotland on 4th August as
King George I., and landed at Greenwich to assume the crown
on iyth September.
When the royal proclamation was made in Glasgow an
incident occurred which brought some discredit on the city.
Part of the crowd present on the occasion made its way to a
church where the English liturgy was used, and tore it down.
The outrage was brought to the notice of the Lords of the
Regency, who directed the Lord Advocate to make strict
enquiry into the matter, as outrages of the kind had been
86
CITY'S FREEDOM TO PRINCE GEORGE 87
frequent of late in the west of Scotland ; but the perpetrators
were never discovered. 1 Among the Jacobites the incident was
cited as an evidence of the intolerance of the Hanoverian party,
while by the supporters of the Government it was declared to
be a put-up affair, designed to throw discredit on the party
of King George. Possibly it was nothing but a late demon-
stration of the Covenanters' intolerance of Episcopacy. Similar
riotous outrages took place at the same time in England.
There, however, it was the Jacobite mob which burned
the chapels of dissenters and plundered the houses of their
ministers. 2
Almost immediately, however, the city fathers had the
possibility of much more serious trouble to consider.
From the first, Glasgow had made quite clear its intention
to support the Protestant succession to the Crown in the person
of King George. In April 1714, when it was reported that the
Elector's son, Prince George Augustus, was about to visit
Britain, the magistrates had sent him a loyal letter with a
burgess ticket conferring the freedom of the city, and on
i6th August, after his father's accession, the Prince had
graciously accepted the gift, writing from Hanover in French,
and signing himself " George, Duke of Cambridge." Next, on
ist October, a fortnight after his landing in this country, the
city sent King George himself a loyal address.
By the month of August in the following year the country
had become full of the rumours of coming rebellion. The Earl
of Mar, indignant that the seals of office as Secretary of State
for Scotland had been taken from him and given to the Duke
of Montrose, and alarmed at the coldness with which his too
effusive protestations of loyalty were received at court, had
fled, disguised as a seaman, in a coal gabbart to Scotland, and
summoned the Highland chiefs to a great hunting at Braemar,
to consider plans for a rising.
1 Hill Burton, viii. 252. 2 Tales of a Grandfather, iii. chap. vi.
88 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
On the very day, the 26th of August, on which that gather-
ing was held, with all its menace to the House of Hanover, the
Provost of Glasgow reported the issue of a very pretty com-
pliment which the city had paid to the Princess of Wales.
Following the expressions of regard which had already passed
between the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Town
Council, the magistrates had taken occasion to send the
Princess a gift of some pairs of the best plaids manufactured
in the city. These plaids were presented in person by Mr.
Smith, the city's member of Parliament, who was introduced
into the royal presence by the Duke of Montrose. The gift was
most graciously received by Her Royal Highness, a fact duly
reported to the Town Council, both by the Duke and the
member of Parliament.
It has been customary for narrators of this incident to set
it down as nothing better than an astute device to advertise
the city's wares ; but there can be little question that, in view
of the circumstances, it was something more disinterested, a
gesture and assurance of loyalty when such a gesture and
assurance were most needed, and most likely to be desired. If
proof of this were required it is furnished by another gesture of
the magistrates and Town Council reported at the same meet-
ing. In view of " a designed invasion from abroad, signified
by his Majesty's royal proclamations," the magistrates had
called a meeting of the citizens " to concert measures most
proper for their own security and the defence of his Majesty,
and his government, and of our religion, laws, and liberties. " At
that meeting it had been resolved to address King George with
an offer to provide a regiment of five hundred men, with ten
captains and other officers, and to maintain it for sixty days
at the city's expense. The offer had been presented to the
King by the Duke of Montrose, and had been " very graciously
received as a seasonable testimony of the city of Glasgow's
singular zeal and affection." His Majesty, however, intimated
ARGYLL APPEALS TO GLASGOW 89
that he did not desire to put the city to so heavy a charge, and
believed that his own arrangements already made would suffi-
ciently secure the safety of the kingdom. 3
Almost immediately, nevertheless, the situation assumed a
more serious aspect. On 6th September the Earl of Mar raised
the standard of " James VIII. and III." in his own country on
the upper Dee. The Jacobite gentry in the east and north of
Scotland were known to be raising their vassals. And a plan
was actually formed, and all but proved successful, for the sur-
prise and capture of Edinburgh Castle. But for the folly of
some of the conspirators and the treachery of others, the wall
of the fortress above the sally port where Dundee had climbed
to interview the Duke of Gordon on a memorable occasion
twenty-six years before, would have been scaled, and the
stronghold, with its great store of arms, ammunition, and
treasure, secured for the Jacobite rebels.
The attempt was made on 8th September. On that same
day the Duke of Argyll, as commander-in-chief and general of
the army in Scotland, attended to receive his final instructions
from King George at St. James's, and next morning set off to
take command of the forces in North Britain. These, he found,
amounted to no more than 1800 men four regiments of foot
of 257 men each, and four of cavalry of 200 men each. These
General Wightman had wisely concentrated at Stirling, the
key of the passage between the north of Scotland and the
south ; and the Duke, who arrived at Edinburgh on I4th
September, at once began to collect reinforcements.
The place upon which he set most reliance in this matter,
and the town to which he made his first appeal, was Glasgow.
Immediately on reaching the capital he wrote a friendly letter
to the Provost, saying he understood that the city had " a
3 Burgh Records, 26th Aug. 1715. In his letter on this occasion the Duke
both began and ended by addressing the provost as " My Lord." Lord
Townshend still more pointedly used the term.
go HISTORY OF GLASGOW
considerable number of well-armed men ready to serve his
Majesty/' and asking that a body of 500 or 600 be sent to
Stirling under such officers as the magistrates and council
might think fit to entrust with the command. 4
The city promptly responded, and despatched a regiment
of ten strong, well-officered companies, numbering between 600
and 700 men, under Colonel Blackadder, which reached
Stirling on the igth. This welcome reinforcement was cordially
welcomed by the Duke, who reported the city's loyal prompti-
tude to the King, with the result that the Provost named
" my lord " in all these communications from the Court
received a special letter of royal approval. 5
In the Duke's own letter of thanks he made the suggestion
that the fencible men of the towns and districts round Glasgow
should be embodied and brought together in the city. Again
the magistrates took prompt action, and sent out letters to the
neighbouring towns. Paisley was the first to respond and send
in a contingent. It was followed by Kilmarnock, which had
been alarmed by the sudden appearance on Sunday, i8th
September, of two Glasgow citizens who vividly pictured the
sudden descent of the Highland clans on the west country. In
consequence, next morning, at daybreak, the townsmen met,
and despatched a body of 220 men, who were followed, a day
later, by the Earl of Kilmarnock, at the head of his tenantry,
130 strong. 6
To complete the arming of the Glasgow men at Stirling and
of others willing to serve, Provost Bowman procured an order
from Argyll and brought four hundred firelocks and cartridge
boxes from Edinburgh Castle. 7 Otherwise the equipment and
maintenance of the Glasgow contingent, which remained on
garrison and field duty at Stirling for ten weeks, were paid for
by the city. To meet this immediate expense the Town
4 Hill Burton, viii. 273. 5 Burgh Records, i2th Oct. 1715.
6 Hill Burton, viii. 273. 7 Burgh Records, I2th Oct. 1715.
ENTRENCHMENTS, BARRICADES, AND CANNON 91
Council, after consulting the Merchants and Trades Houses,
borrowed the sum of 500 sterling. 8
But the payment of its armed force was not the only expense
forced upon the city by the Jacobite rising. On the advice of
the Duke of Argyll, lines of entrenchment were hastily drawn
round the town, substantial barricades were erected, and
cannon were mounted for the defence of the place. After the
defeat of the Jacobite army at Sheriff muir, also, the city was
burdened with the maintenance of 353 prisoners in the Bishop's
Castle. These prisoners, it appears, required a guard of no
fewer than one hundred men. 9
In the actual fighting at the battle of Sheriffmuir on Sunday,
I3th November, the Glasgow levies suffered no loss. Though
their able commander, Colonel Blackadder, declared them fit
for action in the field, they were, greatly to his chagrin, ap-
pointed to the charge of keeping Stirling bridge. 10 The duty,
though not exciting, was important enough, for it safeguarded
the only avenue of retreat to Argyll's force, which was no more
than four thousand strong, should it be overpowered by Mar's
Highland army, at least three times its size.
As all the world knows, however, even the victorious right
wing of the Highland army never swung further south than
Dunblane. Though the Glasgow contingent remained in arms
for another month, it saw no further service. By the middle
of December Argyll's army was reinforced by British regiments,
6000 strong, which had been serving in Holland, and the
Glasgow levies were allowed to go home.
Under the expert military direction of Colonel Maxwell of
Cardoness the city kept up its preparations for defence till gth
February. There was the possibility to be guarded against of a
raid by the Macgregors and other clansmen of the near High-
lands. These clansmen had made an actual threatening
8 Burgh Records, 29th Oct. 1715. 9 Ibid. i2th Dec. 1715.
10 Life of Colonel Blackadder, ch. xix.
92 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
demonstration on Loch Lomondside, where a military expedi-
tion had to be organised against them by the inhabitants of
Dumbarton. 1 And it had been necessary to maintain a garrison
at the house of Gartartan, near Aberfoyle, to check any descent
through the western passes. 2
It was not till the month of February that all danger was
deemed over. By that time the colourless " James VIII.
and III.," who had landed seasick at Peterhead, too late to
be of any use, had sailed again for France with his futile general,
the Earl of Mar, leaving their followers to shift for themselves,
and Argyll, marching to Aberdeen, had dispersed the last of
the Jacobite army without firing a shot. That was on 8th
February, 1716. On the gth Glasgow ceased military pre-
cautions, and upon parting with Colonel Maxwell of Cardoness,
presented him, as a token of gratitude for his services, with a
silver tankard " weighting fourty eight unce thirteen drop, at
seven shillings starline per unce, and a set of suggar boxes,
weighting ninetein unce fourtein drop, at eight shillings per
unce, and a server wing weighting thirty one unce and twelve
drop at six shilling and four pence per unce." 3 The entire cost
of the gift, according to the council minutes, was 35 is. gd.
sterling, and it was accompanied with an expression of the town's
" favour and respect " for the colonel's good service.
This, however, was merely an item in the expense entailed
upon the city by Mar's rebellion. Long lists of payments made
by the burgh treasurer for various services, losses, and the like,
appear from time to time in the council's minutes. There are
charges for cartage of stones for the barricades, and cartage of
the volunteers' baggage to Stirling, 16 i6s. for the funeral of
Walter Therms, who died at Stirling of his wounds, freight of
the great guns from Port-Glasgow, express from the Highlands
with news that the clans were in arms, express to Ayr with an
1 Hill Burton, viii. 281 ; living's Dunbartonshire, p. 231.
Hill Burton, viii. 274. 3 Burgh Records, I2th March, 1716.
ARMS SEIZED AT BROOMIELAW 93
officer sent to Ireland with orders for the regiments there to
come to Scotland, tools and labour at the trenches, watching
the guns at night, straw and water barrels for the prisoners at
the castle, 5000 flint stones sent to Stirling ; ale, coal, and
candles for the town's guards ; firelocks and bayonets, large
quantities of gunpowder, etc. Besides the amount paid by the
inhabitants for the subsistence of the six hundred volunteers
sent to Stirling, the expenditure amounted to 19,987 I2S. 4d.
Scots, or 1665 133. 2d. sterling. 4
As might be expected, Glasgow itself was not without
sympathisers with the Jacobite cause. Or perhaps, as in all
wars, there were persons in the city willing to make profit out
of supplying arms to the enemy. At anyrate, in May 1715,
three months before the rebellion broke out, it came to the
knowledge of Provost Aird that arms were being put on board
a vessel at the Broomielaw for shipment to the Highlands.
Going in person to the harbour he found there, about to be
shipped on board a boat of which, significantly, a Highlander
named Macdonald was master, three chests of firelocks,
bayonets, and pistols. These the Provost promptly confiscated,
and lodged in the Tolbooth, and, when the Jacobite rising
presently took place, they were used to equip certain of the
Glasgow volunteers sent to join Argyll's forces at Stirling. 5
Altogether Glasgow must be held to have come with ample
credit out of the trying emergency of the first Jacobite rebellion.
4 Ibid. 23rd Dec. 1717. 6 Ibid. i6th Feb. 1716.
CHAPTER XII
THE RISE OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE
THE menace of the Jacobite rising having been removed,
Glasgow began to gather its resources for the wonderful
advance it was to make in commerce and industry in the
eighteenth century. The adoption of English or sterling
coinage and of English weights and measures, following the
Union, helped this movement substantially. The Scottish
coinage, which was about one-twelfth of the value of sterling,
did not cease to be used, but as time went on payments
came to be made more and more frequently in the more
valuable form. The absolute necessity, at that time, of
making certain under which denomination a payment was to
be made is to be seen in the fact that all sums of money
were definitely stated in the public and other accounts to
be either "sterling" or "Scots," and an inclination lingers
in Scotland till the present day, to make quite certain,
in writing a cheque, that the payment is to be made in
" sterling."
In the matter of weights and measures, as might be ex-
pected, there was some confusion, and there would no doubt
be individuals willing to profit by the doubt as to whether a
bargain was concluded for Scots or English measure. In
Glasgow a memorial was presented to the Dean of Guild by a
number of merchants, drawing attention to the discourage-
ment of trade brought about by this dubiety. Country people,
it was pointed out, were being ensnared by reason of their lack
94
BUILDING OF SHAWFIELD MANSION 95
of foresight, in making bargains, to have it specified by what
weight they were to receive the goods they bought. In con-
sequence the magistrates and Town Council ordained that the
new English weight and none other be used in the burgh in
buying and selling all English and foreign goods. 1 Custom, in
these matters, is notoriously difficult to change, and many of
the ancient Scots measures remain in local use to the present
day, but there can be no doubt that the adoption of standard
English measures and weights for the purposes of general
trade made the dealings of the Glasgow merchants much more
simple and successful.
One of the first evidences of prosperity on the larger scale
was the building of his famous mansion at the west port in
Trongate, facing down the Stockwellgate, by Daniel Campbell
of Shawfield, Member of Parliament for the Glasgow burghs. 2
The Shawfield Mansion, as it was called, was finished in 1711,
and was the finest residence that Glasgow had yet seen. For
his purpose, Campbell had bought a number of the maltkiln
crofts and yards which were scattered over the region, and his
mansion had a wide gravelled court on its Trongate front, and
a great garden behind, stretching as far as the Back Cow Loan,
which is now Ingram Street. 3 It was to be the home of a suc-
cession of very notable Glasgow citizens and the scene of a
number of remarkable events, which will be recounted later.
Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that this noble mansion
was built at the outpost of civilisation, so far as Glasgow was
concerned. Shortly after it was built its owner called the
attention of the magistrates to the fact that the " strand,"
" syre," or gutter of the road in front of his mansion was not
acting properly to carry the storm water westward to St.
1 Burgh Records, 2yth May, 1712.
2 Campbell was a leading Glasgow merchant. He took 1000 of stock in
the Darien Company.
3 Mitchell's Old Glasgow Essays, p. 18,
96 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Tennoch's Burn. 4 The request of a great man like the owner
of the Shawfield Mansion was not to be treated lightly. An
important committee was therefore appointed at once to
enquire into the fault of the gutter, and forthwith at a cost of
200 Scots a substantial drain was laid, thirty ells long and one
ell wide, pavemented in the bottom and covered above, " fore-
gainst Shawfield's lodging." 5 The Shawfield Mansion stood
a short distance to the west of the fine Hutchesons' Hospital,
which also had a garden stretching behind it to the Back Cow
Loan.
As if conscious of its coming prosperity and rise in the
world, the city was becoming more particular in matters of
hygiene and taste. In 1715, in the midst of its preparations
against the Earl of Mar's rising, it appointed John Black, at a
salary of 400 merks yearly, to be keeper of the water wells
within and without the " ports." These wells numbered ten,
and included a group called the Four Sisters, the Lady Well,
the Broomielaw Well, and the two wells in the New Green.
Black was to furnish them with chains, buckets, sheaves,
ladles, and other necessary graith, as well as with locks and
iron bands. He was to " cleanse, muck, and keep them
clean," and to lock and open them in due time, evening and
morning. In case of failure he was liable to a penalty of 100
Scots. 6 This was the first attempt made, on a comprehensive
scale, to safeguard the water supply of the growing city.
Shortly afterwards the council published by tuck of drum
a final ordinance against the making of middens in the city
streets or lanes. Public taste was improving, and frequent
complaints were being made against the habit of certain of the
citizens in actually gathering and manufacturing the most
4 In this entry in the Council minutes may be seen the transition in
progress of the ancient " St. Theneu's " to the modern St. Enoch's in the
place-names of the neighbourhood.
6 Burgh Records, yth Aug. 1712 ; 4th Jan. 1714.
6 Ibid. 3rd Sept. 1715.
THE SHAWFIELD MANSION.
From water-colour drawing by Thomas Fairbairn.
PARISH OF PORT-GLASGOW 97
primitive form of fertiliser on the roadway in front of their
houses. The middens were evidently of some value, for part
of the penalty for allowing them to remain above forty-eight
hours on the public thoroughfare was that the offender should
" forfeit, ammitt, and lose the said dung." If anyone, the
proprietor, for instance, attempted to hinder the removal of
" the said dung," he was to be fined 5 Scots, and imprisoned
for forty-eight hours. At the same time the council forbade
the casting out of windows upon the public streets, lanes, or
closes, of " any jawings, filth, or dirt." It was in fact an end,
so far as Glasgow was concerned, to the fearsome " gardyloo "
fashion of disposing of various liquid and other abominations
which prevailed in Edinburgh for another sixty years. 7
Aware that its future must largely depend upon overseas
commerce, the city jealously guarded the rights of the ocean
gateway it had built at the mouth of the Clyde. Though Sir
John Shaw succeeded in 1694 in procuring an order from the
Lords of Treasury to transfer the customhouse from Port-
Glasgow to his own burgh of Greenock, which he was taking
such pains to foster, the magistrates and council exerted them-
selves with such promptitude and vigour that the order was
recalled, and the customhouse returned to its original location
in less than a month. 8 When, again, the Synod of Argyll was
making an effort to have certain parishes in the Presbytery of
Paisley, including Port-Glasgow, transferred to itself, the
magistrates effectively opposed the project. The inconvenience
of attending church courts at Inveraray, instead of Paisley,
would, they conceived, make it difficult for them to secure a
minister for the Port-Glasgow kirk. 9 And yet again, when the
Earl of Glencairn, as patron of the original parish in which the
7 Ibid. 1 2th Oct. 1717. From one of the incidents included in Hogarth's
well-known picture, " Night," it is evident that the " gardyloo" custom was
not peculiar to our Scottish cities, but was the rule also in London in the
middle of the eighteenth century.
8 Ibid. i4th Feb., i3th March, 26th March, 1694. 9 Ibid. 8th March, 1711.
G H.G. III.
98 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
new harbour town was planted, claimed the right of presenting
a minister to the church there, the city fathers brought an
action before the Lords of Session, and secured a decree by
which, for payment of six hundred merks, the Earl gave up all
right of patronage in the church at Port-Glasgow, " with the
haill emoluments, profits, or duties of the same." 10
A distinct sign of the awakening spirit of enterprise may be
read in the appearance of the first Glasgow newspaper. The
Glasgow Courant published its first number on I4th November,
1715, the day after the battle of Sheriff muir. Hitherto the
city had been content with " news-letters " written in London,
and payments had been made by the Town Council from time
to time to the persons who supplied this written intelligence.
The Courant set out to supply a demand for something more
regular and comprehensive, and it was to be issued three times
a week. The period, however, was not yet ripe for the venture.
Perhaps the necessary experience and equipment were lacking.
At its fourth number the name was changed to West Country
Intelligence, and the venture came to an end in May 1716. It
had made its bid, nevertheless, and must be taken as a token
of development. A second newspaper, The Glasgow Journal,
did not appear till 1741. *
Alike in the matter of news and of business correspondence
Glasgow was considerably handicapped by the postal arrange-
ments of the time. All letters from London and the south went
first to Edinburgh, and suffered long delays, as much at one
time as twelve hours, before being despatched to the western
city. It was not till 1788, when Palmer's mail coaches were
established, that letters went direct to Glasgow. 2
10 Burgh Records, 5th March, 1717.
1 Graham, Early Glasgow Press, pp. 9-12.
2 Chambers's Domestic Annals, iii. 125. The progress of Glasgow was very
clearly reflected in the development of the city's postal arrangements. In
1694 a request was put forward to have three foot posts a week to Edinburgh.
In 1 709 the magistrates asked Lord Godolphin to establish a horse post between
TYPE-FOUNDING 99
Meanwhile several of the most enterprising merchants were
establishing industries. In some cases they had peculiar diffi-
culties to contend with. Robert Luke and William Harvey,
for instance, set up a factory for the making of tapes, knittings,
laces, belts, bindings, and the like, but after carrying it on for
a few years were threatened with a stoppage of the undertaking
by the Incorporation of Weavers, who declared the work to be
an infringement of their rights as a burgess craft. The difficulty
was of much the same nature as that raised by trade unions in
the twentieth century, when objection is made to the men of
one trade in a factory doing some piece of work for which the
men of some other trade claim they should be called in. In
the eighteenth century case both parties appealed to the
magistrates and Town Council, who first referred the question
to a committee and afterwards to the Trades House. As
nothing more is heard of the dispute, it is probable that an
amicable settlement was reached. 3
In 1718, the year following this appeal, an industry was
introduced which could not be held to infringe the privileges
of any of the existing burgh crafts. James Duncan, a Glasgow
printer, started a foundry for the making of type. It was
Duncan who in 1736 printed the first History of Glasgow, by
John MclJre. The typography of that often-quoted work is by
no means of the first class, but Duncan's enterprise set the
example for the type-founding business of Alexander Wilson,
begun in Glasgow in 1742, which provided the setting for the
the two cities. As all the correspondence with London went through Edin-
burgh, it will be seen to have been very limited indeed. At the Union the
entire postage revenue of Scotland was no more than ^1194. In 1781 the
revenue from Glasgow alone had risen to ^4341. The Glasgow post-office
itself, to accommodate the city's growing needs, was moved successively from
a small shop in Gibson's Wynd, now Princes Street, to St. Andrew's Street,
Post-Office Court in Trongate in 1803, and Nelson Street in 1810. In 1840
it was removed to Glassford Street, and in 1879 to George Square. Glasgow
and its Clubs, p. 439.
8 Burgh Records, 5th March and i2th April, 1717.
ioo HISTORY OF GLASGOW
famous publications of the brothers Foulis, and helped to
make Glasgow renowned for literary taste and fine scholarship
throughout Europe.
But the main developments of Glasgow enterprise in those
years following the Union were upon the sea. Chiefly by means
of that enterprise, and the care and shrewdness with which it
was carried on, the city became within a few years rich and
prosperous, and Scotland within three-quarters of a century,
from being one of the poorest countries in Europe, became one
of the wealthiest.
The earliest ventures of the Glasgow merchants to Maryland
and Virginia those of Provost Walter Gibson and his partners
had been made in vessels chartered from Whitehaven. It
was not till the year 1716 that the first vessel was built on the
Clyde for the American trade. It was only of 60 tons, but
already the trade in tobacco was growing to great importance.
The method of the merchants was to freight the ship with
goods likely to be in demand in the colonies. The master of
the vessel, or, afterwards, when the trade seemed to warrant it,
a supercargo, was instructed to sell the goods in America and
load the ship with tobacco. There was thus a double profit
on the voyage, and so thriftily was the business managed that
wealth accumulated rapidly in the traders' hands.
Previously Bristol, Liverpool, and Whitehaven had been the
chief entrepots of the tobacco trade, but the Glasgow merchants
by reason of their economical methods were able to under-
sell the merchants of these places. At first the English mer-
chants were merely surprised to learn what Glasgow was doing.
But presently, when they found the Glasgow importers under-
selling them even among their own retail customers, they became
first alarmed, then indignant, and by and by, driven by jealous
fear, they laid charges before the Commissioners of Customs at
London against the honesty of the Glasgow traders. The
accusation was that the merchants of Glasgow were importing
TOBACCO TRADE OBSTRUCTED 101
much larger quantities of tobacco than they paid duty for. To
these charges, brought in the year 1717, the merchants of
Glasgow sent such answers that the Commissioners declared
the complaints of the English merchants to be entirely without
foundation, and to be entirely due to jealousy of the growing
tobacco trade of the city on the Clyde.
Four years later the tobacco merchants of Liverpool,
Whitehaven, and London returned to the attack, and laid an
accusation before the Lords of the Treasury arraigning the
merchants of Glasgow as guilty of fraud in submitting their
accounts for the purpose of taxation. Again the accusation
was met and rebutted, and after a full and impartial hearing
was declared to be groundless, and to have arisen " from a
spirit of envy, and not from a regard to the interest of trade, or
of the King's revenue."
But the resources of the English merchants were not yet at
an end. In a spirit which was anything but sporting they had
a complaint brought before the House of Commons by their
members. As a result commissioners were sent to Glasgow in
1722, who made a report to the House in the following year.
To the new charges the Glasgow merchants sent up distinct
and explicit answers, but the English merchants were able to
exert so much influence that the answers were disregarded.
New customs officers were appointed at the ports of Greenock
and Port-Glasgow, who seem to have received private instruc-
tions to do all in their power to ruin the Glasgow trade. These
officers put all manner of obstructions in the way, exhibiting
bills of equity against the merchants at the Court of Exchequer
for no fewer than thirty-three cargoes. Vexatious lawsuits of
all kinds were brought against the traders, and every kind of
malicious persecution which wealth could devise was practised
in order to destroy the enterprise of the Scottish city.
These selfish and spiteful efforts proved only too successful.
The tobacco trade of Glasgow languished under the persecution
102 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
for more than a decade. It was not till 1735 that it began to
revive, and even then it could not be said to prosper for a
considerable time. 4
4 Gibson's History of Glasgow, 206-209. One of the charges brought against
the Glasgow merchants was that the whole amount of the tobacco duty paid
by them to Government between August 1716 and March 1722 was no more
than 2702. Against this accusation the Glasgow merchants brought evidence
to show that the amount paid was 38,047 173. ofd. Edin. Evening Courant,
2ist Jan. 1723.
CHAPTER XIII
SOCIAL LIFE AND MANNERS
IT is to be feared that the increase of prosperity which followed
the Union tended to lessen the ecclesiastical fervour of the
people of Glasgow, whose interest had previously been con-
centrated largely on affairs of the Church and religion. New
fields of activity were opened up, and the world was becoming
a wider place. There w r as less time and less inclination, there-
fore, for consideration of points of church government and
religious doctrine. The Rev. Robert Wodrow, of the neigh-
bouring Renfrewshire parish of Eastwood, and historian of the
Covenanters, found occasion to regret the change. The increase
of wealth, he perceived, had a tendency to abate the godly
habits of the people. There was already a party in the city
who were no longer inclined to pay absolute deference to
ministers, and who were disposed to mock at serious things.
Where there had been seventy-two prayer meetings in the year
there were now only four or five, and in their stead there were
meetings of secular clubs at which subjects of mere mundane
interest were discussed. In view of this change Wodrow seems
to have rather approved than otherwise the blow struck at the
tobacco trade and the prosperity of the city by the jealous com-
petitors in England. " This, they say, will be twenty thousand
pounds loss to that place. I wish it may be sanctified to them ! " l
There was quite evidently a new process of development
going on. Wodrow complains that young men who went
1 Wodrow's Analecta, iii. 129.
103
104 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
abroad to hold mercantile positions, came home again with
ideas modified by the customs of other countries. Church
discipline was less reverently regarded and less devoutly sub-
mitted to than formerly, and after a noted " heresy hunt " of
the time, carried through presbytery and synod against the
too enlightened views of Professor Simson, some of the college
lads had even gone the length of writing a play poking fun at
the city clergy. Such a state of things, in the view of Mr.
Wodrow, might be expected to bring upon the city some
devastating stroke of Providence. 2
Nevertheless, according to John Macky, the author of A
Journey through Scotland in 1723, the city was soundly Pres-
byterian in religion, and " the best affected to the Government
in Scotland." Regarding its commerce Macky said that there
arrived from the plantations as many as " twenty or thirty
ships every year, laden with tobacco and sugar, an advantage
this kingdom never enjoyed till the Union." Glasgow itself
he declared to be " the beautifullest little city I have seen in
Britain," and he specially admired its regular and spacious
streets and its houses " of equal height and supported with
pillars," an allusion to the piazzas which were a feature of the
buildings round the cross.
Edward Burt, the English engineer officer, who saw the
city in 1726, declared it to be " the most uniform and prettiest "
he had seen. " The houses," he said, " are faced with ashlar
stone. They are well sashed, all of one model, and piazzas rise
round them on either side, which gives a good air to the
buildings." 3
McUre's description of the city in 1736 is well known, with
2 John Simson, professor of divinity not to be confounded with Robert
Simson, the celebrated professor of mathematics, was the subject of a " case "
which occupied the church courts and the University authorities for many
years. Its progress is fully detailed by Coutts in his History of the University,
pp. 210-232.
3 Burt, Letters, i. 22.
COST OF LIVING 105
its picture of the town " surrounded with cornfields, kitchen
and flower gardens, and beautiful orchards, abounding with
fruits of all sorts, which by reason of the open and large streets,
send forth a pleasant and odoriferous smell." 4
Defoe in his Tour of 1727 describes the development of the
previous twenty years. " Glasgow," he says, " is a city of
business, and has the pace of foreign as well as of domestic
trade. Nay, I may say, 'tis the only city in Scotland at this
time that apparently increased in both. The Union has,
indeed, answered its end to them more than to any other part
of the kingdom, their trade being new formed by it ; for as
the Union opened the door to the Scots into our American
colonies, the Glasgow merchants presently embraced the oppor-
tunity. . . . They now send their 50 sail ships every year to
Virginia, New England, and other colonies in America."
The expense of living in the city at that time was very
small, a fact which accounted to a considerable extent for the
success of the tobacco traders in competing with their rivals in
England. In 1708, the year after the Union, when the popula-
tion numbered 12,766, nearly five hundred houses were un-
tenanted, and the rents of the others were said to have fallen
by nearly one- third. The highest rent then paid for a house
was 100 Scots, or 8 6s. 8d. sterling. At the first valuation,
four years later, the highest rent paid for a shop was 5 sterling
and the lowest I2s., while for the 202 shops in the town the
aggregate rent was no more than 623 155. 4d. There were
very few self-contained houses. Most, even of the well-known
and wealthy citizens, lived only in a flat in a tenement. In
1712 three ladies of title, including the Countess of Glencairn,
with seven others, occupied houses in " SpremTs Land " in
Trongate, between Hutchesons' Hospital and the Shawfield
Mansion, and therefore in the fashionable West End, and the
highest rent paid by any of them was 10 35. 4d. 5
* History of Glasgow, p. 122. 5 Curiosities of Glasgow Citzenship, pp. 12-15.
106 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
The habits of living in the city were correspondingly simple
and frugal. For the small business community the day began
early. At six o'clock in the morning the post arrived from
Edinburgh. After 1717 it came on horseback. When it was
ready for delivery the postmaster, whose salary was 12 a year,
fired a gun to let the citizens know. When they had called for
and looked at their correspondence, they returned to their
houses, usually above their places of business, and enjoyed their
breakfast of porridge, herring or an egg, and bannocks, with
" swats " or small ale as the beverage. Then came the hours
of business, when they bargained with customers in their
little shops it was always the business of the purchaser to
" cheapen " an article or sorted out, at the Broomielaw, goods
suitable for the plantations for shipment to Port-Glasgow,
or interviewed a bailie regarding the admission of a relative as
a burgess " at the near hand," or negotiated the feu of a bit of
the town's land for the building of a malt kiln. As noon drew
near, some of the merchants might be seen at the half-door of
their shops, exchanging a word with a neighbour or a passing
customer ; and when the bells in the steeple of the Tolbooth
rang out their merry tune, there was an adjournment to the
nearest tavern for a " meridian," and the exchange of news,
much as an adjournment is made to some coffee-room in the
twentieth century for a " coffee " and a word on some point of
business with a friend.
Meanwhile the mistress of the house upstairs had been not
less busy. First the barefoot servant lass went to the public
well with her pair of wooden " stoups " on a hoop, and waited
her turn to draw the supply of water for the day. Then, when
the house had been " tidied up," and the breakfast dishes
washed and put away, she might have to accompany her
mistress with a basket to the markets near the cross for supplies
of butter and eggs, a fowl to boil (costing threepence), a gigot
of mutton, or a silver grilse (at a penny a pound) from the
HOME LIFE 107
Clyde. 6 There was also, probably, in the house the " mart," or
part of a bullock, salted down at Martinmas, which, boiled in
broth or with curly greens from the kailyard, formed a never-
failing standby. Fresh meat was rare in winter. Its arrival in
the market was announced by sending the bellman through the
streets. 7
At the dinner hour, twelve or one o'clock, the merchants
locked their shops and warehouses, and, with their apprentices,
adjourned for the chief meal of the day. Dinner was a homely
affair broth made with barley and green vegetables (there
were few root crops in those days), a bit of boiled beef, or,
when the materials were available, a haggis, with, for beverage,
again the inevitable " sma' yill."
The room in which the meal was served was often also a
bedroom, with " enclosed beds," like cupboards in the wall. It
was here also that the lady of the house entertained her guests
at " four hours " in the afternoon, when they dropped in for a
gossip over a " masking " of tea sipped out of fragile china
cups without handles, the treasured possession of the hostess,
which she carefully washed and put away with her own hands
so soon as the visitors left. The single public room of the house
was only used on very special occasions marriages, funerals,
and the like and for the rest of the time remained gloomy and
un-aired. 8
According to Jupiter Carlyle, who, as a divinity student,
spent the winters of 1743 and 1744 in Glasgow, " The manner
of living," of the townspeople, " at this time, was but coarse
and vulgar. Very few of the wealthiest gave dinners to any-
body but English riders, or their own relations at Christmas
6 The public market, or area in which stalls were set up in the streets, ex-
tended from Bell's Wynd in High Street to Princes Street in Saltmarket, and
from King Street in Trongate to the Molendinar bridge in Gallowgate. This
was the only area in which unfreemen were allowed to expose their wares.
7 Strang's Glasgow Clubs, p. 15.
8 New Stat. Account, vi. 230 ; Strang's Glasgow Clubs, pp. 16 and 18 (notes).
io8 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
holidays. There were not half a dozen families in town who
had men-servants ; some of those were kept by the professors
who had boarders. There were neither post-chaises nor hackney-
coaches, and only three or four sedan-chairs for carrying mid-
wives about in the night, and old ladies to church, or to the
dancing assemblies once a fortnight." 9
Almost nothing is recorded of the life of an older nobility
in the city, though the " Duke's Lodging " at the corner of
Drygate and High Street, on the spot where the great prison
now stands, was for long the greatest mansion in the town, and
from 1714 onwards, for some 160 years, the successive Dukes
of Montrose were Chancellors of the University, 10 while Mugdock
Castle, near Milngavie, some five miles north of the city, was
the chief messuage of the family till in 1682 the Duke, who was
first Rob Roy's partner and afterwards his enemy, bought
Buchanan House and estate on Loch Lomondside from the
creditors of the Chief of Buchanan.
At eight o'clock in the city shop and warehouse closed,
and presently the merchants betook themselves to the cosy
tavern parlours of the town, where they discussed the latest
news over a modest bowl of punch. At nine o'clock they
returned home for supper, family worship, and bed.
Such was the daily mode of life even of the most prosperous
inhabitants of the city until the wealth that came in a golden
stream from the great Virginia trade induced individuals to
build stately mansions of a new order, and set up the civic
aristocracy which was to become famous under the name of the
" Tobacco Lords."
It is interesting to note that at least one of the businesses
carried on in these conditions in the city of that time still
flourishes in Glasgow. The business of Messrs. Austin &
9 Autobiography, p. 75.
10 Murray, The Old College of Glasgow, p. 41, and p. 8 (McArthur's map of
1778).
THE TAVERN 109
McAslan, nurserymen and seedsmen, was started in the year
1717, and its first nursery was the acre or so of land forming
the garden of Hutchesons' Hospital, and stretching from the
original building in Trongate to the Back Cow Loan, now
Ingram Street. The nursery was also used as a pleasure ground
by the citizens. When it was at last, in 1795, laid out as
Hutcheson Street, and the Hospital building was removed to
its head, the nursery was transferred to the neighbourhood of
the modern Parliamentary Road, where its existence is com-
memorated in the name of McAslan Street. Nothing could
better testify to the purity of the atmosphere of Glasgow, in
those early years of the eighteenth century, than the existence
of this plant nursery in the Trongate.
The tavern held a much more important place in the life of
the community than it has ever occupied since. Few bargains
of importance were concluded without the sanction of a friendly
dram. Professional men also found the tavern a convenient
howff. There patients consulted their physicians ; there
lawyers advised their clients and drew up their wills ; * even
the town's business was largely transacted in these snug and
hospitable resorts. So serious did the expenditure become in
this last instance that more than once the Town Council found
it necessary to make a rule that the public funds should not be
liable for expenses incurred in taverns, unless with the express
permission of the provost, senior bailie, or dean of guild. It
was further stipulated that, at the treating of strangers, the
provost or senior bailie must be present, and that the sum spent
at any one time must not, upon any account, exceed 3 Scots
(53. 3d. sterling). 2
The most lively element of the population was probably
the student life, which had its headquarters in the handsome
College buildings in High Street. In 1702 the students numbered
1 Henry Grey Graham, Social Life in Scotland, p. 134.
2 Burgh Records, 2yth Sept. 1717.
no HISTORY OF GLASGOW
402, and their scarlet gowns, as they moved about, made the
brightest spot of colour in the streets. John Wesley, who
visited the city at a later date, had a word to say about these
garments. ' ' The College students, ' ' he says, ' ' wear scarlet gowns
reaching only to their knees. Most I saw were very dirty, some
very ragged, and all of very coarse cloth." 3 In those days the
gowns were still an article of practical apparel, and competed
in the streets, a few years later, with the imposing scarlet
cloaks of the Tobacco Lords. 4
While a certain number of these students, bursars and
others, lived within the College precincts, and were substantially
if plainly fed at the common table, many lodged outside,
and there are traditions of some subsisting with the utmost
frugality on such provisions as a little oatmeal and a kebbuck
of cheese, brought with them from far-off homes in Ayrshire
or Argyll.
The apprentices of the merchants and craftsmen, with
whom an occasional bickering of town and gown took place,
were probably at least as well lodged and fed. They were
looked upon as the natural successors of their masters, not only
in trade but in the honours of burgess-ship in craft and guild.
They stood to their masters much in the relationship of sons
of the family, and every encouragement was given them to
become so actually by marriage. An early regulation of the
Merchants and Trades Houses was directly framed " to move
them to take their master's daughter in marriage before any
other," an arrangement which, it was stated, would be " a
great comfort and support to freemen." If the apprentice
required any inducement to take this course, beyond the
3 Travellers' Tales of Scotland, p. 124.
* The students' gowns were not yet treated in the ignominious fashion of
the nineteenth century, when, at the stern demand of a Professor of Humanity,
" Where is your gown, sir ? " a student was sometimes known to produce
from his pocket what looked like nothing more than a torn and dirty red
rag, and proceed to drape it about his shoulders.
MARRIAGE INDUCEMENTS in
charms of the young lady and the prospect of succeeding to
the business, it was provided by the assurance that he would
be admitted a burgess at a reduced fee. 5
5 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. xviii. The fullest account of the
social life, manners, and dress of the citizens of Glasgow in the eighteenth
century is to be found in Strang's Glasgow and its Clubs, in its chapter on
" The Accidental Club." For details of the professors, their qualifications and
their quarrels, see Coutt's History of the University of Glasgow.
CHAPTER XIV
COLLEGE LIFE
IN the first decades of the eighteenth century students entered
the University at a very early age. Principal Robertson and
David Hume were no more than twelve years of age when they
began their studies, while Principal Hill and Colin MacLaurin, the
mathematician, were only eleven. The last-named graduated at
fifteen, and became a professor four years afterwards. At that
early age they were expected to know Latin as a spoken language,
for prayers, lectures, and examinations were all conducted in
that tongue. It was not till 1729 that Professor Hutcheson,
in Glasgow " the never to be forgotten Hutcheson " who
was the preceptor of Adam Smith set the example of lecturing
in English, and to the present day the " Adsum " with which the
student answers the roll-call, and the Latin form in which the
Christian names are recited, form a relic of the ancient custom. It
was even the rule that the students must speak nothing but Latin
between themselves in the College grounds. When, in 1706,
it was rumoured that this rule was being broken, and that the
students were all speaking English, the Glasgow Senate ordered
each regent or professor to appoint a " clandestine censor," or
in plain words, a secret spy, to report all transgressors, who
were to be fined id. for the first offence and 2d. for the second. 1
The students were of all sorts and conditions sons of
noblemen and lairds, farmers and shopkeepers, ministers and
1 Munimenta Univ. Glas. ii. 390 ; Grey Graham, Social Life in Scotland,
454, 460.
112
ADAM SMITH, 1723-1790.
From medallion by James Tassie in the Hunterian Library.
Reproduced by permission of the University of Glasgow.
COLLEGE FEES 113
mechanics. In the second half of the century a third of the
Glasgow number were Irish, and half of those who graduated
were entered as " Scoto-Hibernicus." There were also a good
many English and some foreigners. 2 The English and Irish
Universities were then practically closed against dissenters,
and these accordingly resorted in considerable numbers to the
north of the Border. As already mentioned, many of these lads
were very poor. To help them they were granted the privilege,
in Glasgow, of exemption from " the ladles," that is, the local
customs duty of a ladleful of meal out of each sack brought
into the burgh. When, later in the century, a stingy farmer
of " the ladles " denied this privilege, and insisted on exacting
his legal dues, Dr. Adam Smith, future author of The Wealth
of Nations, was deputed to interview the Town Council, and
that body agreed to make good the toll thus insisted upon. 3
Of a curriculum in the College itself the cost may be
gathered from the rates charged at St. Andrews in 1767. The
students there were divided into three classes. Of these the
" Primers " (sons of noblemen) paid six guineas in class fees
to their professor, dined with the professors at the high table,
and wore a gown of fine material, richly trimmed. The
" Seconders " (sons of gentlemen) paid a class fee of three
guineas, sat also at the high table, and wore gowns of the same
material, without the trimming. The " Terners " (sons of
commoners) paid a fee of only one guinea, dined at the bursars'
table, and wore gowns of coarser material. Their rooms were
rent free, and the charge for their board at the high table was
8 for the session of seven months, afterwards in 1793 increased
to 10, and at the bursars' table 5 us. i id. In 1747 the board
provided was as follows :
" i. Each Bursar hath for breakfast the third part of a
scone and a mutchkine of ale.
2 Professor Reid's Works (Hamilton's ed.), p. 40.
3 Life of Adam Smith, p. 67.
H H.G. III.
H4 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
"2. For dinner each Bursar hath half a scone of bread and
a mutchkine and ane half of ale, and four Bursars have ane
ashet of broth and a portion of beef or veal or mutton or hens,
and when they have fish they have them in ashets propor-
tionately, and in place of broth they have baps.
"3. For supper each Bursar hath half a scone and a mutch-
kine and ane half of ale and three eggs, or what is equivalent
to three eggs.
"4. On Sabbath, besides their ordinary dinner the Bursars
have at night to supper broth and fresh meat, and each hath
half a scone of bread and a mutchkine and ane half of ale."
The food and drink were of the same quantity and quality
at the high table as at the bursars' table. Some idea of the
quantity of the rations may be judged from the fact that half
a leg of mutton or veal was the allowance for four bursars at a
meal. Each scone weighed sixteen ounces. 4
There were certain other small charges : 10 Scots for the
use of a spoon and plate, and a fee to the janitor of Primers
45. 6d., Seconders 2s. 6d., and Terners is. Altogether the
student living within the College at St. Andrews, and probably
also at Glasgow, in the second half of the century, could get
through an entire session for an expenditure on fees and board
of a good deal less than 20. According to Dr. Johnson, in his
Journey to the Western Islands, it could indeed, in 1774, be
done on 10. In the early years of the century the expenditure
would be less. 5
In Glasgow no charge seems to have been made for the
students' rooms till 1712, when a rent was instituted of from
4 The menu at the College tables at Glasgow a century and a half before
this time is detailed by Dr. Murray in his Memories of the Old College of Glasgow,
p. 454. In Glasgow the common table, at which regents and students ate
together, was given up in 1694. Ibid. p. 458.
6 These interesting particulars were given, from a previously unpublished
document, in an article by A. H. Symon in the Glasgow Herald of 8th August,
1931. Gibson, in his History (page 195), states that board and lodging could
be had in Glasgow in 1777 at a rate as low as 10 los. per annum.
COLLEGE JURISDICTION 115
four to ten shillings for the session, according to position. 6 Of
his residence within the College in 1743 the famous Jupiter
Carlyle writes : "I had my lodging this session in a college
room, which I had, furnished, for the session, at a moderate
rent. John Donaldson, a college servant, lighted my fire and
made my bed, and a maid from the landlady who furnished
the room came once a fortnight with clean linens." 7 The
letting of rooms within the College to students was finally
discontinued in 1817. 8
Certain rather invidious differences with regard to rank
were made in the treatment accorded the students. Most out-
standing among these was the rule regarding the use of the
" great garden " which lay between the College buildings and
the Molendinar. To that garden was added in 1704 a smaller
" Physic Garden," the first of the successive Botanic Gardens
of Glasgow. The use both of the Great Garden and the Physic
Garden was restricted to " the sons of noblemen who are
scholars." To each of these was entrusted a key with the
special stipulation that the holder must allow no one but him-
self to use it. 9
Only once and again, at rare intervals, the jurisdictions of
the College and the burgh came into conflict. One occasion
occurred in 1711, when the magistrates fined some students
found misconducting themselves in the city. Against this the
College authorities protested, and demanded the return of the
fines, on the ground that the students were under the sole
separate jurisdiction of the University. They threatened to
hold the magistrates liable for all expense which might be in-
curred in vindicating the College's right and jurisdiction. Un-
fortunately there is no record of the upshot. 10
Residence within the precincts of the College had both
6 Munimenta, vol. iii. p. 513 1 Autobiography, p. 99.
8 Coutts, Hist. Univ. of Glasgow, p. 334.
9 Munimenta, vol. ii. p. 421. 10 Ibid. ii. p. 400.
n6 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
advantages and disadvantages. The regents or professors took
turns, a week at a time, in acting as Hebdomadar, and the
Hebdomadar visited the students' rooms at five every morning
to see that they were out of bed, and at nine every night to
make sure that no gaming or idle amusement was going on.
An ordinance of the authorities ran : " Students are obliged
to be diligent in praying to God, reading in their chambers
morning and evening, and, to ensure obedience, cubicular
censors are appointed to keep watch, and the regents are
enjoined to notice how they perform the private duties of
prayer and reading, as well as in their questions. 1 At 6 a.m.
a bell summoned everyone to a general roll-call, followed by
prayers and religious instruction before going to their classes,
and all students were required to be within doors when the
gates were shut at nine o'clock at night. Even on Sunday the
youthful seeker after learning was under discipline all the time.
The day began with religious exercises in the classrooms, after
which there were services, forenoon and afternoon, in the
Blackfriars or College Kirk, under the eyes of Principal and
professors. When the bell rang at four o'clock they gathered
again in their classrooms, to be examined on the sermons they
had heard, to be questioned on the Catechism, and to hear a
lecture on the Confession of Faith. In the evening they might
be required to attend a lecture by a regent in the College Kirk.
Otherwise they must not be seen out of doors, on pain of fine
and rebuke. Even the coins they dropped into the collection
ladle were scrutinised, and when, in 1703, it was thought the
contributions were too small, it was arranged that the collec-
tion should be taken in the classroom on the Saturday, and
handed to the kirk-session next day. 2
But if College life was by no means a bed of roses for the
student, it can hardly have been an Elysium for the teaching
staff. About the beginning of the eighteenth century professor-
1 Mun. Univ. Glas. ii. 369, 489. 2 Ibid. ii. 379.
REGENTING SYSTEM 117
ships of specific subjects began to be set up, but in the main,
down till the year 1727, when a Royal Commission remodelled
its affairs, Glasgow University followed the " rotatory " or
" ambulatory " system of teaching. 3 Under that system there
were no chairs of specific subjects, but the regent or teacher
carried the same class on year after year, dealing in suc-
cession with Greek, mathematics, logic, physics, ethics, and
pneumatics, 4 till he brought his students to laureation at
the end of their third or fourth year. The regent accordingly
came to know the character and abilities of each student
very thoroughly. On the part of the student it had the
drawback that he might be unfortunate in the year of his
entry, and might find himself tied, during the whole time of his
sojourn at college, to the teaching, guidance, and example of
an ill-qualified or undesirable pedagogue. It was next to im-
possible, of course, for any regent to be a complete master of
all the subjects he was called to teach. Indeed, there are
curious stories extant of the meagreness of the qualifications of
some of these teachers. A superficial examination in Greek
and a debate in Latin on some such subject as Quodnam sit
criterion veritatis, or Quod sit causa variorum colorum in corporibus
naturalibus, formed the prescribed tests. When a professor of
Humanity was appointed in 1704, the translation of a not too
exacting passage from the Annals of Tacitus, and the turning
into Latin prose of the not too colloquial speech of a Scottish
nobleman, were taken as sufficient proof of efficiency. When,
in the same year, a professorship of Greek was introduced, all
that was asked of the candidate by way of proof of scholarship
was an analysis of ten lines from the eighth book of the Iliad. 5
When, in 1709, Charles Morthland was appointed to the Chair
3 Coutts, History of University, p. 207.
4 Pneumatics dealt with such questions as " the being and perfections of
the true God, the nature of angels and the soul of man, and the duties of
natural religion."
5 Mun. Univ. Glasg. ii. 413, 385.
n8 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
of Oriental Languages, of which Hebrew was the principal sub-
ject, his knowledge of that tongue was more than doubtful. He
was allowed the greater part of a year to prepare, and actually
went to Utrecht for the purpose. 6
After all, no very high level of scholarship was to be ex-
pected from these men. They came at the end of a period,
begun at the Reformation, when the only kind of learning con-
sidered as of any value was scriptural and dogmatic, and when
poetry and art in every field suffered from what has been termed
by one of our most brilliant Scottish critics the " Puritan
blight." The Judaic ban against " graven images " was
extended to everything which might add to the loveliness and
charm of life. The glory that was Greece and the grandeur
that was Rome were regarded as carnal subjects which it was
undesirable to dwell upon too closely. The ruling idea was to
make our present existence as far as possible " a desert drear,"
in order to make sure of earning, and to render more attractive,
a future heavenly home. It was impossible for a regent to
become very enthusiastic over a subject which brought him no
greater salary than 500 merks (28 2s. 6d. sterling) a year.
When professors of Greek and Latin were at last appointed in
1704, as above mentioned, their stipends were still less, merely
300 merks (16 175. id. sterling), with an uncertain addition from
the fees of students. The salary of the Principal of Glasgow
College himself was only 67 ios., with, of course, as was the case
with the regents also, board at the common table. 7 The stipends
of the city ministers at that time were 1000 Scots, with 80
Scots for " house mail," or rent altogether 87 ios. sterling.
6 Coutts, Hist. University of Glasgow, p. 190 ; Grey Graham, Social Life
in Scotland, 468.
7 In 1707 by Royal Charter the four regents' stipends were increased by
11 each, and the stipends of the professors of Hebrew and mathematics were
made ^40, while the Principal and the professors of Humanity, Botany, and
Greek received augmentations of ^22, ^25, ^30, and ^20 respectively. Mun.
Univ. Glas. i. 466.
REVOLUTION IN TEACHING 119
In this connection it is interesting to note that, while the
ambulatory or regenting system continued, a surprising number
of the students took their degrees. It was then the personal
interest of the regents to see that as many as possible of their
charges proceeded to laureation, for each graduand paid his
regent a guinea. After the method was changed in 1727, and
there were no more guineas to be earned by the professors in
this way, the number of students proceeding to graduation
strangely decreased. The mental calibre of some of these pro-
fessors may be judged from the fact that as late as 1733 six
years after the last witch-burning had taken place at Dornoch,
and within three years of the final abolition of the Act against
witches W. Forbes, professor of Law in Glasgow University,
still, in his lectures and his Institutes of Scots Law, dealt seriously
with evidence regarding this devilish craft.
By the beginning of the second quarter of the century a new
stirring of intellectual life began to be felt in Scotland. In the
field of poetry, William Hamilton of Gilbertfield, near Glasgow,
was producing his modern version of Blind Harry's Wallace,
and writing songs in a new natural vein, like " Willie was a
wanton wag " ; while in Edinburgh Allan Ramsay was re-
printing ancient songs, and composing his own fine pastoral,
The Gentle Shepherd. On the part of the universities Glasgow
led the way with the vigorous departure of Professor Francis
Hutcheson from the old dry-as-dust methods and doctrines,
and the throwing of new life and interest into moral philosophy.
Hutcheson's lectures were delivered in English, and, in the
words of his biographer, Professor Scott, " constituted a revolu-
tion in academic teaching." He threw aside the old text-books
and outworn formulas, and illumined his subject with his own
vigorous ideas. Professor Robert Simson at the same time was
publishing his Elements of Euclid and producing his treatise on
Conic Sections. The example was followed presently at the Uni-
versities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews, and Aberdeen. In place of
i20 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the old regents who struggled with indifferent success to teach
everything, professors were appointed who were specialists each
in his appointed subject, and Scotland began to rebuild a reputa-
tion for literature, learning, and enlightenment, which was to
attract the attention of all the world in the brilliant period of
Adam Smith and David Hume. Thus the University of the
West, which, before the Reformation, had sown the first seeds
of thought in the mind of that perfervid iconoclast, John Knox,
and was probably the seat of learning which suffered most from
the working of his doctrines, was the first to recover from the
effects of these, and to show the budding and bourgeoning of
new life after the period of aridity. If the second half of the
century was notable for a disgraceful amount of quarrelling
among principals and professors, it was also remarkable for the
long array of brilliant and famous men who received their
mental equipment and had their characters developed and
their ambitions kindled in the classrooms and quadrangles of
that old College in the High Street of Glasgow.
CHAPTER XV
A GLASGOW JACOBITE : JOHN WALKINSHAW OF BARROWFIELD
ALTHOUGH Glasgow exerted itself so strenuously in 1715 to
resist invasion by the Earl of Mar, the city did not altogether
lack sympathisers with the Jacobite cause. Here, as elsewhere
in Scotland, were individuals who, from motives either of dis-
interested loyalty to the direct line of Stewart kings, of protest
against what they considered a great injustice, of disapproval
of the Union between Scotland and England, or of hopes, by
means of a gambler's throw, of recovering the desperate state
of their family fortunes, devoted their interest and efforts to
the party of " James VIII. and III." And here, as elsewhere,
their activities, though ruinous to themselves, were gilded with
the glamour of romance which somehow touched everything
connected with the Stewart cause.
Probably the most outstanding of these Glasgow Jacobites
was John Walkinshaw of Barrowfield and Camlachie. His
family was a branch of the Walkinshaws of that ilk in Renfrew-
shire, and there were in direct succession three John Walkin-
shaws, lairds of Barrowfield. Of these, the first was Dean of
Guild in 1669 and 1672, and is commended by McUre for his
benevolence in leaving 100 to the poor of the Merchants'
House. He was one of the owners of the privateer frigate
George which served effectively in the Dutch war. When he
married his third wife, Janet, daughter of William Anderson,
merchant in Glasgow and laird of Kenniehill and of Easter
Craigs, now Dennistoun, he undertook to invest a certain
121
122 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
sum for behoof of " the aires and bairns " of the marriage.
For this purpose in 1669 he purchased for 3500 merks the
lands of Wester Camlachie, about 25 acres in extent, between
his father-in-law's property and his own. Janet Anderson,
however, had no children, and both Camlachie and Barrow-
field were inherited by Walkinshaw's son by his second wife,
" Agnes Faulles." This second John Walkinshaw, who was
one of the great " Sea Adventurers " mentioned by McUre,
married a daughter of Principal Baillie of Glasgow University,
and it was the eldest son of that union who was the noted
Jacobite.
Barrowfield House, otherwise " the Manor Place of Barrow-
field," was a quaint and interesting old mansion of some
pretensions. It had belonged to the Hutchesons of Hutchesons'
Hospital, and in the previous century was said to have housed
for a night no less interesting a personage than Mary Queen of
Scots. In its antique garden to the last was to be seen " Queen
Mary's Bower," and a sundial bearing the extraordinarily
remote date, 13 n. 1
Reared in a house with such associations it was perhaps
not unnatural that Walkinshaw should sympathise with the
romantic cause of the Chevalier. He was no doubt further
influenced by his marriage, in 1703, to Katharine, one of the
daughters of Sir Hugh Paterson, Bart., of Bannockburn,
himself a noted Jacobite. 2
Walkinshaw and two of his brothers-in-law joined Mar's
rising in 1715, and all three were taken prisoners at Sheriffmuir.
Confined in Stirling Castle and charged with high treason, the
1 An engraving of the house, in ruins, is given in Glasghu Fades, p. 755.
Its associations afterwards gave the name to Queen Mary Street, at the eastern
end of which it stood. It faced Dalmarnock Road, and its great walled garden
ran back to London Road. It was taken down in 1844 to supply materials for
the building of a farmhouse near its site.
2 On his march south in the autumn of 1745 Prince Charles Edward slept
for a night at Bannockburn House, and in January 1746, while his army was
besieging Stirling Castle, he made the mansion his headquarters.
PRINCESS CLEMENTINA SOBIESKI 123
laird of Barrowfield stood in serious danger of losing his life.
His wife, however, was a woman of spirit. Obtaining permis-
sion to visit her husband, she changed clothes with him, and
while he walked out of the fortress in the character of " Lady
Barrowfield," she remained in his stead to " face the music."
Though he escaped, his estates, already heavily burdened with
debt, were forfeited, and he appears to have become a member
of the little group of active conspirators round the person of
the forlorn " James VIII. and III." in his exile on the
Continent. 3
It was at this time that he took part in one of those romantic
adventures which, as already said, so largely made up the
history of the Jacobite cause. In this instance the occurrence
might have been an episode taken from the pages of some
curious work of fiction. It was, at any rate, an exciting enter-
prise for all concerned in it.
The facts were these. The Chevalier de St. George was now
over thirty years of age, and if the hopes of the Jacobites were
not to be damped off by the prospect of an end of the dynasty,
it was desirable that he should marry. At the same time
perhaps not less urgent was the need of refilling the depleted
coffers of the exiled court. One of the wealthiest heiresses and
most desirable matches in Europe at that time was Clementina,
daughter of Prince James Sobieski, and granddaughter of John
Sobieski, King of Poland, who was the champion of Christen-
dom against the Turks, and drove back their last great invasion
in a mighty battle before the gates of Vienna in 1683. The
hand of this princess was duly sought for the Chevalier, and
her parents, dazzled by the prospect held out to them of their
daughter succeeding to the British throne, were induced to
consent to the match.
News of the proposed union, however, reached the Court of
St. James's, which forthwith took measures to frustrate the
3 Glasghu Fades, ii. p. 752 note ; Burgh Records, 28th May, 1724.
124 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
enterprise. Representations were at once made to the Court
of Vienna to prevent the marriage. To overcome this obstacle
it was arranged that the bride should travel secretly to Bologna,
and that the ceremony should take place there. But the
German Emperor was at that time especially desirous to stand
well with the British Government, which was supporting his
claim to Sicily with its fleet. On being informed of what was
taking place, therefore, he ordered the arrest of the bridal
party, and at the same time deprived the bride's father, Prince
James Sobieski, of his government of Augsburg, and threw him
into prison.
This denouement upset the entire plan of the Jacobite party,
and threatened seriously to damage the prospects of the
Jacobite cause. In the emergency, an Irishman, Charles
Wogan, who had nearly lost his life in the rising of 1715, came
forward with a plan. He obtained from the Austrian Ambas-
sador a passport in the name of Count Cernes, a nobleman who,
he gave out, was returning with his family from Loretto to the
Low Countries. Armed with this document the rescue party
set off. Two friends of Wogan, Major Misset and his wife,
acted as the Count and Countess ; Wogan himself was the
brother of the Countess, and a maid of Mrs. Misset 's was the
sister of the Count.
On the evening of 27th April, 1719, the adventurous little
party reached Innsbruck, and secured lodgings near the con-
vent where the Princess was confined. Here fortune favoured
the plotters. A servant of the Princess had obtained permission
from the porter to bring a young woman into the cloister as
often as he wished. This man was persuaded with a handsome
bribe to help the plot, and Jenny, Mrs. Misset's maid, after
some demur, was induced by the gift of a fine damask dress, a
few pieces of gold, and many bright promises, to risk the chief
part in the enterprise. During a dark night and a blinding
snowstorm, the maid was conveyed into the convent. There
RESCUE OF PRINCESS 125
she quickly changed clothes with the Princess, and very soon a
well-horsed carriage with a freight which meant so much to
the future of far-off Scotland, was making its way as rapidly
as postillions could ride, over bad roads and in wild weather,
towards the Italian frontier. The chief risk was at the frontier
itself, but after a few exciting moments the danger was
passed, and the fair Polish Princess was free upon Italian
soil. A few days later she was married to James at Bologna
by proxy.
In his marriage, as in everything else, the Chevalier failed
somehow to play the gallant part. He was away at the moment,
intriguing in Spain. The Princess, nevertheless, did not fail to
reward her rescuers. Wogan was made a knight by the Pope.
Nothing more is heard of the brave Jenny, but it may be hoped
she was not forgotten. John Walkinshaw of Barrowfield, who
had also played a part in the exciting enterprise, received his
reward in another way. He had no sons, but when, shortly
afterwards, his wife presented him in Rome with a tenth
daughter, the Princess acted as the child's godmother, and
gave her her own name of Clementina. This was the Clemen-
tina Walkinshaw who was to play so notable a part, at a
later day, in the life of the Princess's own son, Prince Charles
Edward. 4
Meanwhile " Lady Barrowfield " had returned to Glasgow.
In 1722 a petition was presented to the Crown on behalf of her
and her ten daughters. In response to this, William Douglas,
younger of Glenbervie, was appointed as a trustee, to work
the coal under the estates on their behalf. Later, in December
*723, when the properties were sold to the magistrates of
Glasgow, the mansion house of the Camlachie estate, with its
garden and twelve acres behind, was reserved for Lady
4 Narrative of the Escape of the Princess Clementine, by Charles Wogan.
London, 1722. The Life and Times of Prince Charles Stuart, Count of Albany,
by Alex. Charles Ewald, F.S.A., i. 2.
126 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Barrowfield. This remained in her possession only till 1734.
In that year she sold the house and grounds for 500 to a
Glasgow merchant, John Orr, who had already bought the
Camlachie and Barrowfield estates from the Town Council for
io,ooo. 5
Thus ended the Walkinshaw connection with Glasgow, so
far as the ownership of Barrowfield was concerned. It seems
probable, however, that Mrs. Walkinshaw continued to enjoy
the revenue from the coal pits on the estate and to occupy the
Camlachie mansion house for some years longer as a tenant.
It is generally understood that it was when Prince Charles
Edward was staying at the Shawfield mansion in Glasgow, in
the Christmas week of 1745, there was presented to him for
the first time John Walkinshaw 's youngest daughter, Clemen-
tina, who was also the god-daughter of his own mother, the
Princess Clementina Sobieski ; and tradition even avers that,
attracted by the charms of the young lady, he paid a visit to
her at the Camlachie mansion. 6 Whether or not he did so, he
6 Burgh Records, 3oth Dec. 1723; i6th May, 1724; 28th May, 1724.
Walkinshaw 's estate was heavily burdened with debt, and it was probably for
this reason that in purchasing Barrowfield the magistrates dealt directly with
him, purchasing the rights of his creditors, and securing the consent of his
wife, Katharine Paterson, and of William Douglas, younger, of Glenbervie, the
donator of the escheat. A somewhat similar set of circumstances seems to
have occurred in the case of Walter Gibson (supra, p. 58), in which, though by
decree of adjudication, his properties had apparently passed to certain creditors,
he was still able to sell Whiteinch and Balshagrie, and the purchasers merely
fortified their right by obtaining an additional disposition from the creditors.
The little old two-storey mansion house of Camlachie, with its quaint attic
windows in the roof, forms the subject of a woodcut in Glasghu Fades, p. 754.
For many years it was an inn, and when Wolfe, the future hero of Quebec,
commanded the garrison in Glasgow in 1749, he took up his quarters under its
roof. Here he wrote several of his dispatches, and improved himself by study-
ing Latin and mathematics. The building, which formed 809 and 811 Gallow-
gate, was only demolished in 1931.
An account of the Walkinshaws of Barrowfield is given in Glasgow Past
and Present, vol. ii. p. 511, and further details are furnished by Senex in Old
Glasgow, pp. 10-12, and in Brown's Hist. Glasg. ii. 101. See also Crawford's
Renfrewshire, p. 90.
8 Lugton's Old Lodgings of Glasgow, p. 61.
CLEMENTINA WALKINSHAW 127
had abundant opportunity of improving his acquaintance with
Clementina during the following weeks, when staying under
the roof of her relatives at Bannockburn House. 7 In that
neighbourhood likewise there is a tradition that, after the
Jacobite army had abandoned the siege of Stirling Castle, and
set out on its march to the north, the Prince spent a last night
at Torbrex House, near St. Ninians, before bidding farewell
to the daughter of the stout old laird of Barrowfield. In the
little old two-storeyed mansion, which then belonged to Mrs.
Walkinshaw, the room is still to be seen in which Charles is
said to have slept on that occasion.
John Walkinshaw died in 1731. His wife survived him by
about fifty years, and died in Edinburgh in November 1780, at
the great age of ninety-seven. 8 Not the least of her sorrows
must have been the fate of her youngest daughter. After his
escape to France the Prince sent for Clementina, and she went
over to him in 1752. As his mistress, or perhaps his wife, her
life with him was most unhappy, and she was forced by his ill-
usage to leave him in 1760. 9 By the Jacobites, who wished to
get her out of the way, she was accused of betraying his plans
to the British Government, but the only foundation for the
charge seems to have been that her sister Katharine was
housekeeper to the Princess of Wales, mother of George III.
The calumny was evidently not entertained by those best fitted
to know. By the French king she was created Comtesse
d'Alberstrof, and she was pensioned, first by the Prince's father,
and afterwards by his brother, the Cardinal of York. Her
daughter, Charlotte, born in 1753, Charles himself " legiti-
mated " in 1784 and created Duchess of Albany. She is the
7 Glasgow Mercury, 23rd Nov. 1780.
8 Bannockburn estate had been sold in 1720 by the Commissioners of
Forfeited Estates for ^9671, but, like Keir estate not far away, had been
bought back by friends of its former owners. Chambers, Domestic Annals, iii.
443-
9 Ewald's Life and Times of Prince Charles, ii. 229.
128 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
" Bonnie Lass of Albany " of Burns 's song, and she died in
the year after her father, 1789. Clementina Walkinshaw,
Comtesse d'Alberstrof, herself died at Freiburg in Switzerland
in 1802. There are reasons for believing that she was a much-
injured woman.
RESIDENCE OF THE CAMPBELLS OF BLYTHSWOOD,
BRIDGEGATE.
CHAPTER XVI
THE SHAWFIELD RIOT
A SPIRIT of enterprise and activity was clearly evident in the
atmosphere of Glasgow in the second decade of the eighteenth
century. In 1718 the magistrates found it possible to set about
the building of a sixth church for the city, necessitated by the
increase in the number of inhabitants " since the late happy
Revolution." The project had been in view for some time,
but had been delayed for lack of means. The new church was
intended for the inhabitants of the north-west quarter of the
city, and was planted in that quarter. It still stands at the
head of Candleriggs, and is the well-known St. David's or
Ramshorn Church. To begin with, the building was somewhat
unfortunate. Within two years several rents appeared in the
west wall of the church, and had to be " casten with lime,"
while the steeple was so unsafe that it had to be taken down
and rebuilt. 1
A church was also built in Port-Glasgow, of which the
feuars there paid one-half the cost and the Town Council of
Glasgow the other half. 2 Further, by way of restoring the
appearance of the city, the Council exercised certain powers
they possessed in connection with a ruinous tenement at the
corner of Gallowgate and High Street. The tenement had been
burned in the great fire which consumed the centre of the city
in 1677, an< 3, as the owners did not possess means to rebuild, it
1 Burgh Records, 23rd Sept., 2yth Oct., 1718 ; 5th May, 1720.
a Ibid. 28th March, 1718.
I 129 H.G. in.
130 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
had remained a reproach in full view of the Tolbooth opposite
for more than forty years. It was now rebuilt at the town's
cost, " with peatches before the shops, and three storeys high
above the shops, beside garrets above." 3
At the same time the surgeons and " pharmacians " of
Glasgow had reached a position of prosperity and professional
attainment which warranted them in making a definite break
with the barbers. Accordingly they brought the quarrel to a
head by retiring in a body from the craft. 4 The Town Council
gave its final judgment on the subject on 22nd September,
1722, dividing the property of the craft equitably between the
two parties, and from that time the Faculty of Physicians and
Surgeons and the Incorporation of Barbers have been entirely
separate bodies.
There were, however, in many minds the workings from
outside of a sinister influence seeking to wreck the rising
fortunes of the city. The burgesses had not yet forgotten the
disaster of Darien, and how it was brought about by the selfish
jealousy of the English merchants and colonists. More recently
the tobacco trade of Glasgow had been attacked in similar
insidious fashion. It had, as a matter of fact, been almost
strangled by vexatious restrictions and inquisitions imposed by
the House of Commons at the instance of the traders of White-
haven, Bristol, and London.
About the same time there appeared on the scene a menace
to another important industry. The spinning and weaving of
linen had for many years been a staple trade in Scotland.
Checks, linen, and linen and cotton were manufactured in
Glasgow as early, at least, as I702. 5 Defoe, in his Tour,
published in 1727, says of the city : " Here is also a Linen
Manufacture ; but as that is in common with all parts of Scot-
land ... I will not insist upon it as a Peculiar here, though they
3 Burgh Records, 25th Jan. 1718. Peatches =piazzas.
4 Ibid. 23rd Jan. 1720. 6 Gibson's History, p. 239.
OBSTRUCTION OF LINEN INDUSTRY 131
make a very great quantity of it, and send it to the Plantations
as their principal merchandise."
In this linen-making industry the manufacturers of London
and other English towns seem to have seen a rival to their own
woollen industry, and to have presented a petition to the
House of Commons to place some embargo upon it. So serious
to the fortunes of Glasgow were the possibilities of any such
action that the magistrates and Town Council drew up a
petition, to be presented to the House of Commons " for
themselves and in name and behalf of many thousands em-
ployed in the manufacturing of linen cloth." In this they
pointed out, first, that the suggestion of the English weavers
was directly contrary to the sixth article of the Union, which
declared that all parts of the United Kingdom should for ever
have the same allowances, encouragements, and drawbacks,
and be under the same regulations, restrictions, and prohibi-
tions of trade. Secondly, any Act of Parliament directed against
the wearing of printed or stained linen must unavoidably
reduce many thousands of workpeople to extreme want and
beggary, and take away the means by which the people of
Scotland bought the woollen and silk manufactures of England.
Finally, the petitioners asked the House of Commons to take
the linen trade of Scotland under its protection, and not only
keep it safe from the proposed attack, but also free it from
certain hardships and inconveniences to which it was already
subject. 6
This appeal appears to have had little effect, for a duty of
threepence per yard, which was about thirty per cent, of the
value, was levied on all linen " printed, stained, or painted " in
Great Britain, while a high duty was also placed on the soap
used in whitening the cloth. These taxes struck directly
against the industry carried on in Scotland, which supplied one
of the chief exports by means of which the trade of Glasgow
6 Burgh Records, nth Dec. 1719.
132 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
with the American colonies, and especially the tobacco trade,
was carried on. Two years later, therefore, the Town Council
petitioned Parliament again. It pointed out the unfairness of
the tax, in view of the fact that vast quantities of foreign linen
were admitted to the country, and received a rebate on being
exported again by the English traders to the plantations. The
memorial urged that linen was the ancient staple manufacture
of North Britain, and should have the same public regard and
protection as the woollen manufacture, which was the staple
of South Britain. Since the Union, the petitioners declared,
the other staple manufactures of Scotland had been entirely
ruined by the greatness and perfection of those of England.
The manufacture of linen was the only industry left by which
the people could be employed and the poor supported. To
this the new duties had now given the finishing stroke, and the
disastrous effect was being felt in every parish in the country. 7
Blow after blow of this invidious kind, which Scotland, and
especially Glasgow, had suffered at the hands of the House of
Commons in London, had excited no little resentment in the
minds of the citizens. That resentment needed only a little
further provocation to produce alarming results, and before
long the provocation came.
Though much care had been taken, at the time of the
Union, to arrange for an equitable share of taxation to be borne
by Scotland, some difficulties of adjustment afterwards arose,
and in 1724, when money was urgently required by Govern-
ment, it was resolved to make a call upon North Britain. The
sum of 20,000 was required, and the Government proposed to
raise this by a tax of sixpence per barrel upon ale. At the same
time, according to Lockhart, who gives a very full account of
the whole trouble, it was proposed to deprive Scotland of the
bounty on exported grain, which was still to be enjoyed by
England. So great a furore, however, was raised in Scotland
7 Burgh Records, i8th Nov. 1721.
MALT TAX TROUBLES 133
against the measure, especially by the country gentlemen and
the Jacobites, that the Government dropped the suggestion,
and turned to a proposal which seemed less open to question. 8
It proceeded to place a tax on malt. Already, as a matter of
fact, the country was subject to the same tax as England, viz.
6d. per bushel ; but the duty had never been levied. It was
part of this duty which was now to be put in force. The tax
was to be threepence per bushel, and it was over this impost
that serious trouble arose.
Hitherto Scotland had been entirely free from any duty or
tax upon the material for brewing " the puir man's wine," 9
and full advantage had been taken of the fact. Malt-kilns and
malt-barns were to be seen everywhere, and along the highway
running westward out of Glasgow, the old St. Theneu's Gate,
now Argyll Street, they were specially numerous. It was true
that since the Revolution a tax of 2d. Scots (one-sixth of a
penny sterling) had been levied on every pint of ale sold in
the country ; but in Glasgow the product of this tax had been
devoted to the common good of the city itself, and perhaps for
that reason had excited no hostility. Now, however, the
country was about to be subjected to a levy which meant that
a solid sum of 20,000 per annum would be carried across the
Border into England. The Act was passed in 1725, and the
levying of the tax was to begin on 23rd June.
As the day approached a meeting of the brewers of the
chief towns took place in Edinburgh, and arranged for resist-
ance to the tax. 10 The whole country was roused, and it seems
probable that the Jacobites were using the occasion to stir up
8 Lockhart Papers, ii. 134 el seq.
9 Yet humbly kind in time o' need,
The puir man's wine,
His wee drap parritch or his bread,
Thou kitchens fine I
Burns, Scotch Drink.
10 Hill Burton, viii. 354.
134 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
indignation against the Hanoverian Government. Curiously
enough, however, it was in Glasgow, a city of undoubted Hano-
verian sentiment, that the actual outbreak of violence occurred.
The personage whose name figures chiefly in connection
with the occurrence was Daniel Campbell of Shawfield, M.P.
for the Glasgow group of burghs. The son of John Campbell,
an eminent notary who plied his profession in the then
fashionable quarter of the Goosedubs, and who had amassed
considerable wealth, and was proprietor of the lands of Shaw-
field, near Rutherglen, was himself one of the most pros-
perous of the Glasgow merchants. 1 As already mentioned, he
built for himself in 1711 the famous Shawfield Mansion at the
West Port of the burgh, facing the Stockwellgate. 2 Some idea
of his means may be gathered from the fact that, when the
magistrates purchased the Barrowfield estate in 1724, the
largest of John Walkinshaw's creditors with whom they had to
settle was Daniel Campbell of Shawfield, to whom the Jacobite
laird was owing no less a sum than 59,000 Scots (4916 6s. 8d.
sterling). 3 From the first he appears to have enjoyed the con-
fidence of the city fathers. When the Government agreed to
pay 736 135. 5d. sterling for the expense to which the town
had been put for the maintenance of the Jacobite prisoners in
the Bishop's Castle in 1715-16, the Town Council entrusted
him with a power of attorney to uplift the money in London. 4
At the same time, for " the considerable personal charge and
1 Senex, Glasgow Past and Present, i. 455.
2 A woodcut of the mansion is given in Gordon's Glasghu Fades, page 606,
and the most complete description of it in the same work, page 955. The
orchard, shrubbery, and ornamental gardens behind extended as far north as
the present Ingram Street, while in front a massive iron-studded gate of oak
between lofty stone portals gave admission to carriages, and there was a parapet
with curiously sculptured columns surmounted by sphinxes. It was certainly
not surpassed in grandeur by the Spreull mansion still standing on the adjoin-
ing site on the east, by the Dreghorn mansion, now part of a warehouse in
Great Clyde Street, or by the Lainshaw mansion, now embedded in the Queen
Street end of the Royal Exchange.
3 Burgh Records, 28th May, 1724. 4 Ibid, ist May, 1719.
UNPOPULARITY OF SHAWFIELD 135
expenses " he had been at in securing the payment, and also in
getting an Act passed through Parliament for renewing the
town's grant of two pennies on the pint of ale, he was paid by
the magistrates the rather astonishing sum of 348 is. 3|d.
sterling, or nearly half the amount recovered by his efforts from
the Government. 5
While this was done, among certain of the townspeople, there
was a tide of animosity rising against their member of Parlia-
ment. He was believed to have given information to the
Government which contributed to bring about the obstructions
to Glasgow's tobacco trade which had of late harassed the
fortunes of the burgh, and in the previous November he had
received some intimation of the public feeling against him by
the smashing of some of the windows of his mansion. He was
further known to have given his vote in the House of Commons
in favour of the execrated tax on malt.
Before the day on which the new tax was to come into
operation Campbell seems to have received further warning of
his danger, for he removed his family, and also, his enemies
said, some of his valuables, to Woodhall, his country seat eight
miles out of town, and asked the Government to send a military
force to keep down disorder. 6 Rumours of these doings seem
to have reached the citizens and to have fired their wrath to
the explosion point. Their member of Parliament had not only
voted for the hated malt tax which was to transfer so much of
5 Ibid, 7th Nov. 1719. As a matter of fact, the town itself appears to have
received very little of this belated repayment by the Exchequer, the fees to the
various officials in London amounting to 51 i8s. 8|d. The charges for securing
the renewal of the grant of 2d. on the pint of ale were no less extravagant
Expenses of Provost Aird and the Town Clerk in London, 111 i6s. sterling ;
dues to officials, ^129 ; two hogsheads Obryan wine to Daniel Campbell " for
the use of some friends of the town," 73 123. 5d. ; and to Daniel Campbell
himself, as mentioned above, ^348 is. 3fd. (Burgh Records, nth Dec. 1719).
Altogether, one gets the impression from some of these items that Daniel
Campbell was very capable of looking after his own interest.
6 A Letter from a Gentleman in Glasgow concerning the late Tumult. Printed
in 1725. Glasghu Fades, p. 958 (Original in National Library).
136 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Scotland's wealth to England, but had arranged to bring
English troops into the city to massacre the inhabitants if they
ventured to protest.
On 23rd June, the day when the Malt Tax came into force,
the excise officers were forced to flee out of most of the towns
in the western counties. In Glasgow crowds of idle persons,
mostly women and boys, gathered in the outskirts, where the
malt-barns were situated, and the officers did not venture to
enter the barns to levy the duty, out of fear of the mob growing
to proportions which might be dangerous. 7 On the following
day the same thing happened, but so far the magistrates found
no difficulty in dispersing the crowd. It was not till the even-
ing of the 24th, when Captain Bushell, with two companies of
foot, marched into the town that anything alarming happened.
Word was then brought to Provost Miller that the persons he
had ordered to prepare the guard-room in Trongate for the
reception of the soldiers had been thrust out by a mob, who
locked the doors and carried off the keys. When he sent the
town officers to open the doors they were attacked and beaten
off, and when he set out to see to the matter in person he was
told that if he approached the spot he would be torn in pieces
by the mob. 8 He was advised that the disorder would be
quieted if the soldiers were dispersed to billets, and after con-
sulting Captain Bushell he ordered this to be done. He then
waited in the town-house with the Dean of Guild and Mr.
Campbell of Blythswood, the only other justice of the peace in
the place, till nine o'clock, when, as no further trouble was
reported, they retired, as was customary, to a tavern hard by. 9
7 Lockhart's account.
8 The guardhouse, a handsome building with a piazza, stood at the foot
of Candleriggs on the west side. In its lower part were two apartments, one
for officers and one for privates, while above were lofts for ammunition, etc.
(Gibson's History, p. 150).
9 " A True and Faithful Account " sent by the Town Council to the King.
Burgh Records, sist July, 1725.
RIOTERS IN POSSESSION 137
Shortly after ten o'clock, however, word was brought that
the mob had risen again, and were attacking Shawfield's house.
The party hurried to the spot, where they found a more formid-
able mob than before, mostly young fellows armed with clubs
and other weapons, and carrying hammers and house-breaking
tools. None of these young men were known to the Provost
or his companions, but after considerable debate he persuaded
them to retire, and they were moving away when they were
met by another band of rioters, who beat down the town officers
and threatened to cut the Provost and his company to pieces.
The latter had to flee for their lives, and only escaped with
difficulty.
The town guard, which usually went on duty between ten
and eleven, was of no use in the circumstances, as it consisted,
not of the burgesses themselves, but of " the poorer sort of
people," hired by them for that service. It was proposed to
call out the military, and Captain Bushell sent an offer to do
this. But as the soldiers were tired with their long march, and
could only be summoned from their quarters by beat of drum,
and in ones and twos, when they would be liable to be destroyed
singly by the mob, it was thought inadvisable to call them out.
The rioters were now absolute masters of the situation, and
they used their opportunity to wreck the Shawfield Mansion
completely. Nothing was left but the walls, floors, and roof,
which they could not easily destroy.
So far the disturbance had proceeded without bloodshed.
The tragic part was to follow.
Next day, 25th June, the Provost secured the passages to
the plundered mansion, put the soldiers in possession of the
guard-house, and gave orders for two hundred of the inhabi-
tants to assemble at the Tolbooth at three o'clock, to receive
orders for patrolling the town. Before that hour, however,
affairs took a more serious turn. As the Provost and his friends
were walking in front of the town-house the rioters suddenly
138 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
reappeared, led by an old woman beating a drum. By some
afterwards it was said that the old woman was really a man
disguised. Without waiting for other help the Provost broke
up the mob and drove it off the street, but it merely gathered
in the wynds and back ways, and presently appeared again
before the guard-house, and began to throw stones at the
soldiers. At that, Captain Bushell, who appears to have been
hot-tempered and impulsive, drew out his men and formed them
in a hollow square at the cross, commanding the four main
streets. There the mob began stoning him again, and, the
situation threatening to become worse, he, without waiting for a
proclamation by the civil authority, ordered his men to fire. By
that volley several persons were killed and more were wounded,
and the occurrence merely increased the fury of the rioters. The
mob then broke into the magazine in the Tolbooth, carried off the
arms stored there, and rang the fire bell to alarm the townsfolk.
Finding himself powerless to resist, the Provost sent a
message to Captain Bushell, desiring him to save further tumult
by retiring from the city. This Bushell did, and marched his
men to Dunbarton. The riot then died down, but nine persons
had been killed and sixteen or seventeen wounded.
News of the disturbance having reached Edinburgh, an ac-
count of it appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Courant, which
represented both the magistrates and the military as having done
their best to preserve the peace. This did not please two indi-
viduals, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, who was Campbell of
Shawfield's brother, and M.P. for that city, and George Drum-
mond, one of the Commissioners of Excise, and next Lord Provost
of the capital. At the instigation of Drummond the Caledonian
Mercury four days later published an account of what had
happened, which represented the conduct of the magistrates
and inhabitants of Glasgow in an unfavourable light, and
insinuated that the magistrates were accessory to the disorders.
As a result, and believing the city to be in a state of rebellion,
MAGISTRATES ARRESTED 139
General Wade, the officer commanding in Scotland, marched
upon Glasgow on gth July with a considerable body of troops.
These comprised Lord Deloraine's regiment of foot, six troops
of the Royal Scots Dragoons, as many of the Earl of Stair's
Dragoons, and one of the Independent Companies of High-
landers commanded by Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochnell, with
a train of artillery and ammunition. Wade marched this force
into the city, rather surprised that there was no rebellion to
quell. With him, however, came the Lord-Advocate, Duncan
Forbes of Culloden, afterwards to become famous by the part
he played at the time of the later Jacobite rebellion. Forbes
instituted a strict enquiry, which included the magistrates
themselves, and as a result a considerable number of persons
were imprisoned in the guard-house. On Friday, i6th July,
these persons were carried to Edinburgh under military escort,
and on the same day the provost, three bailies, the dean of guild,
and the deacon-convener were arrested, and charged with having
encouraged the rioters. On learning what was taking place a
great concourse of the citizens gathered at the cross, and pro-
bably only the presence of the military prevented another
riotous outbreak.
After spending a night in their own Tolbooth the magis-
trates were carried, under a guard of the Royal Scots Dragoons,
first to Falkirk, where they rested on the Sunday, and then to
Edinburgh, where they were lodged in the Tolbooth. It is
interesting to know that some forty or fifty of their own mer-
chants came from Glasgow to accompany them ; also that
when they were allowed bail and two of them returned to
Glasgow on the Wednesday, they were met, some five or six
miles out, by several hundreds of the inhabitants, and welcomed
with the ringing of bells and other demonstrations of joy. 10
" Letter from a Gentleman," preserved in the National Library, and
reprinted in Gordon's Glasghu Fades, p. 958. See also Wodrow's Analecta,
and Glasgow Burgh Records, yth July, 3ist July, i4th Aug. 1725.
140 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
In the upshot no further action appears to have been taken
against Provost Miller and the magistrates of Glasgow. Lock-
hart, indeed, suggests that the chief reason for their being
troubled at all was that at the previous Michaelmas election
they had ousted Provost Aird and his party, who were friends
of Campbell of Shawfield, and that the riot was thought a
proper occasion to " squeeze them," and perhaps to replace
" Campbell's set."
Of the actual rioters, what Lockhart calls " a hot trial "
took place in the Justiciary Court, the Earl of Islay and Lord
Royston pressing for a death sentence. Of the first ten who
were tried a man and a woman were condemned to perpetual
banishment. The others were acquitted.
In the case of Captain Bushel! a criminal process was raised
in the Court of Justiciary by the Glasgow magistrates them-
selves, and, seeing that he had acted without authority from
a magistrate a verdict was found against him. He, however,
received a royal pardon, and shortly afterwards, having retired
from Scotland, was promoted to the command of a troop of
dragoons. 1 There is reason to believe that this leniency had an
effect twelve years later, when the mob of Edinburgh, deter-
mined to prevent the escape in similar circumstances of Captain
Porteous, took matters into its own hands and hanged the
object of their wrath in the Grassmarket. 2
Of the personage whose conduct gave rise to the popular
ferment, Daniel Campbell of Shawfield himself, something
remains to be said. Lockhart's suggestion that he bore some
grudge against Provost Miller and the Glasgow magistrates
receives some support from the fact that immediately after the
riot he called upon these gentlemen to pay down the 4500
they were still owing him out of the price of the Barrowfield
estate. To raise the money the members of the Town Council
had to become security " severally and conjunctly " to the
1 Lockhart Papers. z Hill Burton, viii. 356.
SOLATIUM TO SHAWFIELD 141
bank in Edinburgh, a fact which probably gave him the satis-
faction he may have wished. 3 By way of compensation for
the damage done to his house, the Government paid Campbell
6080, with 2600 more for other details. As the actual loss
can hardly have amounted to anything like 8680, the award
looks not unlike part of the huge system of bribery which was
a notorious feature of Walpole's administration. In this case
the solatium cost the Government nothing, for it recouped
itself by confiscating for a period of years the excise duty of
twopence per pint on ale consumed within the burgh, the grant
of which had only recently been renewed to the Glasgow
magistrates for other purposes. 4
With the money thus obtained, Shawfield bought the
islands of Islay and Jura from the Campbells of Cawdor, who
had possessed them since the days of James VI. The sum he
paid for the two islands was 12,000, and he presently sold
Jura to the ancestor of the Campbell lairds of Jura of the
present day. 5
Two years after the riot, Campbell sold the Shawfield
Mansion to Colonel William Macdowall of Castle Semple,
formerly of St. Kitt's in the West Indies, with whose coming
another chapter of Glasgow's history may be said to have
begun. Shawfield himself, nevertheless, still remained member
of Parliament for Glasgow and the neighbouring burghs. 6
8 Burgh Records, 28th July, 1725. * Ibid. 26th May, 1726.
5 Senex, Glasgow Past and Present, ii. 239. Senex states that, when a hundred
and fifty years later, Islay was sold to Mr. Morrison by the Royal Bank of
Scotland, the price was ^400,000.
6 Mitchell, Old Glasgow Essays, p. 20.
CHAPTER XVII
CAMPBELL OF SHAWFIELD AND HIS COMPENSATION
AFTER the first run of the great tobacco trade with Virginia,
which followed the Union, had brought the promise of wealth
to Glasgow, the city fathers seem to have seen their way to
the spending of money on a considerable scale. Between the
years 1721 and 1723 quite a number of large developments
were undertaken. Chief of these, perhaps, so far as the comfort
of the townspeople was concerned, was the causewaying of the
streets. Previously these thoroughfares wynds and gates and
vennels must have been anything but easy for traffic, mere
earthern surfaces with stones of any size thrown into the ruts.
Only on the bridges, and at one or two special points of heavy
traffic, had anything in the way of a causeway been attempted,
and hitherto, at the rare intervals when work of this sort fell
to be done, an expert had to be brought in. Thus, in 1578, a
" calsay maker " was borrowed from Dundee, the Provost and
bailies undertaking to return him to that town at the following
Michaelmas. But now the magistrates proceeded vigorously
with the work, and ultimately made a contract with two
" cawssiers " to pave and maintain all the public thoroughfares
of the town. The contract was for fifteen years, at 1000 Scots
(83 sterling) yearly for the first four years, and 1000 merks
(55 sterling) yearly for the remaining eleven. 1
Another important work was the repair of the High Church.
Evidently the building had fallen sadly out of repair. Some of
1 Burgh Records, isth Jan. 1722, 7th March, 1728.
142
MAKING OF KING STREET 143
the stonework had fallen down, the walls required pointing,
and the roof leaked. There were holes in the floor of the inner
church or choir, the lintels of doors had given way, and three
of the " lofts " or galleries required to be renewed. Moreover,
the gateway to the churchyard required to be widened " for
the conveniency for the corpse entering." A complete overhaul
was undertaken, and the city accounts for some time record
large payments for lead and other materials used in the work. 2
The increase in the town's river traffic, again, passing up
and down from Port-Glasgow, called for more accommodation
at the harbour, and the Town Council set about an extension of
the quay from the Broomielaw to the Dowcat or Old Green. The
consent of the Trades House, and, strangely enough, with more
reluctance, of the Merchants House, was obtained for the
expenditure of 10,000 on the work. The money was to be
taken out of the excise duty of " two pennies on the pint " of
ale consumed in the town, for which the grant to the Town
Council had been continued by Parliament, and on the strength
of which so many expensive enterprises were undertaken. In
this case, no doubt, the expenditure was really wise and neces-
sary enough, though three years later, when the " two pennies
on the pint " were seized by Government for the payment of
the compensation to Campbell of Shawfield for the malt tax
riot, the magistrates must have looked at the undertaking
rather ruefully. 3
More ambitious still, and perhaps hardly so necessary, was
the making of a complete new thoroughfare from Trongate to
Briggate. For this purpose large purchases of property had to
be made, and for some time the Town Council minutes contain
constant references to the making of bargains with the owners
of houses and ground required for the formation of the new
street. Considerable attention was paid to the details of the
buildings to be erected in this new thoroughfare, and in its
2 Ibid. 25th March, 1721. 3 Ibid. 22nd June, 1722.
144 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
time King Street, running southward opposite Candleriggs, was
probably the best built part of the city. 4
In King Street, entered by spacious ornamental gateways,
stood the covered markets, that on the east side for butcher-
meat and those on the west side for fish, mutton, and cheese
respectively. With their pump wells, and other conveniences,
these markets, according to Gibson (History, p. 149), were
" justly admired, as being the completest of their kind in
Britain."
The magistrates even went considerably afield with their
expenditure. It happened that a congregation of dissenters at
Atherton in Lancashire had enjoyed the privilege from the lord
of the manor of a site for their meeting-house since the year
1645. In the late rebellion, however, they had raised three
hundred men for the Government, and had taken part under
General Wills in defeating and capturing the Jacobite force at
Preston. For their zeal in this matter they had been deprived
of their chapel by the present owner of the ground, and were
compelled to build a new meeting-house for themselves. As
they were " chiefly of such as live upon their daily labour, and
many under the charity of others," they were " under necessity
of requesting the help and assistance of friends and fellow
Christians." " In view of their steadiness and firmness for his
Majesty's Government," the magistrates agreed to subscribe
the sum of ten pounds sterling towards the new chapel. 5
By far the heaviest expense of all, however, was incurred in
the buying of the Walkinshaw estate of Barrowfield already
4 Burgh Records, i gth April, 1 720, et seq. In forming King Street and building
St. David's Church at the head of Candleriggs, the Town Council of 1720 showed
a fine sense of town planning. They were creating a noble street avenue with
a notable architectural feature closing the vista. The same idea was carried
out at a later day when the vista of Buchanan Street was closed with St.
Enoch's Church, and the vista of George Street with St. George's. This idea
was evidently overlooked when St. Enoch's Church was demolished a few
years ago.
5 Ibid. 8th June, 1723.
CHARACTER OF SHAWFIELD 145
referred to. 6 If the city had been able to retain possession of
that estate, on which the thickly populated quarter of Bridgeton
is now built, as well as the still larger estate of Provan further
north, the " Common Good " of Glasgow might have been
enormously more wealthy at the present hour. But as in the
case of the old Archbishop's lands about the burgh, which had
come into its possession in Queen Mary's time, the Town Council
seems to have been unable to make these estates pay their
way. From first to last Glasgow has somehow found the posses-
sion of a country estate to be merely an expensive luxury
which sooner or later it has deemed it desirable to get rid of on
the best terms possible. The moiety of the estate of Gorbals
has been perhaps the one exception.
In the early twenties of the eighteenth century, it will be
seen, the spirit of those in charge of the public affairs of Glasgow
was courageous and enterprising. That spirit, as well as the
spirit of the ordinary citizens, received a check, first from the
obstacles thrown in the way of the rising tobacco trade by
Government, at the instigation of the English merchants, and
next by the malt tax riot and the heavy burden it threw upon
the town's revenues in order to pay compensation to the owner
of the Shawfield Mansion. 7 It looked as if the community,
recently so obviously on the high road to prosperity, were
about to be crushed under a succession of misfortunes.
Campbell of Shawfield, it must be confessed, makes any-
thing but a handsome figure in the story of Glasgow at that
time. From first to last he was self-seeking and grasping, never
missing a chance to enrich himself at the expense of his con-
stituents, and doing little or nothing to support and defend the
interests of the city which had honoured him by sending him
to Parliament. We have already seen how he exacted an
6 Ibid, gth Dec. 1723.
7 The compensation was over five times the amount of the town's
ordinary annual revenue, Mitchell, Old Glasgow Essays, p. 20.
146 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
exorbitant fee for his services in securing repayment of the
town's expenditure on Jacobite prisoners, and how he demanded
immediate payment of the large debt of Walkinshaw of Barrow-
field, which had been taken over by the Town Council. Most
crushing of all was the huge compensation award of 6080 for
the damage done to his house by the malt-tax rioters, which he
allowed to be saddled upon the city. Still later, when, at the
election of 1727, a " double return " was made, and the city
unequivocally showed that it wished John Blackwood to be its
parliamentary representative, Shawfield obstinately refused to
give way, and secured the annulment of Blackwood's election
by order of the House of Commons. 8 In view of these facts, it
is not difficult to believe that the rumour was well founded
which attributed to Shawfield the furnishing of information to
Glasgow's English rivals which stopped the progress of the
city's tobacco trade for a dozen years.
The immense award of 6080 damages to Daniel Campbell
upset the whole finances of the city, and had far-reaching con-
sequences upon the fortunes of Glasgow. By that addition the
town's debt was increased to the then enormous sum of 14,000
sterling, 9 and the city fathers might well look with something
like dismay on the prospect of toiling through the bog of em-
barrassments which lay before them. It is interesting to note
the means they took to clear themselves.
In the first place, in order to be rid of the uncertainties of
the repayment of Campbell's 6080 out of the Excise of 2d. in
the pint, with the expenses, deductions, and uncertainties likely
to arise in dealings with a Government office, they resolved forth-
with to borrow and pay up the whole sum. 10 By this means the
debt was funded, and the town was left to collect the 2d. in
the pint for its own behoof in the most economic way possible.
8 Burgh Records, 2Qth Jan., 28th Mar. 1728 ; 2i3t Jan. 1729.
9 Burgh Records, 13th Dec. 1726.
10 Ibid. loth, i3th and 3ist Dec. 1726.
SALE OF TOWN'S ESTATES 147
The next move took place three years later. By that time
the Town Council had apparently become convinced that the
management of their newly-acquired country estates of Provan
and Barrowfield was not likely to prove profitable. They
accordingly advertised these estates for sale " by the publick
prints." After an offer by William Stirling, merchant, London,
to acquire the Provan estate at twenty-four years' purchase of
the advertised rental, and a feu-duty of one-third of the rent,
or thirty-one years' purchase for an absolute right, the Town
Council disposed of the property to a syndicate of five mer-
chants at twenty-six years' purchase and a feu-duty of one-
third of the rent. After deduction of the teind the purchase
price was 64,495 i2s. Scots (5374 123. 8d. sterling), while the
annual feu-duty was 1240 6s. Scots (103 6s. nd. sterling). 1
The Town Council further definitely ordered that the money
received was to be applied entirely to the payment of the
town's debt.
In the following year, as already mentioned, Barrowfield
was sold outright to John Orr for the sum of 10,000 sterling. 2
At the same time the lands of Wester Common were dis-
posed of to James Rae, merchant, for a yearly feu-duty of one
hundred merks and an unnamed capital sum which, on the
basis of the sale of Provan, would amount to 7800 merks, or
433 6s. 8d. sterling. 3
At the same period another money transaction, this time
of somewhat doubtful character, was carried out by the town.
A certain William Mitchell, merchant in London, had be-
queathed a sum of 2000 sterling for the erection of a free
school and the help of some poor people in Glasgow. His will
1 Burgh Records, ist to igth Aug. 1729. See supra, p. 17.
2 Ibid. 27th Aug., 29th Sept. 1730. The new laird of Barrowfield was a
notable Glasgow citizen. He was a bailie in 1719, and Rector of the Univer-
sity in 1734, and he gave 500 sterling to the College library. Senex, Old
Glasgow, p. ii.
3 Ibid. i8th June, 1730.
148 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
directed that, three months after his death, the money should
be invested in land near Glasgow. The testator probably had
in view the directions given by George and Thomas Hutcheson
in the previous century for the investment of their bequests,
and, had his wishes been carried out, it is possible that his
charity might have been not less valuable than that of the
Hutchesons at the present hour. But the money was lodged
with the Town Clerk and applied in payment of several bonds
due by the town, and, instead of investing it in land, the
magistrates and council hit upon the plan of deferring that
proceeding, and meanwhile merely granting a bond to make
the money forthcoming at some unspecified time, and to apply
the interest in all time coming to the purposes specified by the
testator. As a result the capital sum still remains 2000, and
the interest, some 113, is paid to indigent persons qualified
as burgesses of the Merchant and Trades rank. 4
Still another means of securing a sum of ready money was
suggested by the proposal of two residents in Port-Glasgow,
John Lyon and Hugh Milliken, to take a " tack," or lease, of the
city's interest in that place. They offered, in return for the
revenues of Port-Glasgow and the Royal Fisheries Close in
Greenock, with the thirlage of sixteen pence payable by the
inhabitants on every boh 1 of malt brewed in the Port, to pay a
fixed annual sum, build a new quay and breastwork, pay the
stipends of minister and schoolmaster, keep the city's property,
dwelling-houses, and warehouses in good repair, and meet all
other ordinary expenses usually payable by the Town Council.
Nothing came of the proposal at the time, but two years later
it was carried out, and the town's interest in the Port was put
up to auction, and leased for three years to Robert Boyd, a
Glasgow merchant, for 1810 merks yearly. 5
By these means Glasgow's debt was paid off, and the
4 Burgh Records, 2yth Aug. 1730.
5 Ibid. i8th June, 1730 ; 4th January and I3th July, 1732.
CITY'S DEBTS PAID 149
finances of the city were restored to a healthy condition. At
least one other useful purpose was served by the emergency.
The Town Council was freed from the details of estate manage-
ment which had threatened to engross its time and energies,
and was left to devote itself to the more legitimate func-
tions of government. No longer worried with the adjusting of
fences and signing of leases, it could devote its attention to the
keeping of the peace and administering of justice, and with these
objects in view proceeded to appoint a bailie of Pro van, an
appointment which remains till the present day one of the
most esteemed in the gift of the Town Council. 6
6 Ibid. 4th March, 1731. The bailieship of Provan is to-day an honorary
post which is filled by the Town Council annually in November. The person
appointed is usually a retired councillor who has rendered notable service to
the city.
CHAPTER XVIII
COLONEL WILLIAM MACDOWALL AND THE WEST INDIA TRADE
CAMPBELL of Shawfield never returned to his famous mansion
at the West Port. There might have been another malt-tax
riot, and he might not have had timely warning on a second
occasion. While he faded out of the picture, so far as the
intimate life of Glasgow was concerned, and was known only
as an insistent creditor demanding his pound of flesh, his place
was taken by a personage of very different sort.
Colonel William Macdowall was a cadet of an ancient
family, the Macdowalls of Garthland in Galloway. He and a
fellow-officer, Major James Milliken, while quartered in the
island of St. Kitts, in the West Indies, had wooed and won two
heiresses of the island, owners of great sugar estates, the Widow
Tovie, whose maiden name had been Mary Stephen, and her
daughter Mary. Returning to Scotland, Colonel Macdowall in
1727 bought the fine Renfrewshire estate of Castle Semple, for
centuries the home of the Barons Sempill, and six years later
Major Milliken bought the neighbouring estate of Johnston, to
which he gave his own name of Milliken, its name to-day. In
the same year Macdowall acquired from Daniel Campbell the
great Shawfield Mansion in the Trongate of Glasgow, and with
his fellow-officer of previous years settled to business in the
city.
It has almost been forgotten that the sugar trade of Glasgow
was at least as old as the tobacco trade. According to Crom-
well's commissioner, Tucker, writing in 1651, certain Glasgow
150
WEST INDIA SUGAR TRADE 151
merchants had ventured their ships as far as Barbadoes,
Britain's oldest sugar colony, but had met with such losses
through having to return late in the year that they had ceased
to make the attempt. The sugar refiners of Glasgow there
were ultimately at least four " sugar houses," or refineries, in
the city were forced to depend for their supplies of the raw
material upon Bristol, at that time the chief sugar port of
Europe.
By the arrival of the sugar heiresses and their husbands
from St. Kitts all this was changed. The ships with their sugar
cargoes came into Port-Glasgow, and Glasgow itself became
the market for their sugar and rum. Thus the Glasgow " sugar
houses " got their supplies direct from the sugar estates, and
thus was founded in reality the great West India trade of the
city. 1
The story of the great business founded by the two ex-
ofncers forms one of the most brilliant and tragic romances of
Glasgow trade. The two founded the West India house of
James Milliken & Co., out of which, in alliance with the
Houstons of Jordanhill and the Raes of Little Govan, grew the
great West India business of Alexander Houston & Co. For
three-quarters of a century the firm carried on an immense
trade, owning ships and sugar estates on a vast scale, and when
the crash came, in 1795, it was the greatest failure Glasgow
had ever seen. 2 That, however, was in the time of the grand-
sons of Colonel Macdowall.
Meanwhile, till his death in 1748, the Colonel continued
to inhabit the finest residence in Glasgow, and, with his
fine presence, was probably the most notable figure in town.
Owner of a noble mansion in the country and a rich estate
in the West Indies, with ships on the seas and cargoes of sugar
and rum constantly coming home, he had also the social prestige
1 Brown, History of Glasgow, ii. 332.
1 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 223.
152 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
of his army rank and his long family descent, and must have
held the regard of everyone as he stepped, with his tall gold-
headed cane, along the causeway. Moreover, his coming had
opened up new prospects of wealth for the city.
Of his partner, Major Milliken, less has been said. He had,
perhaps happily, no son to succeed him, so his fortune escaped
disaster when the crash came. His daughter and heiress
married General William Napier, a lineal descendant of the
inventor of logarithms, and became the ancestress of the
baronet house of Milliken Napier, which has given several
distinguished soldiers to the service of the crown.
Meanwhile, in the third decade of the century, in which
Colonel Macdowall and Major Milliken came to the city,
Glasgow saw the introduction and development of more than
one industry. John Gibson, in his History of Glasgow, notes
that the spirit of manufacture was raised in the city between
the years 1725 and 1750, and attributes it to the needs of the
commerce with America. From about that time, at any rate,
many new industries dated their origin.
There had formerly, for example, been a " pighouse," or
pottery, outside the Gallowgate port, for supplying the citizens
with earthenware. For some reason it had become derelict,
when William Marshall in 1722 obtained permission to build
" a little house " on the same spot, and proceed again with the
making of " pigs, potts, and other earthen vessell." Evidently
the enterprise succeeded, for the " Pighouse " remained one of
the noted features of the city for many a day. 3
A kindred enterprise, the making of green glass bottles,
was started in 1730, and its factory, the " Bottlehouse him,"
on the spot where the Customhouse now stands, appears in
many early prints of the city. 4
Again, the manufacture of cotton and linen handkerchiefs
was evidently an established business, affording employment
3 Burgh Records, 8th May, 1722. 4 Cleland, Annals, p. 371.
FIRST GLASGOW BLEACHFIELD 153
to a considerable number of persons, when it was threatened
with disaster by the action of certain of the manufacturers.
These individuals sought to increase their profits by substitut-
ing " logwood or false colours " for the more expensive indigo
dye, and by making the handkerchiefs " shorter in length than
they are in breadth." To save the credit and prosperity of the
industry the city fathers stepped in, and ordered that the
handkerchiefs must be woven square and of certain standard
sizes, and that no logwood or false colours must be used in the
dyeing, under pain of fine and imprisonment. 5
A further development of the linen manufacture took place
when William and Andrew Gray proceeded to establish a
cambric factory and a bleaching field in the outskirts of the
city. In their application to the Town Council for the feu-
right of an additional piece of outfield on the Provan estate
they mentioned that for several years they had been desirous
of improving the manufacture of linen, had been at great
expense in travelling through various parts of Europe to obtain
" the art and mysterie of whytening linen cloath," and had
purchased " all the materials, machines, and instruments neces-
sary thereto." The business thus started was the beginning of
the great bleaching and printing industry which has been one
of the staple enterprises of Glasgow and its neighbourhood
from that day till this, and out of which at a later period grew
the vast chemical manufactures of the city. 6
Also, in the year in which Colonel Macdowall settled in the
city, and perhaps in consequence of that event, a new sugar-
house, or refinery, Glasgow's fourth, was established in King
5 Burgh Records, nth March, 1726.
6 Ibid, soth Nov. 1727. The art of flax-spinning and cambric-making was
considered so important that the commissioners and trustees for improving
fisheries and manufactures in Scotland gave an annual grant of /3o sterling
for the teaching of it, and a special girls' school for the purpose was established
in Glasgow, with the widow of the minister of Cardross as its mistress.
2ist Oct. 1728 ; 1 8th March, 1729.)
154 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Street. The value of land in the heart of the city at that time
may be judged from the fact that for the site, at the corner of
King Street and Prince's Street, the proprietors of the sugar-
house paid the town's treasurer 1100 Scots. As the ground
measured just noo square ells, the price was exactly i Scots,
or is. 8d. sterling, per square ell. 7
Four years afterwards appeared the first sign of the great
iron industry upon which so much of the prosperity of modern
Glasgow was to be built. So far the city had imported all its
iron ware, first through Leith, and later directly from overseas.
The first sign of a mighty coming change was the petition of
' William Telfer, hammerman, craving a piece of the Skinners'
Green for iron founding and making of pots." 8 In the follow-
ing year, according to Gibson, ironmongery began to be made
for export by several gentlemen, who took the name of the
Smithfield Company.
Another industry introduced at that time had something of
the element of romance in its inception. The making of incle,
or linen tape, was begun in the city in 1732. Till that time the
Dutch, who had machines capable of turning out many hundreds
of yards per day, were almost solely in possession of the in-
dustry. Mr. Hervey, however, a Glasgow merchant, paid a
visit to Haarlem, and at considerable risk managed to smuggle
two of the incle looms out of the country. He also brought
over one of the Dutch workmen, and set up a successful factory
which gave the name of Incle Street to the thoroughfare after-
wards renamed Montrose Street in honour of the city's ducal
family which had its " lodging " in the Drygate. 9
On the other hand, curiously enough, the " soaperie," or
soap factory, which had been established in Candleriggs in
7 Burgh Records, aoth March, 1727. 8 Ibid. i3th May, 1731.
9 Gibson's History of Glasgow, p. 241 ; Cleland's Annals, p. 371. A similar
proceeding was followed by the sister-in-law of Fletcher of Saltoun in intro-
ducing the Dutch method of making pot barley to Scotland.
WOMEN SHIPPED TO VIRGINIA 155
1685 by Sir George Maxwell and his partners, in connection
with their famous Whale-fishing Company, appears to have
been finding itself in difficulties. As its payment of feu-duty
had fallen into arrears, the town's collectors poinded sixty-six
firkins of its soap. Thereupon the partners appealed to the
Town Council, pleaded their great losses, and asked for terms.
The city fathers duly considered the matter, and, no doubt
anxious to preserve a useful industry in the city, informed the
soap-makers that if they would pay 60 sterling within two
months, the sum would be accepted as payment, not only of
the feu-duties then in arrears, but of all future feu-duties as
well. As the four partners were all substantial persons the
sixty pounds were paid, the soaperie was freed from feu-duty,
and the sixty-six firkins were duly returned to the factory.
The industry was carried on till 1777, when the factory was
burned. 10
While these developments were going on, and additional
foundations were being laid for the building of the future
greatness of Glasgow, the life of the city was not without its
sadder and darker side. From the Correction House, which had
been established in the interest of public morals, there were
shipments of women to the plantations in Virginia. The sum
paid to merchants for the transportation of these unfortunates
was no more than i sterling per head, so the merchants must
have made their account with the sums obtainable from the
planters, and the women were virtually sold into slavery for a
longer or shorter period of years. 1
The problem also of providing for the poor of the city in
some regular and comprehensive way now forced itself upon
the attention of the citizens. For centuries the city had pos-
sessed " hospitals," or almshouses, like Blackadder's and Bishop
Muirhead's and George Hutcheson's, founded by private
10 Ibid. 2oth March, i8th May, 1727 ; Cleland's Annals, p. 367.
1 Burgh Records, 2ist Sept. 1727 ; 5th May, 1729.
156 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
individuals, for the shelter of the aged poor, while the Mer-
chants House and the Trades House looked after their own
decayed members in quite efficient fashion. The Town Council
also had tried to rid itself of common beggars by banishing
them from the city. There was now, however, coming into
evidence in the community a growing number of poor for whom
no provision was available, individuals who through inefficiency
or ill-fortune or ill-doing had become derelict and unable to
find a living for themselves. The first suggestion of an organised
system to take charge of these people was made by the General
Session of the city churches. It suggested to the Town Council
the erection of a " workhouse or manufactory " for maintaining
and employing the poor. The Town Council consulted the
Merchants House and the Trades House, and stated the pur-
pose in somewhat stronger language to be " for employing and
entertaining the poor and restraining the scandalous practice
of idle begging, and encouraging of virtue and industry."
Voluntary contributions were asked for from well-disposed
persons, and enough money was obtained from this source for
the building of the workhouse. For its maintenance the Town
Council guaranteed a yearly sum of 140 sterling, the Mer-
chants House 60, the Trades House 120, and the General
Session 250. Directors were appointed to represent each of
the four bodies, and the building, known as the Town's Hos-
pital, was duly erected near the eastern end of the Old Green. 2
The building of this " hospital " marked a new departure
in public policy with regard to the poor. It committed the
citizens definitely to the responsibility of providing for the
derelicts of the community, and was the beginning of one of
the " social services " which have grown to such enormous
proportions at the present day. It is worth noting that the
directors were instructed " to inspect not only the poor's
work and expense, but also their morals, and see to the educa-
2 Burgh Records, 2nd Dec. 1729 ; 7th Jan., 28th Feb. 1731 ; 4th Jan. 1732.
THE LAND MEITHING 157
tion of the young, that they be taught to read, and instructed
in the principles of Christianity." The directors appear to have
carried out their work faithfully, and the institution to have been
a model of its kind, mentioned with high commendation in all
descriptions of the city. Writing of it in 1736, McUre says :
' The building is of modern fashion, and exceeds that of any
kind in Europe, and admired by strangers/' who say that
" anything of that kind at Rome or Venice comes not up to
the magnificence of this building, when it is finished, resembling
more a palace than a habitation for necessitous old people and
children."
In more instances than one, however, the developments of
Glasgow at that time strike a curiously modern note. A dis-
tinct break with mediaeval customs was made, for example,
when in 1726 the traditional proceedings of the " land meithing
day " were given up. From time immemorial, on the first
Tuesday of June, this perambulation of the town's marches
had taken place, and had afforded an opportunity for popular
sport and enjoyment such as is afforded by the riding of the
marches in Hawick and other Border towns at the present day.
Of late, however, the ceremony had been made the occasion,
on the day itself, and the night before, of a number of abuses
committed by boys, servants, and others, amounting to a dis-
turbance of the peace, while a number of undesirable customs
had crept into the observance. The Town Council therefore
ordered that the land meithing should cease, and that the dean
of guild and the deacon-convener, with some members of their
houses, should go round the marches by themselves some time
in May, and make a report to the magistrates on the first
Tuesday in June, on the occasion of the roup of the town's
tolls and customs. 3 In this way an ancient occasion of merry-
making, which had survived the severities of the Reformation
and the austerities of the Covenant, was brought to an end.
3 Ibid. I2th April, 1726.
158 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
The spirit of the proceedings may probably be gathered from
the descriptions of similar mediaeval junketings at Falkland
and Peebles furnished in King James V's well-known poems,
Christ's Kirk on the Green and Peebles to the Play.
Another touch of modernity is shown by a proposal made
by certain of the heritors or house-owners of the city. The
proposal was for a mutual insurance of houses and tenements
against damage by fire. There is said to have been something
of the nature of a primitive fire insurance practised among the
early Anglo-Saxon guilds ; but this suggestion in the year
1726 is the first appearance of the device in the annals of
Glasgow. In a spirit of enlightenment the Town Council
agreed to support the proposal, and empowered the Provost to
sign the compact, and insure the corner house recently built
by the Council itself opposite the Tolbooth at the cross. 4
Again, the growth of a modern regard for town-planning
and other amenities was shown by an order that no building
should be done within the city boundaries without licence from
the Dean of Guild ; 5 and a growing appreciation of the needs
of public health was evident in the fact that, beginning in
1729, the numerous open draw-wells which supplied the citizens
with water, and which had from time immemorial been worked
with chain and bucket, were one after another covered in, and
provided with hand-pumps. 6
But amid these changes the city fathers did not cease to
show their shrewd appreciation of the unchanging facts of
human nature. Experience had apparently taught them that
personal interest was a valuable incentive to efficiency of
management, and again and again the conviction was turned
to account. To prevent evasion of " thirlage " or payment of
certain dues in Port -Glasgow, for example, these dues were
rouped for a definite payment to a private tacksman, and even
4 Burgh Records, I2th April, 1726. See also infra chap. xxvi.
6 Ibid. 2ist Oct. 1728. 6 Ibid. 26th Sept. 1729 et seq.
FARMING OF SEAT RENTS AND TOWN DUES 159
the seat rents of the churches were farmed out to a private
collector in the same way. These individuals, it may be taken
for granted, made sure that dues and rents were promptly and
fully paid. 7 The transaction applied to Port-Glasgow the
practice which had long been followed in Glasgow itself, of
farming out taxes like the bridge toll, the dues of the tron, and
the thirlage of the meal mills, and which had apparently been
found a satisfactory policy.
7 Burgh Records, nth Dec. 1725 ; agth April, 1 3th May, 1731. This farming
out of the thirlage took place, of course, before the farming out of the whole
of the city's interest in Port-Glasgow described in Chapter XVII.
CHAPTER XIX
JAMES MACRAE, GOVERNOR OF MADRAS, AND GLASGOW'S
FIRST EQUESTRIAN STATUE
IT is not commonly known that Glasgow possesses what are
probably the earliest portrait sculptures in Scotland. It is
matter of frequent regret that no contemporary portraits exist
of the great national heroes, Sir William Wallace and King
Robert the Bruce. Of Wallace there is nothing but the verbal
description by Henry the Minstrel, and of King Robert there
is only the rather unreliable representation on a few coins of
his reign. Glasgow, however, possesses authentic portraits of
royal and notable personages of fifty years' earlier date. The
only earlier portrait of any kind known to exist in Scotland is
contained in an illumination in the Kelso chartulary, which is
believed to represent King David I. The Glasgow sculptures
form bosses in the vaulting of the lower church of the Cathedral,
and are believed to date from about the year 1248, and to
represent King Alexander II., Bishop William de Bondington,
Comyn, Lord of Kilbride, and his lady, and King Alexander III.
as a boy. All these personages were concerned with the com-
pletion of the building of the Cathedral, and their likenesses are
vivid and realistic after the lapse of nearly seven centuries. 1
Next in date of portrait sculptures in possession of the city is
the bust of the redoubtable Zachary Boyd, minister of the
Barony, whose faithful dealing with Oliver Cromwell on his
1 Casts of these sculptures, made for the Scottish National History Exhibi-
tion of 1911, are to be seen in the city's Art Galleries at Kelvingrove.
1 60
KING WILLIAM'S STATUE 161
visit to the city in 1651 is a familiar tradition. For two cen-
turies it occupied a niche above the doorway in the quadrangle
of the old College in High Street, and now occupies a place of
honour in the University at Gilmorehill. Of about the same
period are the fine statues of the brothers Hutcheson, founders
of Hutchesons' Hospital and Schools, which at first stood on
each side of the tower of the original hospital in Trongate, look-
ing northward over the garden acre, and which now look down
Hutcheson Street from the front of the more modern building.
Next in date came Glasgow's first equestrian statue, the re-
presentation of King William II. and III., which stood for more
than a century and a half at Glasgow Cross, but, as part of the
work of widening the thoroughfares, has now been removed
to a grassy plot among the trees in Cathedral Square. This
statue was presented to the city in 1734 by a very remarkable
personage, whose figure, as he passed along the streets in his
gold-laced hat and coat, must have been regarded by most of
the townsfolk with not a little curious awe. The steed and its
rider were looked upon by the citizens of its time with pride
and wonder. John McUre, whose History of Glasgow was
published just two years after the erection of the statue, bursts
into enthusiastic song on the subject :
Methinks the steed doth spread with corps the plain,
Tears up the turf, and pulls the curbing rein,
Exalts his thunder neck and lofty crest,
To force through ranks and files his stately breast !
His nostrils glow, sonorous war he hears,
He leapeth, jumpeth, pricketh up his ears,
Hoofs up the turf, spreads havoc all around,
Till blood in torrents overflows the ground !
But the actual life story of the donor was still more calculated
to inspire the epic muse. James Macrae was the son of a poor
washerwoman at Ayr, and was born in 1677. Against his
mother's wishes, it is said, he ran away to sea in 1692. The
L H.G. III.
162 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
years that followed are clouded with a good deal of mystery.
The ship in which he sailed is said to have been captured by
pirates, and it has even been suggested that Macrae himself
sailed for a time, willingly or unwillingly, under the black flag.
Ultimately he entered the service of the Honourable East India
Company, and in 1720, as Captain Macrae, was sent on a
special mission to the west coast of Siam. There he dealt so
shrewdly and successfully with the commercial abuses which
were imperilling trade, that on his return he was made Deputy
Governor of Fort St. David. From that post he was promoted
presently to Fort St. George, and in 1725 took over the Presi-
dency of Madras. There he effected great reforms, reducing
expenditure and rearranging the mint. At the same time he
appears to have " shaken the pagoda tree " in not less effective
fashion, for in 1731 he returned home with an immense fortune
in specie and precious stones. In his native town he made
enquiries regarding his mother. She was dead, but he learned
that in her last years she had been cared for by her niece, Bell
Gardner, the wife of Hugh McGuire, a joiner, who was also in
request as a fiddler at penny weddings and other merrymakings,
in the Newton of Ayr. McGuire and his wife had a family of
four, a son and three daughters, and, by way of return, Macrae
undertook to educate and provide for them. This he did in no
perfunctory fashion. To the eldest, Lizzie, when she married
the Earl of Glencairn, he gave the fine estate of Ochiltree, with
diamonds, it is said, to the value of 40,000. The second
daughter, Margaret, he dowered with the estate of Alva, and
she married James Erskine of Barjarg, who, as a judge of the
Court of Session, took the title of Lord Alva. The third
daughter, Macrae, married Charles Dalrymple, sheriff-clerk of
Ayr, and succeeded the benefactor of the family in the neigh-
bouring estate of Orangefield. To the son, James McGuire,
who adopted the name Macrae, the nabob gave the Renfrew-
shire estate of Houston, The son of this laird of Houston was
GLENCAIRN'S LOAN TO GLASGOW 163
the notorious swashbuckler who shot Sir George Ramsay in a
duel on Musselburgh links, and was in consequence outlawed
and died in poverty.
Meanwhile Macrae had become a burgess of Glasgow, and
presented the city in 1735 with the bronze equestrian statue of
King William which, for over a century and a half, stood, the
pride of the citizens, at the Cross. 2 He resided chiefly on his
estate of Orangefield near Ayr, though in the title-deeds of that
property he is designated as "of Blackheath in Kent " ; and
he died at Orangefield on 2ist July, 1744. But Glasgow was
still to benefit in another detail from the wealth of the mysteri-
ous old nabob. In December, 1745, when Prince Charles
Edward and his army took up their quarters in the city, and
made heavy demands for money and clothing, Macrae's adop-
tive son-in-law, the Earl of Glencairn, lent the magistrates
1500 at 4! per cent, to meet the requisition. 3 Macrae himself
lies in Monkton churchyard, where a monument was erected to
his memory in 1750. 4
The gift of King William's statue was all the more acceptable
to the citizens of Glasgow, since it made a very elegant ornament
for the front of their new Town Hall and Assembly Rooms,
the erection of which followed almost immediately.
2 A curious and perhaps unique feature of the statue is the horse's tail,
which is hung on a ball and socket joint, and waves in the wind. Four
cannon planted at the corners of the pedestal in the statue's original situation
are said to have been relics from King William's great victory at the Boyne.
(Burgh Records, 24th March, 1737.) Two of these cannon have disappeared.
The remaining two, no longer required to protect the pedestal from street
traffic after the removal of the statue to Cathedral Square, were presented
to the author of these pages by the Town Council in 1932.
3 It was the son of this Earl of Glencairn and Lizzie McGuire who proved
so useful a friend to Robert Burns when he made his first venture in Edinburgh,
and he owed his information regarding the poet to his cousin, the laird of
Orangefield.
4 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 29 ; Glasgow Past and Present, i. 362 ;
Paterson's History of Ayrshire, 596 ; Cochrane Correspondence in Maitland
Club, p. 123 ; Cleland's Annals, i. 102 ; Burgh Records, 2nd January and 23rd
July, 1733, i5th September, 1736.
164 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Until the eighteenth century there was no place of public
meeting in the city, and the Town Council held its deliberations
in the Tolbooth. As early as the year 1400, and perhaps much
earlier, a pretorium, tolbooth, or seat of the civic authority, had
stood at the market cross, on the site adjoining the existing
Tolbooth steeple. The stone with the city arms now built into
the wall of that steeple is said to be a relic of this early pretorium.
Its carving is held by experts to be work of the fourteenth or
fifteenth century, the salmon supporters of the shield bearing a
close resemblance to the same insignia in the Cathedral chapter-
house. About 1560, the time of the Reformation, when the civic
authorities began to aspire to independence of their ancient
superiors, the archbishops, the early pretorium was taken
down, and a second Tolbooth built on its site. This continued
in use till 1626, when the really fine building was erected, of
which the remaining Tolbooth steeple formed a part. For over
a century this building continued to serve both as a prison and
as the meeting-place of the Town Council and the Town Clerk's
office.
The Town Council, however, had begun to feel the need of
more spacious accommodation. Accordingly the foundation
stone of the first Glasgow Town Hall was laid by Provost
Coulter in 1736 on the site adjoining the Tolbooth in Tron-
gate, where the town house and place of business of George
Hutcheson had formerly stood. 5 The building had an arcaded
front with Corinthian pilasters, and the keystones of the
six arches were ornamented with grotesque faces from the
chisel of the builder's foreman, Mungo Naismith, which long
excited the wonder of the gaping crowd, and some of which,
after more than one removal, figured later in the cornice of
Messrs. Fraser and Sons warehouse at the foot of Buchanan
5 The tenement on the site was bought from John Graham of Dougalston
for 840, and the " lands " in its rear for 122 los. (Burgh Records, 2nd May,
1 8th November, 1735.)
NEW TOWN HALL 165
Street. 6 There were three chambers in the top storey for clerks
and committee meetings, a splendid apartment on the first floor
with six large windows, a twelve-foot marble fireplace, and a
magnificent domed ceiling. This formed the new meeting place
of the Town Council and was decorated with the royal portraits.
Another fine apartment, 47 feet long, provided an Assembly
Room for fashionable gatherings. There was also a coffee-
room, which, like the arcade in front of the building, served as
an exchange, while on the ground level, behind the covered
arcade, were four shops. 7
When the building was finished in 1740 the Town Council
moved out of the Tolbooth (there was a connecting doorway
from the Tolbooth stair) and proceeded to hold its meetings in
the more spacious quarters. 8
At the same time social fashions and ideas were changing.
The strictness of the Covenanting spirit was being modified by
wider and more generous views of life acquired from increas-
ing intercourse with the world abroad. As early as 1723
there had been started in Edinburgh a weekly " assembly "
at which young people met for the purpose of dancing.
The ball there opened at four in the afternoon, and closed
strictly at eleven. Tickets, without which there was no
6 Strang, Glasgow and Its Clubs, p. g. When the spire of the Cathedral was
struck by lightning in 1756, Mungo Naismith was the genius who devised the
scaffolding for its repair. When the Town Hall was taken over and extended
by the Tontine syndicate in 1781, four masks were added by another hand, and
the carvings altogether got the name of the " Tontine Faces." There was also
another " mason and carver," David Cation, who, with an apprentice, spent
fifty-nine weeks in decorating the new Town Hall, and who carved most of the
capitals and other sculptured decorations in the new St. Andrew's Church
(Burgh Records, 22nd September, 1741).
7 Burgh Records, 26th October, 1738 ; Gibson's History, p. 144.
8 The Tolbooth of 1626 survived till 1814, when it was taken down by Dr.
Cleland, Glasgow's superintendent of works and annalist, who erected a tene-
ment for bank and offices on its site. This building in turn was demolished in
1915, when the High Street was widened, and, after much debate, the old
Tolbooth steeple was left standing by itself in the middle of the thoroughfare.
166 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
admission, were half a crown each, and discreet matrons
ruled the proceedings and upheld the proprieties with a rod
of iron. 9
Notwithstanding the opposition of the stricter sort of
ministers, and the writings of perfervid Cameronians like
Patrick Walker, who regarded dancing and all social enjoyment
as actual lures of the devil, the fashion was not likely to be long
in reaching Glasgow. For some time the teaching of dancing
had been subsidised by the magistrates, one Daniel Barrell,
a dancing master, being paid 10 a year " for his encourage-
ment." 10 So far, however, there was no hall in the city available
for the holding of social gatherings of this kind. There was only
a small assembly room, built by subscription, in the Trongate.
But the opening of the grand new Town Hall and Assembly
Rooms made a new departure, and thenceforth, on the evenings
of these social occasions, sedan chairs in numbers were to be
seen making their way along the dim-lit streets, to set their
fair burdens down at the doors of this new and fashionable
gathering place. 1
A still more important undertaking of the same date was
the building of St. Andrew's Church. The enterprise may have
served to placate the more serious minded of the citizens, as the
new church was not too urgently required, and the preparations
for it, as well as the actual work of erection, were spread over a
period of years. The town, however, had been divided into six
parishes, and so far there were only five churches and a meeting-
house to provide for them. There were the Inner and the Outer
High Churches, occupying the Cathedral, the Laigh or Tron
Church near the Cross, the Blackfriars Church in High Street,
and the North-west or St. David's Church at the Ramshorn.
The sixth congregation was accommodated in a meeting-house
9 Chambers, Domestic Annals, iii. 480.
10 Burgh Records, 2yth Sept. 1734.
1 Strang, Glasgow and Its Clubs, p. 14.
ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH 167
in the New Wynd. 2 Besides these, there was, of course, the
congregation of the Barony, or landward part of the ancient
domain of the archbishops, which had its home in the crypt
or lower church in the Cathedral. In 1722 the stipends of the
six city ministers had been raised, out of the proceeds of the
two pence per pint tax on ale, from 1080 Scots (90 sterling),
to 2000 merks (in sterling). 3
There was no immediate hurry for the re-housing of the
congregation in the New Wynd meeting-house, when in 1734
the Town Council began preparations by purchasing a " yard "
or garden, belonging to Patrick Bell, on the south of the Gallow-
gate and the Molendinar. The price demanded was 300
sterling (twenty-four years' purchase) with the right to a table
seat in the church to hold nine or ten persons, rent-free, to
Patrick Bell and his heirs as long as they lived in the burgh. 4
Further purchases of " alleys " and " yards " were made from
" Fair John " Luke of Clay thorn 5 and others, and in course of
time St. Andrew's Lane and St. Andrew's Street were opened
from Gallowgate and Saltmarket respectively. Stone for the
building was secured from the Crackling-house quarry, the site
of the present Queen Street railway station, and the erection
of the church was begun in 1740. Thirteen years later the work
was still going on, when the meeting-house in the New Wynd
threatened to collapse, and its materials were sold, " timber,
glaswork and iron work and thatch rooff." 6 The new place of
worship was not opened till 1756, having been twenty years in
preparation, but St. Andrew's Church remains till the present
2 " The New Wynd Church was built by a party of privileged Presbyterians
during the period when Episcopacy prevailed in Glasgow. It was covered
with thatch, and opened in 1687." Cleland, Transactions of Glasgow and
Clydesdale Statistical Society, 1836, p. 19.
3 Burgh Records, v. p. xxiv. 4 Ibid. 25th June, 1734.
"' Ibid, ist Nov. 1734, 24th June, 1735. The site of the Claythorn estate,
patrimony of the Lukes for several generations, is commemorated in the name
of Claythorn Street, off Gallowgate.
c Ibid. 2oth Feb. 1753.
168 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
day one of the noblest churches built for Presbyterian worship
in the kingdom. 7
The rate of progress of this building would seem to indicate
some slowing down of the religious fervour of the community.
These, nevertheless, were the years of the great ecclesiastical
movement known as the Secession in the Church of Scotland.
The movement owed a large part of its origin to certain occur-
rences in Glasgow itself. In the early years of the century there
had been a growing feeling among the stricter adherents that
the Church was becoming too tolerant of changing opinion, and
too moderate in its own attitude towards life and thought. The
first open clash of battle was brought about by the teaching of a
professor in the University of Glasgow. John Simson, who
occupied the Chair of Divinity in the College in High Street,
was a metaphysical thinker suspected of teaching erroneous
doctrines not far removed from the Rationalism of the present
day. He was arraigned before the General Assembly on a
charge of heresy, and the case dragged on before the church
courts with protracted debates and ever-increasing bitterness,
but without decision, for some fifteen years. While contro-
versy was raging over the case, the Rev. Thomas Boston of
Ettrick, author of The Fourfold State, discovered, among the
few books left by a soldier who had died in his parish, an old
volume, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, by Peter Fisher, an
author of the Puritan period. The book fascinated him, was
passed from hand to hand among his friends, and was presently
republished as an awakening fiery blast against the Moderatism
and toleration of the Church. In 1720 the General Assembly
passed an Act denouncing the book, and forthwith there arose
over it the great " Marrow " controversy, which was to have
serious and far-reaching consequences. 8
7 Its Corinthian pillars and other carved work were the handicraft of David
Cation, whose charges and those of the other tradesmen were constantly being paid
by the Town Council, and must have amounted altogether to a prodigious sum.
8 Hill Burton, viii. p. 399.
THE FIRST SECESSION 169
Feelings were further inflamed by an Act of the General
Assembly in 1732, regulating the method of calling ministers to
vacant churches. The Act ran on the lines of a model which
had been adopted in Glasgow eleven years earlier, but with the
important difference that the actual call was not to be made by
the church members, but by the elders and heritors, who might
be Episcopalians, Jacobites, or freethinkers. 9 The quarrel
reached a crisis when Ebenezer Erskine, moderator of the
Synod of Stirling and Perth, preached a sermon before that body
denouncing the General Assembly and all its works. From that
hour the movement grew and the Secession Church gradually
took form, denouncing in its " Testimony " not only the
grievances of patronage and the toleration of popery, but the
toleration of " the profane diversions of the stage, together with
night assemblies and balls " and the repeal of the penal statutes
against witches. 10
In 1740 this first great secession from the Church of Scotland
took effect in Glasgow, and a body of the seceders, forming them-
selves into an Associate Congregation, built themselves a
church in Shuttle Street. Seven years later the seceders split
over the question of the burgess oath, and the Antiburgers set
up a church for themselves. And three years later still, as an
outpost of the Church of England, St. Andrew's Episcopal
Chapel beside Glasgow Green opened its doors. 1
The religious fervour of certain sections of the people of
Glasgow and its neighbourhood at that period was no doubt
increased by the visits of George Whitefield the evangelist.
9 Burgh Records, 25th April, 1721.
10 Hill Burton, viii. p. 408 and 409 note.
1 Burgh Records, vi. p. xv. Previous to this there was a Scottish Episcopal
congregation in the city. Survivors of the Revolution, its members gathered
themselves together in 1703, and they met successively in various quarters,
but they never had a regular built church till the nineteenth century, when
they built St. Mary's in Renfield Street. It is this congregation which now
worships in St. Mary's Cathedral, Great Western Road (Mitchell's Old Glasgow
Essays, p. 61.)
170 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
His great Calvinistic revival, the " Cambuslang Wark," took
place in the summer months of 1742, and cannot have been
without effect in the city, though the magistrates, in compliance
with the orders of the Synod, are said to have refused him the
use of the Cathedral churchyard when he returned six years
later. 2
2 Whitefield visited Glasgow several times. In 1 742 he led the Cambuslang
" Wark " ; in 1748, refused the Cathedral churchyard, he preached in a field
near Gorbals ; in 1753, permitted the churchyard, he preached the sermon
which is said to have incited his hearers to destroy Glasgow's first theatre at
hand ; in 1757 at the request of the magistrates he preached a sermon \\hich
brought a collection of 58 for the poor of the city ; and in 1758 he preached
the sermon whose proceeds enabled the Highland Society to build the Black
Bull Inn.
CHAPTER XX
RESULTS OF REVIVING TRADE
THE various developments of the time may be regarded as
evidence that the fortunes of the city were recovering from the
eclipse they had suffered through the jealous action of the
London and Bristol merchants in endeavouring to suppress
the promising tobacco trade of Glasgow. In Gibson's History
the time of recovery is dated as about 1735. Judging from
events it would appear that by that time the tide of pros-
perity was again in full flow. When Paisley, in the summer
f J 733 suffered the disaster of a conflagration which de-
stroyed a third part of the town, the Town Council at once
organized a collection for the relief of the sufferers, and for
immediate needs sent the bailies of Paisley a subscription of
40 sterling. 1
Three years later the city provided itself with a new peal of
nineteen bells for the Tolbooth steeple at a cost of 311 is. gd.
sterling. 2 And when Charles Miller, the provost who occupied
the civic chair during the malt-tax riots of 1725, was found to
have fallen upon evil days, so that " he had not whereupon to
1 Burgh Records, i^th June, 1733.
2 Ibid. 2ist May, 1736. It cost a further ^140 sterling to mount these new
" musick bells " in the steeple, while ^5 was paid for a small set of bells for
practice purposes, and the musician, Roger Rodburn, was sent to Edinburgh
to learn the art of playing upon them (Ibid. 2nd July and i5th Sept. 1736).
Three years later the steeple bells were found to be out of tune and were
remodelled in Edinburgh, while fourteen others were added, at a cost of
/i6 173. 8d. sterling (Ibid, gth March, 1739).
171
172 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
subsist," the Town Council promptly agreed to pay him an
annuity of 40 sterling. 3
At that time, quite suddenly and almost entirely, payments
came to be reckoned in sterling, which was twelve times the
value of the old Scots currency, the pound Scots being worth only
is. 8d. sterling. Yet payments were made, and salaries and
" gratifications " arranged, in the new coinage as cheerfully as
they had been in the old, a pretty sure indication of the sudden
growth of wealth in the city.
Quite obviously, the increasing prosperity was due in the
first place to the growing trade with the tobacco planters of
Virginia and the sugar planters of the West Indies. That trade
was highly profitable in itself, but it also gave a direct and
strong stimulus to the starting of industries in the city. To
begin with, for the manufactured goods which they shipped out
to pay for the tobacco cargoes which they brought home, the
merchants had to rely upon purchases from England and the
Continent. More and more rapidly, however, factories were
established in the city itself, and the merchants were provided
with goods for export at their own door.
An early outstanding example of this was the linen industry.
The making of linen cloths, lawns, and cambrics was the first
effort of the Glasgow looms, and, as an unlimited demand for
these products came from across the Atlantic, the Town
Council and merchants of the city did all they could to prosecute
and perfect the linen industry. Note has been already made of
the establishment of a spinning school in the city by the
Trustees of Fisheries and Manufactures, and the appointment
3 Burgh Records, 24th June, 1735. In connection with this annuity an
interesting transaction took place three years later. Matthew Cumming,
the city's session clerk, was over eighty years of age, and he resigned his
post in favour of Miller, on condition that the town should pay him an
annuity of 25 sterling, and his wife, should she survive him, 10 yearly for
life. By this arrangement the town was relieved of its annuity to Miller, and
was enabled to provide for the aged session-clerk without further burden to
the " Common Good."
LINEN MANUFACTURE 173
of a salaried mistress for that school by the city fathers. 4 Four
years later an application was made by Andrew Aiton and
Richard Allan for a piece of ground in the Old Vennel for the
setting up of a weaving factory, convenient for the washing of
yarn in the Molendinar. 5 Three years later still a " society of
linen dealers " induced the magistrates to grant a lease of the
town's waulk mill on the Kelvin to be converted into a linen
factory, and secured from the Trustees for Improving Manu-
factures of Linen a grant of 25 for the carrying out of the
alterations, while the town advanced a similar sum by way of
encouragement. 6 There were technical difficulties in the way,
however, as the home-grown lint, when woven into cloth,
showed strips, bars, and rows which did not appear in cloth
made of lint brought from Holland. Accordingly the Trustees
brought a Dutch flax-dresser to Edinburgh, who prepared the
ground for the seed, and watered, grassed, and dressed the lint
in the foreign fashion. They further invited Glasgow to send a
young man to learn the business from this Hollander, and they
offered 5 to help to defray his expenses. 7 A subsidy also was
offered for the sowing of lint, which the Town Council increased
by 10 sterling for three years. 8 These details will serve to
show the pains which were taken to foster the linen industry.
Its progress, however, remained slow until Parliament came to
its help. In 1748 an Act prohibited the importation or wearing
of French cambrics ; another Act in 1751 allowed weavers in flax
or hemp to settle and ply their trade anywhere in Scotland free
from all corporation dues ; and gave a bounty of ijd. per yard
4 Supra, chap, xviii.
5 Burgh Records, 2ist Oct. 1728, 5th Dec. 1732. In connection with this linen
factory the first notice occurs of water being conveyed through pipes in the city.
The supply was brought from " the four cisterns at the Spouts." At the same
time the owner of a malt-kiln at the Cow Loan asked liberty to lead water from
a well under the roadway into his kiln through a pipe (Ibid. 8th May, 1740).
6 Ibid. 28th March, 1735. t Ibid, ist May, 1733.
8 Ibid. 27th Sept. 1734, i8th Nov. 1735.
174 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
on all linen exported at or under eighteenpence per yard. Upon
these encouragements the business throve amain, and it became
a vast source of wealth, the most important Glasgow industry
till it was superseded in the last quarter of the century by the
weaving of cotton. 9
The beginnings of the iron industry about the same time are
also interesting. In 1734 the Town Council paid Robert McKell,
a stranger millwright, a gratuity of 3 for making and perfect-
ing the model of " ane engine for slitting and clipping of iron,
and rolling of iron hoopes," and a like sum was contributed for
the inventor's encouragement by a number of private persons. 10
The invention was evidently of practical value, for, four years
later, three substantial burgesses, Robert Luke, goldsmith, and
John Craig and Allan Dreghorn, wrights, applied to the Town
Council for a piece of land below the mill of Partick, on which
they proposed to erect a mill for the slitting of iron. The cost
of the enterprise, they explained, would be very great, but, if
successful, the business would contribute highly to the pros-
perity of the whole country. A supply of water was necessary
for their purpose, and they asked and received permission to
lead an aqueduct, or " watergang," from the town's mill dam
farther upstream. The new factory was known as the " Slit
Mill," sometimes as the Nail Work or Naillary. 1 Its founders
were, in fact, the same individuals as had started the making of
hoes, spades, and other ironmongery six years earlier under
the name of the Smithfield Company, and their undertaking
succeeded so well that forty years later they were able to supply
any demand whatever on better terms than the English manu-
facturers. 2
With the tobacco and sugar trades overseas growing
in their hands, and the industries fostered by these trades
promising additional advantages, the citizens began to turn
9 Gibson, Hist. Glasg. 237, 248. 10 Burgh Records, 27th Sept. 1734.
1 Ibid. 30th May, 1738 ; 23rd April, 1739. * Gibson, Hist. 242.
GREAT GALE OF 1739
their attention to the improvement of the harbour of Glasgow
itself. Their original seaport at Irvine had silted up in the
middle of the previous century, and though they had spent
great sums and devoted much effort to the creation of Port-
Glasgow, they were still hindered by many obstacles in the
portage to and from that harbour by the shallow reaches of the
river. It was now resolved to make some further effort to
improve the waterway. The story of that effort will be found
detailed in a later chapter. 3
In the midst of these developments Glasgow was visited by
a devastating experience from which it had hitherto been re-
markably free. On I3th and I4th January, 1739, a great gale
broke over Scotland. Nothing like it had been known within
living memory, and it wrought grievous havoc on sea and land.
Trees were uprooted, roofs were stripped, and immense damage
otherwise was done. In Glasgow the top of the Tolbooth
steeple was blown down, many buildings were wrecked, and
parts of the spire of the Cathedral were hurled through the roof
into the church below. 4 At Port-Glasgow the quays were
seriously damaged, and houses wrecked. The repairs to the
Cathedral alone cost over 380 sterling, a sum only slightly
offset by 19 sterling received for the trees blown down in the
Cathedral churchyard and on the green. The vane of the spire
received a twist in that gale from which it could be seen to
suffer until the whole roof was renewed in 1908 ; and it is to be
feared that the gardens and orchards amidst which the houses
of Glasgow nestled, and which the city's earliest historian John
McUre had just then commended so highly for their " odori-
ferous smell," suffered serious destruction. The town's
orchard at Gorbals, at anyrate, had its trees broken and
branches torn off in disastrous fashion. 5
3 Infra, chap. xxv.
4 Scots Magazine, 1739, No. i ; Burgh Records, 23rd May, 1739.
5 Burgh Records, 26th Feb., 23rd April, 28th May, 27th June, 28th Aug. 1739.
176 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
McUre, himself, if he was so minded, may have regarded
the great storm as a visitation upon the magistrates for their
neglect of his request for a subsidy for the publication of his
history. McUre applied for this gratification twice, before the
book was printed, and after its publication, but in each case the
application seems to have gone no further than to be referred
to a committee for consideration. His Ancient and Modern
State of Glasgow* nevertheless, remains to-day perhaps the
most frequently quoted work on its subject, and is chiefly
valuable for the light it throws on the condition of the city in
McUre's own time.
The Town Council of McUre's day appears to have been
not too generous in countenancing literary and journalistic
enterprise. In view of the opening of the coffee-house in its
own new town-hall building next the Tolbooth, it withdrew
the subsidy of three guineas it had previously paid towards
the supply of news-letters to the old coffee-house in the
Merchants House tenement at the corner of Saltmarket
opposite. 7
Three years later, however, the need for the " news-letter "
was superseded by the establishment of the Glasgow Journal.
This second Glasgow venture in journalism made its appear-
ance on 20th July, 1741, and the city treasurer's accounts show
that the civic authorities both purchased copies and inserted
advertisements. The paper was printed by Robert Urie & Co.,
a firm which produced a number of important books, and
rivalled its more famous contemporaries, the Foulises, in
excellence of workmanship. When the nerve of its first editor,
one Andrew Stalker, failed in the critical emergency of the
Jacobite rebellion, and, declaring plaintively that, " considering
the situation of affairs, I cannot with safety publish so as to
please the generality of my readers," he vacated the chair, the
6 Burgh Records, 22nd June, 1732 : 4th Oct. 1736.
7 Ibid. 26th Oct. 1738.
OLD TOWN'S HOSPITAL, GREAT CLYDE STREET.
CIVIC ENTERTAINMENTS 177
editorship was taken up by one of the Uries themselves, who
carried it on till his death in I77I. 8
But while the Town Council does not appear to have been
over ready to spend money on literature and journalism, it had
no shortcomings in the matters of hospitality and loyalty. The
minutes contain frequent notices of the entertainment of
notables like General Wade ; a festival was held to celebrate
the marriage of the Prince of Wales, and a " treating " with
wine on the occasion of the Queen's birthnight in 1736 ; while
34 is. sterling was paid for a portrait " and frame thereof " of
George II. , to be added to the city's gallery of royal personages,
from James VI. downwards. 9
The city fathers were also willing enough to subsidise
another, more utilitarian form of art. One John Watt,
"mathematician and teacher of arithmetic," uncle of the famous
improver of the steam engine, made a succession of surveys,
plans, and maps of the town and neighbourhood and the
river channel, for which a succession of payments was made.
For a survey of the lands of Pro van, and a map showing the
extent of each mailing or farm, he received twelve guineas in
1727. For another survey of the same lands for renting and
feuing, two years later, he and two others received forty guineas
between them. And for later plans of Port-Glasgow, Gorbals,
and " the sixteen merk land of Glasgow " itself, he received
further successive sums. Some of these early examples of civic
cartography remain highly interesting at the present day. 10
8 The Early Glasgow Press, by Michael Graham, p. n ; Burgh Records,
28th Sept. 1750.
9 Burgh Records, 2ist Sept. 1732.
10 Ibid. 27th July, 1727 ; 26th Sept. 1729; 22nd June, 1732 ; 2nd Jan.,
nth Dec. 1733 ; ist Oct. 1739. Plans reproduced in Williamson's Memorials
of James Watt.
H.G. in.
CHAPTER XXI
THE YEAR OF THE GREAT FROST
BY the year 1740 the population of Glasgow had increased to
17,043. 1 The " Common Good " revenues of the city from their
older sources had reached a high level in the previous year.
As realized by roup or auction they were, for the malt mills of
the burgh the old mill at Partick, the new mill on the Kelvin,
the new mill at Townhead and the Sub-dean's mill 10,150
merks, with fifty bolls ground malt formerly payable to the
Archbishops ; for the ladles and dues of the meal market 5250
merks ; for the dues of the tron, new weigh-house, and fish
market, and " two little shops below the stair " 2020 merks ;
and for the dues of the bridge and of the Broomielaw quay and
crane 3230 merks ; altogether 20,650 merks, or 1175 i8s. ojd.
sterling, and fifty bolls of malt. There were also, of course,
revenues from other sources, such as the feu-duties of Provan
and other lands, the coal heughs of Gorbals, and the town's
possessions at Port-Glasgow, but the older resources quoted
show that progress was being made. Eleven years previously,
in 1728, the sum realized from the dues was 18,980 merks, or
1080 i6s. id. and fifty bolls malt.
Since 1716, when the first Clyde-built vessel in the West India
trade crossed the Atlantic from Glasgow, 2 the foreign commerce
of the city had grown steadily. In 1735 the merchants of Glas-
gow had forty-seven vessels trading abroad, and altogether
possessed no fewer than sixty-seven ships, with a tonnage of
1 Burgh Records, v. p. x. 2 Brown's History of Glasgow, p. 330.
178
DISTRESS IN 1740 179
5600. In that year the whole tonnage of Scotland is estimated
to have been no more than 12,342. 3 By the year 1741 the
tobacco trade of the city had grown to such a size that much
inconvenience was felt by the merchants who discharged their
cargoes at Port-Glasgow from the want of storage "cellars"
or warehouses there, and the tacksmen or lessees of the port
proposed to build additional " cellars " at their own cost to
contain a further eight hundred to a thousand hogsheads. 4
It was fortunate for the poor of the city in the year 1740
that Glasgow was no longer dependent for its livelihood merely
upon its internal trade. Owing to the backwardness of the
seasons the price of meal rose in September to sixteen pence
the peck, and the poorer citizens were threatened with serious
want. To meet the emergency the Town Council approached
the Merchants House, the Trades House and the General
Session of the kirks with the proposal that together they should
purchase up to ten thousand bolls of meal, and sell it to the poor
at cost price. For this purpose 3000 sterling were borrowed from
the Royal Bank. It was also agreed that each of the four bodies
should contribute a sum in cash for the support of the poor, and
for its own part the Town Council agreed to pay 15 sterling
per month for three months. 5
That was the winter of the great frost, when the Thames
was frozen over from Christmas till the end of February, and a
great fair was held on the ice. Labour was stopped throughout
the country, the fruits of the earth were destroyed, and many
persons died of hunger and cold.
Ten months later the distress among the poor of the city still
existed, and the Town Council applied to the bank in Edinburgh
for a further 500. This time, however, the request met with a
3 Knox's British Empire, xxxvi. ; History of Port-Glasgow, by W. F.
Macarthur, M.B.
4 Burgh Records, 3rd March, 1741.
5 Ibid. 1 7th Sept., i5th Dec., 26th Dec., 1740.
i8o HISTORY OF GLASGOW
refusal. Either Glasgow's security was not good enough or the
bank's resources were limited. Perhaps both reasons lay behind
the refusal. Thus rebuffed the city fathers turned to another
source. Several private persons had already offered to lend
money to the Town Council, and it was resolved to accept these
offers. Some 900 was accordingly borrowed in this way upon
bills bearing interest at five per cent, and as no difficulty was
found in the operation, and the security of the city's credit
was evidently considered good enough, a beginning was made
of a system which has continued till the present day, when
the municipal debt of Glasgow amounts to many millions
sterling. 6
The first of these private lenders, and the contributor of the
largest amount, was Allan Dreghorn, wright and bailie. Evi-
dently he was a man of substance, for the sum he tendered
was 500 sterling. The largest of the other loans was
166 135. 4d. by James Ballantine of Kelly. Dreghorn's father,
Robert, had been a wright before him in the city. He was one
of the tradesmen commissioned to report on the steeple of the
Ramshorn Kirk when it threatened to collapse at its first
building, and he engaged in various enterprises outside his
regular business, becoming lessee, for instance, in 1720, of the
dues for the Broomielaw quay and crane, and tacksman, five
years later, of the town's coal pits in Gorbals. 7 Allan Dreghorn
himself was a man of property when he enclosed the lands of
Broomhill in 1732. Two years later he applied to the magistrates
for a piece of ground on the Old Green, between the town's
hospital and the ropework, on which to build the house which
still stands, one of the last examples of the better-class Glas-
gow mansions of its time. 8 He was city treasurer in 1739, and
6 Burgh Records, 2gth Oct., 26th Nov., 1741, Qth Feb., 1742.
7 Ibid. 25th Sept. 1725 ; 27th Aug. 1730.
8 A fine picture of the Dreghorn mansion forms the frontispiece of Glasgow
Burgh Records, vol. vii.
ALLAN DREGHORN 181
after the disastrous hurricane of that year he was deputed to
inspect the damage done to the cathedral, and estimate the
cost of repairing the fane. He was indeed constantly employed
by the city in his business capacity, and it was under the civic
auspices that he performed a highly notable achievement in
1740. The Town Council was about to build its new church on
the gardens so painfully acquired on the bank of the Molendinar,
between Gallowgate and Saltmarket. Plans for the building
were submitted by Dreghorn and by another wright named
Nisbitt. Dreghorn's plans, based, it would appear, on the
model of St. Martin's in the Fields, in Trafalgar Square, London,
were preferred, and accordingly the most beautiful of all the
city churches remains a monument to his fine taste and archi-
tectural genius.
The subsequent career of the worthy wright and architect
is outstanding in the city annals. He was a partner in the
great Smithfield iron company, and one of the six original
partners in the Ship Bank. In 1741 he was chosen a bailie.
Ten years later he proposed to undertake a tenement build-
ing scheme on the Old Green, and the Town Council agreed
to further his plans by removing a public thoroughfare nearer
to the wall of the Town's Hospital. 9 In 1757 he acquired the
estate of Hogganfield, part of the old lands of Provan, to the
north-east of the city, and he appears again and again as one
of the chief actors in the city's most important business affairs.
The carriage, which was built for him in his own woody ard
behind his house on the Old Green, was the first in Glasgow.
By his enterprise and ability Allan Dreghorn established the
fortunes of a family which was to have a tragic ending half
a century later. The handsome dwelling-house on the Old
Green, with Ruchill mansion and estate to the north of
the city, acquired later, remained Dreghorn possessions till
9 Burgh Records, under dates named ; Cleland's Annals, i. 33 ; The Old
Country Houses of the Old Glasgow Gentry, p. 224.
182 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
1806. In that year Allan Dreghorn's nephew and heir, Robert
Dreghorn of Ruchill, better known as " Bob Dragon," and
celebrated for his peculiarities of feature, person, and habits,
took his life with his own hand within the walls of his town
house. For that reason the mansion, which forms the back
part of a furniture warehouse at No. 20 Great Clyde Street, was
for many years reputed to be haunted a sad sequel to the
story of the brilliant craftsman and architect to whose genius
the city owes the beauty of St. Andrew's Church. 10
But the state of distress in Glasgow, which compelled such
unprecedented borrowing of money and provision of meal for
the poor, was not attributable entirely to the backwardness of
the seasons, or the severity of the winter. In October 1739 the
British Government had declared war upon Spain. The
Spanish demand that Britain should withdraw her fleet from
the Mediterranean, and that British ships should submit to be
searched, was felt to be intolerable, and the declaration of war
roused immense popular enthusiasm in London. Sir Robert Wai-
pole, George II. 's minister, had been forced into the war against
his own judgment, and when he heard the huzzahs of the populace
and the pealing of the bells he is said to have exclaimed " They
may ring the bells now : very soon they will be ringing their
hands ! " Rather unjustly he was himself the most outstanding
sufferer. Many hardships inevitably were entailed by the war,
and for these Walpole's Government was blamed. Demands
were made that the Government should prosecute the campaign
with more energy, and place more ships of war upon the seas ;
and when the ministry sought to man these ships by comman-
deering the crews of merchant vessels, the merchants sent a
protest to the House of Commons.
10 Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, pp. 283, 284, note. " Bob Dragon " was a
very wealthy man. He inherited Broomhill, Ruchill, and Hogganfield from
his uncle, Allan Dreghorn, and Blochairn from his father, Robert Dreghorn.
Burgh Records, 2yth Sept. 1765. For the riot which at a later date sacked
the Dreghorn mansion, see Mackenzie, Reminiscences, ii. p. 299.
ELECTION BRIBERY 183
The quarrel was brought home to Scotland when the Duke
of Argyll and Greenwich, the rival of Marlborough, and the
victor of Sheriffmuir, for attacking the Government in the
House of Lords, was deprived of all his employments, civil and
military. Walpole was already unpopular in Scotland because
of his enforcement of the malt-tax in 1725, and by his repressive
measures after the Porteous riot in 1736. Notwithstanding his
long reign in the House of Commons, and all the forces which
that long reign might be expected to have accumulated against
him, he was still able to defeat the motions for his removal
urged in both Houses of Parliament in 1741 ; but, in the
General Election which followed, the Opposition roused all its
forces against him.
In that election the Town Council of Glasgow played a new
and rather astonishing role. It was the turn of Rutherglen,
among the four burghs, to be the scene of the election, and
Glasgow apparently thought it desirable to secure the suffrage
of a large number of the people of that burgh. The Town
Council began by conferring burgess rights upon a number of
the inhabitants of Rutherglen. No fewer than twenty- three
were thus favoured, without payment, and as several of these
were recorded as " land labourers," it is clear that there was an
ulterior purpose to be served. As many were admitted from
other districts, such as Possil, Polmadie, and Cumbernauld, and
the whole transaction appears something akin to a creation of
faggot votes. 1
The magistrates next, on the eve of the election, proceeded
to spend money freely in the " houses " probably the inns and
taverns of Rutherglen. Thus the city treasurer was ordered
to pay to David Scot, " late provost of Rugland," 10 195. 3^d.
sterling expended in his house by the magistrates and others,
" upon the town's account, at and before electing the member
of parliament." No fewer than ten such payments are openly
1 Burgh Records, 28th April, 2yth July, 1741.
184 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
recorded, most of them being to late provosts and bailies, the
sums ranging from 55 73. 5d. down to 8 8s. 4d. sterling. 2 The
transaction was obviously a case of open bribery on a somewhat
extensive scale. It was Walpole's own method of achieving his
ends, and quite in the manner of the time. Perhaps it was just
that the minister should be hoist with his own petard, yet one
cannot but regret to find the fair fame of St. Mungo's city
besmirched by recourse to such base means.
The magistrates had the satisfaction of securing the return
of their candidate, Neil Buchanan of Hillington, and the further
satisfaction, in the following February, 1742, of learning that
Walpole had been defeated in the House of Commons, and
had resigned all his offices. In March they wrote a letter to
their member thanking him for what he had done, and ex-
pressing the desire that he should use his endeavours towards
" limiting the number of place-men and pensioners in the
House of Commons, and repealing the law for septennial parlia-
ments, and procuring a law for triennials." 3
Such was the part played by Glasgow in bringing about the
fall of Sir Robert Walpole. Whatever may have been its
merits from a political point of view, it set a precedent which
might have led to very undesirable practices. A beginning of
these was made almost immediately, when the Town Council
proceeded to send their member of parliament a letter con-
taining something very like definite instructions regarding the
measures he should support and those he should oppose in the
House of Commons. This precious epistle ran as follows :
" Sir. The securing and restoring our liberty and constitu-
tion, and preserving the independence of parliament, having
been our chief care in promoting your election as member of the
house of commons for this city and district, it is with the utmost
pleasure we observe that in your parliamentary conduct you
2 Burgh Records, i8th May, soth June, 28th July, 5th Oct., 174-1.
8 Ibid. 5th March, 1742.
TOWN COUNCIL AND POLITICS 185
have answered these our intentions, for which we make you
our most grateful acknowledgment.
"But as the present conjuncture is extremely critical, you
will permit us to give our sentiments at the opening of this new
session, which we have no doubt are perfectly agreeable to your
own.
" We earnestly request of you, in name of the corporation, to
promote every maxim for preventing and restraining all manner
of pecuniary influence over the members of your house the
unhappy source of ah 1 our calamities ; for restoring frequency
of new parliaments, and for giving such vigour to our once
happy, but now exhausted constitution ; that you be as sparing
of the national treasure as the present exigencies will admit, and
join in all the parliamentary enquiries into the past conduct
and management of public affairs ; whereby his Majesty's
government will be founded on its proper basis, the affections
of his people, former managements and grievances may be
corrected and redressed, and all further abuse of power we hope
be prevented.
' Your attention to these points, and any others that may
come before your house for the good of your country will endear
you to all lovers of liberty and be particularly acceptable to all
the members of this community." 4
The Town Council was evidently in danger of becoming a
political caucus, instructing its member strictly as to how he
should vote, and fortifying itself in control by a system of
wholesale bribery at the public expense.
At the same time the Town Council was engaged in a pro-
ceeding of less doubtful character. The action appears to have
been suggested by a movement of the University authorities.
It would appear that a reference in the works of Jean Mabillon,
the Benedictine scholar at St. Germains, had drawn the
attention of these authorities to the importance of the records
4 Ibid, gth Nov., 1742.
186 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
carried from Glasgow at the Reformation by Archbishop
Beaton, and preserved in the Scots College at Paris. In 1738,
accordingly, they had written that college asking for a notarial
copy of the Chartulary of the Archbishopric. The request,
though treated with the utmost courtesy, was not fully com-
plied with till thirty years later, when the copy was received
which is preserved in the archives of Glasgow University. 5 The
original chartulary was brought to this country at the French
Revolution, and from it the " Register of the Bishopric of
Glasgow " was edited by Professor Cosrno Innes, and printed
by the Maitland Club in 1843. Among other important
historical matter it contains the proof of existence of a papal
dispensation for the first marriage of King Robert II. to
Elizabeth Mure, in other words, proof of the legitimacy of the
whole subsequent line of Stewart kings. It was the question
of this legitimacy which in the fifteenth century led to such
tragic happenings as the assassination of James I. in the Black-
friars Monastery at Perth, and the slaying of the Earl of
Douglas by James II. in the supper closet at Stirling. Even
as late as the reign of Charles I. it cost a too talkative senator
of the College of Justice his earldoms of Strathearn and Men-
teith. It was only by production of a copy of the Register in
Scotland that historians were provided with documentary
evidence on the subject. Following this, in the year 1789, the
Pope's dispensation for the marriage was itself found in the
Vatican by a noted antiquary, Andrew Stewart of Torrance and
Castlemilk, and the long-debated question finally and absolutely
set at rest.
Meanwhile, following the action, and perhaps the advice, of
the College authorities, the Town Council in 1739 applied to
the College at Douai for authentic copies of the town's writs
carried away by Archbishop Beaton at the Reformation. 6 In
5 Cosmo Innes, Sketches of Scotch History, p. 493.
6 Burgh Records, 2oth Feb., 1739.
GLASGOW CHARTERS 187
the upshot the magistrates were presented, by the Scots College
at Paris, with a carefully transcribed and certified copy of such
contents of the Glasgow chartulary as were judged to concern
the city. This transcript, a small volume of 136 pages of paper,
in the hand of a French scribe, collated by Father Thomas
Innes, and bound in red morocco, is now in possession of the
city. It was used, along with the copy of the chartulary at the
University, and the complete Register of the Bishopric pub-
lished by the Maitland Club, in the preparation of " Charters
and Other Documents relating to the City of Glasgow," edited
by Sir James D. Marwick and published in 1897 and following
years. 7
While the Town Council was engaged upon matters of such
political and historical importance, it is curious to realize how
primitive the city was in some respects now regarded as of
prime importance. The lighting of the streets, for instance,
was still confined to a few dim lamps. The whole lighting of
the city for the winter of 1738 cost no more than 47 45. 4|d.
sterling, and took little more than a hundred gallons of rapeseed
oil, which seems to have been dear enough at is. 2d. the pint.
Two years later hempseed oil was used, which cost 2s. 2d. the
pint. 8 So far, also, the city appears to have been without any
but surface drainage. The first underground conduit for the
purpose appears to have been devised to carry away the water
from James SpreulTs land near the west port. 9 As there was
not sufficient slope to carry away that water by the usual
" syver " or gutter on the surface of the street, the Council
ordered a covered " canaul " to be made to carry the water
across the thoroughfare, to enable it " to fall down and run by
the east of the Stockwellgate Street, where there is a sufficient
7 Charters and Documents, vol. i., part i., page iii.
8 Burgh Records, 23rd April, 1739, 3oth June, 1741.
9 Spreull's Court is still a feature of the north side of Trongate, a few doors
east of Glassford Street.
i88 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
descent upon lowering the strand and covering parts thereof
where it is hollow." Before proceeding with the work the
magistrates were " to take tradesmen's advice skilled therein."
Whoever these tradesmen might be, they were the engineers of
the beginnings of the vast underground system of conduits
which makes Glasgow a clean and healthy city at the present
day. 10 Within a year afterwards another modern amenity was
introduced when the Council ordered " that lead pipes in place
of timber be made for the well in the New Green." 1
Still another interesting fact may be noted, in which Glas-
gow was late in departing from the manners of bygone times.
Beltane, or Baalfire Day, the 2nd of May, was one of the chief
religious festivals of pagan times in Britain. The word is
commemorated in many place-names, such as Tarbolton and
Tilliebeltane, and immortalized in one of the poems of King
James V.
At Beltane, when ilk body bouns
To Peblis to the play.
St. Luke's Fair in November and Beltane Fair in May were
the two principal of the seven fairs held in Rutherglen till as
late as the nineteenth century. 2 As late as the middle of the
eighteenth century, in Glasgow, Beltane still remained one of
the term days at which entry was given to tenants of various
properties. 3
10 Burgh Records, 8th May, 1740.
1 Ibid. 28th April, 1741.
2 Alison's Anecdotage of Glasgow, p. 164.
3 Burgh Records, 26th Aug., 1743.
CHAPTER XXII
THE ELZEVIRS OF SCOTLAND AND THE FOULIS ACADEMY
JOHN GIBSON, in his History of Glasgow, after recounting how
the printing of books was first begun in the city in 1638 by
George Anderson, and how Robert Sanders settled here about
1661, and, followed by his son, carried on a printing business
till after 1730, says there was no good printing in Glasgow till
1735, when Robert Urie began the production of books " in a
very good taste and manner." He adds, " How far it has been
improved since that time tne many elegant and splendid
editions of books in different languages, printed by Robert
and Andrew Foulis, who began in 1740, are a sufficient testi-
mony." 1
The progress of printing was of course dependent to a con-
siderable extent upon progress in the art of typefounding.
This art also was late in coming to Glasgow. The pioneer of
typefounding in Scotland was Peter Rae, minister of Kirkbride.
At his press in that quiet parish, and afterwards in Dumfries,
Rae printed some sixteen works, including a " History of the
Rebellion of 1715." He was followed by James Duncan, letter-
founder in Glasgow, who has already been mentioned in these
pages, and who, with his family, continued to print and sell
books in the city for something like a century. According to
the Burgh Records, " James Duncan, printer and type-maker,"
was appointed " the toun's printer " in October 1719. Duncan
printed many chapbooks, as well as Dougal Graham's rhyming
1 History, p. 245.
189
HISTORY OF GLASGOW
chronicle of " the '45," the first and second editions of which
are much sought after. 2 A departure on a higher and more
artistic level was made, however, by Alexander Wilson, Pro-
fessor of Astronomy in Glasgow University. Beginning to
practise the craft of type-founding in his native city of St.
Andrews about 1740, Wilson removed shortly afterwards to
Camlachie, then a village near Glasgow, and the types pro-
duced there by him and his sons attained before long a
European reputation. His " Scotch type " was spoken of
throughout the kingdom as a sine qua non for excellence of
printing, and in France was known as the " style Ecossais."
In Glasgow itself his services to printing were recognized by the
Town Council, which made him a burgess " upon account of
his great ingenuity in typefounding, by which printing has been
advanced in this city within these few years to a great degree
of perfection." 3 He was also appointed " Type-founder to
the University/'
The fame of Wilson's types was due chiefly to the publica-
tions of the Glasgow printers, Robert and Andrew Foulis. As
frequently happens in successful enterprise, the brothers began
business at a psychological moment when Wilson's new and
beautiful style of type was becoming available. Their begin-
nings were characteristic enough. They were the sons of a
Glasgow maltman, Andrew Faulls, and their mother, Marion
Patterson, was evidently a woman of parts, for she herself
attended to the education of all her four boys. Robert, the
eldest son, was born in 1707, and, like his Edinburgh contem-
porary, Allan Ramsay, practised for some years as a barber.
Andrew, born in 1712, was bred for the ministry, and for a time
2 Dougal Graham was of course himself a printer, issuing from his press
a series of chapbooks, mostly of his own writing, which, coarse but vivid,
reflected the rustic life of his time, and enjoyed an enormous popularity. For
the authorship of these he has been called the Scottish Rabelais.
3 Burgh Records, 3rd Oct. 1757 ; Cleland's Annals, ii. 467 ; Coutts' Hist.
University of Glasgow, p. 230.
" THE IMMACULATE HORACE " 191
taught Greek, Latin, French, and philosophy. But Robert,
with an ambition common to many Scotsmen, attended Pro-
fessor Francis Hutcheson's lectures on moral philosophy at the
University. By Hutcheson he was advised to start business as
a printer and bookseller, and by way of preparation he worked
for a time in a Glasgow printing house. Then with his brother
he paid a visit to Oxford, and spent some time in the Bodleian
library, studying examples of the printer's art. The two also
went to the Continent for a further study of books, printing,
and editions. They made two journeys of this sort, paying their
expenses by collecting specimen editions abroad, and selling
them in London at a profit. Thus fortified, they began business
in Shuttle Street, near the University, in 1741.
Until that time most of the Greek and Latin classics used in
this country were imported from the Continent, and were both
costly and scarce. In this direction the Foulis brothers saw their
opportunity. During their first year, besides three other works,
they produced a Cicero and a Phaedrus. One of their other
books was a work by Principal Leechman, and they were re-
warded two years later by being appointed printers to the
University. Perhaps to mark the event they forthwith pro-
duced the first book printed in Greek in Glasgow, Demetrius
Phalerus de Elocutione, and in the following year they proceeded
with their famous " immaculate " Horace. This was intended
to be an absolutely perfect edition. The proofs were read by
George Ross, the Professor of Humanity, and James Moor,
Professor of Greek, whose sister Robert Foulis married ; and
after hours had been spent by them and other experts over each
page, each sheet was hung up in the college for a fortnight, and a
reward of fifty pounds offered for the detection of any error. Not-
withstanding all the care taken, however, when the edition was
published it was found by Dr. Dibdin to contain no fewer than six
typographical errors, one of them in the first line of the first page. 4
4 Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 31.
HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Next to the Horace the most famous publication of the
Foulis press was the splendid Homer, in four folio volumes,
issued between 1756 and 1758. An edition of Cicero in twenty
volumes was also produced, which for its type is preferred to
the Elzevir edition. Altogether 554 works poetry, plays,
classics, translations, and others were issued from the book-
shop in Shuttle Street. All the productions of the press were
notable for the beauty, fine taste, and perfection of their print-
ing, and the Foulis brothers have on that account been justly
named the Elzevirs of Scotland.
The Foulis bookshop became a favourite resort of professors
and students, and the sales of books by auction carried on there
by Andrew Foulis in the winter evenings were the scene of some
amusing episodes. In 1753, on his return from a two-year
sojourn on the Continent, Robert was admitted a member of the
Literary Society newly formed at the college. This was the
first literary society in Glasgow, and among its members were
Dr. Francis Hutcheson and Professor Adam Smith. Robert
Foulis read fifteen papers to its meetings.
But already he had another project in his mind. He had
been impressed by the effects of the teaching of art on the Con-
tinent, and his idea was to establish a great academy of paint-
ing, sculpture, engraving, and other fine arts in his native city.
He brought competent masters from abroad, and with the
financial help of three notable Glasgow citizens, proceeded to
set up his academy. The University let him have the use of
several rooms for studios and a hall for exhibitions, and the
Duke of Hamilton allowed the students to copy the old masters
in his galleries. Financially he was supported by Campbell of
Clathic, Glassford of Dougalston, and Provost Archibald In-
gram. For twenty years he put up a brave fight to make Glas-
gow a home of the fine arts. Nor was his effort without results.
Among the pupils of the Academy who achieved fame were
William Cochrane, the portrait painter, David Allan, " the
ROBERT FOULIS, 1707-1776.
From medallion by James Tassie
in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
FOULIS ACADEMY EXHIBITION 193
Scottish Hogarth," remembered best by his illustrations to
Ramsay's " Gentle Shepherd," and James Tassie, a Pollokshaws
stone mason whose medallions of the well-known men of his
time in a glass paste which he himself invented, are much
sought after to-day. 5 The display of works, also, which
was made on the King's birthday each year with a view to
make known the achievements of the Academy, and to secure
patronage, set the example for our modern picture exhibitions.
Further, there can be little doubt that the Academy itself
afforded a model for the Royal Academy established in London
in 1768. Perhaps the occasion on which Robert Foulis saw his
hopes most nearly realized was on the Coronation Day of King
George III., when the Academy held a great exhibition in the
open air, in the inner quadrangle of the College. 6
But, so far as Glasgow was concerned, Foulis's idea was too
far in advance of its time. Even a hundred years later, when
the Glasgow coachbuilder, Archibald MacLellan, built his
galleries in Sauchiehall Street, and filled them with the Old
Masters which formed the nucleus for the superb collection in
the Fine Art Galleries at Kelvingrove to-day, the effort only
achieved a doubtful approval, and brought ruin upon his own
affairs. It was not till late in the nineteenth century that the
" Glasgow School " of painters brought artistic fame to the
city. The first blow fell upon Robert Foulis when Provost
Ingram, one of his chief supporters, died in 1770. But the
worst stroke came when one day Robert's brother Andrew,
while showing a visitor the view of the city from the high
ground in Drygate, was seized with an apoplexy, and died on
the spot. Andrew had been the practical partner, who kept
5 Foulis's Academy had an example in the short-lived School of St. Luke,
set up in Edinburgh in 1729, of which Allan Ramsay, son of the poet, was
almost the sole product of note.
6 A rare print, after a drawing by David Allan, reproduced in Macgeorge's
Old Glasgow, p. 126, depicts this display. The print affords, by the way, a
good idea of the costumes fashionable in Glasgow in 1761.
N H.G. in.
i 9 4 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the business going with his auction sales of books, and his death
meant the end of the great enterprise. With a sinking heart,
Robert carried the pictures and models of his Academy to
London, where he opened an exhibition. But everybody of
note had left town at the time, and a very great personage
whose patronage was hoped for did not attend. Against the
advice of Christie, the auctioneer, the works of art were put up
for sale, and realized only trifling sums, though two pictures
bought by Glasgow University were considered by Raeburn to
be either by Raphael or one of his pupils. When all costs were
defrayed the balance in Foulis's hands was just fifteen shillings !
Sadly he set out for home, but on the way, at Edinburgh, he
fell ill, and died on 2nd June, 1776. He was 69 years of age, his
debts amounted to 6500, and his family were left destitute.
The printing house in Shuttle Street was advertised for sale on
3ist October, 1782. 7 Andrew Foulis, younger, remained official
printer to the University, with rooms in the College, till 1795,
but he never emerged from financial difficulties. When he died
in 1829 the Faculty made a gift of 5 to pay for his funeral,
and for twenty-five years it made an annual allowance to sup-
port his sister Elizabeth, who had married her father's foreman
printer, Robert Dewar. 8
7 Duncan's Literary History of Glasgow (Maitland Club).
8 Coutts, Hist. Univ. Glasgow, p. 331.
CHAPTER XXIII
CERTAIN BENEFACTIONS
MEANWHILE the city pursued its affairs with increasing effi-
ciency. It went on with the building of St. Andrew's Church,
paying Allan Dreghorn for his scaffoldings and woodwork
and David Cation for his sculpturing of capitals and stone
mouldings. It took steps towards the building of a lighthouse
on the Little Cumbrae to guide ships into the channel between
that island and the coast of Bute. 1 It sent a loyal address to
George II. on his return to this country after his wonderful
victory at Dettingen in 1743, the last occasion on which a
British monarch was to take the field in person. 2 It altered
the dates of the fairs of Glasgow held in January and July,
so that in neither case should a Sunday intervene and
interrupt the proceedings. 3 It built a slaughterhouse on
the Skinner's Green near the mouth of the Molendinar, and
removed the meat and mutton markets to the same quarter. 4
It reprinted a pamphlet against smuggling, a practice which
threatened to diminish seriously the revenues derived by the
city and the country from the duties levied upon spirits and
1 Burgh Records, iyth Feb., 1743, 6th Jan., 1755, 2oth Jan., 1756. An
Act of Parliament for the building of the lighthouse was passed in 1756.
For his help in securing this the Town Council presented Richard Oswald,
merchant in London, with a piece of plate costing ^78 123. gd. The lighthouse
was an open beacon in which coal was burned. Ibid, i7th Jan., 1758, Act
Parl. 29, George II. c. 20.
2 Burgh Records, ist Dec., 1743. 3 Ibid. 3rd Jan., 1744.
4 Ibid. 3rd Jan., 1744.
195
196 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
malt. 5 And it agreed to support with its powers of criminal
punishment a set of rules drawn up by the General Session of the
city churches for suppressing the vices of " cursing, swearing,
profanation of the Sabbath, lewdness, drunkenness, and other
enormities," which, following the conspicuous depravity of the
time, had become seriously prevalent in the city. 6
Notwithstanding the efforts of General Wade, following the
Jacobite Rebellion of 1715, the roads of Scotland were still
primitive enough. John London Macadam, whose method of
metal-laying was to revolutionize the roads of the kingdom and
the world, was not born till 1756. In 1740 Lord Lovat in his
chariot with numerous horses and a mob of running footmen
took eleven days to reach Edinburgh from Inverness ; and
when the provosts and bailies of Glasgow made their frequent
journeys to Edinburgh on the city's business they covered the
distance on horseback. In Glasgow itself, no doubt largely by
reason of the conditions of the roads, there were, in 1744,
neither post-chaises nor hackney-carriages. Only a few sedan
chairs were available for carrying ladies to the assemblies. 7 It
was still therefore a somewhat hazardous enterprise when in
1743 John Walker, an Edinburgh merchant, proposed to run a
stage coach between Edinburgh and Glasgow, twice a week
either way for twenty weeks in summer, and once a week for the
rest of the year. The fare was to be ten shillings sterling, and
each passenger might carry fourteen pounds weight of baggage.
The coach or " lando " was to carry six passengers and to
be drawn by six horses, and Walker asked that the Town
Council should guarantee the sale of two hundred tickets
from the Glasgow end of the journey each year. The Town
Council remitted the proposal to its " annual committee "
5 Burgh Records, i5th June, 1744.
6 Ibid, nth Aug., 1744. Green's Short History of the English People.
chap. x.
7 Alexander Carlyle's Autobiography, p. 75 ; Cleland, Annals, p. 430.
CATHEDRAL AS POWDER MAGAZINE 197
for consideration, 8 but nothing further seems to have been
done. 9
The same fate seems to have befallen a request of the Mer-
chants House that the Town Council should interfere to control
the action of the carters who conveyed goods from the Broomie-
law to the east country and elsewhere. These carters refused
to do the work unless they got what the merchants regarded as
" extravagant hires." Here again the matter ended in a
reference to the magistrates for consideration. The ideas of
that time do not seem to have included an apprehension of
the working of the natural law of supply and demand-
Adam Smith, Glasgow's future professor of moral philo-
sophy, and author of The Wealth of Nations, had then only
just taken his degree at Oxford ; but no doubt that law
itself effectively and before long solved the question of the
carters' hires. 10
Fortunately two other proposals at that time made to the
Town Council were not carried out. One was to use the vaults
below the cathedral as a magazine in which to keep the city's
stock of gunpowder. The other was to encroach upon the area
of the New Green by feuing ground on the east side of the
mouth of the Molendinar to a company which was to set up a
woollen factory and workmen's houses on the spot. The
former dangerous suggestion was avoided by assigning as a
powder magazine the old horse guard-house built by the town
at the head of the Limmerfield, opposite the tower of the
Bishop's Castle. The proposal to feu part of the Laigh Green
was actually agreed to by the Town Council, but dropped
8 Burgh Records, I5th Oct., 1743.
9 The first regular stage-coach between Edinburgh and Glasgow began to
run in 1749. It ran twice a week each way, and took some twelve hours to
the journey. Scots Magazine, 1749. p. 253. An interesting account of the
development of transport out of Glasgow in the latter half of the eighteenth
century is given by Senex in Old Glasgow and its Environs, p. 343.
10 Burgh Records, 3oth April, 1745.
ig8 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
through " the general voice of the public being raised against
it." i
The city fathers were also prevented from doing wrong in a
matter of larger interest. Neil Buchanan, the Member of Parlia-
ment elected with so much questionable effort to secure the
overthrow of Walpole's Government, died early in 1744, and
the four burghs were called upon to choose a successor. At the
moment there did not seem to be the same call for strenuous
effort as in the previous election. But even if that call had
existed the Town Council would have been precluded from in-
dulging in the orgy of bribery and corruption which had dis-
graced the election of 1741. To restrain such abuses abuses
for which Walpole's Government itself had been chiefly notori-
ous an Act of Parliament had been passed in 1743. Under that
Act the town clerks and the magistrates and councillors of
burghs, if required by any of their number, were called upon to
take an oath declaring that they had received no consideration
of any kind to influence their vote or action in the election.
As the magistrates and councillors of the burghs were the
only electors the oath effectually stopped corrupt practices.
The wild orgy of burgess making and free spending which
had marked the election of Neil Buchanan was therefore
Glasgow's first and last plunge into the mire of electoral
corruption. 2
The town had greater difficulties at that time in its dealings
with the funds of public charities. Chief of these charities was
the town's hospital or poorhouse. To supplement the private
subscriptions by which that institution was erected and main-
tained the Town Council had promised to contribute 140
yearly. The payments, however, had fallen into arrears till in
1743 these amounted to 590 sterling. Further, among sub-
1 Cleland's Annals, 1829 ed., p. 467; Burgh Records, i^ih Nov., 1744;
22nd Jan., 1745 ; 26th March, 1745.
2 Burgh Records, i6th Mar., 1744.
A PIECE OF JOBBERY 199
scriptions entrusted to the Council in 1734 was 5 from a person
who desired to have his name concealed, but, after his death,
was found to be Robert Wodrow, minister of Eastwood, the
historian of the Covenanters. Wodrow's subscription was for
the buying of medicaments for the poor, and had been accepted
by the Council, but remained in their hands. The town's debt
to the directors of the poorhouse therefore amounted to 595,
and on the directors pressing for payment the Council found
difficulty in raising the money, and compromised by granting a
bond payable at the following Whitsunday, with interest at the
rate of 4^ per cent. 3 This sum was only repaid nine years later,
out of the 10,000 received from the Government as compensa-
tion for the losses suffered by the city during the Jacobite
rising of 1745. 4
In another matter of the management of charitable funds
the Town Council was merely asked to intervene, and did so
with much wisdom. Robert Sanders of Auldhouse, near Pollok-
shaws, had entrusted the Merchants House with a legacy of
12,000 merks and the lands of Auldhouse, burdened with the
payment of noo merks yearly for the apprenticing of eleven
poor boys to trades or callings and 100 Scots yearly to support
a bursar in divinity at the College. Five of the boys were to be
sons of merchants and five sons of craftsmen, with one from each
rank in alternate years, and the right of presentation was vested
in the testator's nephew, Robert Colquhoun. In 1743, however,
the Deacon-Convener of the Trades House complained to the
Town Council that for several years no boys had been appren-
ticed under the legacy. On enquiry it was found that most of
the 12,000 merks had been lent out and lost, while the interest
on the remainder, and possession of the lands rent free, had been
granted to Colquhoun on consideration of his refraining from
the presentation of apprentices. The arrangement, in fact,
appears as a very compromising piece of jobbery between the
8 Ibid. 8th Feb., 1743. 4 Ibid. 23rd March, 1752.
200 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Merchants House and the testator's nephew, by which the latter
may have hoped in time to secure permanent possession of his
uncle's estate. Fortunately Sanders in his testament had
named the Town Council as overseers of the trust, and the city
fathers promptly straightened out the tangle. They ordered
that no apprentices should be made from the merchants rank
till the capital sum and accumulated interest should again
amount to 12,000 merks ; they induced Colquhoun to give up
his right of presentation for an annuity of 12 sterling, and
they vested in the Trades House the right to present five boys
for apprenticing. Two years later the arrangement was re-
viewed, when the Merchants House was directed to proceed
with the apprenticing of the full number of eleven boys yearly,
and, to prevent a serious abuse which had been practised, it
was ordered that, if any boy or his friends should offer the
patrons a premium or gratification for his presentation, the
presentation should be annulled and another boy apprenticed
instead. 5
Another " mortification," or legacy, of the same period,
with curious implications, was that of Robert Tennent, a
Glasgow merchant, who died in 1741. This philanthropist
directed his trustees to pay to the Town Council three sums of
money 5000 merks, 4000 Scots, and 10,000 merks respec-
tively. The interest, at four per cent, on the first sum was to be
devoted to the maintenance of the children in two charity
schools erected by the testator's brother, Simon Tennent ; that
of the second sum was to go to the support of " three widows
of good deportment and conversation " ; while the third
sum itself was to be lent out, in amounts of 500 merks each,
free of interest, for periods of five years, to fifteen merchants
and five tradesmen of the city, who could give sufficient
security for repayment. The interest on any portions of
the amount which might be unused for a time in the hands
5 Burgh Records, 3rd Oct., 1743 ; yth March, 5th Jan., 1745.
BUCHANAN SOCIETY 201
of the Town Council was to be used for the expenses of man-
agement. 6
Still another bequest of the same period affords an example
of the many charitable legacies which, in the course of time,
have been entrusted to the Town Council and the Merchants
and Trades Houses for administration. The case is an instance,
at the same time, of wifely faithfulness and devotion which is
worthy of permanent remembrance. The lady was Martha
Millar, widow of John Luke, merchant. Stating that her hus-
band had " verbally mortified " the sum, she paid to the
Merchants House 4000 merks, with the arrangement that that
House should pay the interest to " a poor, decayed, indigent,
honest man of the merchant rank," to be named by herself and
her daughters after her. As the first recipient of the pension
she named George Luke, a near relation of her husband, who
had fallen on evil days ; and after his death, as his children had
not sufficient means for their maintenance and upbringing, she
by special request had the annuity continued to them. It was
a womanly variation of the strict legal terms of the bequest,
which, one is glad to know, both the Merchants House and the
Town Council found it possible to homologate. 7
From first to last, however, the philanthropic spirit which
has characterized the citizens of Glasgow has been fostered and
furthered by the city fathers. A notable enterprise thus helped
was the Buchanan Society, first of the many benevolent societies,
associated with Highland clans and districts which have since
formed a conspicuous feature of Glasgow life. The society was
founded in 1725 by four brothers who were among the most
notable citizens of Glasgow, George Buchanan of Moss and
Auchentoshan, Andrew Buchanan of Drumpellier, Archibald
6 Ibid. 27th Jan., 1744. This money is still held by the Corporation, which
pays four per cent to the trustees who administer the revenue. See Strang's
Bursaries, Schools, Mortifications and Bequests, p. 120.
7 Ibid, ist Oct., 1744.
202 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Buchanan of Auchentorlie, and Neil Buchanan of Hillington. 8
In 1725 this society established a fund for putting poor boys of
the clan to trades in the city. To secure its capital and increase
its income it purchased an old thatched tenement at the corner
of Trongate and King Street, pulled it down, and on the site, and
an adjoining piece of ground given to it by the Town Council,
erected a handsome stone building. The new tenement ran the
society into debt to the amount of 300 sterling. Towards the
repayment of that debt the society asked the Council for a
further favour. This was promptly granted, and the Buchanan
Society was allowed for five years to draw the increased rents
from its new stone property while paying " stent " or rates only
upon the small rental of the older building. 9 The society was,
fourteen years later, granted the status of a legal incorporation
by the city fathers.
Two years later in origin was the Glasgow Highland Society.
In the year 1751 this society was granted a seal of cause by the
magistrates, which enabled it to sue or be sued in any court of
law in the same manner as any other corporate body. Its
membership was limited to persons of Highland birth, or their
children, and the entrance fee was a guinea and a half. The
chief purpose of the society was to apprentice poor boys of
Highland birth to respectable trades, and so enable them to
become useful citizens. At the time of its incorporation it had
apprenticed forty-seven boys, and its funds amounted to
416 i6s. 6|d. In its behalf in 1758 George Whitefield preached
a sermon in the Cathedral churchyard, when the collection,
nearly 60, taken after the discourse, was the largest sub-
scribed till then in Glasgow. With this and its other funds the
society built the Black Bull inn on the west side of the Shaw-
field Mansion, and the rent, which at first was no more than
8 Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 4.
9 Burgh Records, i^ih Jan, 1733 ; 2nd July, 1736 ; 4th Feb., 1737 ; 2oth Feb.,
1739 ; 5th Dec., 1753.
MITCHELL'S MORTIFICATION 203
100 per annum, increased till in 1825 it amounted, with its
attached shops, to n68. 10
Two years later still was the " mortification " of 2000
sterling by William Mitchell, a London merchant, and native
of Glasgow, who died on Christmas Day, 1729. The money
was entrusted to the magistrates of Glasgow, who were to
devote its interest to the maintenance of poor burgesses, or
children of burgesses, to be presented by the testator's executors
and their heirs for ever, whom failing the Lord Provost and
Magistrates. 1
10 Gibson's History, p. 175 ; Gordon's Glasghu Fades, ii. 1023, 1029 ; Burgh
Records, 22nd Jan. 1751 ; Glasgow Past and Present, i. p. 82 ; Anecdotage of
Glasgow, p. 115.
1 Gibson, p. 180. When Mitchell's mortification was remodelled in 1794
its income was 113 173. 9^d., which was apportioned among fifteen bene-
ficiaries. Burgh Records, I7th Sept. 1794. See supra, p. 147.
CHAPTER XXIV
PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD AND GLASGOW
INTO the midst of the peaceful community of traders and
craftsmen going about their business in the Saltmarket, Tron-
gate, and Briggate of Glasgow on I4th September, 1745, a
thunderbolt dropped suddenly out of the blue. It was a letter
signed " Charles P R," and dated on the previous day at
Leckie, near Gargunnock, within twenty miles of the city.
The letter ran as follows: " To the Provost, Magistrates and
Town Council of Glasgow. I need not inform you of my being
come hither, nor of my view in coming ; that is already suffi-
ciently known ; all those who love their country, and the true
interest of Britain ought to wish for my success, and do what
they can to promote it. It would be a needless repetition to tell
you that all the privileges of your town are included in my
Declaration, and what I have promised I will never depart
from. I hope this is your way of thinking, and therefore expect
your compliance with my demands. A sum of money besides
what is due to the government, not exceeding fifteen thousand
pounds sterling, and whatever arms can be found in your city,
is at present what I require. The terms offered you are very
reasonable, and what I promise to make good. I choose to
make these demands, but if not complied with I shall take other
measures, and you must be answerable for the consequences." *
Prince Charles Edward Stewart, in his romantic attempt to
regain the throne of his ancestors, had landed with seven com-
1 Cochrane Correspondence, Maitland Club, p. 105.
204
DEMAND FOR 15,000 205
panions at Arisaig on 22nd July, had raised his standard in
Glenfinnan on igth August, and, evaded by General Cope at
Dalwhinnie, had marched hotfoot upon the lowlands. Avoiding
Stirling, where an arch of the ancient bridge had been broken
to stop his passage, he had crossed the Forth at the Fords of
Frew, below Kippen, and proceeded at once to requisition the
prospering little city on the Clyde. Glasgow had everything to
fear from the invading host. It had consistently supported the
Revolution settlement and the House of Hanover, and at the
Earl of Mar's rising in 1715 had raised ten companies to oppose
the Jacobite campaign. In view of these facts something like
panic seized the common townsfolk. On J_4th and I5th Sep-
tember there was nothing but hiding of clothes and other goods.
On Sunday, i6th September, the rebels were expected, and at
a false alarm that they were entering the place, " almost all
the inhabitants that were able to run fled out of the town in
great fear, hurry, and confusion. Those at the foot of the town
thought they saw the smoke at the head of it, and that the
rebels were setting it on fire ; and some in the country that
were in sight of Glasgow imagined that the city was all on
fire, and they saw the smoke of it." 2 The city in fact was totally
without defence. A small force of some thirty Royal Scots
Fusiliers with one officer had been quartered in the town, but
had been ordered to Dunbarton Castle.
Nevertheless, the payment of 15,000 meant ruin to the
finances of the city, whose entire annual revenue at that time
was not more than some 3000. Fortunately the affairs of
Glasgow were at the moment in charge of a particularly able
provost, Andrew Cochrane. On receipt of the demand he
convened a meeting of all the principal inhabitants of the city,
along with the Town Council, in the new Town Hall, and it was
resolved to send a deputation of four to treat with the Jacobite
leaders. The deputation, however, went no further than
2 Contemporary MS. by John Scott of Heatheryknowe in Monkland parish.
206 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Kilsyth, as it heard there that the Prince and his Highland
host had already moved towards Edinburgh.
On the same day the provost wrote to the Lord Justice
Clerk and the Lord Advocate informing them of the danger
threatening the city. He referred to " our naked, defenceless
state, without arms . . . the distance of His Majesty's forces ;
the vicinity of the rebels, within twelve miles of us, with a force
of at least 4000 . . . our reputation for wealth, and the great
value of goods of various kinds must always be in a place like
ours ; the nature of our enemy men under little order or
discipline, who want nothing more -than the plunder of such a
town as ours ; and the absolute stop our fears and the neigh-
bourhood of the rebels have put to all manner of industry. . . .
This has thrown us into infinite disorder and confusion, which
is far from being at an end. . . . Our case is extremely deplor-
able, that we must truckle to a pretended prince and rebels, and,
at an expense we are not able to bear, purchase a protection
from plunder and rapine." 3
Before this letter reached Edinburgh the authorities there
were having enough to do in thinking of the safety of the
capital. Gardiner's dragoons, hopelessly outnumbered, had
fallen back from a movement to defend the Fords of Frew ; on
i5th September the Jacobite army reached Corstorphine, and
on the lyth Prince Charles Edward slept in the palace of his
ancestors at Holyrood.
On the same day, at Dunbar, General Cope began the dis-
embarking of his army, which he had brought by sea from
Aberdeen, and four days later, on 2ist September, he was
utterly routed by the clansmen in the few minutes' conflict at
Prestonpans. Four days later still the Prince's demand on
Glasgow was renewed, when the Jacobite quarter-master, John
Hay, in private life an obscure writer, rode into the city at the
head of a party of horse. The levy was now demanded in the
3 Contemporary MS. by John Scott of Heathery kno we, pp. 14, 15.
LOYALTY TO HOUSE OF HANOVER 207
form of a loan, for which the entire excise and tax duties of
Clydesdale were assigned as security, and, as part of the sum
asked for, the Prince stated his willingness to accept " two
thousand broadswords, at reasonable rates." 4
Resistance was useless, as no Government force remained in
Scotland except the garrisons in the castles of Edinburgh,
Dunbarton, and Stirling, and in the three forts on the line of
the Great Glen. All that could be done was to make the best
bargain possible. At the first alarm Provost Cochrane had
called another meeting of the Town Council and the principal
citizens, at which commissioners were appointed to deal with the
emergency. These commissioners, with much difficulty, induced
Hay to modify his demand to 5500, and under the spur of stark
necessity, the inhabitants produced their money, bank notes,
and such bills as they could draw. A loan of 1500 was also, as
already mentioned, secured from the Earl of Glencairn, and Hay
departed with 5000 in cash and notes and 500 in goods. 5
So little were the citizens daunted by this experience that
three days afterwards they celebrated King George's birthday
with increased enthusiasm. In his " Narrative of Proceedings "
Provost Cochrane says, " On the 3Oth we solemnized his
Majesty's birthday with all manner of rejoicing, such as illum-
inations, bonfires, ringing of bells, convening all persons of
distinction and the principal inhabitants in the town hall, and
drinking the usual and some new loyal healths." 6 At the
same time, partly from the spirit of loyalty to the reigning house,
and partly from a desire to prevent a repetition of the experi-
ence to which they had just been subjected, a movement was
set on foot for the raising of an armed force in the city. A
warrant for the purpose, dated I2th September, was received
4 Ibid. p. 133.
5 Burgh Records, i5th, 26th, 2yth and 3oth Sept., lyth Dec., 1745; 8th
Sept., 1746. Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. n.
6 Cochrane Correspondence, p. 30.
208 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
from King George, 7 and Glasgow mobilized two regiments of six
hundred men each. A subscription was raised among the princi-
pal citizens to pay the private soldiers, for two months, at the
rate of eight pence per day, while the officers maintained them-
selves. 8 There was some delay in securing arms for these levies,
as there was no means of getting stores out of Edinburgh Castle
while the Highland army remained in the capital. The Jacobite
forces, however, left Edinburgh for England on 3ist October,
and on 26th November, Captain Clark brought to Glasgow, from
General Guest, 1000 firelocks, with bayonets and cartouche boxes,
as well as eight barrels of gunpowder and ten of musket balls. 9
The Earl of Home, who had been with Cope's army at Pres-
tonpans, was appointed to command the Glasgow forces, and
as further parties of Highlanders, Lord Lo vat's clansmen and
others, were gathering at Perth, and threatening the fords of
the Forth, the first Glasgow regiment of six hundred men was
sent to guard the passage at Stirling. Bailie Allan, an officer of
the regiment, sent home a graphic picture of the situation there.
" They are," he said, " about three hundred Hilenders said to
be at Doun and Dumblen. They keep a strong gaird at the
Bridg of Allan, and some of them in small companies wer
shouing themselfes yesterday but a miel of Stirling, upon a
rock, and was said to be come to intercep a bark that was
coming up the watter with meall and bar lie. They are very
opresife wheir they cum, they sufred non coming by the bridg
of Allan pas for Stirling yesterday, which was the market day,
but they caused pay six-pence, or ells behove to turn back.
Their is of Stirling Malichie on companie stationed at Buckie
burn, on at Leckie parks, and on at Kippen Kirk." 10 The
presence of the Glasgow regiment, however, prevented the
Highlanders from crossing the Forth and raiding the Lothians.
In the middle of December it became known that the
7 Cochrane Correspondence, pp. 19, 20. 8 Ibid. p. 82, Burgh Records.
9 Burgh Records, 3rd December, 1745. 10 Curiosities of Citizenship, p. u.
tn O
PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD IN GLASGOW 209
Jacobite army had stopped its southward march at Derby, and
was in full retreat towards Scotland. Thereupon both of the
Glasgow regiments were marched to the defence of Edinburgh,
and the western city was left unprotected as before.
On Christmas Day the vanguard of the Highlanders reached
Glasgow. On this occasion the citizens had even greater reason
to fear reprisals than at the former alarm in September. There
is a tradition, indeed, that the Highlanders actually intended
to wreak a signal vengeance on the city, and that this was only
prevented by the intervention of Lochiel, one of the most
faithful supporters of the cause of Charles. For that service,
it is said, though the tradition lacks confirmation, the citizens
resolved that for ever afterwards, when " the gentle Lochiel "
should visit Glasgow, the bells of the city should be rung. As
a matter of fact the Highlanders must be held to have behaved
with singular moderation during their stay in the town. They
were billeted in public and private houses, mostly the latter,
and lived at free quarters during their stay ; but nothing in the
way of serious plundering or personal ill-usage at their hands is
on record. Robert Reid, who, under the name of Senex, in his
old age, compiled the highly interesting collection of memoirs
entitled Glasgow Past and Present, has put it on record that
his mother, with her three sisters, aged from seven to sixteen,
were then living alone with a servant in a house at the foot of
the Cow Loan, now Queen Street. Two Highlanders were
quartered in their house, but gave very little trouble. They were
" poor ragged creatures, without shoes or stockings, who could
not speak a word of English." All they required was "a bed, and
liberty to dress their meals at the kitchen fire which meals con-
sisted almost wholly of oatmeal porridge and barley bannocks."
The Prince himself, during the week he spent in Glasgow,
lodged in the Shawfield Mansion at the West Port, then the
residence of Colonel Macdowall, the West India sugar magnate.
During his stay, in order to gain the favour of the citizens, it is
210 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
said he ate twice a day in public view at the house. His dress
was usually of fine silk tartan, with crimson velvet breeches,
but sometimes he wore an English court coat, with the ribbon,
star, and other insignia of the Order of the Garter. Quite ob-
viously, however, his cause was not popular in the city. Accord-
ing to Provost Cochrane, " He appeared four times publicly in
our streets, without acclamations or one huzza ; no ringing of
bells or smallest respect or acknowledgment paid him by the
meanest inhabitant. Our very ladies had not the curiosity to
go near him, and declined going to a ball held by his chiefs."
Nevertheless the Prince was not entirely without friends in
Glasgow. In particular, it was here that, as already men-
tioned, he met for the first time Clementina Walkinshaw,
daughter of the stout Jacobite erstwhile Laird of Barrowfield.
Whatever were the incidents, the beautiful nineteen year
old girl, who was his mother's god-daughter, and who bore his
mother's name, possessed a powerful fascination for the Prince,
and to that meeting in Glasgow, in circumstances of hectic
romance, remains to be attributed the relationship which
played so notable a part in his later career. 1
The memory of the Prince was long perpetuated in Glasgow
by another curious tradition. The Rev. James Stewart, first
minister of the Relief Church set up in Anderston by the
founder of the city's cotton industry, James Monteith, was
said to be a son of Charles. His quaint manse still stands
in Argyle Street, a few doors east of Bishop Street. If the
enemies of the Jacobite cause were to be believed, the " Young
Chevalier " would be a not unsuccessful candidate for the
reputation of his grand-uncle, Charles II, as, in rather too
literal a sense, " the father of his people."
Another incident of Prince Charles's stay in Glasgow had
an immediate effect on the spirits both of the royal adventurer
himself and of his followers. It was here that the momentous
1 See supra, p. 126.
REVIEW ON GLASGOW GREEN 211
news reached him that the French Government was at last
actually preparing an invasion of Britain on a formidable scale.
That news put fresh hope and vigour into the Jacobite enter-
prise, and it was not till months afterwards that this hope was
extinguished by tidings that the French expedition had had its
purpose frustrated before it crossed the Channel. 2
The most outstanding event of the Jacobite occupation of
the city was the review of his forces which Charles held on
Glasgow Green. The review was held on the Fleshers Haugh,
at the eastern end of the Green, a low-lying area which has
since had its level raised. According to the manuscript journal
of one who took part in the review, " We marched out with
drums beating, colours flying, bagpipes playing, and all the
marks of a triumphant army, attended by multitudes of people
who had come from all parts to see us." During the review
Charles himself stood under a thorn tree on the north-western
slope of the Fleshers Haugh, " about a hundred yards east of
the Round Seat." Another eyewitness of the occasion has
placed on record an interesting impression of the Prince's
appearance. " I managed to get so near him," says this person,
" that I could have touched him, and the impression which he
made upon my mind shall never fade as long as I live. He had
a princely aspect, and its interest was much heightened by the
dejection which appeared in his pale fair countenance and down-
cast eye. He evidently wanted confidence in his cause, and
seemed to have a melancholy forboding of that disaster which
soon ruined the hopes of his family for ever." 3
2 A force of 9000 foot and 1350 cavalry under the Duke of Richelieu was
actually collected at the French Channel ports, but on the appearance of a
strong British fleet under Admiral Vernon the project was abandoned.
3 Alison's Anecdotage of Glasgow, 167. Curious differences exist in descrip-
tions of the Prince. Dr. Carlyle of Inveresk, who says he stood close to him
in the courtyard at Holyrood, writes : " He was a good looking man of about
five feet ten inches ; his hair was dark red and his eyes black. His features
were regular, his visage long, much sunburnt and freckled, and his countenance
thoughtful and melancholy." Autobiography, p. 153.
212 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Dougal Graham, the hunchbacked Glasgow bellman, pedlar,
and chapbook writer who as a young man followed the Jacobite
army throughout its campaign, has described, in his rhyming
chronicle, the change which the week's rest and refurnishing
effected in the appearance of the Prince's followers :
" The shot was rusted in the gun,
Their swords from scabbards would not twin,
Their count'nance fierce as a wild bear,
Out o'er their eyes hang down their hair,
Their very thighs red tanned quite,
But yet as nimble as they'd been white.
Their beards were turned black and brown,
The like was ne'er seen in that town.
Some of them did barefooted run
Minded no mire nor stoney groun';
But when shaven, drest, and clothed again,
They turned to be like other men." 4
The Jacobite demand upon the city on this occasion was for
12,000 linen shirts, 600 cloth coats, and as many pairs of shoes,
tartan hose, and blue bonnets, and a sum of money. 5 When
the magistrates remonstrated, they were told by Quartermaster
Hay that they were rebels, and that the Prince was resolved to
make them " an example of his just severity, that would strike
terror into other places." Under fear of a general sack of the
city the Town Council exerted itself to comply with the
demands, and when the Jacobite army marched out of Glasgow
on 3rd February it presented a very different appearance from
what it wore at the time of its entry. As security for the
speedy delivery of some of the clothing which could not be
supplied in time, the rebels took with them as hostages two
Glasgow merchants, one of them a bailie. 6
4 Collected Writings, vol. i. p. 123. Dougal Graham remains facile princeps
in his own peculiar province of popular literature. A full account of his
career is given in the introduction to his Collected Works and also in Strang's
Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 90.
6 Cochrane Correspondence, p. 62 ; Burgh Records, 8th Sept., 1746.
6 Burgh Records, 8th Sept., 1764.
BATTLE OF FALKIRK 213
A few weeks later, on ijth February, on the high ground of
South Bantaskine, above Falkirk, the Highland army won its
last victory, defeating General Hawley and the Government
forces under his command. Among these forces were the two
Glasgow regiments, and the clansmen are said to have visited
special fury upon them, as not called upon by duty, like the
regular soldiers, to take part in the conflict. As Dougal Graham
puts it
Glasgow and Paisley volunteers,
Eager to fight, it so appears,
With the Dragoons advanced in form,
Who 'mong the first did feel the storm.
The Highlanders, seeing their zeal,
Their Highland vengeance poured like hail.
On red coats they some pity had,
But 'gainst militia were raging mad."
The i6th of April, 1746, saw the Highland army finally
defeated at Culloden, and all fear of further invasion removed
from the country. The event was duly " solemnized " with a
cake and wine banquet by the city fathers on 2ist April, and a
deputation was sent to Inverness to congratulate the Duke of
Cumberland, who was presented with the freedom of the city in
a gold box ; 7 but it was not till four years later that Glasgow
received compensation from Parliament for the supplies and
levies which had been exacted from the city by the Jacobite
forces. Provost Cochrane and his brother-in-law, Bailie George
Murdoch, were commissioned to go to London, to urge the
town's claim, and for a full half year they were detained there,
interviewing ministers and members of Parliament. A strong
party in the House of Commons opposed the claim, which they
termed " the Glasgow Job," and " The Duke of Argyll's Job." 8
Certain English members could not forget that Glasgow was
7 Burgh Records, ist Aug., 8th and 26th Sept., 1746.
8 Glasgow was at this time represented in Parliament by John Campbell of
Mamore, who in 1761 succeeded his cousin as 4th Duke of Argyll.
214 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the successful rival of their constituencies in the tobacco trade
and the sugar trade. Provost Cochrane wrote home to his wife, ' ' I
am sure I am much to be pitied. I would rather have paid great
part of what we expect than to have had this plague and vexa-
tion. I shall be away from my dearest wife and best affairs for
an age, losing my time and spending the town's money, and
vexing and fatiguing myself, and all to no purpose. God pity
me and give an happy end to this vexing affair ! " 9
In the end a sum of 10,000 was granted by Parliament
to the city in repayment of the requisitions which had been
made upon it by the Jacobite army, and the labours of the
very capable provost and his brother-in-law were formally
acknowledged : " The Magistrates and Council, for themselves
and in name of the community, being sensible of the Provost and
George Murdoch, their good services and diligence in procuring
such relief to the town, do tender them their most hearty
thanks." 10 In further honour of the worthy provost the street in
the city originally known as Cotton Street had its name changed
to Cochrane Street. Cochrane refused to accept any tangible
consideration whatever for his strenuous labour and anxiety,
but the magistrates presented Bailie Murdoch with 50 sterling
for his extraordinary expenses and 100 to be either in specie or
plate as he might choose. 1
9 Cochrane Correspondence , pp. 126-9.
10 Burgh Records, i4th June, 1749.
1 Ibid. 29th Sept., 1749. The expenses incurred by Provost Cochrane and
Bailie Murdoch on their mission to London amounted to ^472 us. 8d. Ibid.
roth Aug. 1749. Cochrane has been called the greatest of the Glasgow Pro-
vosts. With his brother-in-law, Bailie Murdoch, he founded the Thistle Bank
and was a leader in other chief business enterprises of the city. " Jupiter "
Carlyle, the minister of Inveresk, who was a student at Glasgow University
in his time, says he was a man of high talent and education, and that he was
of great service to Adam Smith in collecting material for The Wealth of Nations.
Among other social services, he founded a club which met weekly to discuss
the nature and principles of trade in all its branches (Carlyle's Autobiography,
P- 73).
CHAPTER XXV
THE RISE OF BANKING AND THE DEEPENING OF THE CLYDE
UPON the final clearing away of the Jacobite menace, after
the battle of Culloden in 1746, Glasgow found prosperity flow-
ing upon it in a rising tide. One of the most significant evi-
dences of this development was the establishing of the joint-
stock banks, which began in the year 1750. Previously the
working of finance in Scotland had been rather a cumbrous
business. Down to the time of George Hutcheson, the Glasgow
notary, money could only be borrowed on the security of actual
property wadsets or bonds upon landed estates, or the deposit
of jewels and other valuables. In The Fortunes of Nigel
Sir Walter Scott gives a fair picture of the latter process in
the dealings of King James VI. with the Edinburgh goldsmith
and money-lender, George Heriot. George Hutcheson intro-
duced the less cumbrous method of lending money upon the
personal security of responsible guarantors, and sixty years
later the Darien Company carried matters further when
it granted loans to its subscribers on the security of their
holdings of its own shares. Edinburgh led the way in the
setting up of regular joint-stock banks in Scotland. The Bank
of England had been founded in 1694 on the plan of the Dum-
friesshire farmer's son and West Indian merchant, William
Paterson, and, following its example, the Bank of Scotland had
been incorporated in the following year. Its capital to begin
with was 100,000, the amount called up 10,000, and its
business limited to the advancing of money on bills and bonds
215
216 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
by the issue of notes for sums of 5, 10, 50, and 100 sterling.
A second company, the Royal Bank of Scotland, was established
by charter in 1727 with, for its capital, a large part of the
debentures, amounting to 248,550, which had been issued in
payment of the Scottish national debts, and upon which in-
terest of 10,000 per annum was to be paid out of the Scottish
customs and excise. Little more than a fourth part of the
capital of this company was held in Scotland, so the Royal had
only a branch office in Edinburgh, but its first governor was
Archibald, Earl of Hay, afterwards third Duke of Argyll. 1
One of the difficulties of these early banks is illustrated by
an incident which took place on 27th March, 1728. On that
day Andrew Cochrane, Provost of Glasgow, presented at the
office of the Bank of Scotland 900 of its notes for change into
coin of the realm. There was none to give him. Two-thirds of
the capital of the bank and all its notes had been lent out on
heritable and personal bonds, which could not be immediately
turned into cash, and already there had been a run on the bank
for the cashing of its notes, engineered, it was suspected, by the
rival Royal Bank, which had emptied the till. The bank claimed
the privilege of deferring payment of cash, and promised in-
terest until payment was made. The Court of Session upheld
this claim, but Provost Cochrane carried the case to the House
of Lords, which reversed that decision and declared that banks
must meet their promises to pay in the same manner as private
individuals. 2 In this matter the stout Glasgow provost vindi-
cated the principle upon which the entire integrity and success
of the Scottish banking system since then have been based.
The banking experience of the western city itself had been
suggestive enough. In 1696, the year after its foundation in
Edinburgh, and again in 1731, the Bank of Scotland had opened
branch offices in Glasgow, but had closed them after a short
1 Hist, of Royal Bank of Scotland, by Neil Munro, p. 34.
2 Ibid. p. 60.
PROVOST ANDREW COCHRAXE, 1693-1777.
FIRST SCOTTISH BANKS 217
experience. The reason usually given for this want of success
is that the bank would not deal in bills of exchange. 3 There is
room, however, to surmise that the enterprise laboured in
Glasgow under the prevalent feeling that the promoters of the
Bank of Scotland were more or less Jacobite in sentiment. Its
Tory directors had opposed the Treaty of Union, its treasurer
was a Jacobite, and the Government was known to suspect its
political sympathies. 4 On the other hand the Royal Bank was
notedly Hanoverian in sympathies. Its governor and the most
active members of its staff were Campbells, and it was known
to have the warm support of the Duke of Argyll, the victor of
Sheriffmuir. It was significant that when the Government
granted compensation to the city for its losses on account of
the Jacobite visitation of 1745, the money was paid through
the Royal Bank, 5 and when in the year of the great frost
Glasgow found it necessary to borrow a large sum for the feeding
of the poor, it was from the Royal Bank that the money was
obtained. 6 But the Royal had no branch in the western city
till 1783, when the famous Glasgow citizen, David Dale, was
appointed joint agent there.
Meanwhile in Glasgow a considerable banking business was
carried on by private traders. In the Edinburgh Evening
Courant in July, 1730, James Blair, merchant, at the head of
Saltmarket, advertised that, at his shop there, " all persons
who have occasion to buy or sell bills of exchange, or want
money to borrow, or have money to lend on interest, etc., may
deliver their demands." It was not till 1750 that the hour
struck when Glasgow was to have a bank of its own. At that
time the largest banking business in the city was probably being
done by the Glasgow Tanwork Company, which carried on its
ordinary operations, with tanning pits and other appurtenances,
3 Buchanan's Banking in Glasgow during the Olden Time.
4 Hist. Royal Bank, p. 52. 5 Burgh Records, 8th Nov. 1749.
* Hist. Royal Jiaitk, p. 86.
218 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
beside the Molendinar, near the Gallowgate. Among its patrons
were Provost Andrew Cochrane and many other notable mer-
chants. Fifteen years later, in 1765, its deposits amounted to no
less than 40,000. 7 It was in January, 1750 , that the first regular
Glasgow bank began business in a small office in the old dwelling
of the Coulters at the south corner of Briggate and Saltmarket. 8
Its partners were William McDowall of Castle Semple, Andrew
Buchanan of Drumpellier, Allan Dreghorn of Ruchill, Robert
Dunlop, merchant, Colin Dunlop of Carmyle, and Alexander
Houston of Jordanhill, all men of wealth and high standing in
the city. It was known as the Ship Bank, and its operations
were carried on under the firm name of Colin Dunlop, Alexander
Houston & Co. It owed its success largely to the unremitting
labours of the famous Robin Carrick, its manager for a long
lifetime. " Sicker, far-seeing, resolute, passionless, spending
his days in the dingy Bank parlour, and his lonely, joyless even-
ings in the old flat above, he died there on 20th June, 182 1. 9 He
was eighty-one years of age, and left about a million sterling.
7 The Tanwork Company was entrusted with large deposits from many
parts of Scotland, on which it paid interest at 4^ and 5 per cent. A list of
the depositors and the sums at their credit is given by Senex in Old Glasgow
and its Environs, p. 123.
8 Photograph in The Old Ludgings of Glasgow, p. 58.
9 Mitchell, Old Glasgow Essays, p. 21. There remained, nevertheless, one
grain of sentiment under the hard crust of the grim old banker's nature.
George Buchanan, the great Tobacco Lord, builder of the famous Virginia
Mansion, when at the height of his fortunes had employed a divinity student
as a tutor for his family, and afterwards got him inducted as parish minister
of Houston. Later, when George Buchanan's son, Provost Andrew Buchanan,
was helping to found the Ship Bank, he got his old tutor's son, Robin Carrick,
then about fourteen, a place as message boy in the establishment. When the
crash came to the tobacco trade, with the revolt of the American colonies,
the Buchanans were ruined. But Provost Andrew's brother, David, when
the war was over, went to the United States, and recovered enough of the
family fortunes to return and purchase again his grandfather's estate of
Drumpellier. He was again on the verge of ruin through a law plea in America,
when Robin Carrick died, and it was found that he had left nearly his whole
fortune to the son of his father's old patron. From that circumstance the
Buchanans of Drumpellier took the name of Carrick-Buchanan. Curiosities
of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 25. Mitchell, Old Glasgow Papers, p. 164.
ATTEMPT TO WRECK BANKS 219
Not to be outdone by their rivals in business, another group
of Glasgow merchants, with Andrew Cochrane at their head,
started the Glasgow Arms Bank in November of the year in
which the Ship Bank opened its doors. There were twenty-six
partners, and the office was a small place up a narrow stair, also
in that fashionable business quarter, the Briggate. It carried
on business under the name of Andrew Cochrane, John Murdoch
& Company.
The procedure adopted by these banks and the others that
followed them was to lodge in the hands of the Town Clerk
bonds signed by all their partners guaranteeing payment of
their notes. In their case a " seal of cause," such as the
Magistrates and Town Council granted to the various crafts
and incorporations to enable them to sue and be sued and to
hold property as corporate bodies, was not required, but the
joint guarantee of all the partners, thus duly registered, served
a not less important purpose.
Threatened with this rivalry in the western city, the two
Edinburgh banks joined forces in a rather ungenerous attempt
to put the Glasgow banks out of business. For this purpose
they employed a rather despicable individual. Alexander
Trotter, an Edinburgh accountant, who had been an early
partner in the afterwards great banking firm of Coutts & Com-
pany, was sent to Glasgow. There he set about the business of
embarrassing the new private banks by collecting their notes,
and then presenting them in large amounts and demanding
payment in cash. The Glasgow bankers met the attacks by
paying out the money in sixpences, a device which had been
adopted by the Edinburgh banks themselves in a similar
emergency. On one occasion a whole forenoon was taken to
make a payment of 7, and the total amount thus cashed in
thirty-four business days was 2893. Trotter, on 23rd January
1759, made a formal protest, then brought an action in the
Court of Session against the Glasgow Arms Bank for payment
220 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
of the notes which he held, amounting to 3447, with interest
from the date of his protest, as well as 600 damages. He also
asked it to be declared that the bank had no powers to limit
its hours of business, but must cash its notes on demand at
any time between seven in the morning and ten at night. The
case drifted on for four years, and was in the end taken out of
Court on the bank paying Trotter 600. The amount probably
did no more than cover his expenses, and the Glasgow Arms
Bank had secured the purpose of its defence. 10
During the next half-century a number of other private
banking companies were established in Glasgow. In 1761 the
Thistle Bank was set up by Sir Walter Maxwell of Pollok and
partners ; in 1769 the Merchant Banking Company by a num-
ber of small traders in the Saltmarket ; in 1785 Thomson's
Bank, by a father and two sons of that name ; and in 1809 the
Glasgow Bank, at the south-west corner of Montrose and
Ingram Streets, was founded and managed by James Dennis-
ton of Golfhill. 1 At a later day the oldest and the latest of
these banks united to become the Glasgow and Ship Bank,
and later still, along with the Thistle Bank, were embodied in
the Union Bank of Scotland. The Glasgow Arms Bank and
the Merchant Banking Company stopped payment during
the crisis of the French Revolution, but paid their creditors
in full. 2
It cannot be doubted that the credits and other facilities
afforded by these banks played a large part in developing the
trade and industry of Glasgow in the second half of the
eighteenth century. Nor was the Town Council slow to avail
itself of the financial convenience which the banks afforded.
10 The Scotsman, 5th April, 1826. Forbes, Memoirs of a Banking House,
2nd ed., p. 5. Reproductions of the notes of some of these old Glasgow banks,
with interesting details regarding their signatories, are printed in Frazcr's
Making of Buchanan Street, pp. 5-8.
1 Glasgow Past and Present, p. 462 ; Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 141.
2 Hist. Royal Bank, p. 156.
ROBERT (ROBIN) CARRICK, 1737-1821.
From a painting in possession of the Carrick-Buchanan family.
Reproduced by permission from The History of the Union Bank.
EARLY EFFORTS TO DEEPEN CLYDE 221
In 1754, when considerable expense fell to be incurred in improv-
ing certain turnpike roads leading into the city the Renfrew
and Three Mile House roads, and the road from Gorbals by
Paisley Loan to Go van it was arranged to take credit " from
any of the banks in the city " to defray the cost, till this could
be recovered out of the tolls. And a few months later it was
agreed to open an account with the " new bank company,"
otherwise the Glasgow Arms Bank, upon which the Provost
was empowered to draw sums for the town's use up to a total
amount of 1000. 3
Another enterprise which the rising trade of Glasgow
quickened with astonishing effect was the deepening and im-
provement of the harbour. Again and again in the two hundred
years since it became a self-governing community the city had
made efforts to secure its passage to the open sea. As long ago
as the year 1566 it had joined with the burghs of Renfrew and
Dunbarton in an attempt to deepen the channel at Dumbuck, 4
and again in 1611, after securing from James VI. the freedom of
the river " from the Clochstane to the Brig of Glasgow," it had
sought the advice of Henry Crawfurd, the Culross engineer, and
under his direction had again attacked the obstruction at
Dumbuck with chains, ropes, hogsheads, and other apparatus. 5
But these efforts still left the river little more than a shallow
salmon stream. Over a hundred years had elapsed since
William Simpson, that native of St. Andrews whom McUre
describes as " a great projector " of Glasgow trade, " built
two ships at the Bremmylaw, and brought them down the river
the time of a great flood." When the first Glasgow vessel to
trade with Virginia, a craft of sixty tons, was built on the Clyde
in 1716, the work had to be done at Crawford's-dyke, between
Port-Glasgow and Greenock, as no natural flood would have
3 Burgh Records, i6th April, 26th Sept. 1754.
4 Cleland's Annals, 1817, p. 371.
5 Burgh Records, i. 329.
222 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
been great enough to float her down the river. Port-Glasgow,
it is true, in the fifty years of its history had thoroughly justi-
fied its existence, but the conveyance of the transhipped cargoes
between that seaport and the parent city still presented serious
difficulties by reason of the sandbanks, islands, and shallow
channel of the Clyde. Notwithstanding these hindrances, the
extension of trade made it necessary in 1723 to enlarge the quay
at the Broomielaw, and the Town Council, the Trades House,
and probably the Merchants House, spent 1833 6s. 8d. sterling
in extending it as far as "St. Tennochis burn foot, opposite to
the Dowcat Green " that is, about the present Dixon Street,
where the Dowcat or Old Green began. 6 Regarding the harbour,
as thus improved, MclJre, a few years later, indulged in one of
his bursts of eloquence. ' There is not," he says," such a fresh
water harbour to be seen in any place in Britain. It is strangely
fenced with beams of oak, fastened with iron bolts within the
wall thereof, that the great boards of ice in time of thaw may
not offend it ; and it is so large that a regiment of horse may
be exercised thereupon." 1
McUre's remarks may have helped to stimulate further
enterprise, for in 1736, the year in which his History was pub-
lished, the Town Council ordered an inspection to be made of
the sandbanks in the river below the Broomielaw, and agreed
to expend 20 sterling " for an experiment upon one of the
sandbanks for clearing the river." 8 In this small and tenta-
tive fashion was begun again the great engineering achievement
which in two hundred years has made the Clyde at Glasgow one
of the most commodious harbours in the world.
Four years later another effort was made to remove the
sandbanks below the Broomielaw. The magistrates were em-
powered to "go the length of 100 sterling of charges there-
6 Burgh Records, 22nd June, 1722 ; I2th Nov. 1724.
7 Hist. Glasg., 1830 ed., p. 231, append. 347.
8 Burgh Records, 2nd July, 1736.
RIVALRY OF GREENOCK 223
upon," and to build a flat-bottomed boat " for carrying off the
sand and shingle from the banks." 9
Just then the success of the rising harbour town of Greenock
may have given a spur to the efforts of Glasgow. Under the
energetic guidance of its superior, Sir John Shaw, that place
had developed into a thriving port, and secured the charter of a
royal burgh, and in 1740 had repaid all the capital expended
upon its harbour, and realized a surplus of 27,000 merks or
1500 sterling. Its customs realized over 15,000 per annum. 10
Greenock clearly was a possible rival by no means to be des-
pised.
In 1743 came a petition from the shipmasters of Glasgow
and the Clyde ports for the setting up of a lighthouse on the
Little Cumbrae, already referred to, though an Act of Parlia-
ment for the purpose was not secured till I756. 1 A similar
petition was received in 1751 from the merchants and feuars
in Port-Glasgow, offering to supervise the marking of the
channel with buoys and perches, and asking that the " mud
boat " be constantly employed in cleaning the harbour there.
To these proposals the Magistrates and Council promptly
agreed. 2
For the interests of Glasgow itself, however, the improve-
ment of the channel of the upper river was a matter of more
vital and immediate importance. Upon this subject the Town
Council again proceeded to seek the best expert advice. James
Stirling, manager of the Scots mining company's works at
Leadhills, was a noted mathematician and engineer. One of
his numerous papers contributed to the Transactions of the
Philosophical Society described " A Machine to Blow Fire by
9 Ibid. 8th May, 1740. Instead of building a new boat the magistrates re-
quisitioned and repaired " the Port Glasgow dirt boat." Ibid. 2Qth Aug. 1740.
10 Weir's Hist, of Greenock, p. 42. Williamson's Old Greenock, p. 75.
1 Burgh Records, ijih Feb. 1743 ; i6th June, 1756.
2 Ibid. 22nd Jan. 1751.
224 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the Fall of Water." 3 His idea was to make Glasgow accessible
to vessels of larger size by the building of locks on the river.
" For his service, pains, and trouble in surveying Clyde, towards
the deepening thereof by locks/' the Town Council presented
him with a silver tea-kettle and lamp, engraved with the city
arms, at a cost of 28 43. 4d. sterling. 4
Fortunately Stirling's recommendations were not carried
out, nor were those, three years later, of John Smeaton, en-
gineer of the Eddystone Lighthouse and of the Forth and Clyde
Canal. Between Glasgow Bridge and Renfrew Smeaton found
twelve shoals, four of which had no more than eighteen inches
depth at low water and one, some four hundred yards below
the bridge, only fifteen inches. His proposal was that a weir
and lock should be constructed at Marling Ford, about four
miles below the bridge, to allow vessels seventy-six feet long
and of four-and-a-half feet draught to pass up to the Broomie-
law at all states of the tide. Had these recommendations been
carried out they might have restricted the possibilities of the
harbour of Glasgow for all time. But Smeaton was paid
twenty guineas for his advice and the Merchants House and
the Trades House proceeded to urge the Town Council to apply
to Parliament for authority to proceed with the work. They
declared themselves willing to pay such dues on all vessels
passing through the locks as would recoup the city for the
expense entailed. 5 Smeaton was accordingly invited, in 1758,
to elaborate the details of his scheme. At the same time
Alexander Wilson, the famous typefounder, was employed to
3 Stirling's career forms the subject of an article in Mitchell's Old Glasgoiv
Essays. Third son of Alexander Stirling of Garden, he was expelled from
Oxford because of his Jacobite connection, lived as a professor of mathematics
at Venice for some years, but, having discovered the secret of plate-glass
making, had to flee for his life in 1725. For ten years he taught mathematics
in London, enjoying the friendship of Newton and other men of science, till
in 1735 he was appointed manager of the mines at Leadhills.
4 Burgh Records, i. July, 1752.
; Burgh Records, 5th Aug. 1757 ; I3th March and nth April, 1758.
* x^V >^ "Sv < x
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JOHN GOLBORNE'S PLAN 225
make a survey of the river. Parliament was approached, and
in due course an Act was secured the first of the Clyde
Navigation Acts empowering the Town Council to carry out
the enterprise. 6 The Act empowered the Town Council to
deepen the river from Dumbuck Ford to Glasgow Bridge, to
make locks and weirs, and to carry out other necessary works.
To this end 3200 were borrowed, and preparations were made
for the construction of a lock, but on account of the difficulties
encountered the scheme was in the end abandoned. 7
In 1764 another suggestion was made which may have
afforded the idea for the plan which was actually carried out.
At the desire of several of the merchants one Dr. Wark sub-
mitted a proposal for deepening the river by means of its own
current. His idea was to confine the current by means of a
whin or furze dyke two or three yards broad. The difficulty
in this case seems to have been to secure a sufficient supply of
furze, and, probably for this reason, nothing more was done
with the proposal. 8
It was not till 1768 that the project was taken up again.
The Town Council then consulted John Golborne of Chester,
and in the following year, on his recommendation, supplemented
his report with one from James Watt, who was just then coming
into repute through his improvements upon the steam-engine.
Golborne 's opinion was that it was " extremely practicable "
6 32 George II. c. 62. Burgh Records, 1 3th March, 1758; gth Jan. 1759;
3ist May, 1759.
7 Burgh Records, loth Aug. 1759. For details of the various schemes to
improve the harbour see The River Clyde, by James Deas, engineer to the
Clyde Navigation Trust, 1876. A contract was actually made with Smeaton
to construct a lock and dam at the Marlingford, and in 1762 the work was
going on (Burgh Records, 24th Nov. 1760 ; 25th Jan. 1762). Shortly after-
wards, however, it was stopped, and Freebairn, an Edinburgh architect, who
had been appointed master of works, made a claim for his broken engagement
(Ibid. 3rd Jan., i3th May, 1763). Smeaton's tavern bill at the Exchange
coffee-house while he was making his plan amounted to 18 los. (Ibid. 26th
Jan. 1761).
8 Ibid. 26th April, 1764.
P H.G. in.
226 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
to deepen the river up to the Broomielaw. By banking,
straightening, and dredging he thought it possible to secure a
depth .of six feet of water there at neap tides and nine feet at
spring tides, and the cost he estimated at 8640 or perhaps
10,000 sterling. 9 Another Act of Parliament was then obtained,
and Golborne and his nephew were employed to proceed with the
work at a yearly salary of 220 sterling. 10 Golborne's plan was
to use the current of the river itself as far as possible for the
deepening of the channel. Thus the current at Dumbuck Ford
was to be thrown into a single channel instead of two, and by
means of jetties and banks the flow of the tides was made to
clear away the sand from the river bed. Golborne was after-
wards engaged to secure a channel six feet deep from Dumbuck
lower beacon to Longloch Point, 1 and so well were the city-
fathers pleased with his work that they presented him with a
silver cup engraved with the city arms. 2 Two months later,
having ascertained by soundings that by Golborne's labours
the channel from the Broomielaw to Dumbuck had been made
actually seven feet ten inches deep, the Town Council, on the
suggestion of the Trades and the Merchants Houses, gave
Golborne a gratuity of 1500 sterling, with 100 to his nephew
for supervising the work. 3
Almost immediately, it is true, the Town Council received
complaints from Lord Blantyre and the burgh of Renfrew of
damage entailed by Golborne's labours. Lord Blantyre com-
plained that the jetties on each side of his ferry quay at Erskine
had brought about an accumulation of sand which prevented
the ferry boat approaching the quay, and the burgh of Renfrew
alleged that the works had hurt its salmon fishery in the river.
But his lordship was satisfied with the provision of thirty or
forty pontoon loads of stone for the lengthening of his ferry
9 Burgh Records, 5th Jan. 1769. 10 Ibid. 3rd Jan. 1771.
1 Ibid. 2nd Nov. 1772. 2 Ibid. S^th Oct. 1775. The cup cost 35 8s.
3 Ibid, ioth Dec. 1775.
CLAIMS FOR RIVER DAMAGE 227
quay, and Renfrew with a money payment which continues to
be made annually till the present day. 4 A similar claim was
made by Paisley, a few years later, for the silting up of the
mouth of the Cart, and was satisfied with a payment of 150.
These, however, were insignificant drawbacks to the fact that
the real and permanent development of the great harbour of
Glasgow had been begun on practical lines.
4 Ibid. 2nd and 2oth March, 1777 ; 3rd July, 5th Oct. 1787 ; 26th May,
1779. This was only the first of many claims made by the Lords Blantyre
against the deepeners of the Clyde (ibid. i6th June, 1784, etc.), 5th Feb. 1784.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE FIRST GLASGOW STRIKES, TRADE UNIONS,
FIRE BRIGADE, AND THEATRES
THE tide of prosperity which was rising in Glasgow as the
middle of the eighteenth century drew near was accompanied
by a number of domestic happenings of more or less significance.
A movement which may be regarded as the first strike of
workmen in the history of the city took place among the
i / journeymen wrights and masons. Past memory of man these
workmen had begun their labours at six in the morning, and
continued till eight at night in the workshop or seven at house-
work. They now demanded that they should work for an hour
less in the evening without deduction of wage, and several of
them had already stopped work until these terms should be
agreed to. To this the deacons and masters of the trades con-
cerned replied by ordaining that no freeman should hire a
journeyman except upon the time-honoured terms, under a
penalty of ten merks for each infringement ; also that no free-
man should hire another man's servant until he was cleared
and quit of his former master. The demand, they considered,
was " an imposition, not only on the freemen of the craft, but
upon the lieges, and a species of oppression." On this ground
the matter was placed before the Magistrates and Town
Council, who duly " interponed " their authority, and the first
Glasgow strike was at an end. 1
The trades already incorporated, like the masons and wrights,
1 Burgh Records, igth March, 1746.
228
FIRST TRADE UNION 229
might be regarded as associations rather of employers than of
workmen, but the workmen also presently began to form socie-
ties. The first trades union formed upon the modern model in
Glasgow was that of the " porters or workmen," who applied
to the Magistrates and Council in 1748 for authority to enforce
the rules of a society they proposed to set up. The first purpose
of the society was the support of decayed members and their
widows. They asked power to levy money for this purpose ;
and, to ensure that they would serve their employers honestly
and faithfully, they further asked that no one should be allowed
to be employed until he was a member of the society and had
given caution for his honesty and good faith. Here again the
Town Council " interponed " its authority, and the society of
porters and workmen started its career. Each porter was
provided with a badge, and unauthorised persons acting as
porters were subject to a penalty of five shillings sterling. 2
The example was immediately followed by the horse setters
or hirers of the city. In this case the rates for hiring horses
were included in the constitution of the society. For a horse
ridden single within six miles the hire was one shilling sterling,
or if ridden double eighteen pence. For any distance up to
a hundred miles the hire was twopence halfpenny per mile.
If the horse were ridden thirty miles from Glasgow it could
be kept six days, and if for less distances shorter periods.
The hire of a chaise was tenpence per mile. In this case also
authority was given to enforce the rules, and the society was
duly set up, with oversman, collector, and other necessary
officials. 3
A much more delicate matter to settle was the claim made
by the University and its professors for exemption from
rates, taxes, and all public burdens, not only of the college
itself, but of all their houses and lands within and without the
city. In its earliest struggling days the University had been
- Ibid, and April, 1748. 3 Ibid. i3th May, 1748.
230 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
granted a privilege of this sort by the Crown, but at that
time its only property was the building in which its work
of teaching was carried on and the regents and students lived.
The enlarged demand now made was carried first to the Court
of Session, but afterwards by mutual agreement was submitted
to the arbitration of George Sinclair and Thomas Millar, advo-
cates. After considering all the documents and hearing all the
evidence, these gentlemen decided that while the college build-
ings themselves and their immediate precincts, including the
houses of the professors and others, should be exempt from
taxation, other properties within and without the city, owned
by the college and its professors, must bear the same public
burdens as the properties of other people. 4 This decision put
an end to the possibility of any great extension of an imperium
in imperio which had more than once threatened serious trouble
between town and gown. As matters stood, the exemption
allowed to the buildings of the college afforded important
and appropriate relief when, as in the following year, a tax
was imposed by Parliament on windows and lights. 5
Another institution whose suggestions at that time had far-
reaching effects was the Fire Insurance Society. The lesson of
disastrous conflagrations, to which the houses of that day were
especially liable, had not been lost upon the citizens, and the
plan of subscribing to an association which should undertake
the risks of loss had already found favour. 6 The next step was
for that association to take measures to reduce the risk as far
as possible. For many years ladders and water buckets had
4 Burgh Records, i^ih Aug., iyth Nov. 1746.
5 Ibid. 1 6th April, 1747. So serious a burden was the window tax regarded
by the clergy of Scotland that they subscribed ^400 and sent Jupiter Carlyle
to London as a special envoy to secure the exemption of the Scottish manses.
Autobiography of .Rev. Alexander Carlyle, p. 496.
6 See supra, Chap. XVIII and Burgh Records, i2th Apr. 1726. The society
was erected into a legal incorporation by the Magistrates and Town Council
in 1758. Burgh Records, ijih Jan.
FIRST FIRE BRIGADE 231
been provided by the Town Council, and latterly even three
" fire machines " for pumping the water had been procured.
But in an emergency it was apt to be found that the buckets
and ladders had been used for other purposes, or were out of
repair, and that there was no expert at hand to attend the
working of the " fire machines." The Fire Insurance Society
now suggested the formation of a regular fire brigade. A cer-
tain Robert Craig was to be appointed fire-master, and for his
trouble was to be exempted from all trade stent or taxation, as
well as watching, warding, and quartering of soldiers, and to be
paid five pounds sterling yearly. Twenty-four able men, in-
structed by him, were to be in readiness to turn out at fires,
and were to practise the playing off of the machines four times
a year. They were to have strong leather caps with the Glas-
gow arms painted in front to distinguish them when on duty,
and were to be paid five shillings yearly, with further ' ' reason-
able gratification " for their trouble on the occasion of fires.
Further, the servants in the tanneries, sugar houses, and other
works, who had received burgess tickets gratis, were to be
warned yearly by the magistrates to repair instantly upon
alarm of fire, to carry the fire machines to the scene of action
and assist in extinguishing the conflagration. The Fire Insur-
ance Society backed its proposals with an offer to pay half of
the cost, and the Town Council promptly agreed to the arrange-
ment. From that date Glasgow has enjoyed the services of
a more or less regular fire brigade. 7 Even with the best appli-
ances then available, however, little could be done to extinguish
a really serious conflagration, and on 3rd June, two years later,
a large part of the village of Gorbals, with its thatched roofs
and narrow main street, was destroyed. 8
7 Burgh Records, 7th May, 1747.
8 Ibid. 28th June, 1749. At that fire Major Wolfe, afterwards the victor
at Quebec, is said to have taken part with a small party of soldiers in fighting
the flames. Old Ludgings of Glasgow, p. 61.
232 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
At the same time the benevolent and philanthropic spirit
which has always been characteristic of Glasgow life remained
in evidence. In 1747 Robert McNair, a merchant weaver,
placed before the magistrates proposals for the erection of an
institution like the modern industrial school or reformatory.
He proposed to erect a building of two storeys and attics on the
south side of Trongate, with accommodation in the attics for
a hundred spinners, on the upper floor for weavers, warpers,
winders, and confectioners, and on the ground floor for hecklers,
lint buffers, clay searchers, and bakers, with kitchen and eating
apartments. He proposed to appoint a manager and be at the
entire expense of the establishment, in which he would receive
all delinquents, boys and girls, committed to him by the
magistrates, train them to useful employments, and furnish
them with bed, board, and clothing. He demanded no more
than the benefit of their work till they gave proof of their
ability to earn their own bread and prove industrious citizens,
and the establishment was to be under the supervision of the
magistrates. The proposal was duly approved by the Town
Council, who recommended the magistrates to deliver youthful
delinquents to McNair " in so far as authorized by law/' 9 It
is to be regretted that information is not available regarding
the success or otherwise of McNair's enlightened enterprise.
But while attention was being paid to the material interests
of the citizens in these various ways, the increase of prosperity
was bringing about the development of taste for the arts and
the lighter side of life. In 1750 the Town Council added to its
gallery of royal portraits a painting of its good friend the Duke
of Argyll, after whom Argyle Street was presently to be named.
For that painting the city paid 42 to Allan Ramsay, son of the
Edinburgh poet and bookseller. 10 Forty guineas was evidently
the recognised price for a portrait by a first-class artist in
Scotland at that time. It was the fee paid to Sir Henry
Burgh Records, ist Oct. 1747. Ibid, ist May, 1750.
THE DRAMA IN GLASGOW 233
Raeburn by Gordon of Aikenhead for his own picture later in
the century.
The art of the theatre also began to emerge from its long
period of opprobrium. In the Scotland of pre-Reformation
times the performance of plays had been a popular entertain-
ment. Among outstanding examples was Sir David Lyndsay's
" Satire of the Three Estates," performed before King James V.
at Linlithgow in January, 1539/40, and occupying no less
than nine hours in representation. But John Knox and his
fellow disciplinarians had throttled all such carnal amusements
with a determined hand, 1 and though James VI. invited the
players of Shakespeare's company to Edinburgh, and they
made their way as far as Aberdeen, it was only by his special
patronage that they were allowed to perform. Dramatic art,
like most other arts, was under a cloud in Scotland for more
than a hundred years. The country was not without actors,
but they were regarded, in Glasgow at any rate, as vagabonds
and sons of Belial. In 1670 the magistrates interdicted " strol-
ling stage-players from running through the streets and from
performing plays in private houses, which they called ' The
Wisdom of Solomon.' " 2 It was probably an act of great
daring by which the masters of the Grammar School of Glasgow,
in 1720, allowed the performance of something in the nature of
drama by the scholars. The view of the Town Council on the
subject was shown by a notice of it in the Burgh Records. The
minute runs, " The Magistrates and Town Council, considering
that the allowing of public balls, shows, comedies, and other
plays or diversions, where acted in houses belonging to the
town, and particularly in the Grammar School house, has
occasioned great disturbance in the city, do therefore strictly
prohibit and discharge the allowing of public balls, shows,
1 See a number of curious extracts from the Book of the Universal Kirk
(Maitland Club) quoted by Strang in Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 309.
1 Cleland's Annals, ii. 189.
234 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
comedies, and other plays, and diversions, to be acted or done,
within any of the town's houses, and particularly within the
Grammar School, excepting such plays as are acted by the
boys of the school, and have relation to their learning, and to
be acted by none else but themselves, and none others to be
present thereat but the masters and scholars of the school, and
remit to the magistrates to see that this act be not con-
travened." 3
Times were changing however. At Edinburgh, in 1725,
Allan Ramsay published his pastoral drama, " The Gentle
Shepherd," and twelve years later he went so far as to build a
theatre in Carrubber's Close. Edinburgh Town Council
promptly stopped that enterprise, and nearly ruined the poet ;
but the venture showed the veering of public taste. In 1728 a
company of strolling players, Anthony Aston's, made their
way from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and persuaded Bailie Murdoch
to grant them permission to perform " The Beggar's Opera "
in the Weigh House. They got a good audience on the
first night, but afterwards, according to the Rev. Robert
Wodrow, they " got not so much as to pay their music."
The magistrates were blamed for granting permission, and the
magistrates blamed the ministers, who should have interfered
in time. " Sabbath after," says Wodrow, " the ministers
preached against going to these interludes and plays. ... Mr
Rob of Kilsyth went through all that was a-going about meeting-
houses, plays, errors, and profaneness, and spared none, as I
hear." 4
In 1750 a play was staged in the hall in which Daniel Burrell
taught dancing under the patronage of the Town Council, on
the east side of High Street below the Bell of the Brae, and in
1752 a wooden theatre was fitted up against the wall of the
Bishop's Palace. On its stage such actors as Diggs, Love,
3 Burgh Records, 2oth Jan. 1721.
4 Wodrow's Analecta. Chambers's Domestic Annals, iii. 550.
THEATRE BURNED BY MOB 235
Stampier, and Mrs. Ward appeared after the end of the season
in Edinburgh. Popular opinion, however, still ran strongly
against such amusements, and ladies and gentlemen coming to
the performances from the lower, more fashionable parts of
the town were regularly escorted by a military guard. The
climax came in 1753 when Whitefield, the evangelist, preaching
from a tent in the Cathedral churchyard, took occasion to
point to the theatre and denounce it as the Devil's house. No
sooner were the words spoken than the mob rushed to the spot
and levelled the wooden building with the ground. 5 It was
probably in connection with this outrage that John Davidson,
writer to the signet and the town's law agent, paid the sum of
7 i6s. sterling on account, half of the college and half of the
town, " in relation to the players that came there and set up a
public playhouse last year." 6
Eight years later another attempt was made. One, Jackson,
a comedian, and two friends, came to Glasgow and sought the
permission of the magistrates for the erection of a regular
theatre. Already bitten, however, the city fathers refused to
countenance the enterprise, and no one within the royalty
could be found to sell a site for the building. At last a piece
of ground was secured at the village of Grahams ton, where the
Central Railway Station now stands; 7 a group of Glasgow mer-
chants, including William McDowall of Castle Semple and James
Dunlop of Garnkirk, subscribed the cost, and a theatre was
erected. But on the opening night, in 1764, when Mrs. Bellamy
and other respectable actors were engaged to appear, a dis-
orderly crowd took possession of the theatre, stopped the
5 Cleland's Annals, ii. 139. Whitefield himself, however, denied this.
Tyerman's Life of Whitefield, ii. p. 314.
6 Burgh Records, 2ist Jan. 1754.
" The village was named after John Graham of Dougalston who feued six
acres of land on the west side of St. Enoch's Burn from Colin Campbell of
Blythswood about 1709. One of Graham's sub-feuars was Miller of Westerton,
in the parish of Bonhill, whose grandson sold a site for the theatre at the
then exorbitant price of 53. per square yard.
236 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
performance, and set fire to the stage. The whole interior was
destroyed, and Mrs. Bellamy and the other performers lost all
their wardrobe. 8 The theatre itself, after some years of in-
different success, was burnt to the ground in 1780. Jackson then
built a small theatre in Dunlop Street, which was opened in
1782. But now the tide of public taste had turned, or the
theatre was in a more accessible spot. It before long proved
too small for its audiences. A subscription was then set on
foot in shares of 25 each, " the most magnificent Provincial
Theatre in the Empire " was built in Queen Street at a cost of
18,500, a patent was secured by Act of Parliament, and in
1804 the rather chequered career of modern drama in Glasgow
was begun. 9
8 Glasgow Mercury, nth May, 1780. The ladies of Glasgow presented
Mrs. Bellamy with forty silk gowns to replenish her wardrobe.
9 Cleland's Annals, ii. 140. It is discouraging to know that the original
subscribers to the Queen Street theatre lost all their money, and the theatre,
patent, and scenery were in the end sold for ^5000, just enough to cover the
outstanding debts. For terms of feu, see Burgh Records, iyth Jan. 1803.
A very full account of the early drama in Scotland and of early dramatic
ventures in Glasgow will be found in Strang's Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 307.
A facsimile of the signatures of subscribers to the Theatre Royal is given
as an appendix to Frazer's Making of Buchanan Street.
CHAPTER XXVII
" THE TOBACCO LORDS "
DOWN to the middle of the eighteenth century, the years 1750
and 1760, very few " self-contained " houses had been built in
Glasgow. The ancient manses of the Cathedral canons about
the Bishop's Castle, Rottenrow, and the Drygate had mostly
fallen on evil days, 1 and the wealthy merchants of the city
lived, like the aristocracy of Edinburgh till a much later date,
in the flats of tenements in the Goosedubs, Briggate, and the
Saltmarket. Among the families who lived in these quarters
were the Campbells of Blythswood and their relatives, the
Douglases of Mains : and the future Duchess of Douglas a
member of the latter family was one of the belles of Glasgow
who led the dance at the assemblies in the great hall of the
Merchants House in Briggate.
With the rise of wealth, however, came the desire for a more
ceremonious style of living. Men who had travelled abroad,
and had lived in London or Virginia or the West Indies, were
no longer content with family meals in a bedroom and enter-
taining their guests in a tavern. Houses of more ambitious
sort therefore began to be built along the Trongate westward.
These mansions were of a style of architecture entirely different
from that of the fifteenth and sixteenth century manses and
other dwellings in the Townhead. Instead of crow-stepped
" The townhead remained a quiet semi-rural place from the Reformation
of 1560 till the erection of the first city gasworks in 1823, inhabited by carters,
cow-feeders, and weavers, in strange contrast to the ever-changing, commercial
lower town." Lugton's Old Ludgings of Glasgow, p. n.
237
238 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
gables and dormer windows, they had entablatures, urns, and
balustraded roofs. 2 According to Dr. J. O. Mitchell there were
fifteen of these first rank Georgian mansions built between 1711
and 1780. Of that number only two are still standing in the
twentieth century, the mansion of Allan Dreghorn of Ruchill,
behind a furniture store in Clyde Street, and that of William
Cunningham of Lainshaw, the tobacco magnate, embedded in the
Royal Exchange.
The first, and for fifty years the finest, of these new houses
was the Shawfield Mansion, already referred to, built by Daniel
Campbell of Shawfield at the west end of Trongate in 1711.
For more than forty years that mansion remained without a
rival. About 1753, however, Provost Murdoch he who ac-
companied his brother-in-law, Provost Andrew Cochrane, to
London to recover the sum in which the city had been mulcted
by the Jacobite army in 1745 built the mansion which stood
opposite at the east corner of Stockwell Street till the end
of the nineteenth century, and was for long the Buck's Head
Inn. And next to it Colin Dunlop, Provost a few years later,
built the substantial house which, with its tympanum front,
formed a feature of the Trongate till well into the twentieth
century. 3
The extension of the city westward brought about the
demolition of an ancient landmark. Of Glasgow's eight main
" ports " or gateways which existed in 1574 the Stablegreen
Port, the Gallowgate Port, the Trongate or West Port, the
South or Water Port, the Rottenrow Port, the Greyfriars
Port, the Drygate Port, and the Port beside the Castlegate 4
the West Port had already been removed from the neighbour-
hood of the Tron to the head of the Stockwell. In 1751 it was
ordered to be demolished altogether. 5
2 See Swan's Views and Stewart's Views and Notices.
3 Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 43 note. 4 Glasgow and its Clubs, p. n.
5 Burgh Records, 22nd Jan,
BUCHANAN STREET PLANNED 239
The developments which followed, immediately to the
westward, were owed to the civic aristocracy, whose fortunes
were made out of the wonderful trade with Virginia, and who
came to be known as the " tobacco lords." Of these some of
the most notable individuals were the members of the Buchanan
family. Their ancestor was George Buchanan, younger son of
the laird of Gartacharan, near Drymen, who, to push his for-
tunes, came to Glasgow in the " killing times," fought for the
Covenanters at Both well Bridge, and for a time had a price set
upon his head. After the Revolution he appears as a prosperous
maltster, visitor of the Maltmen, and deacon-convener of the
Trades' House. His four sons all prospered. They were the
founders of the Buchanan Society in 1725 George Buchanan
of The Moss and Auchentoshan, Andrew Buchanan of Drum-
pellier, Archibald Buchanan of Silverbanks or Auchentorlie,
and Neil Buchanan of Hillington in Renfrewshire, M.P. for the
Glasgow burghs. Of these the eldest was a maltman like his
father, city treasurer in 1726, and a bailie in 1732, 1735, and
1738. He built himself a fine mansion on the north side of the
Westergate, now Argyle Street on the site occupied later by
Messrs. Eraser & Son's warehouse and he died, a wealthy mer-
chant, in 1773. 6 His son Andrew, again, born in 1725, built
another mansion a little farther west, and on the four acres of
land behind it planned the modern Buchanan Street. He was
ruined and his plans were interrupted by the American War of
Independence, but these were carried out by the trustees of his
estate, one of whom was the celebrated Robin Carrick of the
Ship Bank. The first house in the street, built about 1777,
stood a little north of the site of the present Arcade, and was
that occupied for many years by John Gordon of Aikenhead.
The next was that of his brother Alexander " Picture Gor-
don "a fine mansion facing the site of the modern Gordon
6 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 3. The Old Country Houses of the
Glasgow Gentry, p. 186.
240 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Street, which was the residence later of Henry Monteith of
Carstairs. 7
Meanwhile the second of the four brothers, Andrew of
Drumpellier, born in 1690, had been among the first to take
advantage of the opening Virginia trade. While still compara-
tively young he had five vessels at sea in that business. The
double profits of the outward and inward trade enabled him,
like others of his neighbours, to amass a large fortune in a few
years. He was chosen Dean of Guild in 1728 and Provost in
1740 and 1741. It was he who in the former year was em-
powered to borrow 3000 from the Royal Bank for the purchase
of meal to feed the poor of the city. When the Jacobite army
invaded Glasgow in 1745, and its quarter-master, Hay, de-
manded 500 from him with the threat that, if he refused, his
house would be plundered, his reply was, " Plunder away : I
wont pay a single farthing ! " Having purchased the country
estate of Drumpellier, he proposed, like his friends Provost
Murdoch and Colin Dunlop, to build a handsome city residence
for himself, and to that end purchased a number of small
properties, malt-kilns, and vegetable gardens extending from
the Westergate to the Back Cow Loan. He cleared away the
barns, byres, and malt-kilns on the ground, laid out a roadway,
which he named Virginia Street, northward from the Wester-
gate, and proceeded to sell plots for the building of mansion
houses. The first of these plots, on the east side of the street,
he disposed of in 1753 to his brother, Archibald Buchanan of
Silverbanks or Auchentorlie, who built on it a handsome man-
sion with a short double stair in front in the style of the time. 8
Five years later the plot to the south of this, at the corner of
the street, was acquired by the Highland Club, which built on
7 Frazer's Making of Buchanan Street, p. 41.
8 Eleven years later the Silverbanks mansion was purchased by Sir Walter
Maxwell of Pollok and the partners of the Thistle Bank, which occupied it
for eighty years. On its site was afterwards built the ill-fated City of Glasgow
Bank. Glasghu Fades, ii. 1019.
ALEXANDER SPEIRS OF ELDERSLIE, 1714-1782.
Reproduced by permission from the portrait in the Merchants
House of Glasgow.
THE VIRGINIA MANSION 241
the spot the famous Black Bull Inn. But before Andrew
Buchanan could bring his plans to fruition, death stilled his
ambitions and he was laid in the Ramshorn kirkyard in 1759.
The traffic of modern Ingram Street rumbles over the stout old
Provost's dust. 9
While Andrew Buchanan's elder son James inherited Drum-
pellier and was twice elected Provost of Glasgow from his
facial peculiarities he was known as " Provost Cheeks "the
younger son, George, became owner of the Glasgow property.
Carrying out his father's plans he built on the northern end of
his ground, next the Back Cow Loan, a handsome residence
which eclipsed even its neighbour, the Shawfield Mansion, and
was certainly the grandest house yet built by a Glasgow
tobacco lord. The Virginia Mansion, as it was called, was
indeed a splendid residence, with a gateway about the line of the
present Wilson Street, porters' lodges on each side, and vineries
and peach-houses against its garden walls. Already, before he
was thirty, its owner had purchased the estate of Windyedge
in Old Monkland, east of Glasgow, had laid out the grounds
there with great taste, and had given it the name of Mount
Vernon which it still bears in honour of his friend, George
Washington, whose estate of that name neighboured his own
in Virginia. He did not live long, however, to enjoy his great
possessions. In July, 1762, he was carried from the Virginia
Mansion to the family burial-place in the Ramshorn kirkyard, a
few hundred yards away.
Meanwhile building plots in Virginia Street had been sold
to other two of the great tobacco traders, John Bowman of
Ashgrove, afterwards Provost of Glasgow, and Alexander
Speirs, afterwards of Elderslie. The latter was an incomer
from Edinburgh who had been attracted to the western city by
the prospect of fortune in the Virginia trade. He purchased
9 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, pp. 4, 6, 12, 15, 17. Glasgow Past and
Present, p. 517.
Q p.G. iij t
242 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
plots of ground on each side of Virginia Street, just outside the
gates of the Virginia Mansion, built himself a house on the
western side, and proceeded to ally himself with the merchant
aristocracy of the city by marrying Mary, daughter of Archibald
Buchanan of Auchentorlie. The lady's mother was a daughter
of Provost Murdoch and niece of Provost Andrew Buchanan
of Drumpellier and Neil Buchanan of Hillington, M.P. for the
Glasgow burghs. 10
Alexander Speirs was one of the four young men, who
started at one time in business, to whose talents and spirit
Provost Cochrane attributed the sudden rise of Glasgow to
trading opulence. The four, he said, had not 10,000 among
them when they began. They were William Cuninghame,
afterwards of Lainshaw, Alexander Speirs of Elderslie, John
Glassford of Dougalston, and James Ritchie of Busby. 1 Of
the four, Speirs is the only one whose descendant retains his
position and possessions at the present day. 2 He prospered
rapidly, was one of the founders of the Glasgow Arms Bank in
1750, and was the greatest of all the importers of tobacco. Of
90,000 hogsheads imported into Britain in 1772, 49,000 were
imported by the merchants of Glasgow. Of these, Alexander
Speirs & Co. imported 6035 hogsheads and John Glassford &
Co. 4506. 3 This business was conducted in a style befitting its
importance. Among its chief customers were the Farmers-
General of France, who on one occasion at any rate gave a single
order for six thousand hogsheads. The orders of the Farmers-
General were transmitted through Forbes's Bank, and Sir
10 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, pp. 20 and 22. Glasghu Fades, ii.
1030.
1 Sir John Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, appendix,
quoted by Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 42.
2 Many of the personal possessions of the old tobacco lord, including his
snuff-box and his tall gold-headed malacca cane, are preserved by his great-
great-grandson, Mr. A. A. Hagart Speirs of Elderslie, at Houston House, his
seat in Renfrewshire.
3 Glasgow Past and Present, p. 521.
SPEIRS OF ELDERSLIE 243
Charles Forbes describes how he and his partner, Mr. Herries, on
one occasion journeyed from Edinburgh to Glasgow to adjust
certain purchases. " As we went on a very agreeable errand,"
he says, " we were received with open arms, and entertained in
the most sumptuous manner by the merchants during the time
that we remained there." 4 For the purpose of such entertain-
ments a handsome house was necessary. Accordingly in 1770
Speirs purchased the fine Virginia Mansion from the trustees of
the late George Buchanan, of whom he was himself one. At the
same time, with fortune on a rising tide, he set about the crea-
tion of a country estate. He bought a goodly number of the
little properties of the bonnet lairds of Govan, and acquired the
estate of Elderslie, the reputed birthplace of the Scottish
patriot, Sir William Wallace, from the last of that family,
Helen Wallace, wife of Archibald Campbell of Succoth and
Garscube, with other lands altogether some 10,000 acres in
Renfrewshire. He had the whole consolidated into a barony
under the name of Elderslie, holding of the Crown, and on the
historic King's Inch, by the river side, built a stately mansion,
to be known as Elderslie House. The mansion took five years
to build, and late in 1782 Speirs established himself there with
his family. Alas, before the year closed he was dead, but he
had the satisfaction of knowing that he had accomplished his
ambition and had founded a territorial house. 5
Rivalling Alexander Speirs in importance among the great
tobacco traders was John Glassford of Whitehill and Dougalston.
A native of Paisley, where his father was a merchant and mag-
istrate, Glassford attained prosperity in the city while still a
young man. In 1739, while only twenty-four, he rode to London
in company with Andrew Thomson of Faskine, afterwards
founder of the bank bearing his name. They rode their own
4 Memoirs of a Banking House, p. 44.
5 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 21. Mitchell's Old Glasgow Essays,
p. 315. The portraits of Alexander Speirs and his wife hang in the Merchants
House.
244 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
horses, and were evidently men of means. 6 Some half-dozen
years later, after the Jacobite rebellion, Glassford acquired
Whitehall, part of the old Easter Craigs of Glasgow, and now
embodied in Dennistoun. He enclosed the whole thirty acres
with a wall, built a country mansion, and laid out the place with
gardens, conservatories, and ornamental walks. For twelve
years he resided there, dispensing princely hospitality and
driving daily to and from the city in a coach and four. But in
1759 he purchased, for 1700 guineas, the famous Shawfield
Mansion in Trongate from the second William Macdowall of
Castle Semple, son of the West Indian magnate. He then sold
Whitehill to another Virginia merchant, John Wallace of Neil-
stonside and Cessnock, a descendant of the family which gave
Scotland its patriot hero. From that time till his death in 1783
Glassford lived partly in the Shawfield Mansion and partly at
the beautiful estate of Dougalston, which he also acquired, near
Bardowie Loch, a few miles north of the city. Like Alexander
Speirs he was early allied by marriage with the ruling caste in
Glasgow, his sister Rebecca being the wife of Archibald Ingram,
founder of the printwork industry, and Provost of the city in
1762. But his own matrimonial alliances were more ambitious
still. Of his first wife nothing is known ; his second marriage
was with Anne, second daughter of Sir John Nisbet, Bart., of
Dean, now part of Edinburgh, and his third wife was Lady
Margaret Mackenzie, daughter of the last Earl of Cromarty. He
carried on business on a great scale, had twenty-five ships with
their cargoes on the sea at once, and turned over annually more
than half a million sterling. 7 In addition he was concerned in
6 The difficulties of their journey are detailed in Dugald Bannatyne's note-
book, quoted in Pagan's Glasgow in 1847, and in Cleland's Statistical Tables,
1832, p. 156.
7 Tobias Smollett, quoted in Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 39. Glassford's
office, in the third storey of the town's tenement at the corner of Gallowgate
and High Street, cost him ^13 per annum. The floor below was rented by
Provost Andrew Cochrane at ^14. Burgh Records, i2th Nov. 1747.
GLASSFORD OF DOUGALSTON 245
various local enterprises. He was a chief partner in the Glasgow
Tanwork Company, perhaps the largest in Europe in its
time. He was one of the first partners in the Glasgow Arms
Bank, started in 1750. He was principal partner in the
original cudbear factory, which carried on the rather odorous
business of dye-making from certain Highland lichens. With
his brother-in-law, Provost Ingram, he had a share in the Print-
field at Pollokshaws. And he was a leading partner in the
aristocratic Thistle Bank, whose business lay largely among
the rich West Indian merchants. It was largely, also, his sup-
port, with that of one or two other wealthy merchants, which
enabled the Foulis brothers to carry on their famous Academy of
the Fine Arts. By Tobias Smollett, who as a surgeon's appren-
tice must often have looked with awe on the great man pacing
the plainstanes, he is commemorated in the pages of Humphry
Clinker. He died at the age of sixty-eight in the Shawfield
Mansion, and lies, along with his second and third wives and
several of his descendants, in the Ramshorn churchyard, close
behind the railings in Ingram Street. 8
Nine years after John Glassford's death, his trustees sold the
Shawfield Mansion for 9850 to William Horn, a builder, who
demolished the house, and over its site, and through the great
garden behind, formed the thoroughfare now known as Glass-
ford Street. 9 A street branching from it long bore the name of
Garthland Street, from the estate of the Macdo walls, once the
owners of the site. This has lately been changed to Garth
Street.
Of different fate from the Shawfield Mansion and the
Virginia Mansion, the splendid dwelling built by another of
these great tobacco lords still remains to testify to the wealth
8 Glasghu Fades, pp. 757, 956. Glasgow Past and Present. Mitchell, Old
Glasgow Essays, pp. 80, 122. Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 215. Country
Houses of the Old Glasgow Gentry. Burgh Records, i2th Nov. 1747.
9 Glasgow and its Clubs, p. n. Mitchell, p. 22.
246 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
and taste of that time. William Cuninghame was another of
Provost Cochrane's " four young men.'* When the American
War of Independence broke out he was a junior partner in the
firm which held the largest stock of tobacco in the United
Kingdom. The average cost of their great stock had been
threepence per pound. Immediately upon the declaration of
independence by America the price rose to sixpence. Thereupon
seeing they had doubled their capital, the partners of the firm
held a meeting, and resolved to take advantage of the oppor-
tunity and effect an immediate sale. The British forces in
America, it was thought, must shortly suppress the rebellion,
whereupon plentiful supplies of tobacco would again become
available, and the price would fall to its previous level. But
Mr. Cuninghame was of a different opinion. He took over the
whole stock as his personal property, and was able to give the
other partners of the firm security for the amount of his pur-
chase. His judgment proved to be correct. In consequence of
the misfortunes to the British armies tobacco continued to rise
in price till it reached the astonishing figure of three shillings
and sixpence per pound. By that time Cuninghame had sold
his entire stock at an enormous profit, and had realized a very
handsome fortune. With this he bought the fine estate of
Lainshaw in Ayrshire, and proceeded to build himself a splendid
residence in Glasgow. On the west side of the Cow Loan, which
is now Queen Street, and facing the Back Cow Loan, now
Ingram Street, stood at that time a cow-feeder's thatched
steading with byre and midden, the property of one Neilson, a
" land labourer in Garioch," near Maryhill. Here Cuning-
hame saw possibilites, as Sir Walter Scott did later in the
Tweedside farm of Clartyhole. He purchased the steading, and
on its site in 1778 raised one of the finest houses of its time in
the West of Scotland at a cost, it is said, of 10,000.
After several changes of ownership this mansion still stands.
At Cuninghame 's death in 1789 it was bought by the great
THE LAINSHAW MANSION 247
firm of William Stirling & Sons, which used one of the wings as
an office, while the main building was occupied by successive
members of the family. In 1817 the house was purchased by
the Royal Bank, which built a double stair in front and
installed its tellers in the drawing-room. Ten years later, the
old coffee-room at the Cross having become too small for their
meeting-place, an association of merchants, with James Ewing
of Strathleven at its head, acquired the house and built round
it, to the plans of the architect Hamilton, the present hand-
some Royal Exchange. The old Lainshaw mansion still stands
behind the colonnaded Queen Street front, its rooms being
mostly occupied as shipbroking and insurance offices. 10
These were the most notable of the Glasgow merchants who
realized fortunes out of the trade with the American colonies,
who trod the plainstanes at the Cross in scarlet cloaks and
three-cornered hats, and, known as " tobacco lords," formed
a civic aristocracy of hauteur and exclusiveness that have not
been forgotten at the present day. 1 The trade lasted for fifty
years, and came to an end with the declaration of independence
by the United States. Upon that event the estates owned
by many British subjects in America were confiscated, and the
owners were ruined. Among those who suffered in this way
was the father of the famous Mrs. Grant of Laggan, authoress
of Letters from the Mountains, Memoirs of an American Lady,
and the well- known song, " O where, tell me where." Captain
Me Vicar was a resident in the Goosedubs, then a fashionable
quarter of the city, where his daughter was born. Shortly after-
wards he was ordered with his regiment to America, where he
took part in the conquest of Canada. Some years later he
resigned his commission, took up his allotment of 2000 acres in
10 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 193. Alison's Anecdotage, p. 127.
Other sites proposed for the new Exchange were between Virginia and Miller
Streets in Argyle Street, and at the head of Glassford Street, and the Town
Council supported the Argyle Street location. Burgh Records, 25th May, 1827.
1 Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 40.
248 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Vermont, and acquired the similar allotment of a brother
officer. In 1768 he was compelled by ill-health to return to
Scotland, and on the outbreak of the revolutionary war was
deprived of his estate and reduced to depend on an appoint-
ment as barrack-master at Fort Augustus.
Another family which suffered in similar fashion was that
of Hugh Wyllie, who died suddenly after his election to the
Lord Provostship in 1781. His property was in America ; no
remittances came home after his death, and the Town Council
granted his widow 50 per annum, to be repaid when remit-
tances were received. 2
Soon after the declaration of independence by America the
" tobacco lords " ceased to lead the social life of the city, and
the scarlet cloaks gradually disappeared from the plainstanes
of the Trongate.
2 Burgh Records, 28th Nov. 1782.
A WEST INDIA MERCHANT
OLD GLASGOW COSTUME.
CHAPTER XXVIII
BORROWING AND BRIDGE BUILDING
NOTHING could be more significant of the change that was
taking place in the character of the country in the middle of
the eighteenth century than the removal of the ancient " ports "
or gateways of Glasgow. These ports had served as a means of
protection in a ruder and more hazardous age, but they had
come to be regarded as a mere obstruction to traffic. The west
port in Trongate, at the head of the Stockwellgate, was, as
already mentioned, demolished in 1751 to allow of the building
line on the south side of the street being continued westward
without interruption. 1 And the Gallowgate port suffered the
same fate three years later when the Town Council was arrang-
ing to sell Little St. Mungo's graveyard, which lay on the north
side just beyond it, for building purposes. 2 The burial-ground
was presently disposed of to Robert Tennent, gardener and
vintner, for a yearly ground annual of five pounds sterling,
with the condition that he should build upon it " a commodious
and convenient inn three storeys high." At the same time he
was allowed to demolish the old gateway and take the stones
for his own use on the understanding that he paid 10 for the
stones and cleared the rubbish from the ground. 3
The inn thus built was the famous Saracen's Head, which
was to be the chief hostelry of Glasgow for the greater part of
a century, and to entertain such noted guests as Dr. Samuel
1 Burgh Records, 22nd Jan. 2 Ibid. 2ist Jan. 1754.
8 Ibid. 22nd Nov. 1754.
249
250 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Johnson, Robert Burns, and William Wordsworth. 4 There it
was that the Lords of Justiciary held their levees and gave
their dinners, and that the sporting Duke of Hamilton put up
when he came to Glasgow for the chances of a main at the
cockpit. 5
At the same time, inspired perhaps by the enterprise of
General Wade, the Town Council spent considerable sums in
road and bridge making. It contributed 1000 to the making
of the road by Kirk of Shotts to Edinburgh, 900 on the con-
struction of the road to Renfrew, and 150 on the road to
Inchbelly Bridge, near Kirkintilloch ; while it assigned an un-
named sum for a bridge at Inchinnan, and subscribed 15 for
the building of the bridge over the Tweed at Kelso and " fifteen
guineas of gold " for a bridge over the Kelvin at Garscube Mill. 6
It also between 1760 and 1768 subscribed various sums for the
building of bridges at such widely scattered places as Elvan-
foot, Dunbarton, Coldstream, and Forteviot. These sums were
all borrowed, mostly from the banks, which provided all too
easy means for running into debt.
Other large sums were borrowed light-heartedly in the same
way 380 for the payment of cess in 1754, and 1500 for the
support of the poor during a time of scarcity in 1757, while a
4 The inn gave its name to Saracen Street, at hand, and that in turn to
the Saracen Foundry, which carried the name at a later day to the far northern
outskirts of the city. The inn was finally demolished in 1905. There is a
tradition that Tennent was allowed to use the stones of the Bishop's Castle
for the building of his inn, and that he was responsible for the removal of that
ancient structure. His activities, however, seem to have been confined to the
demolition of the gateway of the palace, from which he removed Bishop
Dmibar's coat of arms to a tenement he was then erecting in High Street.
The castle at anyrate was still standing in 1782 when the Town Council
resolved to apply for a grant of the ruins (Senex, Old Glasgow, 241 ; Burgh
Records, 2yth March, 1782).
5 Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 161.
6 Burgh Records, 2gth March and loth Dec. 1754 ; 2nd Mar. 1755 ; 6th May,
i4th July and 23rd Aug. 1756; 5th June, 1758. The Bakers' Incorporation
itself undertook to make the road from St. Enoch's Burn to Partick Bridge,
where its own mill stood upon the Kelvin. 8th Oct. 1755.
FIRST JAMAICA BRIDGE 251
credit of 1000 was opened with the Glasgow Arms Bank for
general purposes in 1754. When the time came for repaying
the bank loans in 1758, the Town Council went farther afield,
and borrowed 2000 in London, then in the following year
gaily borrowed other 1500 " to pay debts." 7
But the city's most formidable effort in bridge building was
yet to come. If the level of water in the river was raised by
means of locks, as Smeaton proposed, it was obvious that the
fords immediately above and below the ancient bridge at
Glasgow would become too deep for passage, while the bridge
itself was so high and narrow, and had also become so frail, that
horse and carriage traffic could not be allowed upon it. In this
dilemma the " gentlemen of Renfrewshire " were invited to
consult with the magistrates, and it was decided that, instead
of widening and strengthening Bishop Rae's old bridge, a new
bridge should be built farther down the river, at the Broomielaw.
Accordingly in the Act of Parliament authorising the magis-
trates to make locks and improve the river on Smeaton's plan,
authority was also secured for the building of that bridge.
As Smeaton's plan was not proceeded with, the need for
the new bridge became less urgent, and it was not till 1772
that the first Jamaica Bridge was actually built. It was
thirty feet wide and took its name, like the street at the
foot of which it was built, from our greatest West Indian
island colony. 8
The building of this bridge may be said to have brought to
an end the history of Rutherglen as a seaport. Till this took
7 Ibid, under dates.
8 Ibid. i5th Dec. 1757; 22nd Dec. 1758; gth Jan. 1759; 2oth April,
1768. The new bridge was built by " John Adam, mason in Glasgow,"
evidently a man of enterprise, for at the same time he was building several
houses on the east side of Jamaica Street (ibid. 2gth June, i6th Aug. 1768).
Carting on the old bridge was stopped as dangerous in 1765, an Act of Parlia-
ment, which cost 1000, for stopping the river fords, was secured in 1768 ; and
the widening of the bridge, along with the rebuilding of the southern arch,
was proceeded with in 1774 and 1776.
252 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
place there were sometimes more vessels lying at the harbour
of Rutherglen than at the Broomielaw. 9 The laying of the
foundation stone of the bridge was a great occasion in Glasgow,
marked by a procession which started from the Saracen's Head
Inn in Gallowgate. 10
The city was then on the high tide of the prosperity derived
from the great tobacco trade, but it felt compelled by its
growing expenses to make the most of every source of revenue.
It secured from the Government another renewal for thirty-
eight years of the right to levy twopence Scots (one-sixth of a
penny sterling) on every pint of ale consumed within its juris-
diction, and the value of that duty may be gathered from the
fact that the expenses of Provost Murdoch in going to London
to secure renewal of the grant amounted to no less than 412
sterling. A further sum of 13 75. was paid to the Shuttlefield
factory for 44 J yards white linen at 6s. per yard, sent as a
gift by the town to Mr. West, secretary to the Treasury,
for his services in the transaction. 1 Still another sum of
money was secured by the sale at auction of all the feu-duties
payable to the town of less than forty shillings sterling annual
value. 2
This latter transaction no doubt also relieved the town of a
good deal of troublesome factorage and book-keeping. A town
chamberlain or accountant had just then been appointed, at a
salary of 100 per annum, to take charge of the Town Council's
revenues, and the sale of the smaller feu-duties seems to have
been one of his first acts on taking office. 3
9 Glasgow Past and Present, iii. 820.
10 Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 161.
1 Burgh Records, 8th April, 1755. The extension of the grant was secured
well beforehand, for the previous grant was still in force till 1763. Thirty
years later the duties were valued at ^2340 sterling per annum (ibid. i3th Nov.
1794).
2 Ibid, ist Oct. 1756.
3 Ibid. 29th April, i8th June, 1755 ; ist Oct. 1756.
FINES FOR REFUSING OFFICE 253
There were signs at the same time that others than the
chamberlain were beginning to find the details of the town's
affairs personally irksome. From time to time individuals
chosen to be members of the Town Council refused to act. As
those who did so were merchants (among them was Alexander
Speirs, the greatest of the " tobacco lords "), and apparently
able and willing to pay a considerable fine, it may be taken that
they found their own business considerably more congenial and
engrossing than that of attending to public affairs. In each
case they were made to pay the handsome penalty of 20
sterling. 4
This somewhat drastic treatment was the result of a change
made a few years previously in the " sett " or method of con-
stituting the Town Council. In the preface to the new regula-
tions it was stated that complaints had been made of the
tendency of the older arrangements to continue the government
of the city in a particular group of persons longer than might
be for the public interest ; also that there was sometimes diffi-
culty in getting the more creditable burgesses to accept office.
The new regulations made an effort to remedy these drawbacks
by providing that a certain number of councillors should
retire each year, and be ineligible for re-election till three
years afterwards, and they introduced fines for refusal to
accept office. While the fine of an ordinary councillor was
20 sterling, that of a provost, dean of guild, deacon-convener,
or treasurer was no less than 40. 5 The Town Council still
remained a close corporation, electing its own new members,
as it had done since the middle of the fifteenth century, when
a more democratic form of election had brought itself into
disrepute. 6
Not less drastic were some of the other ordinances of the
4 Burgh Records, 6th Jan. 1755 ; 4th Oct. 1756 ; 2oth Jan. 1757 ; igth Jan.
1768.
6 Ibid. 1 5th April, 1748. 6 See supra, p. 78.
254 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
city fathers at that time. After the opening of St. Andrew's
Church in 1756 it was noticed that a number of seats, both in
that and the other churches, remained unlet. They were not,
however, unoccupied. By way of ending so discreditable a
state of things, the Town Council ordered that the unlet seats
should be nailed up. There must be no admission without due
payment of rent. 7
It is difficult to reconcile this action with the institution of
the " compurgators/' whose activities were still a feature of
the city's life. These compurgators were a sort of vigilance
committee who perambulated the town on Sundays during
church service and in the evening. If any merrymaking, or
music other than the singing of psalms, was heard in a house,
it was instantly stopped ; and if anyone was found enjoying a
quiet stroll, he was ordered either to betake himself to church
or to go home. The activities of these compurgators came to
an end with the arrest of Peter Blackburn, ancestor of the
Blackburns of Killearn. For walking on the Green on a Sunday
Mr. Blackburn was thrown into the Tolbooth. Being a man of
substance and spirit, however, he raised an action against his
assailants, and finally won his case in the Court of Session.
Compulsion in matters of Sunday observance had become out
of date.
It cannot be forgotten that one other ramble on Glasgow
Green at that time produced most amazing and far-reaching
results. On a Sunday afternoon, while passing Arns Well, near
the site of the Humane Society's house, James Watt conceived
the idea of the separate condenser, that vital improvement of
the steam-engine which was to change the whole aspect of the
world.
With the embargo removed, the New Green became, on
Sundays as well as other days, the favourite fashion-
able promenade of the citizens. The scene there, a few
7 Burgh Records, 3rd Oct. 1757.
FIRST ASSEMBLY ROOMS 255
years later, is described by John Mayne in his fine poem,
" Glasgow " :
Whae'er has daunered out at e'en,
And seen the sights that I ha'e seen,
For strappin' lasses, tight and clean,
May proudly tell
That, search the country, Glasgow Green
Will bear the bell.
There may ye find, in sweetness rare,
The blooming rose, the lily fair,
The winsome look, the gracefu' air,
The taste refined,
And a' that can the heart ensnare
In womankind. 8
As a matter of fact the city fathers themselves had long ago
abandoned the rather grim attitude towards the lighter side of
life which had characterized their covenanting predecessors in
the previous century. When, in 1758, it was proposed to build
an Assembly Room adjoining the new Town Hall in Trongate,
and the Town Council was approached to give its countenance
and afford facilities to the scheme, it declared itself to be
" willing to give all due encouragement to lawful and innocent
diversions," and agreed to promote the enterprise.
The list of subscribers to this venture included the names of
Alexander Speirs, Archibald Ingram, Colin Dunlop, Allan
Dreghorn, and nearly a dozen others of the best-known mer-
chants of the city, and their prosposal was to build a public
Assembly Room " for the beauty, ornament, and advantage of
8 The Glasgow Poets, p. 84. John Strang in Glasgow and its Clubs (p. 168)
describes how, in the end of the eighteenth century, the Green was much
frequented as a fashionable promenade. " The verdure of the public park,"
he says, " and the foliage of the elm and beach, were then in all their pristine
beauty, and pedestrians in summer could enjoy a promenade almost round
the whole park beneath the canopy of a wide-spreading double row of trees."
Another fashionable lounge was the north side of Trongate, as far west as
Queen Street,
256 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the town" as the third floor of a tenement of houses which the
Town Council intended to erect. The plans for the building
had been made by Allan Dreghorn, and it may be suspected
that that enterprising wright and builder, not without an eye
to business, was the originator of the project. 9 The Assembly
Room was duly completed, and no doubt was the scene of many
a gay gathering during the next twenty years. But the fact
that the guests had to climb to a third floor to reach it probably
put it out of favour when more convenient rooms became avail-
able. In 1777 the directors decided to sell it, and in 1783 it
was disposed of to the syndicate which erected the famous
Tontine Exchange adjoining. 10
9 Burgh Records, 5th June, 1758.
10 Ibid. 1 6th May, 1777 ; 24th Sept. 1783. Senex says he attended the last
dancing assembly held in the large hall of the Merchants House before the
Assembly Rooms at the Tontine were erected in 1782. He " was carried there
through the Bridgegate in a neatly cushioned sedan chair, by two chairmen,
the fare of which was sixpence, certainly as comfortable a conveyance as
either our modern cabs or omnibuses." Old Glasgow, p. 88. See also Glasgow
and its Clubs, p. 185 note.
CHAPTER XXIX
A TYPICAL GLASGOW FAMILY
THE change of mind towards a more liberal view of life and
more generous habit of living which became obvious in the
city after the middle of the eighteenth century was a result not
only of the tide of wealth which came flowing there from over-
seas, and the close communication with continental countries
brought about by the tobacco trade, but of the closer relations
with London which had gradually grown up since the Union.
Already Glasgow business men were finding their way to the
south, and establishing themselves in leading positions in the
English capital.
Outstanding among these pioneers was a member of a
family whose story strikingly illustrates the rising fortunes of
that time. The Oswalds were of Orcadian descent, having
migrated from Kirkwall to Wick, where their representative was
a bailie in the seventeenth century. The bailie had two sons-
James Oswald, Episcopal minister of Watten in Caithness, and
George, Presbyterian minister of Dunnet in the same county.
Each of these ministers, again, had two sons. The sons of the
Episcopal minister, Richard and Alexander Oswald, came to
Glasgow in time to profit by the development of the tobacco
trade. They evidently also carried on a large business as wine
merchants, for they appear frequently in the city records in
receipt of payments for wine supplied for Communion in the
city churches, as well as for gifts to " the town's friends " and
R 257 H.G. III.
258 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
" treating of nobility." * Richard was the more active of the
brothers, and very soon took a leading part in industries outside
the partnership. In 1741 he was a partner in the rope factory
at Port-Glasgow which undertook, for certain concessions, to
perform such public services as the repair of the quay and the
dredging of the harbour 2 ; and three years later, having
become a partner in the bottle-work at the Broomielaw, he
proceeded to put new energy into the business and extend the
size of the factory. 3 The brothers were suspected of Jacobite
leanings, on account of their Episcopal connection, and, prob-
ably for that reason, Richard was employed as one of the six
commissioners to treat with Hay, Prince Charles Edward's
emissary, regarding the demands made upon the city in 1745.
Alexander was one of the " sea adventurers " mentioned by
McUre in his History in 1736, and his adventures were not con-
fined entirely to the matters of peaceful trade.
The brothers soon became men of means. To accommodate
their stocks, as well as for a town residence, in 1742, they built
in the Stockwellgate, where the railway crosses now, a large
four-storey tenement and offices, with a courtyard surrounded
by brew-house, stabling, vaults, sheds, and stores to hold seven
hundred hogsheads of tobacco. In 1750 they took a leading
part in promoting the erection of the English Episcopal church
which still stands near the western entrance to Glasgow Green.
Then in 1751, following the fashion of their time, they acquired
the estate of Scotstoun, to the west of Partick, from the credi-
tors of John Walkinshaw of Barrowfield, and eight years later
the adjoining lands of Balshagray, which had been the property
1 Burgh Records, 6th June, 1746. The " nobility " were treated to " claret
wine " at 26s. sterling per dozen. On an occasion like the celebration of the
King's birthnight, in October 1738, when the Town Councillors and their
friends managed to put away seventeen and a half dozen " claret wine " and
one dozen white wine, they were content with a less expensive vintage.
Richard Oswald's charge was iB i8s. sterling for the consignment.
2 Ibid. 3oth June, 1741. 3 Ibid, ijth Jan. 1744.
RICHARD OSWALD 259
of the unfortunate Walter Gibson in the previous century. 4 It
was no doubt for their own convenience of access that they
undertook to build a bridge over the Hay Burn there,
towards the expense of which the Town Council agreed to
contribute $. 5
The two brothers died at Scotstoun Alexander in 1763 and
Richard in 1766. For some years they had retired from active
business life and devoted themselves to acts of friendship,
generosity, and hospitality. 6
Meanwhile their cousins, the two sons of the Presbyterian
minister of Dunnet, had also migrated south. Of these two,
Richard was to be the most successful of the family, and to
play an important part in the great events of his time. The
cause of his moving south was slight enough. He was an appli-
cant for the mastership of the parish school in Thurso, the
salary attached being 100 Scots (8 6s. 8d. sterling). His
application was unsuccessful and he took the disappointment
so much to heart that he left the town, and never returned to
it. 7 According to Jupiter Carlyle he got his first capital,
several thousand pounds, from his share in a rich prize cap-
tured by a privateer, the fitting out of which was one of the
" sea adventures " of his Glasgow cousins. He also came into
control of means by marriage with the heiress of great estates
in America and the West Indies. In 1745 he was one of those
who applied to the Town Council for ground on the New
Green, east of the mouth of the Molendinar, for the building of
a woollen factory, an encroachment which excited so much
popular disfavour that it was abandoned.
Whether or not that rebuff was the reason, Richard Oswald
presently betook himself to London. There he seems to have
attained a position of outstanding influence in quite a short
4 Crawford's Renfrewshire, p. 347. 5 Burgh Records, 26th July, 1752.
6 Glasgow Journal, 2jih June, 1763 ; I4th Aug. 1766.
7 Town and parish of Thurso, 1798.
260 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
space of time. The records of the Town Council in 1756 dilate
upon " the many eminent services " done by him for the city,
and in particular on his useful assistance in securing the passage
through Parliament of the Bill for the erection of a lighthouse
on the Little Cumbrae. For these services the city fathers
presented him with a piece of plate with the Glasgow arms
engraved on it at a cost of 78 123. gd. sterling. 8
The country was then at war with France and Spain in
Europe and in Canada, and Oswald secured the appointment
of Commissary of Provisions and Stores for the camp on Burham
Downs, consisting of 25,000 men. 9 This appointment led to
others equally lucrative, and finally to his attaining the position
of Chief Commissary of Supplies to the British army under the
Duke of Brunswick. Out of those transactions, by the time
peace was concluded in 1763, he had amassed an immense
fortune.
Oswald was still, however, to serve his country in an even
more notable way. In 1783 the nation had seen the futility of
carrying on any longer the war with our colonies in America
which had declared their independence, and the opinion found
expression in the House of Commons. The Government did
not, however, wish to appear openly in the attitude of suing
for peace. In the dilemma the Ministry employed Oswald, who
had been introduced to Shelburne by Adam Smith, to open
negotiations privately. His business connections with America
no doubt gave him special facilities for this approach. Accord-
ingly he proceeded to Paris, where he met the commissioners of
the United States, and succeeded in arranging with them the
desired treaty of peace. 10
Meanwhile, at the time when Richard Oswald was accumu-
8 Burgh Records, i6th June, 1756 ; i7th Jan. 1758.
9 Glasgow Journal, igth April, 1756.
10 Glasgow Journal, i8th Nov. 1784. Senex, Old Glasgoiv, p. 30. The Old
Country Houses of the Old Glasgow Gentry, p. 227.
INDIGNATION OF ROBERT BURNS 261
lating a great fortune in London, a serious financial disaster
had struck the West of Scotland. After a run of reckless finance
and inflated credits, the Ayr Bank had closed its doors. 1 Its
bankruptcy involved the ruin of a large number of the landed
proprietors of Ayrshire, who were shareholders. In consequence
of the disaster many considerable estates in the county were
offered for sale. Availing himself of the opportunity Oswald
made large purchases of lands. He was said to have invested
over half a million sterling in this way, and to have had a
rent-roD of 20,000. Among other possessions he acquired the
estate of Auchencruive, near Ayr, which he made his chief
residence. There he died in 1784 just a year after his
crowning achievement, the negotiation of the treaty of peace
with America. 2
Oswald's widow, after her husband's death, removed to
London, where she died. When her coffin was being carried
northwards to be placed beside that of her husband at Auchen-
cruive, the cortege had a curious encounter with Robert Burns.
The poet described the circumstances in a letter to his friend
Dr. Moore. After a wet day's riding he had taken up his
quarters in the inn at Sanquhar. The January night was
tempestuous with icy snow and drift and he had just settled
down for a comfortable evening before the fire, when the
funeral cortege of the great lady arrived. To accommodate
the newcomers Burns had to turn out again in the wet, saddle
his steed, and ride twelve miles further, to the next inn at New
Cumnock. He was greatly enraged by the occurrence, which
he took to be an invasion of the rights of the poor, honest man
1 The chief shareholders of the Ayr Bank were the Dukes of Buccleuch and
Queensberry and Mr. Douglas of Douglas, and it traded under the name of
Douglas, Heron & Co. Its object was to encourage agriculture and manu-
factures, and it issued a large amount of paper money for this purpose. But
in 1772, following the failure of some of its correspondents in London, the
Bank of England refused to cash its notes, and it was forced to stop payment.
2 Glasgow Journal, nth Nov. 1784.
262 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
by the unfair prerogatives of wealth. He accordingly threw off
one of his bitterest effusions. His " Ode, sacred to the memory
of Mrs. Oswald of Auchencruive," is full of furious abuse, and
indeed altogether unworthy of the poet. As his biographer
says, " The ode illustrates Burns 's habit of judging persons
and things by any casual effect they might exercise on his feel-
ings at a time when he was inclined to composition."
While Richard Oswald was making his mark in the great
world, his brother, the second son of the minister of Dunnet,
was attaining distinction in a different field. The Rev. James
Oswald succeeded his father in that most northern parish of
Scotland. He, however, married a daughter of David Smythe
of Methven, and was presented to the church of that parish
by his father-in-law. The presentation did not have the
approval of the parishioners, and on one pretext and another
the presbytery deferred Oswald's induction for two years.
The General Assembly then took up the matter, called the
presbytery to its bar to be reprimanded for disobedience,
and appointed a commission to induct the new minister.
The induction duly took place on i2th December, 1750, but
the parishioners left the church and set up a congregation of
Antiburghers. 3
The Rev. James Oswald nevertheless did well, and became
a doctor of divinity and Moderator of the General Assembly,
while his two sons proceeded to Glasgow and carried on the
prosperous family business. George, the elder of the two, in-
herited the estates of Scotstoun and Balshagray from his
father's cousins, the original Richard and Alexander Oswald,
who were both bachelors. He married his cousin Margaret
Smythe, daughter of the laird of Methven, 4 and he bought, as
a town house, the original mansion built by Alexander Speirs
on the west side of Virginia Street. He was one of the partners
3 Scots Magazine, 1750, pp. 549, 590.
4 Glasgow Journal, 26th Jan. 1764.
INHERITANCE OF AUCHENCRUIVE 263
in the famous Ship Bank, and in recognition of his public ser-
vices and cultured taste he was elected Rector of Glasgow
University in 1797. 5 His brother, Alexander Oswald, acquired
the country estate of Shieldhall, below Govan on the Clyde,
and among his many speculations purchased from the Town
Council the remaining parts of the Old Green. 6
When Richard Oswald of Auchencruive died in 1784, he
left his great estates in Ayrshire one of the finest possessions
in the West of Scotland to his nephew, George Oswald of
Scotstoun, but by arrangement they were transferred to the
latter 's son, Richard Alexander Oswald, who opened another
chapter in the family history by becoming Member of Parlia-
ment for the county. It was his wife, Louisa or Lucy Johnstone,
on whom Burns, perhaps by way of amends for his diatribe on
previous members of the family, composed his verses, " O wat
ye wha's in yon town ? " and wrote in ecstatic praise to his
friend William Syme. The lady died of consumption at Lisbon
two years after the death of Burns himself. Her husband did
not marry again, and, as they had no children, the great estates
passed to his cousin James, eldest son of Alexander Oswald of
Shieldhall.
The great inheritance came to James Oswald just in time.
Among various enterprises he had devoted himself to developing
the property in the Old Green which had been acquired by his
father. He opened a new access to it by Maxwell Street, and
on the line of the spinning sheds of the old rope-work he formed
East Howard Street, which he named in honour of the philan-
thropist, John Howard. It was the time, however, of the rise
of the great cotton industry, and Oswald, having ventured on a
speculation in cotton on a great scale, lost all his means. It
was after this disaster that he inherited Auchencruive and the
5 Old Country Houses of the Old Glasgow Gentry, p. 235.
6 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 196. Senex, Old Glasgow, p. 28.
Burgh Records, i2th and 26th Feb. 1802.
264 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
other Ayrshire estates. 7 In the period of serious distress which
followed the Napoleonic wars, the time of Radical riots and
Chartist demonstrations, he devoted himself to politics. He
took a keen interest in the movement for Reform, and presided
at the great meeting in favour of that movement which was
held on Glasgow Green. Following the success of the movement
in 1832, he represented Glasgow in the first Reform Parliament
and in four others, and after his death in 1853 his friends and
admirers erected a statue to his memory, which was first set up
at Charing Cross and now stands in George Square.
7 Senex, Old Glasgow, p. 30.
CHAPTER XXX
PROSPEROUS YEARS
THE twenty years that preceded the break-away of the
American colonies were perhaps the happiest and most pros-
perous that Glasgow ever saw. The stern and arid asceticism
of Covenanting times had been largely modified. Men of
original thought, and even of genius, like Professor John
Anderson, founder of Anderson's College, and Professor Adam
Smith, author of " The Wealth of Nations/' occupied the chairs
of the University, and mellowed the social atmosphere with their
sentiments. The working classes were frugal and easily able to
live upon their earnings, and enterprises of almost any kind could
be undertaken with full assurance of success. At that time,
the average wage of a Glasgow mechanic was seven shillings
per week, and though the city was by no means a cheap place
to live in, this wage was " more than sufficient to supply him
liberally, and he must therefore save money/' x
Even the great merchants and tobacco lords were simple in
their taste at table, to judge from the accounts of feasts given
in Strang's Glasgow and its Clubs. Their chief extravagance
lay in the matter of liquid refreshment. The tavern expenses
of the Council committee which visited the dock, town, and
harbour of Port-Glasgow in 1761, ran to 15 6s., and the bill
1 Gibson, History, p. 201. Oatmeal then cost i id. per peck (8 Ib. of 22^02.),
beef from 4<i. to yd., butter 6d. to gd., cheese 2d. to 6d. per Ib. of 22^ oz.
Milk was id. to i d. per English quart, ale lod. to is. 4d. per Scots gallon (four
English), and coal 2s. 8d. per cart of 9 cwt. Rents were from 303. per annum
upwards. Ibid. pp. 195-199.
265
266 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
for a dinner for the three Glasgow magistrates and a guest or
two at Renfrew, in connection with the election in 1762, was
9 55. 2d. sterling. 2 With money at three times its present
value, these were fairly substantial amounts, which show that
the city fathers knew how to do themselves well.
Out-of-door recreation also was not forgotten. Of a summer
evening the New Green by the pleasant riverside had its groups
of golfers moving in twos and fours along the greensward. In
1760, they craved permission to make an addition to the lodge
there at their own expense, doubtless to serve the purpose of
a " nineteenth hole " ; and a few years later the magistrates
themselves considered the project of building a new golf house
there. 3
The Golf Club flourished as long as the Green contained the
hazards necessary to make the game interesting. In winter
also there was the Roberton Hunt, otherwise the Glasgow
Hounds, which held its first meet in 1771, and followed the fox
from the wilds of Tollcross over Hamilton Moor and upper
Clydeside. 4
They snuffed extensively, as they feasted and golfed, these
Glasgow burgesses of that prosperous time, and not the least
thriving of the smaller industries of the town was the manu-
facture of the pungent brown powder. Perhaps the most
considerable of the snuff-makers was Ninian Bryce who for years
carried on the business at a mill on the Kelvin, three miles from
the city. As age grew upon him he began to find the journey a
considerable toil, and he approached the Town Council to let him
have an old disused mill above the High Kirk, on adapting which
to his purpose he proposed to spend 200. He had to introduce
strong joists, to bear the weight of the tobacco in the drawing
room and the strain of the machinery in the grinding room,
2 Burgh Records, 24th Aug., 1761 ; 3rd Feb., 1762.
3 Ibid. 23rd Sept., 1700 ; 7th May, 1779-
4 Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 164.
RAMSHORN AND MEADOWFLAT 267
and it is pleasant to think of the room for the petitioner him-
self, with a fireplace and two windows, where doubtless he could
sit with a friendly customer, and sample the aroma of his own
products. 5 Glasgow, which probably had the first, certainly
had the last, of the old Scottish snuff mills. This, beside the old
bridge at Cathcart, only ceased manufacture before the begin-
ning of the Great War.
The prosperity of those years brought an increase of popu-
lation, and a demand for more houses, and the city expanded
rapidly towards the west.
The muddy Cow Loan, by which the town's herd used to
drive the townsmen's cattle to Cowcaddens, was paved and
became Queen Street, and the Back Cow Loan was straightened
by purchases of ground from the front of the Inkle factory, where
Hutchesons' Hospital now stands, and from the back of Alex-
ander Speirs' mansion at the head of Virginia Street, and laid
out as Ingram Street. 6 The Town Council bought the lands of
Ramshorn and Meadowflat from Hutchesons' Hospital, and
proceeded to lay off streets westward on these lands from High
Street and from the head of Candleriggs to Queen Street. 7
Further west still, as early as 1760, the Town Council laid off
a street from the Broomielaw northward to the Wester or St.
Enoch's gate, now Argyle Street, and began to dispose of build-
ing sites to form what was immediately called Jamaica Street. 8
The laying out and building of St. Enoch Square followed
almost at once, and the public joined in a rush for building
sites. It was Glasgow's first " building boom." 9
5 Burgh Records, gth Nov., 1762.
6 Ibid. 8th April, 1766 ; i2th May, 1772 ; I3th Aug., 2ist Feb., 1782.
7 Ibid. 1 2th May, 1772 and on.
8 Ibid. 3ist July, 1760. The price at which the first of the ground was sold
was 2os. Scots per square yard. Afterwards the price of each site of 55 feet
frontage and the same depth (336 square yards) was 28 sterling Ibid. 27th
Jan., 1763.
9 Ibid. 1 6th Aug., 3oth Aug., 1768 ; 24th June, 1772.
268 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
This enlargement of the city brought about a demand for
the building of a seventh city church, and it brought about also
a conflict in the city and the Town Council over the question
of the right to appoint a minister. The church which was built
was the Wynd Church, in 1762, but the settlement of the
minister was delayed by the struggle between the Town
Council and certain elements in the city over the right to appoint
an incumbent. The Council maintained its right, as repre-
senting the community, who paid the stipend, to make the
appointment, but declared its willingness to consider the wishes
of the kirk session in the matter. Twice, after an agreement
with the kirk session, it nominated a minister, only to have him
rejected by the General Session, which refused to accept the
arrangement. In the end the Council applied to the Court of
Session, which decided that the right of appointing the ministers
of all the city churches, except the High Church, belonged
solely to the Town Council. 10 Thus was decided in Glasgow an
outstanding episode of the great controversy which was to have
its climax in the Disruption eighty years later.
To each of the seven churches a separate district was
allotted. These districts had an average of four thousand
inhabitants, and the total population of the city in 1765 was
thus made out to be 28,099. x In these circumstances the city
ministers might be considered fully justified in asking an in-
crease of stipend. In 1722 these stipends had been raised from
90 sterling to 2000 merks Scots (m 2s. 2 d.), but the ministers
pointed out that the cost of living had greatly advanced since
that date, and that it had become impossible to maintain their
families upon the sum allowed them without changing their
manner of living to such an obscure inhospitable style as must
be thought unsuitable to their position. The Town Council
10 Burgh Records, 25th May, 6th April, 1762; 27th Jan., 1763; 2nd May,
1765 ; 8th April, 1766.
1 Ibid, nth June, 1765. Twelve years later, including Gorbals and Calton,
it was computed to be 43,000. Gibson, History, p. 124.
SEEKING A WATER SUPPLY 269
saw reason in this appeal, and added a very acceptable 500
merks to each stipend. 2
Probably for a similar reason the teachers in the Grammar
School had their salaries raised not long afterwards. The
rector's payment was increased from 40 to 55 sterling per
annum, while each of the three " doctors " had his salary
increased from 15 to 20. 3
Another demand brought about by the growth of popula-
tion, but by no means so easy to satisfy, was that for a sufficient
supply of water. So far this first necessary of life had been
obtained from wells sunk anywhere in the streets and " yards "
or gardens. In view of the common habit of allowing middens
to accumulate in these yards and streets, the water thus
obtained must have been in most cases of very doubtful purity,
but it was probably a growing scarcity rather than any fear of
infection which suggested another source. It was in 1769 that
the first suggestion was made of bringing water to the city in
pipes. The Town Council was evidently impressed, and in the
following year brought two plumbers from Edinburgh, Elias
and William Scot, to advise on the problem. These experts
must be credited with suggesting the method by which the city
was to secure a full supply for its needs nearly a century later.
Their plan was to bring water from a distance in pipes. They
were paid 12 I2S. sterling " for their trouble in searching for
good water to be brought in to the town, levelling the ground
from Castletown to Glasgow, and making a plan of the ground
through which the water was to be brought/' 4 Two years later
the Town Council granted permission to two burgesses to lead
water to their own premises in pipes from the wells at Spout-
mouth and at the foot of Virginia Street 5 ; and three years
later still, in presenting a bill to Parliament for extending the
royalty of the city and " for cleaning, paving, lighting and
- Ibid. loth Feb., 1762. 3 Ibid. 3rd Dec., 1765.
4 Ibid. 8th Nov., 1769 ; ist Oct., 1770. 5 Ibid. 24th June, 1772.
270 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
lamping the streets thereof/' it was recommended to seek
powers, also, " for bringing in good fresh water to the said
city." 6 The difficulty evidently was the necessity which would
arise of levying a tax for the purpose, and the project ended for
the time with the repeated expression of pious opinions on the
subject, and the employment of Robert McKell, engineer, " to
enquire and search for fountains, springs, and water of good
quality in the contiguity of the city of Glasgow, sufficient to
serve the inhabitants thereof/' 7
The financial affairs of the city itself were at that time quite
prosperous. When the chamberlain's books were examined by
a committee in 1767 it was found that the annual revenue was
" nearly equal to the town's annual expence " ; and in 1775,
when another enquiry was made, the revenue was found to be
actually 400 sterling more than the expenditure. 8 In these
circumstances the magistrates felt themselves justified in order-
ing gold chains to be worn by themselves as " bages of honour." 9
The Town Council, however, seems to have made little distinc-
tion between capital sums which it derived from the sale of
property and otherwise, and revenue which it derived from
feu-duties, rents, market and bridge dues, and the like. Thus
the ancient property of the archbishops the Easter and Wester
Commons and the lands afterwards laboriously reacquired to
form the new Green were from first to last disposed of, and
the proceeds, which should have gone into a capital stock, the
" Common Good," as it is called to-day, used to meet current
expenses and emergencies of the hour. In this way, in 1767 the
Town Council parted with its last possession in Provan the
feu-duties of that " twentie pound land " for sums amounting
6 Burgh Records, i6th March, 1775.
7 Ibid. 28th and 2Qth Nov., 1775. For later efforts and developments, see
infra, chap. xlv.
8 Ibid, soth Jan., 1767 ; 23rd Nov., 1775.
9 Ibid. i5th Jan., 1767.
ANNUITIES AND SEALS OF CAUSE 271
to 41,423 Scots (3451 195. 6d. sterling) 10 and there is no
evidence that this capital sum was kept apart, or separately
invested in any way. 1
But, notwithstanding any questions as to book-keeping, the
city's credit was good. An Edinburgh firm offered the Town
Council a loan of 400 sterling, part at 4^ per cent, and part
at 5 per cent, interest, and, while the city fathers were willing
to accept the loan, they refused to pay more than 4! per cent. 2
Quite a number of individuals also took to depositing capital
sums with the town, to be repaid in the form of annuities.
Thus the sum of 500 sterling was " advanced to and sunk with
the town," by Alexander Stirling of Deanside, " to remain
with them for ever, and never to be repaid/' in consideration of
an annuity of 45 per annum to himself and his daughter Janet
after him, " each year of her lifetime, and no longer." The
usual rate of annuity for a person of about sixty years of age
was ten per cent, on the capital sum. On one occasion, indeed,
the Town Council refused an attempt by a spinster of fifty-nine
to extract 12^ per cent., and the lady saw it to her interest to
modify her demand. 3
Another interesting function which the Town Council was
called upon to exercise to a large extent at that time was the
granting of " seals of cause " to various semi-public bodies.
The seal of cause conferred on its holders power to exercise
certain stated functions. In each case the warrant was in-
scribed in detail in the minutes of the Town Council, and
the Town Council could exercise certain powers of control.
10 Ibid. 23rd Dec., 1766 ; 3rd Feb., 1767.
1 The feu-duties amounted to ^1055 43. lod. Scots, and the purchasers
were William Macdowall of Castle Semple, John Campbell of Clathic, and
James Hill, writer, who thus gave nearly forty years' purchase for their
possession.
2 Burgh Records, 6th April, 1766.
3 Ibid. 2oth Aug., 1771 ; i5th Dec., 1778 ; 26th May, 1779 ; i7th May,
1780.
272 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
One of the purposes of these incorporations was the support
of their decayed members, but other objects of various kinds
were also secured. Among the bodies which were granted
seals of cause at that time were the Graham Society and the
Wilson Society, the Ayrshire Society and the Dunbartonshire
Society, the Painters, the Sedan Chairmen, and the Tobacco
Spinners. Even the managers of the Gaelic Chapel, erected at
the north corner of Queen Street and Ingram Street in 1767 for
the benefit of Highlanders coming to Glasgow, who wished to
hear a service in their native tongue, found it desirable to have
the sanction of a seal of cause to enable them to deal with funds
and make rules for the regular carrying on of their society. 4
At the same time the Town Council took several steps
towards the better ordering of its own affairs. In 1766 the
Town-Clerk, Thomas Miller of Barskimming, was raised to the
Bench in the Court of Session as Lord Justice-Clerk. Eighteen
years previously, as a young advocate practising in Edinburgh,
he had been appointed joint town-clerk with Alexander Finlay-
son, with the intention that he should attend to the legal
interests of Glasgow in the Scottish capital. 5 Finlayson had
then served the city, as agent and clerk, for sixty years, and
wished to retire, but there was a competent Town-Clerk Depute,
John McGilchrist, who could be trusted to carry on the city's
business at home, so no change was made at the time. Finlay-
son, however, was now dead, and on Miller's elevation to
4 BurghRecords, 2nd Jan., 28th June, 1770; 2nd Aug. ,1771 ; 3ist Aug., 1773;
1 9th Dec., 1775; i2th March, 1778; 8th Sept., istOct., 1779. " Corporations are
constituted by royal charter (or letters patent) or by special Act of Parliament.
. . . Chartered corporations, further, used to have the power of creating minor
corporations within their own body by " seal of cause," as in the case of guilds
and crafts in burghs. But these are not independent methods of creation :
the one is held to imply, and the other ex hypothesi implies, an original charter
from the Crown. . . . Since 1846 trade monopolies (" exclusive privileges ")
of guilds and similar incorporations in burghs in Scotland are altogether
abolished (9 and 10 Viet. c. 17, s. i)." Green's Encycl. Scots Law vi., 311 ;
xi. 103.
5 Ibid. 8th April, 1748.
JAMES WATT, 1736-1819.
From oil painting by John Graham Gilbert.
Reproduced by permission of the University of Glasgow,
DUTIES OF TOWN CLERK 273
the Bench, and resignation of his town-clerkship, the Town
Council took the opportunity of enumerating and recording
the functions and duties of the office. A full list of these
services and duties was made, in two divisions, those from
which the emoluments of the Town Clerkship were derived,
and those which yielded little or no profit to the holder.
Among the former were attendance at the town's court and
the dean of guild court, the keeping of the sasines, extract-
ing of decreets, and granting of acts of warding. Among
the latter were attendance at the meetings of the Town
Council and committees, as well as at the meetings of Hutche-
sons' Hospital and the Town's Hospital, with -the management
of the town's business and the keeping of the town's charters
and records. These duties having been duly enumerated and
recorded, the Town Council proceeded to appoint as joint town-
clerks, Archibald McGilchrist, a son, it may be hoped, of the
town-clerk depute who had served the city so long and so well,
and John Wilson, another Glasgow writer. Their appointment,
however, was not for life, as had previously been the rule, but
only " during the will and pleasure of the magistrates and
council." 6
Further to set its house in order, in the following year the
Town Council accepted an invitation of the Lord Rector of the
University to make up an account of all charters, documents,
and facts regarding the jurisdiction of that body, and settle,
once for all, a question which had on several occasions threat-
ened to make serious trouble between the College and the civic
authorities. 7
Almost immediately afterwards the Town Council found
itself called upon to support the jurisdiction of a still greater
authority. The claim of Archibald Stewart to be the son of
Lady Jane Douglas, and therefore heir of the vast estates of
the Duke of Douglas the action popularly known as the
8 Ibid. i6th June, i4th July, 1766. 7 Ibid. i$ih June, 1767. See supra, p. 115.
s H.G. in.
274 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Douglas Cause had just been decided against the claimant in
the Court of Session. The decision was most unpopular in Edin-
burgh, and throughout the country excitement reached an
extraordinary pitch. In the midst of the furore a letter reached
the Lord President threatening to " tear him limb from limb,
and give his bowels to the cats/' unless he revoked the decision.
This unpleasant fate, the letter added, was too good for his
lordship. This was regarded as a high insult and indignity
done to the Court of Session and the whole justice of the
country, and it was addressed from Glasgow. The agent for
the Crown accordingly called upon the magistrates and council
of the city to pursue every possible method to discover the
author or authors of the epistle, in order that they might be
severely punished. For such a purpose the resources of the
Town Council were strictly limited. There was no police
detective department in those days. But the magistrates did
their best. They advertised in each of the Glasgow newspapers,
offering an unprecedented reward, the sum of 100 sterling,
for the discovery of the culprit. As nothing further is heard of
the matter it may be presumed that the writer of the letter
remained unknown. 8
It may have been this occurrence which suggested to the
magistrates the desirability of securing further powers. In
earlier times the bailie appointed by the Archbishop had held
courts and carried on the legal administration of the barony
and regality of Glasgow. The possession of the office, which
was then of importance and emolumental advantage, had been
the subject of fierce rivalry between the families of Hamilton
and Lennox in the days of Queen Mary. Latterly, with other
8 Burgh Records, 22nd July, 1767. When news reached Edinburgh later that
the decision of the Court of Session had been reversed by the House of Lords,
popular feeling reached an astonishing height. Bonfires were lit, and the Lord
President, and other judges who had decided with him, had to be protected
from the fury of the mob by a detachment of troops. Hume Brown, History
of Scotland, III., 344.
BAILIESHIP OF THE REGALITY 275
pertinents of the archbishopric, it had fallen to the Crown.
When McUre wrote his History of Glasgow in 1736 the Duke
of Montrose was Bailie of the Regality, and his deputies adminis-
tered justice in the Court Hall of the city three times a week.
By the Act abolishing heritable jurisdictions, which followed
the Jacobite rising of 1745, the Regality Court was brought to
an end, most of its powers being transferred to the Sheriff
Court. 9 Now the Town Council proposed to have this baronial
office vested in the lord provost, with power to him to
name substitutes. Accordingly, on the occasion of a visit to
London in 1772, to secure the passing of certain bills through
parliament, the lord provost, Colin Dunlop, was desired to make
application in the proper quarter for a deputation of the office
to himself and his successors, " to the end a legal check may be
put to the commission of crimes in and about the city of
Glasgow, and the offenders punished in terms of law." 10 Noth-
ing further, however, is recorded regarding this effort, and the
desired powers were left to be secured by later police Acts.
An office of much less dignity, but evidently also of some
emolument, was that of the jailor of the tolbooth. Not only
did the post afford a living to its holder, but it could afford to
be burdened with pensions to other persons as well. When
John Rowand resigned the office in 1774 on account of his age
he was 72 he besought the Town Council, because of his
years and the fact that he had a wife and family to support, to
allow him something out of the profits of the appointment.
Thereupon the Council agreed that the next jailor should pay
him an annuity of 20 sterling out of the emoluments. They
also did something more curious. There were two candidates
for the jailorship. In an endeavour evidently not to disappoint
anyone, the Council agreed that whichever of the two received
9 Glasgow Archaological Society Transactions, Old Series, ii. 273 ; Green's
Encycl. vol. xl. 395.
10 Burgh Records, 25th Feb., 1772.
276 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the appointment should not only pay the 20 annuity to
Rowand, but also an annuity of the same amount to the un-
successful candidate. The profits from keeping the town's
prisoners were evidently fairly substantial when John Lawson
accepted the post burdened with these two considerable
payments. 1
1 Burgh Records, 2nd Aug., 1774.
CHAPTER XXXI
JAMES WATT : CANALS AND THE STEAM ENGINE
WHEN the great tobacco trade with Virginia and the sugar
trade with the West Indies were at the apex of their fortunes
one of the most serious difficulties which the merchants of
Glasgow had to contend with lay in the inadequate means of
communication and transport. General Wade had shewn the
way towards improvement by the making of his military roads
throughout the country in the middle of the century. It was
the making of one of these, the road along Loch Lomond side,
which General Wolfe superintended from the Garrison at
Inversnaid, between the time when he commanded the garrison
in Glasgow, and the expedition for the conquest of Canada in
which he fell. We have seen how, shortly afterwards, a sort of
fever of road-making and bridge-building seized the Town
Council, which plunged heavily into debt over the enterprise.
A dozen years later came Golborne's practicable scheme for the
deepening of the Clyde, and it was followed immediately by
proposals for other waterways connected with the city. In the
projecting of these enterprises the genius of the celebrated
James Watt played a part which seems in danger of being
forgotten. Watt's early and important work as a civil engineer
has been overshadowed by his later achievements in the
improvement and development of the steam engine.
The inventor's family came originally from Aberdeenshire.
His great-great-grandfather, a small laird farming his own
land, was killed fighting on the Covenanting side against the
277
278 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Marquess of Montr ose. His grandfather, Thomas Watt, migrat-
ing south, became a teacher of mathematics, surveying, and
navigation at Crawfordsdyke, now part of Greenock ; and his
uncle, John Watt, a successful engineer and land-surveyor at Ayr,
was extensively employed, as we have seen, by the Town Council
of Glasgow in making plans and surveys of the city and district.
Watt's father was a ship's block-maker and general merchant at
Greenock, where for some time he held the office of magistrate.
His business, however, offered small prospects, and in 1754 he
sent his son, then aged eighteen, to London, to learn the craft
of mathematical instrument making.
Forced by ill-health to return to Scotland, James Watt pro-
posed to set up business in Glasgow. Against this intention,
however, stood the obstacle that he was not a freeman of any
Craft. In this difficulty the young mechanic found a friend
in Professor John Anderson, occupant of the Chair of Natural
Philosophy in Glasgow University. Anderson's father had
been minister of Rosneath, and his younger brother had
been one of Watt's school companions at Greenock. 1 George
Muirhead, also, Professor of Latin in the University, was
a relation of Watt's mother. At the psychological moment
a fortunate chance occurred. In January, 1756, Alexander
Macfarlane, a merchant in Jamaica, and brother of the Chief
of the clan, bequeathed to Glasgow University the instruments
of an astronomical observatory which he had fitted up in that
far-off island. On being brought home these instruments were
found to have suffered from tropical heat and damp. Watt,
who was in Glasgow at the time, was asked to clean them and
put them in order. For his trouble he was paid 5. 2 But more
1 Coutts, Hist. Univ. Glasg. p. 264.
2 Memorials of James Watt. George Williamson, in these Memorials,
originates a statement that Watt was prevented from setting up business in
the city by the Incorporation of Hammermen. The growth and groundlessness
of this idea were dealt with in a scholarly article in The Glasgow Herald of
26th Dec. 1811, included in the History of the Hammermen, by Lumsden and
Aitken, p. 394.
JAMES WATT AND THE STEAM ENGINE 279
important still, the young mechanic was appointed instrument-
maker to the University, and had a workshop fitted up for
him in the college, which was outside the jurisdiction of the
Trades House and the Town Council. Thus sheltered, for
six years, from 1757 till 1763, he struggled to make a scanty
living.
Meanwhile Anderson's house and library, his conversation
and scientific apparatus, played their part in ripening Watt's
mechanical genius. As early as 1759 he had speculated with a
college friend, Robison, afterwards of the Chair of Natural
Philosophy at Edinburgh, on steam as a motive power, and
two years later he had experimented with a Papin's Digester,
but the flash of inspiration came in the winter of 1763, when
Anderson sent him for repair the model of the Newcomen
engine used in the Natural Philosophy class. That engine was
chiefly used for pumping water from mines. 3 In it steam was
merely used to inflate a cylinder and drive up a piston attached
to a beam from the other end of which hung the plunger of a
pump. The steam in the cylinder was cooled by a jet of water,
and, as it condensed, the piston sank and dragged down its
end of the beam, thus drawing up the plunger of the pump at
the other end. Watt's first improvement was the provision
of a separate chamber for condensing the steam, thus saving
the waste entailed in cooling the main cylinder against the
next injection of steam. He afterwards, however, proceeded
to use steam for pushing the piston both up and down, and
may thus justly be said to be the inventor of the real steam
engine.
A partnership with Dr. Roebuck, founder of the Carron
Ironworks, came to nothing, and it was not till 1773 that, in
8 Newcomen's engine, an invention of the year 1710, immensely helped to
develop the industry of coal-mining, as it enabled water to be pumped from
much greater depths. Mackinnon, Soc. and Indus. Hist. p. 79. One of these
engines was installed at the coal pits in Gorbals in 1762. Burgh Records,
loth June, 1762.
280 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
partnership with Matthew Boulton of Soho near Birmingham,
Watt was able to build engines for practical purposes, and
proceed with the invention of further improvements.
But, though the steam engine was afterwards to play a
vital part in developing the industries and fortunes of Glasgow,
Watt's other services to the city were of more immediate ad-
vantage. In 1763, possibly because he had married the daughter
of a burgess, he was allowed to leave the College precincts, and
set up a workshop in the town. Even there for a time he
had to eke out a livelihood by various devices. Though with-
out any ear whatever for music, he both made and mended
fiddles ; and he actually constructed several organs, one of
which, after a somewhat chequered history, is now pre-
served in the city's Art Galleries at Kelvingrove. 4 It was not
till 1767 that his abilities found a new and larger field in the
service of the community.
As early as the reign of Charles II. the suggestion had been
made of a canal to afford transport across the narrow neck of
Scotland, between the Forth and the Clyde. Defoe, again, in
his Tour to Scotland, wrote " If this city could have a com-
munication with the firth of Forth, so as to send their tobacco
and sugar by water to Alloway, below Stirling, as they might
from thence again to London, Holland, Hamburg, and the
Baltic, they would very probably, in a few years, double their
trade/' The suggestion had been revived in 1723 and in 1761,
and the Board of Trustees for Fisheries and Manufactures had
the route for a canal surveyed by John Smeaton in 1763 without
result. The advantages, nevertheless, were so obvious that in
1766 the merchants of Glasgow determined to proceed with the
enterprise. In two days the sum of 30,000 was subscribed
for the purpose, and James Watt was employed to make
surveys and prepare an estimate of the cost of the under-
4 The full history of James Watt's organ is detailed in J. O. Mitchell's Old
Glasgow Essays, p. 50.
FORTH AND CLYDE AND MONKLAND CANALS 281
taking. The Town Council subscribed 1000, and the original
idea was that the canal should enter the Clyde near the
Broomielaw. 5
Having in view, no doubt, the limited: sum at the disposal of
the promoters, Watt planned a waterway only four feet deep
and twenty-four feet broad. The plan was opposed by land
owners and others on the eastern side of the country, led by
Sir Lawrence Dundas, M.P., who, perhaps, did not wish to see
the waterway controUed entirely by Glasgow merchants ; and
Parliament threw out the bill on the plea that the capital sub-
scribed and the scheme proposed were inadequate. In the
following year, Sir Lawrence Dundas secured an Act of Parlia-
ment for the forming of a company with a capital of 150,000
and liberty to borrow 50,000. This project in turn was
heartily supported by Glasgow Town Council, which trans-
ferred to it its subscription of 1000, and sent the Lord Provost,
George Murdoch, to London to support the proposal in Parlia-
ment. 6 The Act of Parliament was secured, the engineer
Smeaton was engaged to superintend the work, and the first
sod was cut by Sir Lawrence himself in July 1768. 7 The canal
was opened as far west as Stockingfield in 1775, and the branch
to Hamilton Hill and Port Dundas, half a mile north of Glasgow,
shortly afterwards ; but it was not completed to Bowling till
July 1790.
Meanwhile Watt had found employment on another similar
enterprise. With the increase of population, Glasgow had
5 Burgh Records, i5th Jan., ist April, 1767.
6 Ibid. 3oth Nov., 1767 ; 23rd Jan., 1768. Marwick, The River Clyde, p.
179.
7 Sir Lawrence, preceding Richard Oswald of Auchencruive, had made an
immense fortune as provider of stores for the fighting forces of the time ; he
had purchased the rich estate of Kerse, which included the village of Grange-
mouth, and the Forth and Clyde Canal formed part of his plan for developing
his estate. The plan took two generations to arrive at fruition, but out of it
grew the thriving town of Grangemouth, and no small part of the fortunes of
the family whose head is now Marquess of Zetland.
282 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
begun to find the sources of its coal supply somewhat inade-
quate. It was suggested in 1769 that the rich coalfields of
Monkland, which had been mined by the monks of Tranent as
long ago as the thirteenth century, might be made available by
means of a waterway. The Town Council subscribed 500 to
the undertaking on condition that the owners of coal along the
line of the canal should become bound to put out 30,000 tons
of coal per annum for thirty years, a stipulation afterwards
modified to the demand that the coal-owners should subscribe
5000 sterling to the work. 8 James Watt was employed to
make a survey, an Act of Parliament was secured, and the
excavation was begun. But when ten miles of channel had
been constructed the whole subscribed capital of 10,000 had
been spent, with as much again of borrowed money. On the
shareholders refusing to subscribe more, the Town Council
resolved to sell its share, 9 and the whole undertaking was
disposed of to Messrs. William Stirling & Sons, the great firm
of Turkey Red dyers and bleachers. The new owners are
understood to have expended 100,000 in completing the work,
and, with the proprietors of the Forth and Clyde Canal, they
made a connection with that waterway at Port Dundas. 10 Be-
sides its mineral traffic, the canal carried large numbers of
passengers. It began to pay a dividend in 1807, and after 1825,
when the great ironworks at Calder, Gartsherrie, Dundyvan,
and Langloan were established along its route, it proved highly
remunerative, and greatly helped the development of Glasgow's
industry.
8 Burgh Records, 8th Nov., 1769 ; 2nd Jan., i8th Jan., 1770 ; 2nd March,
1770.
9 Ibid. 7th June, 28th June, 1780.
10 Stirling Road in the Townhead of Glasgow, is not the road to Stirling,
but the road made by William Stirling & Sons, to give access to the basin of
their canal in Castle Street. Similarly, when, in 1812, a new road northward
from Queen Street was formed to give access to the basin of the Forth and
Clyde Canal at Port Dundas, the Town Council named it Dundas Street.
Burgh Records, 8th Jan. 1812.
CALEDONIAN AND CRINAN CANALS 283
About the time when the Monkland Canal was projected
in 1769 Watt was asked by the Town Council, on Golborne's
suggestion, to supplement that engineer's report, made in the
previous year, on the condition of the channel of the Clyde, and
it was after his supplementary survey and report that Glasgow
procured its second Act of Parliament on the subject, and pro-
ceeded to carry out Golborne's plans for the clearing and
deepening of the river. 1
An engineering work of a similar kind was the graving dock
at Port-Glasgow, constructed under Watt's direction in 1761.
It is said to have been the first graving dock in Scotland. It
could contain at one time two vessels of 500 tons burden each,
and was kept dry by means of a pump worked by a horse. 2
Ten years later Watt was employed to make a report on the
needs of the harbour at Port-Glasgow, and his plans for clean-
ing, improving, and enlarging it, as well as repairing, and
improving the dry dock, were duly carried out by the Town
Council. 3
Further afield, in 1773, he was asked to prepare plans for a
canal through the Great Glen of Scotland, to connect Inver-
ness with the western ocean at Loch Linnhe, but his estimate
of the cost 165,000 so alarmed the promoters that the pro-
ject was dropped for thirty years. 4 When the Caledonian Canal
was at last constructed, under Telford's direction, the estimate
was 474,531, and the actual cost ran to 1,311,270.
Among his other works Watt was asked to report on the
comparative advantages of Tarbert and Crinan for the cutting
1 10 George III. c. 104. Marwick, The River Clyde, p. 180.
2 Marwick, The River Clyde, pp. 108, 178. Brown's History of Glasgow, II.,
348. Burgh Records, 27th April, 29th Sept., 1758 ; 5th Oct., 1761 ; 3oth Sept.,
1768.
3 Burgh Records, 2oth Aug., 1771.
4 For his services and expenses in surveying this canal through the Great
Glen of Scotland Watt's fee was i 173. per day. Strang, Glasgow and its
Clubs, p. 1 06 note.
284 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
of a canal to connect the Firth of Clyde with the Atlantic, 5 and
he made surveys for the improvement of the harbours of Ayr
and Greenock.
All of these enterprises were not immediately connected
with the development of Glasgow, but remarkably enough, in
the course of time, most of them, even the far-off Caledonian
Canal, came to be contributory to the fortunes of this " dark,
sea-born city." Among the inventor's later services to the city
were the introduction, in 1786, of the French chemist Berthol-
let's recent discovery of chlorine gas for bleaching purposes,
and the invention of a cable pipe on the ball and socket prin-
ciple, by which the Glasgow Water Company brought a supply
across the bed of the river from a valuable well on the south
side.
James Watt retired from active partnership in his engine-
making business at Soho in the year 1800, received the degree
of LL.D. from the University of Glasgow six years later, and
died at Heathfield in Staffordshire in 1819. 6 His statue by
Chantrey, a seated figure in marble, is one of the interesting
possessions of Glasgow University, while a reproduction of it,
in bronze, sits in George Square. 7
5 Burgh Records, ist March, 1771. Twenty-one years later, on a sub-
scription paper issued by the Duke of Argyll, the Town Council agreed to
take four shares of ^50 each in the Crinan Canal enterprise. Ibid. 22nd Nov.
1792.
6 Williamson, Memorials of James Watt. Muirhead, Life of Watt. Smiles,
Lives of Boulton and Watt.
7 Glasgow has at least five Watt statues. The first, by Greenshields, was
executed in freestone for the Mechanics' Institute, and is now in the Technical
College, which also has a smaller replica of it. There is also a small statue
by William Scoular in the Art Galleries at Kelvingrove.
CHAPTER XXXII
REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES
THE fortunes of Glasgow were for years little affected by the
wars in which George II. and his connection with the kingdom
of Hanover involved this country. The French were our
enemies at that time in the new world of America, as well as in
India and in Europe itself. In the far east they planned to
drive us out of India. Labourdonnais, governor of the French
colony of Mauritius, in 1746, besieged and destroyed our colony
of Madras, while Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry, profiting
by the break-up of the Mogul Empire, conceived the idea of
driving the English out of India, and founding a great French
Empire there. In Europe , on the conclusion of a treaty between
Britain and Frederick of Prussia in 1755, war broke out
again the Seven Years' War and opened With disaster the
capture of Minorca, the key of the Mediterranean, by the Due
de Richelieu, the retreat of the fleet under Admiral Byng, and
the forced disbanding by the Duke of Cumberland of his army
of fifty thousand men on the Elbe. Not less alarming was the
series of successes of the French arms in America. The English
colonies then lay practically along the Atlantic coast, while
north and south of them Louisiana and Lower Canada were
held by France. From these bases the French planned to close
in the English colonies, and claim the entire hinterland for
themselves. They drove the British settlers from the valleys
of the Mississippi and the Ohio, and founded on the latter Fort
Duquesne. In attempting to attack Fort Duquesne George
285
286 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Washington was driven back, and General Braddock was
utterly routed and slain. Under the Marquis de Montcalm the
French erected a chain of forts which seemed to complete
their plan, and shut the British colonies from all access to
the West. The fortunes of this country were at their lowest
when Lord Chesterfield exclaimed in despair " We are no
longer a nation ! "
As a matter of fact this country was just then on the eve
of its greatest achievements. All the world knows how the
genius of William Pitt changed the whole aspect of affairs.
From the moment when that statesman took the reins of
government in 1757 a new heroic spirit began to move in all
the country's interests. In India, Clive avenged the horrors of
the Black Hole of Calcutta by the great victory at Plassey,
which laid all Bengal, Orissa, and Bihar at his feet. In Europe,
Pitt's subsidies of money and men enabled King Frederick to
annihilate one French army at Rossbach, and the Duke of
Brunswick to overthrow another at Minden, while the invasion
of Britain by a great French host was prevented by Admiral
Hawke's destruction of the French fleet in Quiberon Bay. At
the same time, beyond the Atlantic, a large and well-planned
campaign was organized. The colonists themselves raised
twenty thousand men, and three expeditions proceeded to
attack the French line. One, under General Amherst and
Admiral Boscawen, captured Louisburg, with its garrison of
five thousand men and the fleet in its harbour. Another, of
colonists under George Washington, took Fort Duquesne, and
named it Pittsburg after the British statesman himself. In the
following year, 1759, the forts of Ticonderoga and Niagara
were taken ; and shortly afterwards, by General Wolfe's cap-
ture of Quebec, and Amherst's capture of Montreal, the Marquis
de Montcalm' s splendid dream of a French empire in America
was brought to an end.
In that American campaign many Scotsmen took part. Lord
ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 287
London's and the other Highland regiments are said to have
captivated our Indian allies by the similarity of their kilt to the
nether garment of the Cherokees ; the tragic story of a Highland
officer the Ticonderoga vision remains a thrilling tradition of
the ancient stronghold of Inverawe, below the Pass of Brander
in Argyll ; and the dispatch intimating the surrender of Quebec
was brought home by a Border laird, Douglas of Friarshaw,
who was knighted for the service, received a baronetcy for his
later naval achievements, and is represented to-day by one of
our most distinguished Scottish men of letters, Sir George
Douglas, Bart., of Springwood. Many Scottish officers, like
Captain Mac Vicar from the Goosedubs in Glasgow, as already
mentioned, received extensive grants of land in the colonies
themselves, and settled there as planters, thus affording the
prospect of a still closer linking of Scotland, and especially
Glasgow, with the sources of its trading wealth across the
Atlantic.
Apart from the constant billeting of soldiers, Glasgow seems
to have been little disturbed by the warlike movements of that
time. Its trade suffered no check. Just at the moment, how-
ever, when success crowned our arms in every quarter of the
globe an event occurred at home which was to have far-reaching
and disastrous issues. On 25th October, 1760, King George II.
died suddenly in his palace of Kensington, and was succeeded
by his grandson, George III. The new monarch was as head-
strong as he was unwise. With the words of his mother in his
ears " George, be a king ! " he set himself to make Parliament
merely the instrument of his will, and the result was seen in
widespread discontent and riots at home the agitation led by
the attacks of Wilkes in the North Briton and by the fierce
invective contained in the letters of the writer who styled him-
self Junius while beyond the Atlantic it was to bring about
the rebellion of our richest colonies and their declaration of
independence as the United States of America.
288 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Meanwhile in Glasgow certain depressing and ominous ten-
dencies were to be seen at work. While wealth was still flowing
into the city through the great trade with the American
colonies, there was growing, in the older wynds and vennels,
a substratum of poverty. Attracted by the reports of wealth
to be acquired, humble folk were coming in from the country,
and there was also in the city itself a residuum of the less capable
and less fortunate, whose circumstances were never very far
from the subsistence line. When any stringency arose, perhaps
by reason of a bad harvest, these people were at once in distress,
and provision for them became one of the problems of the Town
Council. An emergency of the kind occurred in the winter of
1765, when the Council found it necessary to appoint a com-
mittee to meet with committees of the Merchants and Trades
Houses, to concert measures for the relief of the distressed.
Money was borrowed and meal and victual were purchased.
The relief thus provided led to a demand for continued supplies,
and the town found it necessary to buy ground and build a
granary for the purpose. 1 Again, six years later, when the Ayr
Bank failed, with a loss of 450,000, and the stoppage of credit
and calling up of loans caused widespread distress in the West
of Scotland, a large number of the tradesmen of the city were
faced with want. On that occasion, for the first time, the cause
of the trouble is stated to be unemployment. In this case the
emergency was met by a voluntary subscription. A similar
state of affairs in Greenock and Port-Glasgow at the same time
led to riots in these places. 2 There then arose an outcry against
the Corn Law. This law dealt with the importation of grain
and the duties levied upon it. The subject brought Glasgow
and the other burghs, with their industrial interests and
demand for cheap food, into direct conflict with the interests
1 Burgh Records, 2oth Dec., 1765 ; 24th Sept., 1766.
2 Ibid, soth Dec., 1772. Humphrey Cunningham, shipmate, was made a
burgess and guild-brother of Glasgow for " his spirited behaviour in quelling
the late mobs at Greenock and Port-Glasgow." Ibid. 29th March, 1773.
RECRUITING FOR AMERICAN WAR 289
of the rural districts of the country, which depended upon
agriculture for their prosperity. It is a conflict of interests
which has lasted from that day till this. 7 The provost was
sent to London to secure alteration of the measure.
But the most serious blow to the trade and fortunes of
Glasgow was struck by the outbreak of war with the American
colonies in 1775. Whatever might be the justice of the pro-
posal that the colonies should be asked to repay part of the
huge expense incurred by this country in freeing them from the
constant menace of a French invasion, there can be no question
that the method taken to exact that repayment was singularly
wanting in tact and needlessly provocative in detail. But
Government and people on this side felt that their demand
was reasonable, and when the position became really serious,
with the surrender of General Burgoyne and his entire British
force at Saratoga in 1777, Glasgow at once set an example
of raising a regiment for the king's service. To this under-
taking the Town Council subscribed a thousand pounds, and,
as an inducement to enlist, agreed with the Merchants' and
Trades Houses to make every man who should join the regiment
a burgess of the city free of charge. 8 In a few days the public of
Glasgow subscribed over 10,000, and by dint of processions
through the streets, headed by a band in which there were " two
young gentlemen playing on pipes, two young gentlemen beat-
ing drums, and a gentleman playing on the bagpipes/' a fine
battalion, 900 strong, was raised, and was known as the 83rd
or Glasgow regiment. 9 The Town Council also offered a bounty
of 2 and i respectively to every able-bodied and ordinary
seaman who should join His Majesty's navy. 10 This example was
7 Ibid. 1 5th Feb., 1774 ; 28th April, 2ist Nov., 1777.
8 Ibid. 2oth Dec., 1777 ; I7th April, 1778.
9 Ibid. 29th Dec., 1777 and after; Glasgow Mercury, 29th Jan., 1778;
Mitchell, Old Glasgow Essays, p. 29.
10 Burgh Records, 2gth Nov., 3ist Dec., 1776.
T H.G. III.
2QO HISTORY OF GLASGOW
followed by Edinburgh ; other Scottish towns offered bounties
for sailors and soldiers ; the Dukes of Hamilton and Atholl each
raised a regiment ; the Dukes of Buccleuch and Gordon and
Lord Frederick Campbell each raised a fencible corps ; and the
Seaforth regiment and other bodies of recruits came pouring
from the Highlands, to begin a military period of our history
which was to last with only brief intervals for forty years, till
the Battle of Waterloo. While the citizens of Glasgow had a
great stake in the maintenance of relations with the American
colonies, it may be doubted whether the action to which they
were thus committed by the policy of King George's Govern-
ment was the best calculated to further their interests ; but
there could be no question of the loyalty with which they
rallied to the support of the Government in its emergency.
When France and Spain, seizing their opportunity, joined
forces with the Americans, and the fleets of Admiral Thurot
and Paul Jones threatened the West Coast, Glasgow rose still
further to the occasion, purchased twelve cannon from the
new ironworks at Carron, and sent them to Greenock for the
defence of the Clyde. 1
Glasgow, Port-Glasgow, and Greenock suffered grievously
from the depredations of the privateers of America and France,
which swarmed in the narrow seas. Through the inefficiency
of Lord Sandwich the British navy was heavily handicapped.
British warships seldom visited the Clyde, and it was only after
strong remonstrance by the magistrates that a guardship was
stationed at the Tail of the Bank. In the emergency the ship-
owners and sailors of the Clyde rose to the occasion. They fitted
out an armada of privateers, which acquitted themselves with
surprising effect. Within three months of the outbreak of the
war with America Port-Glasgow and Greenock together fitted
out fourteen vessels carrying "letters of marque ", and more than
one Glasgow fortune was founded on the plunder captured in this
1 Burgh Records, Qth Sept., 1778. See infra, chap, xlii,
GLASGOW PRIVATEERS 291
enterprise. On the morning of one sacrament Sunday in 1777,
the good folk of Greenock were scandalized by the beating of
the town drum through the streets to announce the capture of
several prizes by privateers belonging to the town, 2 and it was
a Port-Glasgow privateer, the " Lady Maxwell," of which
William Gilmour was master, which had the famous brush
with Paul Jones off Ushant on a January afternoon in 1780,
and by its exploits earned from French shippers the title of
" the Scourge of the Channel." 3
Out of this great upheaval arose another trouble which
threatened to have serious issues at the time. Considerable
numbers of the forces which rallied to the Government's
support were Roman Catholic. Against the adherents to that
faith there still existed penal laws of great seventy. Catholics
educated abroad could not inherit or acquire landed property,
the next heir who was a Protestant could take possession of a
Catholic father's or other relative's estate, and a Catholic priest
venturing to practise his office was liable to be treated as a
felon. Since British law now protected the French Catholics
in Canada, it seemed unfair that the Catholics in Britain itself
should still remain under such disabilities^ A bill was therefore
introduced in the House of Commons in May 1778 for the repeal
of the penalties. The bill meanwhile applied only to England,
but the fears of Scotsmen of the old Covenanting spirit were at
once excited, and in the General Assembly, Dr. Gillies, one of
the Glasgow ministers, asked the Lord Advocate regarding the
Government's intentions. In reply he was told that though the
present bill did not apply to Scotland, a future measure might
be introduced for that purpose. At this, large numbers in the
country took alarm. Associations were formed, violent reso-
lutions were passed ; ah 1 the synods except two fanned the
2 Scots Magazine for 1777.
3 An interesting article on " The Clyde Privateers " by W. Chisholm
Mitchell appeared in The Glasgow Herald on i3th January, 1912,
292 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
flame ; and a fast was appointed by those of Glasgow and Ayr.
As had happened after the incitements of John Knox, the cue
was taken up by " the rascal mob." On i6th November, 1778,
in the Blackfriars Church, the Rev. Daniel McArthur, after-
wards a teacher in the Grammar School, preached a fiery
sermon inveighing violently against the Church of Rome and
all its works. 4 On 3ist January, 1779, a riotous assembly
sacked and burned the bishop's house in Edinburgh, and
next day destroyed other houses of Catholic clergymen,
besides plundering a number of shops and dwelling houses,
the tumult being only stopped by the appearance of some
troops of dragoons. 5 In Glasgow, even before the bill was
submitted, a similar mob went through the streets breaking
windows, and a few days after the Edinburgh riots, another
mob attacked the house of Robert Bagnel, potter, and broke
and destroyed its contents to the value of 1429 is. sterling.
In each case the damage was paid for out of an assessment laid
upon the townspeople for the purpose. 6 An assurance by the
Government that the bill would not be extended to Scotland
quieted the upheaval north of the Border, and the Scottish
outbreaks were presently eclipsed by the more serious disturb-
ances led by Lord George Gordon in London. 7
At that time there were only some thirty Roman Catholics
in Glasgow. Six years later, in 1785, Bishop Hay, when he
came from Edinburgh to visit the flock, celebrated mass in the
back room of a house in Saltmarket. In 1792 the adherents
* Glasgow Mercury, loth Dec. 1778.
5 Aikman's Continuation Hist. Scot., VI., 640. Glasgow Town Council was
one of those which passed resolutions opposing the measure. Burgh Records,
2ist Jan., 1779.
6 Aikman VI., 641, Burgh Records, 28th Jan., 1778; 2nd April, 1779.
Scots Mag. quoted in McGregor's Hist. Glasg., p. 364.
7 Aikman VI., 641. Burgh Records, i6th Aug., 1780. In May 1781, never-
theless, the Protestant societies of Glasgow sent to Lord George Gordon the
sum of ^485, an action which, he declared, gave him " the greatest comfort
and satisfaction." Senex, Old Glasgow, p. 259.
FINANCIAL DISASTER 293
of the Roman faith fitted up the Tennis Court in Mitchell Street
as a place of worship, and it was only in 1797 that a small
chapel was built in Gallowgate. The Roman Catholic pro-
cathedral in Clyde Street was not built till i8i5. 8
The war itself, as all the world knows, came to an end not
a little humiliating to this country. The American colonies,
it is true, secured their independence, following the surrender
of the British army under Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in
1782, and Ireland seized the moment of Britain's weakness to
make a demand for virtual independence which had to be
acceded to. But the naval victories of Admiral Rodney off
Cape St. Vincent and in the West Indies shattered the fleets of
France and Spain, and left Britain in command of the seas.
By the heroic defence of Sir John Elliott, Gibraltar, the key of
the Mediterranean, remained a British possession, and in the
Far East, India was being steadily brought under British rule,
and France was forced finally to give up her pretensions upon
that vast empire.
The great struggle, nevertheless, left in Glasgow a sorrowful
aftermath which has already been mentioned in these pages.
Among other business failures the great houses of Buchanan
Hastie & Co. and Andrew Buchanan & Co. came down. Mem-
bers of these firms, and of the proud Buchanan family who thus
saw their great possessions swept from them, were Andrew
Buchanan, who was then projecting the laying out of Buchanan
Street on his property, and James Buchanan, laird of Drum-
pellier, who had been Lord Provost of the city. 9 It is pathetic to
find this same James Buchanan, in 1779, appointed Inspector of
Police, at a salary of 100 per annum, and further that the Town
Council thought it necessary to safeguard the payment by the
stipulation that the 100 was " meaned and intended for the
8 Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 117 note.
9 It is in one of the deeds subscribed by James Buchanan as Lord Provost
in 1770 that the title of " esquire " is first appended to the name of the chief
magistrate of the city. Burgh Records, I2th Sept., 1770.
294 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
support and maintenance of the said James Buchanan's family/'
and was " on no account arrestable or attachable by any of the
said James Buchanan's creditors." 10 Provost James ended his
life as a Commissioner of Customs at Edinburgh in 1793, while
his nephew Andrew, son of the builder of the Virginia Mansion,
died in an abode in Adam's Court in 1796. 1
Still more sad was the fate of the senior representative of
the proud Buchanan family, Andrew, the projector of Buchanan
Street. He was grandson of the original George Buchanan who
migrated from Drymen, and head of the two great firms which
came down. In 1780, after the crash, no doubt by way of
kindly provision for a do wnf alien merchant, the Town Council
appointed him City Chamberlain at a salary of 100 a year.
Apparently, however, he had lost heart, his affairs had fallen
into confusion, in 1784 his accounts were found to be deficient
to the amount of 1457 i6s. id., and he was summarily dis-
missed from office. Two brother merchants, his sureties, agreed
to make good the default, and on the strength of that arrange-
ment, the Town Council agreed to pay his wife and family an
annuity of 40. Three months later Andrew Buchanan was
dead. 2
In this way the first great era in the fortunes of Glasgow
the era of trade with the American colonies came to an end.
But already another great era that of the spinning and
weaving and chemical industries was rising to take its place.
10 Burgh Records, 2nd March, 1779. Buchanan resigned the inspectorship of
police in 1781 (ibid. 5th April).
1 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 23.
2 Burgh Records, 5th June, 1780 ; 24th June, 23rd Sept. 1784.
CHAPTER XXXIII
MANUFACTURES AND MANUFACTURERS
ONE of the chief difficulties of the merchants who carried on
Glasgow's great business of importing tobacco, rum, and sugar
was the scarcity of native manufactured goods to export in
exchange. Jupiter Carlyle in his autobiography describes the
situation as he knew it in 1744. ' There were not manu-
facturers sufficient/' he says, either there or at Paisley, to
supply an outward-bound cargo for Virginia. For this pur-
pose " the Glasgow traders were obliged to have recourse
to Manchester. Manufactures were in their infancy. About
this time the inkle manufactory was first begun by Ingram &
Glassford, and was shewn to strangers as a great curiosity.
But the merchants had industry and stock, and the habits of
business, and were ready to seize with eagerness, and prosecute
with vigour, every new object in commerce or manufactures
that promised success/' 1
By 1760, the situation had only partly improved. Richard
Pococke, bishop of Meath, who visited Glasgow in that year,
thus describes it. ' The city has above all others felt the
advantages of the Union, by the West India trade which they
enjoy, which is very great, especially in tobacco, indigoes, and
sugar. The first is a great trade in time of war ; as they send
the tobacco by land to the ports of the Frith of Forth, almost
as far as Hopton, and supply France. They have sugar houses,
and make what is called Scotch indigo, which is composed with
1 Autobiography, p. 73.
295
296 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
starch, so as to make a fine light blue. In order to carry on this
trade properly they have gone into a great variety of manu-
factures, to have sortments of goods to be exported, as all the
inkle smallwares, linnens of all kinds, small ironwares, glass
bottles, and earthenwares, which latter they make in great
perfection/' 2
That a certain progress was being made is shewn by the
growth of the population. According to a census which the
magistrates ordered to be taken in 1763 the number of inhabi-
tants was 28,300, an increase of 2754 in six years. At the same
time, from the list of the city's exports in 1771, given by Gibson
in his History, the list of goods actually of Glasgow origin is
by no means lacking in variety. It includes ale, books, coal,
cordage, glass, hats, linen handkerchiefs, wrought iron, tanned
leather, sail-cloth, soap, candles, woollens, and herring. 3
Wrought iron spades, hoes, axes, etc. was produced by the
Smithfield Company at the Nailree established in 1737 at the
Broomielaw, and exported to the annual value of 23,000. In
1748 there was set up on the site of the present James Watt Street
at the Broomielaw a factory for the making of glazed pottery, or
Delft-ware, so named from the place of its origin in Holland. 4
Hat manufacture appears to have been fairly extensive. To
Maryland 557 dozen were exported, and to Virginia 2971
2 Pococke's Tours in Scotland. Scottish History Society, p. 53. The
bishop's description of the appearance of Glasgow at that time is itself interest-
ing. " The town," he says, " is finely built of hewn stone. Most of the houses
are four stories high, and some five. The streets are extremely well paved,
and in the middle of them is a stone a foot broad, and in some a stone also
on each side, on which the people walk, but mostly in the middle. Several mer-
chants have grand houses. They have a fine old town house, and a beautiful
new town house adjoining to it. There are four markets opposite one another,"
in King Street, " which are fronted with hewn stone, with three pediments
over three doors, and false windows between them. . . . They have also a market
for herbs." Ibid. p. 48.
3 Gibson, History, p. 226. Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 145.
4 The earliest Glasgow pottery, however, was made at the old " Pig-house "
off Gallowgate. Burgh Records, 8th May, 1722.
GLASGOW'S FIRST BLEACHFIELD 297
dozen. 5 There were exported also, strangely enough, consider-
able quantities of snuff and manufactured tobacco. Similarly,
among the exports to the West Indies Jamaica, Barbadoes,
Granada, Antigua, Tobago, and other islands, there invariably
appears a considerable amount of refined sugar a case, one
might have thought, of sending coals to Newcastle.
This demand for goods to export by way of exchange acted
as a strong incentive to the setting up of new manufactures,
and under its influence one after another of the great industries
of Glasgow came into existence.
Archibald Ingram, mentioned above as one of the partners
in the inkle, or linen tape, manufactory, took an early part in
this enterprise. Linen printing, the forerunner of calico print-
ing had been introduced into Scotland in 1738, and in 1742
Ingram, with his brother-in-law, Glassford of Dougalston, and
other partners, started the first bleachfield and printwork at
Pollokshaws. He chose his site well, beside the main road into
the city, and between the Cart and the Auldhouse Burn, from
which abundance of water was to be had. There he persevered
against many difficulties, spinning his yarns and weaving his
cloth, training his bleacher and his colour mixer, and finding
patterns where he could. After some years of loss he began to
make headway. He levelled and irrigated his bleaching-green,
built printing shops and drying sheds, and improved his
printing processes, from wooden block to copper cylinder,
until his works covered thirty acres of land and represented a
great and thriving industry. 6 Ingram was the father of the
industry, which, before the end of the century included more
than thirty printfields around Glasgow. In civic affairs he was
5 There was a hat factory near St. Andrew's Church. Burgh Records, 3ist
Aug., 1769. Perhaps the largest hat-making firm was that of Thomas Buchanan
of Ardoch on Loch Lomondside, whose eldest son, John, was M.P. for Dun-
bartonshire from 1821 till 1826, and built Balloch Castle and Boturich Castle.
Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 184.
8 Brown, History of Glasgow, ii. 212 ; Burgh Records, i5th March, 1765 ;
Glasgow Mercury, 2oth Oct., 1789 advt.
298 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
twice Dean of Guild and twice a bailie, and at last, in 1762,
Lord Provost. He was also one of the founders of the Glasgow
Arms Bank. He died in 1770, and eleven years later, when the
Town Council straightened and laid out the old winding Back
Cow Loan, they honoured his memory by giving the thorough-
fare the name of Ingram Street. 7 His effigy is to be seen in a
bas-relief above the fire-place in the directors' room of the
Merchants' House. 8
About the time when Archibald Ingram started his print-
field at Pollokshaws another industry was begun in Glasgow,
which also reached considerable importance, and figures credit-
ably in Gibson's list of exports to the continent and the West
Indies. In 1756 seven individuals, " all framework knitters or
stocking-makers in Glasgow/' applied to the Town Council for
an act of incorporation to enable them to control the industry,
safeguard the quality of its products, and levy a fund for the
support of its decayed workers and their families. The diffi-
culties which were encountered in starting a new industry are
set forth in the petition. The petitioners say that when they
started their enterprise in 1741, " very few having knoulege
thereof," they were obliged to bring workmen from England,
Ireland, and other parts, that some of these workmen had fallen
sick and died, and that the expense of supporting them and
sending their families home had been considerable. Among the
powers granted by the Town Council was one of imposing a
fine upon every imperfect pair of stockings produced, while
every pair passed as perfect by the searcher was to be stamped
7 Cleland, Annals, i. 36, ii. 479. In 1763, shortly after Ingram's election
as Lord Provost, a serious difference arose in the Town Council over the method
of appointing a minister to a seventh city church, the re-erected Wynd Church.
In that controversy the Provost showed himself to be a " bonnie fechter,"
and incidentally his reasoned protest, and the answers of the opposite parties
stand among the best expositions of the question of church patronage which
was to have such notable effects at the Disruption eighty years later. Burgh
Records, loth and 26th Feb., i3th May, ist Sept., 2nd Nov., 1763 and onward.
8 Mitchell, Old Glasgow Essays, p. 117.
TURKEY RED DYEING 299
with the word GLASGOW. Precautions like these must have
helped materially to build up a business. Probably it was only
because of the fact that no man of outstanding ability was at
the helm of the enterprise that this industry did not extend and
prosper to the same extent as that of bleaching and printing. 9
Three years later the Town Council granted a similar seal of
cause to another company of citizens which seems to have been
partly charitable and partly industrial in its purpose, but which
marks the beginning of the dyeing business in the city. " The
Society for encouraging the dyeing of Mather Red " imported its
" mather," or madder, from Holland, while logwood was imported
in much larger quantities from America and the West Indies. 10
This madder dyeing industry was to be greatly improved
and developed later under the name of Turkey Red, and was to
be taken over and transferred to the Vale of Leven by a family
which, generation after generation, produced members of
remarkable sagacity, enterprise, and energy. The Stirlings
were a race which could count its descent through distinguished
representatives from the days of William the Lion. In 1537,
the head of the house, Robert Stirling of Lettyr, was slain in a
feud with his neighbour, Campbell of Auchenhowie. A century
later the family was securely settled in Glasgow, Walter Stirling
being chosen Dean of Guild in 1639 an d 1640, as well as com-
missioner to represent the town in the Scottish parliament and
the General Assembly. He married Helen, daughter of David
Wemyss, the first presbyterian minister of Glasgow, and widow
of Dr. Peter Lowe, founder of the Faculty of Physicians and
Surgeons. 1 Walter Stirling's son, John, was one of the Glasgow
9 Burgh Records, 6th May, 1756.
10 Ibid. 3oth July, 1759 ; Gibson, History, pp. 214, 218, 220.
1 Lowe is commemorated not only by his portrait in the hall of the Faculty
but by the inscription on his tombstone in the Cathedral burying-ground,
which describes him as a man
Who of his God had got the grace
To live in mirth and die in peace.
300 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
merchants condemned to imprisonment for three months in
Edinburgh Tolbooth for hearing outed ministers. John had
three sons, all distinguished citizens. The youngest, Walter of
Shirva was a magistrate, and ancestor of the Stirlings, baronets
of Faskine. The second, William, was a surgeon in Glasgow,
and one of the little company who set up a linen factory at
Graham's Hall near the city, described by McUre in 1736 as
" for weaving all sorts of Hollan-cloth wonderful fine, per-
formed by fine masters expert in the curious art of weaving,
as fine and well done as at Haarlem in Holland/' and " wonder-
fully whitened at Dalwhern's bleaching field/' 2 It was
Surgeon William's son, Walter Stirling, who founded and
endowed Stirling's Library, the first public library in Glasgow.
The eldest of the three brothers, John Stirling, was a bailie at
the time of the Shawfield riot, and, though out of town at the
time, was arrested with Provost Miller, carried to Edinburgh by
the dragoons and put on trial, and on the return home he
shared in the demonstration by the citizens, the jubilant
shouts and ringing of bells. Three years later he was chosen
Provost of the city. The provost and his brother Walter were
among the merchants named by McUre as " undertaking the
trade to Virginia, Carriby Islands, Barbadoes, New England,
St. Christopher's, Montserat, and other colonies in America."
One of the provost's sons, James, was minister of the Outer
High Church in the cathedral. The other, William, was the
founder of the great firm of William Stirling & Sons. He lived
in a plain two-storey house among woodyards and vegetable
gardens at the head of a close off Bell Street . 3 He began business
by selling on commission India cottons printed in London, 4 and
his shop, opposite the Blackfriars Wynd in High Street, was
greatly frequented by the Glasgow ladies eager to see the latest
fashion in wavelets and sprigs. Already in 1750, however, he
2 Dalquhurn in the Vale of Leven. 3 Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 124.
4 Brown's History of Glasgow. Advt. in Glasgow Journal, loth May, 1756.
WILLIAM STIRLING & SONS 301
had set up a printwork at Dawsholm, where the pure water
of the Kelvin admirably served his purpose. Twenty years
later he followed the lead of his uncle, Surgeon William, to the
Vale of Leven, where an even purer and more plentiful supply
of water was available from Loch Lomond Smollett's
Pure stream in whose translucent wave
My youthful limbs I wont to lave.
There he feued Cordale, beside Dalquhurn, from Lord Stonefield,
and started the famous printfield of William Stirling & Sons.
The " sons," Andrew, John, and James Stirling, were among
the founders of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. One of the
daughters, Elizabeth, became the wife of Professor Hamilton,
and mother of Thomas Hamilton, author of the fine romance,
" Cyril Thornton/' the Glasgow scenes and characters of which
may be set beside those of Smollett's " Humphry Clinker "
and Scott's " Rob Roy."
Of the three brothers, Andrew bought the estate of Drum-
pellier in West Monkland, which had belonged to his grand-
father, Provost Andrew Buchanan. It was probably that fact
which brought about the firm's purchase and development of
the Monkland Canal, already described. Like Richard Oswald
he proceeded to London, and founded there the first house for
the sale of Scottish goods on commission, and, with the Scots-
man's pride of ancestry, he claimed and obtained in the court
of the Lord Lyon the arms and supporters of the Stirlings of
Cadder, chiefs of the name. 5 James, the youngest brother,
purchased the estate of Stair in Ayrshire ; and John, who
chiefly carried on the family business, acquired the estate of
Tillie-Colquhoun, or Tilliechewan, in the Vale of Leven, and
built the present Tilliechewan Castle. He also occupied as a
town house, first the famous Shawfield Mansion in Trongate,
and afterwards the still finer Lainshaw Mansion, which was
5 Mitchell, Old Glasgow Essays, pp. 2, 8.
302 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
purchased by his firm in 1789, and now forms part of the
Royal Exchange.
When the country was overwhelmed by the great " slump "
of 1816, which followed the Napoleonic wars and our victory at
Waterloo, and when the bankruptcies in Glasgow in three
months amounted to more than two millions sterling, the great
firm came down. 6 John of Tilliechewan was dead by that time,
but his sons, William and George Stirling, set themselves in
earnest to bring back prosperity to the industry. They suc-
ceeded magnificently, and built up a great business at Cordale
and Dalquhurn, which flourished almost without pause for a
hundred years, till the " slump " following the Great War, and
our victory over the Germans in 1918, again caused their
chimneys almost to cease smoking for a time. One of the
principal means of that revival was the fortunate acquisition
in 1816 of the important process of Turkey Red dyeing, which
has since that year had its chief home in the Vale of Leven.
The introduction of this process is closely connected with the
fortunes of another notable Glasgow family.
6 Mitchell, Old Glasgoiv Essays, p. 127.
CHAPTER XXXIV
CUDBEAR, TURKEY RED, AND BLEACHING POWDER
A NATURAL sequence to the development of printfields at
Glasgow was the provision of dyes for their use. Of these dyes
the earliest had a history that is one of the romances of industry.
Among those who left the Highlands to seek fortune in
London in the middle of the eighteenth century was a member
of the Gordon clan. By trade he was a copper and tinsmith,
and one of the jobs he presently got to do was to repair a copper
boiler in a dye factory. The specialty of the place was the
making of Archella or Orseille dye, an ancient Italian craft
said to have been brought to England from Florence. As he
went about the factory it dawned upon Gordon that he had
seen the process carried out in his own native glen in the
Highlands. Its basis was the same crottal, or rock-lichen,
which he had gathered when a boy for the dyeing of the sheep's
wool at his mother's fireside, and the colour produced, which
had enriched the robes of the artistic Florentine and Roman
nobles, was in no way different from that which had stained the
plaids and arisaids of his own remote ancestors. He consulted
a nephew, Cuthbert Gordon, then studying chemistry, who
arrived at the same conclusion. Further, in the course of his
experiments the young man discovered a process for extracting
the dye in concentrated form. To this dye, in honour of the
discoverer, they gave his name in a modified style " Cudbear/'
and, proceeding to Leith, they started works for its manu-
facture, After a time, probably for want of sufficient capital,
33
304 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the business proved unsuccessful. Just then, however, it
attracted the attention of another Highlander.
George Macintosh was the fourth son of a farmer at
Roskeen in Ross-shire, where he was born in 1739. Attracted
by the rumour of fortunes being won in Glasgow, he made his
way south, and found employment as a junior clerk in the great
tannery on the Molendinar. That " prodigious large building/'
as McUre calls it, not only manufactured leather, it also manu-
factured shoes, on a great scale, employing in 1773 as many
as seven hundred shoemakers ; l and a considerable part of the
fortunes of its partners, among whom were some of the most
notable merchants of the city, such as Speirs of Elderslie,
Glassford of Dougalston, Bogle of Daldowie, and Campbell of
Clathic, had been realized from the profits of this business. By
the time he was thirty-four Macintosh was at the head of a
rival enterprise, with five hundred workmen in his shoe factory.
He had also an interest in a glasswork, and he engaged to some
extent in the West India trade. But he found his most con-
genial field presently in an undertaking which reminded him of
his early home in the north. In the Messrs. Gordon's process of
making dye from the lichens of the Highlands he saw the
possibilities of a great industry, and forthwith proceeded to
turn it to account.
Securing wealthy partners, he in 1777 purchased some
seventeen acres of land in the Easter Craigs, beyond the Molen-
dinar, and began the building of Glasgow's first " secret work."
The place was surrounded with a ten foot wall ; the mansion
which Macintosh built for his own residence within it he named
Dunchattan, in allusion to his own clan ; and around him
within the walls he established a colony of Highland workmen,
some of whom are said to have lived and died there without
learning the English language. The Gordons, uncle and nephew,
whom he brought from Leith, attended to the actual making of
1 Glasgow Herald, 2yth Nov. 1861.
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a
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3 fi
pa
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U 3
CUDBEAR AND TURKEY RED 305
the cudbear, while Macintosh himself was the business manager.
So great became the demand for the dye that the works con-
sumed 250 tons of the lichen annually, the supplies in this
country were exhausted, and the supplies from Norway and
Sweden rose in price from 3 to 25, and in war times even 45,
per ton. These countries are calculated to have received, while
their lichen was in demand, as much as 306, ooo. 2
The cudbear industry was liable to a very serious objection.
It could not be carried on without the creation of a highly
objectionable smell. The neighbourhood of Dunchattan House
and Ark Lane was for that reason the least salubrious about
the city, and it became a custom, in the drawing up of title-
deeds of property in Scotland, to forbid the manufacture of
cudbear to the feuar or purchaser.
But cudbear could only be used for the dyeing of silk and
wool. It was of no use for cotton fabrics, and as cotton began
to be imported in quantities from America, and the great
cotton spinning and weaving industry of Glasgow began to grow,
it became necessary to discover other means of imparting
colour. The most interesting of the new dyes was adrianople
or Turkey Red, so called from its oriental origin. The process
of dyeing this beautiful colour is believed to have come, first of
all, from India. It was unknown in this country till 1785, when
George Macintosh brought from France a M. Papillon, who had
practised the dyeing of Turkey Red at Rouen. In partnership
with his friend, David Dale, Macintosh set up at Barrowfield
the first Turkey Red dyework in Britain, and though Papillon
left in a couple of years, and accepted payments to explain the
process elsewhere, and though the Government announced that
it had purchased the secret from another quarter, the Barrow-
field works prospered amain, improved their processes, and
became another of the great industries of Glasgow. The secret
lay in the nature and number of the various baths in which the
2 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 68.
u H.G. in.
306 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
cotton was steeped to render it capable of absorbing and
retaining the actual madder dye, and it was preserved, like the
secret of making cudbear, behind high walls. The industry
grew, with the growth of the cotton spinning and weaving
industry, till the works were acquired in 1805 by one of the
greatest of the cotton magnates, Henry Monteith of Carstairs,
as an adjunct to his other enterprises. 3
It was this process of Turkey Red dyeing, introduced to
their works at Cor dale in the Vale of Leven in 1816 by William
Stirling & Sons, which, as already mentioned, restored with
conspicuous success the failing fortunes of that important
Glasgow firm.
At the same time, with the growth of the great cotton
industry, of which Glasgow was for half a century the head-
quarters in Britain, came a demand for improved means of
bleaching the fabric. The method of bleaching linen, so far,
had been primitive enough, and consisted in little more than
a slow weathering exposure to sunshine and the oxygen of the
atmosphere. Months were required for the process, and the
cloth suffered considerably while this was being carried out. A
good deal of bleaching was done on Glasgow Green and the
3 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, pp. 72-76. George Macintosh was a
partner with David Dale in the famous cotton mills of Spinningdale, on the
Dornoch Firth. He also took an active part in recruiting for the war against
France. His first offer, in 1797, to raise a volunteer corps of Highlanders,
was refused by the magistrates, who feared it might interfere with their own
efforts. But three years later he helped substantially to fill the ranks of the
Gordon Highlanders, of the i33rd and 78th regiments and the North Lowland
Fencibles, and after the peace of Amiens, when war with France again broke
out, he raised the Glasgow Highland Volunteers, 700 strong. Still later, in
1804, when the Canadian Fencibles mutineered in the city, it was his eloquent
appeal, in Gaelic, which brought them back to duty. His wife, Mary Moore,
was a sister of the author of Zeluco and aunt of Sir John Moore, and his son
was the celebrated chemist who in 1786 introduced the making of sugar of
lead, in 1797 set up the first Scottish alum work at Hurlet in Renfrewshire,
in 1799 with Charles Tennant set up the St. Rollox works for making chloride
of lime, discovered a process of converting iron into steel, and invented the
method of waterproofing cloth which still perpetuates his name. Strang,
Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 148 note.
CHARLES TENNANT 307
crofts below the Broomielaw. In Holland, to which the finer
fabrics were sent for the purpose, there were steepings in soured
milk, and boilings in caustic ley, which required months to
carry out. A great discovery was that of the bleaching power
of chlorine gas, made by Berthollet, the French chemist, but
the gas was too volatile and poisonous for industrial purposes.
It was known also that lime possessed strong bleaching powers,
but its use destroyed the durability- of the cloth, and was for-
bidden by law under heavy penalties. It was left to a young
bleacher in the neighbourhood of Glasgow to discover a practical
process. 4
Charles Tennant was the fourth son of a farmer at Glen-
Conner in Ayrshire, who had been present at the baptism of
Robert Burns. His eldest brother was the poet's correspondent
and " fellow-sinner/' and he himself was mentioned in one of
Burns's rhyming epistles
And no' forgettin' wabster Charlie,
I'm tauld he offers very fairly.
" Charlie " soon left the loom and, with a Paisley partner, set
up a bleachfield at Darnley, a few miles south of Glasgow.
There, it is said, he attracted the attention of a wealthy resident
at hand, who noticed his diligence as, early in the morning and
late at night, he persevered in his business of watering the cloth
spread on the grass to be whitened. This Mr. Wilson of Hurlet
invited the young man to his house, and presently Tennant
married his daughter, an occurrence which no doubt helped to
introduce him to the greater business circles of Glasgow. 5
By and by the young owner of the bleachfield, prosecuting
his enquiries and experiments, made an important discovery.
While lime and chlorine gas apart were equally impossible for
practical bleaching purposes, he found that they had a special
4 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 36.
5 Ibid. p. 42.
308 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
affinity for each other, and out of this combination he evolved
a bleaching liquor which proved entirely successful and satis-
factory. By its use the process which had previously required
months to carry out could be completed in a few hours.
The economy was prodigious. It is said that in 1789, the
year in which the discovery was introduced, no less a sum than
166,800 was saved to the linen bleachers in Ireland alone. In
the flush of their gratitude the Trustees for the Promotion of
the Irish Linen and Hemp Manufacture of Ireland voted 10,000
to the inventor, but not a penny of it reached Tennant/s hands. 6
Later, in 1802, the bleachers of Lancashire combined to resist
the payment for the use of the bleaching liquid demanded
under the patent. Lord Ellenborough, who tried the case,
declared Tennant's patent invalid by reason of some confusion
in its specification, and the fact that one of the materials had
been in previous use.
Meantime Tennant, with a number of partners, among
whom was Charles Macintosh, son of the introducer of cudbear
and Turkey Red, had set up a chemical factory at St. Rollox,
to the north of Glasgow. The company secured a new, more
carefully worded patent for bleaching powder to replace the
bleaching liquor, and, under the energetic direction of the
whilom " wabster Charlie/' the St. Rollox works grew till they
were the largest of their kind in Europe. 7 Out of these works
was built, in the course of half a century, a great family fortune.
Charles Tennant's grandson, another Charles, Lord Provost and
Member of Parliament for the city, was created a baronet, and
his son again received a peerage, taking the title, in allusion
to his ancestor's farm in Ayrshire, of Lord Glenconner. One of
his descendants became Duchess of Rutland, another Countess
of Oxford and Asquith, and a third Lady Colquhoun of Luss.
6 Burgh Records, 29th Jan., 26th Feb., 1801.
7 Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 40.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE COMING OF COTTON JAMES MONTEITH AND DAVID DALE
THE revolt of the American colonies in 1775, and the declaration
of their independence and the success of their arms which
followed, brought the great tobacco trade of Glasgow to an
end. The magnitude of the disaster may be judged from the
fact that in the year which ended on 5th January, 1772, the
amount of the " weed " imported by the merchants of the city
had been 46,055,139 Ib., 1 the value of which was about
2,250,000 sterling. In the course of half a century many great
businesses, and the fortunes of many families, had been built
up on the trade. Latterly, however, a number of the "Tobacco
Lords" had invested fortunes in plantations in Virginia. These
were confiscated by the Government of the new republic. In
consequence several of the great tobacco importing houses, like
Buchanan, Hastie & Co. and Andrew Buchanan & Co., came
down, and the estates of their partners were sold to pay their
debts. 2 Amid the general ruin and exasperation it is little
wonder that the city raised a battalion of men for the purpose
of " quelling the present rebellion in America/' The " rebels "
in America, however, were not put down, the estates of the
Glasgow " Tobacco Lords " in Virginia, and the Glasgow
tobacco trade itself, were gone for good, and the city had to
look elsewhere for its means of livelihood.
Fortunately this means was already in sight. As early as
1 Gibson's History of Glasgow, p. 222.
3 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 23. Supra, p. 293
309
3 io HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the year 1752 a new industry had been started by the weaving
of cambrics from yarns imported from France. At first the
fabric, named after Cambrai, the town of its original manu-
facture, was made of flax or linen, but soon a fine hard-spun
cotton was substituted, and out of this grew the industry which
was to be the staple business of Glasgow and the West of
Scotland for more than fifty years. In Gibson's list of Glasgow
imports for the year 1771 appears the item, " Cotton Wool
59,434 libs/' Of this supply only one hundred pounds came
from Virginia ; the rest was produced by the islands of the
West Indies. 3 The rebellion of the American colonies, therefore,
did not interrupt this trade, and left the spinners and weavers
on this side free to develop the new enterprise. To begin with,
the fabric produced was a mixture of linen and cotton, but in
1780 the first web of pure cotton was produced by James
Monteith of Anderston, and from that time the trade developed
with great rapidity.
It was to the sagacity and ability of James Monteith and
his sons that the cotton industry of Glasgow owed its chief
impetus in those early years. The Monteiths therefore must be
credited with the opening of the second great era of the city's
prosperity. The progenitor of the family was a small laird who
farmed his own land in the neighbourhood of Aberfoyle. The
region, unfortunately, lay within easy reach of the Highland
reivers, and as the laird refused to pay " Blackmail," or insur-
ance against plundering, to Rob Roy, his stock of cattle and
sheep was carried off again and again, till he was all but ruined,
and died of a broken heart. His son Henry, to avoid a like
experience, sold his small property, removed to the little village
of Anderston, near Glasgow, and began life there as a market
gardener.
Peden tf the prophet " in Covenanting times, is said to have
declared that Anderston Cross should one day become the
8 Gibson, History, pp. 213-222.
THE CAMBRIC INDUSTRY 311
centre of Glasgow. It was the descendants of the humble
market gardener who now settled there who were to give the
little cluster of thatched cottages its first lift towards the fulfil-
ment of that prophecy. During the Jacobite rising of 1745,
when Glasgow raised two battalions to fight the Highlanders,
Henry Monteith shouldered a musket and went out to fight his
old enemies. The defeat at Falkirk was a mortification to him
till the end of his days. It was this old gardener's son, James
Monteith, who gave his family a step to fortune. Handloom
weaving then afforded a comfortable subsistence, and Monteith,
forsaking the cultivation of syboes and kale, took to this. Next,
pursuing the higher branches of the craft, he took to importing
the finer yarns from France and Holland, becoming not only the
largest importer of these yarns at the time, but a cambric
manufacturer on a large scale. He further established a bleach-
field beside his own dwelling house and warehouse, at the north-
west corner of Bishop Street, about the spot where Bothwell
Street now crosses that older thoroughfare.
The cambric industry grew rapidly. From 29,114 yards in
1775 the export from Scotland rose to 83,438 yards in 1784,
representing, at an average value of 6s. 6d. no less a sum than
158,577 i8s. for the ten years. 4 Monteith's example was
followed by other manufacturers, among them Messrs. Grant &
Watson, who established a large factory at Manchester, an
ominous departure which led the way in the great migration
which ultimately transferred the whole cotton industry to
Lancashire. 5
James Monteith's sons, following in his steps, were helped
by circumstances to carry the cotton industry to success on a
still greater scale. The chief help to this development was the
4 Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 97. By 1787 there were 19 cotton mills
working in Scotland, by 1834 there were 134, of which 74 were in Lanarkshire
and 41 in Renfrewshire. Mackinnon, Soc. and Indus. Hist. p. 117.
5 The brothers Grant of this firm are said to have been the originals of
Dickens's Cheeryble brothers. Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 100.
312 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
power-loom. After a visit to a cotton-spinning mill near
Matlock in 1784, the Leicestershire clergyman, Edmund Cart-
wright, had conceived the idea of a weaving mill, and three
years later patented a power-loom. Though Cartwright lost
all his wife's fortune and his own in the attempt to run a power-
loom mill, his invention was sound. In 1793, Dr. Robertson, an
ingenious Glasgow practitioner, brought two looms from the
hulks in the Thames, where they were used to employ convict
labour, and he set them up in a cellar in Argyle Street, where the
power was supplied by a large Newfoundland dog, trained to trot
inside a drum. From this it was only a step to the employment
of water-power. The owners of a bleachfield at Milton near
Bowling set up forty looms driven by this means, and John
Monteith, the eldest of the old Anderston weaver's six sons,
having seen these, formed a company, and erected at Pollok-
shaws a factory containing two hundred looms. 6
The second son, James Monteith, began as a dealer in cotton
twist the material for weaving at Cambuslang. 7 By that
time the enterprising David Dale was in the field, and had
erected a cotton spinning mill at Blantyre on the upper Clyde.
In 1792, James Monteith bought this mill. The moment, how-
ever, was unfortunate. Within a year, trade and industry
everywhere were paralyzed by the effects of the French Revolu-
tion. With nothing before him but the prospect of ruin, Mon-
teith went back to David Dale and begged him to cancel the
transaction. But Dale would not consent, the bargain must
stand. In the emergency, driven by that excellent spur to
human effort, stern necessity, the young owner of the spinning
mill hit upon a plan. There had recently been set up in London
a method of selling linen and cotton cloth by " vendue," or
public auction. Monteith bethought him that here was a
means of disposing of his yarns if only they were made up into
8 Mitchell, Old Glasgow Essays, p. 380 note.
7 Jones's Directory, 1789.
HENRY MONTEITH ASSAULTED 313
cloth. This he proceeded to do, and within five years, while
the vogue and possibilities lasted, he realized a fortune of no
less than 80,000. 8
But it was the third of the brothers, Henry Monteith, who
was to raise the family to its pinnacle of success. When he was
no more than twenty, Henry Monteith was the owner of a great
weaving mill in Anderston. Like his brother he was met at first
by serious public troubles. In the face of strong competition
abroad and at home, it became necessary either to reduce wages
or to close the mills. Against any reduction of wages there was
an immediate outcry. Glasgow had its first taste of industrial
troubles, the contest between brains and brawn which has arisen
again and again from that day till this. The weavers' leaders
denounced the demand as unjust and oppressive, and endea-
voured to secure the passing of an Act of Parliament to fix
wages in the industry. When they did not succeed in this, they
broke into open riot. In Anderston the malcontents vented
their wrath on Henry Monteith by smashing the windows of his
warehouse. They even went further, and assaulted the young
mill-owner himself it was the year 1785, and he was no more
than twenty-one by cutting off his queue, an appendage then
as necessary to a young man of fashion as the wristlet watch
and the cigarette-lighter of to-day. 9
Another experience which he might have found still greater
reason to resent befell him at the instance of the young bloods
of Glasgow itself. The ruling clique in the city " Tobacco
Lords/' owners of plantations in Virginia and estates at home
were a very exclusive set, with high ideas of their own super-
iority and importance. Their sons and daughters, with less
experience of life, were probably more exclusive still. By these
young persons, Henry Monteith, being only the son of an
Anderston manufacturer, was not regarded as an equal.
8 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 112.
9 Ibid. p. 114.
314 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Accordingly when, on one occasion, he presumed to attend an
assembly, his appearance was resented, and next day a notice
appeared on one of the pillars of the Tontine news-room, inti-
mating that, if the young gentleman who attended the assembly
on the previous night appeared at another of these gatherings,
he would go out quicker than he came in. 10
But Henry Monteith was destined to go farther than any
of these young autocrats. He acted a chief part in the building
up of the cotton industry of Glasgow, and incidentally accumu-
lated a handsome fortune. He was chosen Lord Provost in
1815 and 1816, and again in 1819 and 1820. Both of these
periods were among the most difficult in the city's history ; the
first through the ruinous crash which followed Waterloo, the
second on account of the Radical risings and riots. Through
these crises he steered the affairs of Glasgow with caution and
moderation to safety, and so greatly gained public esteem that
he was chosen Member of Parliament for the Lanarkshire group
of burghs in 1821 and 1831. Following the fashion of so many
successful Glasgow men, he purchased the estate of Carstairs,
near Lanark, and there, in 1824, built the great mansion which
still stands, though it has twice changed ownership since his
day. And his dust lies, along with that of most of the burgess
aristocracy of the Glasgow of his time, in the Ramshorn church-
yard. 1
While the great weaving industry of Glasgow was thus
developed by the Monteiths, the business of spinning was
developed by a still more remarkable personage. David Dale
was the son of a small shopkeeper at Stewarton in Ayrshire,
and born in 1739. He began life as a herd boy, was apprenticed
to a weaver in Kilmarnock, and in 1763 became a clerk in a
Glasgow drapery store. Shrewdly noticing the difficulty ex-
perienced by the weavers in procuring yarns, he took to tramp-
10 Minute Book of the Board of Green Cloth, p. 116.
1 Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 115.
NEW LANARK MILLS 315
ing through the country and buying up the small quantities of
linen thread spun by the farmers' wives. From this, he pro-
ceeded to the importing of yarn from Holland. In a small
shop in Hopkirk's Land, a few doors above the Tolbooth in
High Street, which he rented at five pounds yearly, and shared
with a watchmaker, he carried on a rapidly growing trade.
With a partner, under the firm name of Campbell, Dale & Co.,
he became a manufacturer of inkle, or linen tape, and as a
partner in another company, Dale, Campbell, Reid & Dale, he
set up a factory for the production of cloth for the printfields. 2
Dale's great opportunity came, however, in 1783. Richard
Arkwright, formerly a barber at Bolton, had in 1775 invented
a machine for the spinning of yarn, known as the " spinning
jenny/' In this machine David Dale shrewdly recognized the
means of supplying yarns in greater quantities to the weaving
factories. Accordingly, when Arkwright paid a visit to Glas-
gow in 1783, to be banqueted by the city merchants, Dale
induced him to make an excursion to the Falls of Clyde at
Lanark. There the inventor was sufficiently impressed with
the water-power available, and was easily persuaded to join his
cicerone in the project of setting up a great spinning mill at
the spot. A boggy level in the river gorge was secured from
Lord Braxfield, 3 and in March, 1786, the famous spinning mills
of New Lanark began work. 4 In five years, four mills were
busy on the spot, and 1334 men, women, and children were
employed. Among these were two hundred Highland emigrants
driven back by stress of weather, and landed destitute at
Greenock, as well as other Highlanders, and children from
2 Ibid. p. 49 ; Old Glasgow Essays, p. 41.
3 Stevenson's Weir of Hermiston.
4 The New Lanark mills were the second to be set up in Scotland. The
first were established by an English company at Rothesay in 1778 Senex,
Old Glasgow, p. 323. Steam was not used for the driving of a cotton mill till
1792. It was first employed in that year in the mill managed by William
Scott at Springfield, near the site of the present Kingston Dock. Ibid. p. 352.
316 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
poorhouses and orphan asylums, all of whom Dale fed, clothed,
and housed till they attained skill enough to earn their living.
Another venture, farther afield, in which David Dale was
concerned, to manufacture yarns for the Glasgow weaving
factories, proved less successful. The Highlands just then were
hard hit by the change of the times. The old raiding and
reiving days were over, and the people had settled down on
their small holdings, which were divided and subdivided as
children and grandchildren grew up and married. The glens
and valleys were ruinously over-peopled, and the poor soil was
scourged with crop after crop of oats and barley, till it was not
worth sowing. When the crops failed, as they often did in that
cold northern region, the people were at once in starvation, and
forced sometimes down to the sea beaches to eke out a sub-
sistence from the shellfish of the rocks and sands. With a view
to helping these poor people by the introduction of an industry,
and also, no doubt, to secure an advantage from the cheapness
of labour (an able-bodied man's wage was sixpence to eightpence
per day), David Dale and George Macintosh, of Cudbear fame,
in 1791 built a village and factory on the Dornoch Firth,
to which they gave the name of Spinningdale. Everything
seemed to promise success, but the enterprise failed by reason
of the habits of the people, who could not be induced to settle
down to regular work indoors. It was no work for men, that
spinning of thread, when the trout were leaping in the rivers
and the black-cock calling on the moor. Spinningdale had to
be abandoned. The mill was sold for a trifle to an individual
who insured it against fire, and it was burned down shortly
afterwards. 5
David Dale, however, with various partners, established
other mills, such as those at Blantyre, at Catrine, at Oban, at
Stanley, and the industry of cotton manufacture, of which he
was one of the chief founders, became the staple, not of Glasgow
5 Curiosities of Citizenship, pp. 76-82.
THE CAUNEL KIRK 317
alone, but of every town and village in the West of Scotland. 6
Richard Arkwright was not far wrong when, on returning to the
south after his visit to Lanark with David Dale, and on being
twitted with his original occupation as a barber, he told his
tormentors that he had put a razor into the hands of a Scotsman
who would shave them all.
Curiously enough, both James Monteith and David Dale
were, in religious matters, of the type which was to be character-
istic of the weaving fraternity in the West of Scotland till the
last. Monteith began as an elder in the Anti-Burgher church
in the Havannah, which had split from the Original Secession
church in Shuttle Street. The Anti-Burghers, however,
quarrelled among themselves, and censured him for circulating
a pamphlet advocating a more Christian spirit, and for the
sin of " promiscuous hearing " when one Sunday, on the way
to service, he and his wife were forced by rain to take refuge
in the Tron church. Accordingly he headed the little band
who in 1770 erected in Anderston a small Relief Kirk. David
Dale, again, disapproving of a minister appointed by the Town
Council, left the Church of Scotland, and presently, finding
none of the existing dissenting bodies exactly to his taste,
founded a church of his own, known afterwards as the Old
Scotch Independents. For this body a place of worship was
erected in Greyf riars Wynd by one Paterson, a candle-maker, and
for this reason it was known as "the Caunel Kirk." To the con-
gregation, which grew in numbers and influence, Dale acted as
pastor till the end of his life. To qualify for this work he actually
taught himself to read the Scriptures in Hebrew and Greek.
Because of his religious practices, Dale was hooted and
jostled in the streets, and saw his kirk invaded and the service
ridiculed by unruly mobs. But he lived to be acclaimed as a
6 By the end of the century Scotland consumed 6,500,000 Ib. of cotton
and in its manufacture employed 181,753 persons and 312,000 spindles. The
Industrial Revolution in Scotland, by Henry Hamilton, 1932.
318 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
great public benefactor. For charitable purposes it was said
he gave his money " by sho'els fu/ " and in the years of stress
between 1782 and 1799 he chartered ships and imported grain
which he sold cheap to the poor. 7
Besides his spinning mills, David Dale was concerned
in many enterprises. Among these was coal-mining in the
unlucky Barrowfield, and, along with George Macintosh, as
already described, the great Turkey Red dyeing industry in
the same region. In 1783, he was entrusted with the first
agency of the Royal Bank in Glasgow, and in 1791 and 1794
was chosen a magistrate of the city. Among the public insti-
tutions which he helped to found were the Chamber of Com-
merce, the first of its kind, in 1783, and the Humane Society,
of which he was president in 1792 and 1793. 8 In 1798 he
removed bank and store from Hopkirk's Land to the south-east
corner of St. Andrew's Square, the new commercial centre of
the city, and in his town house in Charlotte Street at hand,
built for him by the famous architect Robert Adam, and at
his country house, Rosebank, near Cambuslang, he practised
a handsome hospitality of which many traditions remain. 9
When he died at last, in 1806, his funeral was attended by a
7 Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 55 ; Old Glasgow Essays, p. 43.
8 Cleland's Annals, ii. p. 155.
9 One notable memory of the Charlotte Street house is recounted by Senex.
On 1 8th November, 1795, Dale had invited a party of distinguished Edinburgh
and Glasgow citizens to dine. While arrangements for the feast were being
made the waters of the Clyde began to ooze through the floors of the kitchen
and other underground apartments. One of the greatest floods of the river
had begun. At the same time the Monkland Canal burst its banks, and its
waters, pouring down the channel of the Molendinar, submerged the kitchen
to a depth of four feet. The servants fled for their lives, but managed to save
the materials of the dinner. In the emergency two neighbours lent their
kitchens, and the cooking proceeded. The wine cellar also was flooded, but
a porter was found, who waded in, breast high, with Dale's eldest daughter,
then aged sixteen, on his back, to point out the desired binns. As a result
everything was ready for the guests w r hen they arrived, and the mirth of the
party was increased rather than diminished by the peculiar circumstances
of the occasion. Old Glasgow, p. 119.
ROBERT OWEN, SOCIALIST 319
great cortege of gentle and simple, who laid him among the
mercantile aristocracy of the city, by the eastern wall of the
Ramshorn Kirkyard.
Dale left no son, but the eldest of his five daughters married
the Welshman, Robert Owen, whose social experiments at New
Lanark and New Orbiston in this country and New Harmony
in America remain famous as early attempts at practical
Socialism.
CHAPTER XXXVI
PROVOST PATRICK COLQUHOUN AND THE FIRST CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE
IN the great debacle of the tobacco trade of Glasgow which
followed the revolt of the American colonies there was one man
of original ideas who saw the advantages which could hardly
fail to accrue from the formation of a parliament of business
men devoting its attention to the commercial and industrial
interests of Glasgow and the West of Scotland. Owing, per-
haps, to the fact that the latter part of his life was spent in
London, Patrick Colquhoun has hardly received the honour
his services deserved in Glasgow itself. In his ideas and plans
he was no doubt ahead of his time, but there can be no question
that both the city and the country at large have profited very
solidly from the conceptions of his clear and able mind.
A scion of the ancient and honourable family of Luss,
Colquhoun was born at Dunbarton in the year of the last
Jacobite rising, 1745. At the grammar school there, where he
was educated, his father had been a schoolfellow of Tobias
Smollett, the novelist. An orphan, at the age of sixteen the
lad was sent to Virginia to seek his fortune, and so well did he
make use of his opportunities that five years later he was able
to return to Glasgow and begin business on his own account.
Perhaps there was a sufficiently romantic reason for his early
return to Scotland, since, in the same year, though no more
than twenty-one, he married a cousin, a daughter of James
Colquhoun, Provost of Dunbarton. He prospered greatly in
320
DAVID DALE, 1739-1806.
From medallion by James Tassie.
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 321
business, and in 1777, along with Messrs. Cookson of New-
castle, established at Verreville, near the Broomielaw, the first
crystal factory in Scotland. 1 By that time he was taking a
notable part in public affairs, and in 1778 he was one of the
twelve chief subscribers of funds for raising the Glasgow
regiment for suppressing the rebellion in America. Three years
later, in 1781, he was one of the chief promoters of that inter-
esting enterprise, the Tontine exchange and assembly rooms,
and in the following year he was chosen Lord Provost of the
city. 2 About the same time he purchased part of the estate of
Woodcroft on the Kelvin, named his possession Kelvingrove,
and built the fine mansion which stood there till 1912, and for
many years housed the civic museum now transferred to the
neighbouring Art Galleries. Provost Colquhoun' s estate to-day
forms the greater part of the beautiful Kelvingrove Park.
The achievement by which Colquhoun must be chiefly
remembered in Glasgow, however, was the founding of the
Chamber of Commerce. The subscription list of that institu-
tion contains the names of all the notable citizens of that time
in Glasgow, Paisley, Port-Glasgow, and Greenock. Colquhoun
signs twice, for himself personally, and " as provost for the
town of Glasgow/' 3 As Chairman at the first meeting of the
Chamber in the Town HaU, on ist January, 1783, he sub-
mitted a draft of the proposed constitution, and there can be
little doubt that he was himself the originator of the whole
scheme. The articles of the constitution outline the purposes
of the association. These were to consider plans and systems
for the protection and improvement of the trade and manu-
factures of the country, especially those interesting to the
members ; to formulate rules for the guidance of foreign
traders ; to discuss memorials presented by members on
1 Mitchell, Old Glasgow Essays, p. 381.
2 Burgh Records, 8th Oct., 1881 and on.
3 Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 161.
X H,G, III,
322 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
matters of trade or manufacture ; to support members in
negotiating business with the Board of Trustees, the King's
Ministers, or Parliament ; to procure redress of grievances
suffered by any trade or manufacture carried on by members ;
to consider all matters affecting the Corn Laws ; to take
cognizance of everything connected with commerce, to point
out new sources of prosperity, to oppose Parliamentary action
injurious to Scottish trade and manufacture, to maintain
friendly relations with the Convention of Royal Burghs and the
Board of Trustees for Fisheries and Manufactures, in order to
secure the ear of those authorities. 4
The Glasgow Chamber of Commerce thus founded was the
first to be established in the kingdom. It was not till December,
1785, nearly three years later, that Edinburgh followed the
example of the western city, and founded its own Chamber.
But from the first the institution brought into existence by the
foresight of Patrick Colquhoun has continued to exert a most
useful influence in guiding and modifying public action and
opinion in matters regarding the business interests of the
community. Its membership, comprising always the leaders of
the city's commerce and industry, has always commanded
attention and respect, and in many a commercial crisis its
considered, sane opinions have proved of the greatest value. 5
There can be no doubt that, in the words of its early secretary,
Dugald Bannatyne, " the usefulness of the Chamber has been
greatly increased by its steadily and undeviatingly confining
its attention to questions of a commercial nature, excluding
the consideration of other matters, which, however important
or interesting, would by their introduction have led to dis-
sension and have ultimately prevented it from fulfilling its
4 Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 170.
6 The Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, to which so many references have
been made in these pages, was published in 1881 by George Stewart, as a
memorial volume on the occasion of the approaching centenary of the Glasgow
Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures, of which he was librarian.
PATRICK COLQUHOUN'S PROJECTS 323
original and peculiar object of representing the matured
opinions of this large and enlightened community on commer-
cial subjects." 6
This child of his initiative, to which the city and the
country at large have owed so much, was to exert before long
a very decisive influence upon the career of Patrick Colquhoun
himself. His business energies were chiefly directed to the
development of the cotton and muslin industry. Taking counsel
with the cotton merchants of Lancashire, he drew up a memorial
on certain difficulties of the trade, which he presented to Pitt
in 1788. Following this up with a number of prolonged visits
to London, he secured the passing of measures which greatly
helped the development of the business. He then visited
Flanders and Brabant, and opened up a market there for
British muslins. For these valuable services he was formally
thanked by the cotton manufacturers of Lancashire and
Glasgow. Further, in view of his services, he was appointed by
the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce to represent the mercantile
interests of Glasgow in London, and, proceeding to the south
in 1789, he established agencies in London and Ostend for the
sale there of Scottish manufactures.
From that time Colquhoun was identified rather with
London than with Glasgow. In 1792, through the influence of
Henry Dundas, afterwards Viscount Melville, he was appointed
a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, and Essex,
and immediately he set himself to the solution of some of the
most urgent social problems of the time. In 1794 he published
a pamphlet" Observations and Facts relative to Public-houses "
which contained many curious particulars of the London liquor
trade, with a number of useful suggestions for its regulation.
Next, in the same year came " A Plan for affording Relief to
the Poor," who had been forced to pledge their tools during
the severe weather and scarcity of that time. This he followed
6 Ibid. p. 171.
324 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
in 1796 with the establishment of a society for carrying out his
pamphlet's recommendations. In 1795, when political dis-
content, inflamed by the revolution in France, and aggravated
by the high price of food, was becoming a danger to the state,
he took a lead in establishing a soup kitchen in Spitalfields
the first institution of the kind in this country. In connection
with this enterprise he published " An Account of the Meat
and Soup Charity, with Suggestions as to how a Small Income
may be made to go far."
Presently he was to distinguish himself in quite a new field.
At that time the police system of the Metropolis was still of
a somewhat primitive character. It was the time of the old
night-watchmen and Bow Street runners who figure in the
literature of the period. Sir Robert Peel, with his institution
of a disciplined police the " peelers " and " bobbies " who
took their slang names from his own was yet thirty years
ahead, and the prevention and punishment of crime were still
more or less problematical. Colquhoun made a thorough
examination of the system or want of system in use, and in
three months produced his " Treatise on the Police of the
Metropolis/' This work, with its many interesting discussions
of crime, and with its practical recommendations, attracted
immediate attention, and contributed substantially to the
development of our modern police system. Among the sug-
gestions which show the modern character of the work are
recommendations for the appointment of a public prosecutor
and for the employment of convicts on reproductive labour.
In recognition of its merits, Glasgow University conferred on
the author of the work the degree of Doctor of Laws in this
case more appropriately bestowed than in many instances.
The treatise had also another immediate result. At the
instance of the London merchants and shipowners and the
Government, who all lost heavily by the depredations of river
plunderers, Colquhoun devised a further plan for the prevention
PATRICK COLQUHOUN'S TREATISES 325
of crime. He framed a scheme for a special river police, which
worked successfully and proved of the greatest use in protecting
property on the Thames. In particular it earned the gratitude
of the West Indian planters, and as a result its author was
appointed official agent of certain of the West Indian colonies.
Later, also, in 1803 the Hanseatic republics of Lubeck, Bremen,
and Hamburg appointed him their London Resident and
Consul General.
Meanwhile in 1798 the ex- Lord Provost of Glasgow had
been appointed a stipendiary magistrate at the Queen Square
office in Westminster, a position which he continued to hold
for twenty years. In that position he came still more closely
into touch with the problems of the lower strata of the popu-
lation. Recognizing the importance of education for the safe
solution of social problems he carried on in Westminster a
school on Dr. Bell's system, and described its working in a
pamphlet " A New and Appropriate System of Education for
the Labouring People/' Also in two further pamphlets
' The State of Indigence/' published in 1799, and " A Treatise
on Indigence "in 1806, he propounded several useful suggestions
much in advance of their time a charity organization society,
a savings bank, a Board of Education, a system of reproductive
work for the unemployed, a uniform national poor rate, and
a recorded description of criminals. In his last and most
ambitious work, " A Treatise on the Wealth, Power and
Resources of the British Empire in every Quarter of the
World/' published in the year of Waterloo, he predicted the
existence of a great surplus population following the close of
the war, and recommended as an outlet and relief the idea,
new at that time, of emigration to the colonies of the Empire
abroad.
Though so long settled in London, Colquhoun did not forget
the country of his birth. When he died at Westminster in
1820 he " mortified " 200 for the poor of certain parishes in
326 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Dunbartonshire. 7 A monument with an elaborate inscription, in
Westminster Abbey, commemorates his many useful and far-
sighted activities, and thus sums up his character : " His
mind was fertile in conception, kind and benevolent in dis-
position, bold and persevering in execution."
Patrick Colquhoun has been called the greatest of the lord
provosts of Glasgow, and though so much of his life was spent,
and so much of his work done in London, there can be no
question that his character and career brought honour through-
out to this northern city, and his name must remain notable in
its records as that of the founder of two of our most famous
and useful institutions.
7 Irving, T., 123. In 1818, when Colquhoun retired from the magistracy,
an account of his career, from the pen of his son-in-law, Dr. Yates, appeared
in the " European Magazine." See also Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 211 note.
CHAPTER XXXVII
GLASGOW IN 1783
THE readiness with which over two hundred well-known mer-
chants and manufacturers signed the document which led to
the setting up of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce in 1783 is not
difficult to understand. For more than twenty years, since the
accession of George III. and the retirement of the elder Pitt,
these men of business had seen their interests sacrificed in the
doctrinaire schemes of party politics. In particular, during the
last seven years, they had seen the territory won in America by
Britain's military prowess, and the prosperous trade built up
by its business enterprise, thrown away and destroyed by the
incompetence and stupidity of politicians. It was time, the
projectors of the chamber felt, that a new body should be
formed to attend specially to the interests of commerce, and
to bring the momentum of united influence to bear in quarters
in which the mere appeal of individuals might be disregarded.
Among institutions which already existed, the Convention of
Royal Burghs was too wide in its scope to perform the partic-
ular services required, and the Board of Trustees for Fisheries
and Manufactures was handicapped by the fact that it was
itself under Government control. The Chamber of Commerce
had a character and practical purpose of its own ; very wisely
it kept strictly to that purpose, and as a result, from that
day till the present it has furnished valuable service and
proved a powerful influence in protecting and furthering the
interests of Glasgow's industry and trade. If proof of this
327
328 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
were needed it might be found in the fact that Chambers of
Commerce now exist in every town of consequence in the
United Kingdom.
Notwithstanding the convulsion of the American war,
Glasgow was at that time unabated in courage, and full of new
enterprise. Its great enterprise, of course, was the deepening
of the river, but this was already bringing its reward. In 1774,
the river tolls and dues were let for as much as 1300. 1 As a
result of the improved navigation, and the increasing ability
of vessels to sail up the river to the Broomielaw the Town
Council felt less need for controlling the affairs of Port-Glasgow.
Accordingly it entrusted the inhabitants of that place with the
appointment of a bailie and a town council of their own. 2
Although as late as 1780 the Glasgow newspapers contained
advertisements of summer quarters to let in the Rottenrow,
and the Deanside or Meadow well, now under the pavement at
88 George Street, was a rural spot, 3 the city was extending
rapidly. In 1777, the revenue had increased to 6000, and the
population which in that year was 43,000 4 had grown by 1783
to 44,000. 5 In that year a bill was promoted in parliament to
extend the city's royalty over the lands of Ramshorn and
Meadowflat recently acquired from Hutchesons' Hospital. 6 To
afford more easy access to the congregations worshipping in the
Cathedral or High Church the first lowering of the steep ascent
1 Burgh Records, igth July.
2 Ibid. 6th Sept., 1774 ; 2nd Oct., 1781. The running of Port-Glasgow was,
in fact, becoming a rather expensive luxury for the parent city. By 1786 the
dry dock there had cost the Town Council ^12,041 6s. 4d., and the annual
revenue from it was no more than gS, while the harbour had cost ^4242 173. id.
and its yearly revenue was only ^30. The Town Council resolved to sell the
dry dock and other Port-Glasgow properties in 1793. The dock, however,
was not disposed of till fifteen years later. (Burgh Records, 2jih July, 1786 ;
28th Jan., 1793 ; 6th Dec., 1804 ; i3th Feb., 1807 ; 2oth Oct., 1808.)
3 Macgeorge, Old Glasgow, p. 145.
4 Gibson, History, pp. 124, 129. 5 Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 139.
6 Burgh Records, 22nd Jan.
FIRST GLASGOW POST OFFICE 329
at the upper part of High Street the Wyndhead or Bell o'
the Brae, famous for the traditional encounter of Sir William
Wallace with the English garrison of the Bishop's castle was
effected in 1772,' and in 1779, it was found necessary to provide
for the growing population in the Jamaica Street region by
building a new church on the site of the ancient chapel of St.
Theneu St. Enoch's Church in St. Enoch's Square. 8 It is true
that in 1780 the Town Council found it advisable to give up the
project of the Monkland Canal, as a means of bringing an ample
and cheap supply of coal to the city 9 ; but in the following
year it gave facilities, in the way of a low ground rent, to the
enterprise of certain public-spirited citizens for the erection of
the new exchange and assembly rooms famous for a hundred
years as " the Tontine." 10 Business was still a leisurely affair.
From the small post-office, twelve feet square, in Gibson's
Wynd, now Princes Street, letters were delivered through a hole
in the wall in the neighbouring close, and packets posted in
Glasgow on Saturday did not reach London till the morning of
7 Ibid, igth Aug., 1772. A further levelling of the Bell o' the Brae was
carried out eleven years later (Ibid. 23rd July, 1783).
8 2oth Oct., 1779. When St. Enoch's Church was finished the Town Council
applied " to have all the churches in the city, not properly erected, put upon
the legal establishment." Previously these churches, except the High Church
and the Barony Church, had been parish churches only by presumption of
the Town Council. Ibid, zjth Dec., 1781.
9 Ibid. 28th June, 1780. See supra, p. 282.
10 Ibid, igih Oct., 1781 : "The Tontine Building," by C. D. Donald, in
Regality Club Papers, ii. 75. The " Tontine Society " acquired the shops
below and the ground behind the new Town Hall and Assembly Room, with
the Assembly Room itself, for an annual ground rent of ^180. Additional
pieces of ground were afterwards from time to time secured, and the Society
built on them a coffee room, with a tavern and hotel, offices for brokers, and
a sample room. Ultimately the Society was granted a seal of cause by the
Town Council. Burgh Records, 24th Sept., 1781 ; 5th July, 1784 ; 19 June,
1792. The new Tontine Hotel and Coffee-room were opened on i3th May,
1784, with the most splendid ball that had ever been given in Glasgow. The
guests included the Lords of Justiciary then in the city, with most of the
Glasgow aristocracy, and the nobility and gentry of the neighbouring counties.
Senex, Old Glasgow, p. 303.
330 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the following Thursday. 11 At the same time the stage coach
which set out from the Black Bull Inn for Edinburgh on
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, took a whole day to reach
that place. 1 It was not till 7th July, 1788, that the first stage
coach direct from London, with its four sweating horses, drew
up at the gateway of the Saracen's Head Inn. 2 Nevertheless it
is significant that in 1783, the year in which the Chamber of
Commerce was established, the first Glasgow directory, Tait's,
was published. Like McUre's History, of half a century's
earlier date, that little volume is one of the prizes of the book
collector to-day. Also, in the same year a newspaper was
started which was destined to outlive all its Glasgow contem-
poraries. The Glasgow Journal started in 1741, of whose
pusillanimous first editor mention has already been made, was
still doing well. Of later date were the short-lived Glasgow
Courant of 1747, with the Chronicle of 1766, and the Mercury
of 1775, when in 1783 John Mennons, an Edinburgh printer,
migrating to Glasgow, started The Glasgow Advertiser. In
1801 the paper changed its name to The Glasgow Herald, under
which title it thrives as a leader of thought and mirror of the
interests of the West of Scotland at the present time. 3
The newspapers of the day were not without local events of
importance to report, and two of these which occurred in 1782,
offered serious interruption to the regular life of the city. In
11 Glasgow Past and Present, ii. 104. Glasgow Mercury, i3th Nov., 1782.
It was only in 1781 that the Town Council took steps to have a direct post
from London, via Carlisle and Moffat, to arrive in Glasgow as early as the post
arrived in Edinburgh, and to have six posts from London weekly, as Carlisle
and Dumfries already had. By this means Glasgow would receive its letters
from London on the afternoon of the fourth day. Burgh Records, 28th Sept.,
1781 ; 2nd April, 1782.
1 MacGeorge, Old Glasgow, p. 276.
2 Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 162. The journey could then be done
in sixty hours. Twenty-five years earlier the monthly coach from London to
Edinburgh took eighteen days to the journey.
8 Michael Graham, The Early Glasgow Press. Macgeorge, p. 285. Mac-
kinnon, Social and Industrial History of Scotland, p. 202.
COTTON WORKERS' RIOTS 331
that year took place the greatest Clyde flood on record. In the
Briggate the water rose till it stood three feet deep at the west
end and nine feet deep at the east end. 4
Inconvenient and disagreeable as this occurrence must have
been, it was far exceeded in seriousness and results by an event
of another sort. This was one of the earliest of the serious
clashes between employers and employed which from first to
last have been the most regrettable features of industrial life
in this country. Attracted by the high wages paid in the cotton
spinning and weaving industry, considerable numbers of
Highlanders and other country folk had made their way to
Glasgow. No great amount of training was needed for the
work, and by reason of the abundant supply of labour wages
fell. To resist this fall the workers combined, and, on the
masters refusing their demands, they struck work. Something
like the modern " picketing " was done, for the strikers forced
their fellows who had accepted piecework on the masters' terms
either to return the cotton or burn it. The trouble reached its
climax with a riot in the streets, in which the military were
called out to restore order, something like a pitched battle was
fought in Duke Street, and several workmen were killed. A
number of others were arrested and punished, and the move-
ment collapsed. 5 It was in a similar riot three years later that,
as already mentioned, Henry Monteith was attacked, and
suffered the indignity of having his queue cut off by his assail-
ants. From that time onward, indeed, mobs and riots took
4 Until the lower channel of the river was deepened the lower parts of the
city were frequently submerged by serious floods. In 1712 the inhabitants
of Briggate and Saltmarket had to be taken off in boats. In 1746 the whole
of the Laigh Green was covered. In 1782 provisions were delivered by boat
in King Street and Briggate, the river rose twenty feet, and the village of
Gorbals became an island. In 1808 the flood ran like a mill-race, and a young
man navigating a boat over Glasgow Green was drowned. In 1816 the Clyde
rose seventeen feet, and the Green was again submerged. Macgeorge, Old
Glasgow, p. 238 ; Senex, Glasgow Past and Present, i. 81, 82 ; Old Glasgow and
its Environs, pp. 60 and 119; Scots Magazine, i^th March, 1782. Supra, p. 318.
5 Mackinnon, Social and Industrial History, p. 160.
332 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
place at rather frequent intervals a result of the new indus-
trialized conditions in the city. Thus in 1787 the magistrates
gave to each of the soldiers employed in quelling a recent riot
a pair of stockings and a pair of shoes, and in the following year
they paid 11 195. for repairing window shutters and glass
broken by a mob at the cotton mill of Spreull, McCaul &
Company in John Street. 6
Such occurrences were among the results of a new order of
things which the promoters of the Chamber of Commerce no
doubt felt might to some extent be regulated by the institution
which they proposed.
The promotion of the Chamber was also possibly quickened
by the opportunity which just then arose for revision and
improvement of the bankruptcy law. In 1782 the old law was
about to lapse, and in the absence of a body better adapted to
deal with the matter the Town Council took action. Under the
guidance of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, the celebrated
banker, and James Ritchie of Busby, one of the " four young
men " of Glasgow merchant fame, it appealed for a law requir-
ing a full and fair surrender of bankrupt estates, including the
heritable property of merchants and traders, the abolishing of
unjust preferences, the vesting of management in the creditors
alone, and the grant of a discharge to a fair bankrupt. 7 From
these suggestions something may be gathered of the short-
comings of the law previously existing with regard to bank-
ruptcy in Scotland.
Just then the affairs of Glasgow were threatened with a
further complication. Following the surrender of Lord Corn-
wallis and his whole British army to the Americans under
Washington at Yorktown in March, 1782, the downfall of
Britain seemed at hand. Ireland, with forty thousand volun-
teers in arms, was clamouring for independence, and Britain
6 Burgh Records, 27th Sept., 1787 ; Macgregor's History of Glasgow, p. 371.
7 Ibid. 5th March, 1782.
THREATENED IRISH INVASION 333
was without a soldier to oppose an invasion. In the emergency
the new British Government called upon the principal towns
to arm their inhabitants, and the Lord Provost of Glasgow,
Patrick Colquhoun, received a letter from Lord Shelburne,
desiring the Town Council to take measures for that purpose. 8
The request cannot be said to have been received with enthus-
iasm by the main body of the citizens, who seemed to regard
any interruption of their business pursuits as a matter not to
be thought of. They also regarded the enrolment of manual
workers as undesirable, probably for the same reason. The
Lord Provost, however, informed Lord Shelburne that a
number of the younger inhabitants, who could afford to buy
arms and to spend time in learning military exercises, were
willing to take up the project. 9 At the same time, as if to gloss
over this rather lukewarm compliance, the inhabitants declared
their resolution " to give their firm and steady support to
Government, more especially in times of difficulty and danger " ;
Lord Shelburne, his son, and his chaplain were made honorary
burgesses of the city, and the Town Council increased its offer
of bounty to seamen joining the royal navy to 3 35. for an
A.B., 2 2s. for an ordinary seaman, and i is. for a landsman. 10
A few months later, when the Government proposed to
meet the difficulty by raising a militia, the Town Council
appealed to the Royal Burghs of Scotland to oppose the bill
in parliament, on the ground that it was against the interests
of the manufacturers. 1 In this matter the community of
Glasgow does not make a very heroic appearance.
Fortunately, however, the crisis in the nation's affairs had
already passed. A month after the surrender of Lord Corn-
wallis at Yorktown, Admiral Rodney had secured the seas for
Britain by his great victory over De Grasse and the French
fleet in the West Indies, the demands of Ireland had been
8 Ibid. i2th June, 1782. 9 Ibid. 26th June, 1782.
10 Ibid. 26th June, 22th July, 1782. x Ibid, gth and 2Qth Jan., 1783.
334 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
settled by the grant of a separate parliament in Dublin, Sir
John Elliot had defied and defeated the attempt of France and
Spain to storm Gibraltar, by the agency of Oswald of Auchen-
cruive the preliminaries of a treaty of peace with the United
States of America had been signed, and an end of the war with
the European powers was in sight. Though the Bourbon courts
believed that Britain's position as a world power was at an end,
the fact was really exactly the opposite. Through the flash of
inspiration which had come to James Watt on Glasgow Green,
this country was on the eve of becoming the great manufactur-
ing workshop of the world. The younger Pitt had entered
parliament, and in December 1783, at the age of 24, became
prime minister, and began a career which was to steer the
nation triumphantly through all the perils of Revolution in
Europe.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
HARD TIMES, TOWN PLANNING, AND INSTITUTION BUILDING
" IT was discovered early in this period," says Jupiter Carlyle,
" that the revolt and final disjunction of our American colonies
was no loss to Great Britain, either in respect of commerce or
war." x Meanwhile, just before the war ended, there was much
serious distress in Glasgow. In rural districts the population
lives largely by the produce of its own exertions in field and
farmyard, and is not immediately reduced to destitution by
political events. In cities, on the contrary, the inhabitants
depend on the wages of trade and industry, and any interrup-
tion of these organizations brings inevitable want. The winter
of 1782 was a hard one in Glasgow. America, the chief market
for the city's manufactures, was closed, and the industries
which depended upon that market had been slowed down.
Though there were still hay stacks not far from the Trongate
the city was no longer the half rustic place of John McUre's
time, in which every family had a cow that grazed at the Cow-
caddens or on the New Green. When wages stopped at the
Nailree, the Delft factory, the Glasswork, and the cotton mills,
the pinch was felt at once. The citizens, however, rose to the
occasion, as they have done on every similar occasion since. A
public fund was started, the Town Council, the Merchants
House, and the Trades House each subscribed 200 sterling,
and quantities of oatmeal, wheat, and pease were brought in
and distributed at low prices to the industrious poor. 2 Among
1 Autobiography, p. 532. 2 Burgh Records, 313! Dec., 1782 ; gth Jan., 1783.
335
336 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
other supplies, the Lord Provost, Patrick Colquhoun, ordered
from Ireland a consignment of harts and shirts. These, valued
at 230 i8s. gd., Irish money, were packed in sixty casks, but
unfortunately the vessel with its cargo was entirely lost. 3
Further, to cheapen grain, the Town Council asked that the
Convention of Burghs should request the Government to stop
for a time the use of barley for distilling purposes. 4 So serious
became the distress that in March the city had to grant three
bonds of 2000 each for money to purchase grain.
A chief figure in these transactions, and in general dealing
with the poor of the city was one of the city ministers, Dr.
William Porteous. A rather invidious task which was set him
in 1782 was that of preventing poor strangers from settling in
the city for such time as might entitle them to the city's charity.
The appointment was for three years, 5 and so well did he fulfil
his instructions that he came to be known as " Buff the
Beggars." But the real value of his services " his uncommon
exertions, skill, and ability in suggesting, framing, and com-
pleting a system whereby the poor entitled to the charity of the
community are more comfortably provided, and strange and
vagrant paupers prevented from establishing settlements in
this city " was recognized by the Town Council, which pre-
sented him with a piece of plate of the value of forty guineas. 6
He was afterwards the originator of Sunday Schools in the city,
helped to found the Society of Sons of Ministers, and was one
of the committee which carried out the feuing of the High
Church glebe in the neighbourhood of the present Glebe Street. 7
A more permanent institution for the relief of the poor
which owed its origin to the distress of that time was the Royal
3 Burgh Records, 4th Oct., 1784. 4 Ibid, gth Jan., 1783.
5 Ibid. i4th Aug. 6 Ibid, isth Jan.
7 Ibid. 27th Sept., 1787 ; 29th Nov., 1790 ; ist April, 1791 ; 9th Sept.,
1793. Interesting details of the person and career of Dr. Porteous are fur-
nished by Dr. Strang in Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 367.
ROYAL INFIRMARY FOUNDED 337
Infirmary. The idea was propounded in a letter from one of the
physicians in the city, Dr. Stevenson, to the Town Council,
stating that a subscription was on foot for the erection of " an
infirmary for the reception of indigent persons under bodily
distress in the West of Scotland," and expressing the hope that
the magistrates would take it under their protection. The
Town Council gave the scheme not only its patronage, but a
subscription of 500. No time was lost. Already in 1784 the
town had been making enquiry regarding the ownership of the
ruins of the ancient Bishop's Castle near the Cathedral, with a
view to having the site vested in the magistrates and council.
This was now secured ; a royal charter was obtained, and on
the spot associated with the warlike deeds and church pageantry
of an earlier time arose the greatest of Glasgow's institutions
for the alleviation of suffering and pain. Among his many
activities, David Dale found time to act as manager of the
infirmary for the first few years, and only retired in 1796 on
account of his health. 8
But the distress of that time and the increase of an industrial
population had also another and less happy result. In such
circumstances a criminal element invariably comes into evi-
dence. Owing to the increase of petty thefts and other crimes,
the prison at the Tolbooth now became too small. The Town
Council therefore in 1785 fitted up a number of cells at the rear
of the Town's Hospital or poorshouse by the Clyde side, where
offenders were to be punished with hard labour. Three years
later part of the city's granary was fitted with cells and a work-
room as a bridewell or reformatory for the correction of idle
and disorderly persons. These, however, were more or less
temporary expedients. So serious, evidently, was the state of
affairs that the Trades House urged the Town Council to build
a bridewell upon an extensive scale. In consequence a number
8 Ibid. 1 5th Jan., 1784 ; 4th Dec., 1786 ; 8th Mar., 1787 ; igth Jan.,
Sept., loth Dec., 1792 ; 3ist Dec., 1795.
Y H,G. nj.
338 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
of devices were considered. It was not, however, till 1795 that
the town acquired a site on the south side of Dry gate, and
began the building of the place of correction and punishment
represented by the grim fortress-like Glasgow Prison of to-day. 9
Confinement in these later prisons, it may be gathered, was
a more serious matter than in the old Tolbooth. The jailer in
the Tolbooth did quite a good business in the sale of liquid
refreshment to his prisoners. In 1786 when he was prohibited
from selling " ale, porter, spirits, or liquors of any kind " to
these prisoners his annual profit from this source was reckoned
at 40, and he was compensated to that amount accordingly.
A later jailer in 1791 estimated his loss from this source at 121.
He was then allowed to continue selling porter and beer, though
the sale of spirits was stopped. 10
Evidently the task of preserving order and protecting pro-
perty was giving the magistrates considerable anxiety. In
1783 they proposed to ask parliament for authority to appoint
from twenty-five to forty watchmen to patrol the streets in the
night time, but as the project implied a charge of sixpence in
the pound on the rents of the citizens it was not carried out. 1
Five years later the magistrates decided that, with their many
other duties, they were no longer able to carry on the police
work of the city on the patriarchal plan, personally directing
the arrest of evil-doers and disturbers of the peace. They
therefore appointed an intendant or inspector of police, with a
clerk and eight men under him, for the special business of
preventing crime and arresting criminals. An ex-bailie, Richard
Marshall, was appointed inspector, and for a police office he was
assigned " the low back room in the ground storey of the town
clerk's chamber." He was provided with a gold chain, and was
9 Burgh Records, 2oth Jan., 1785 ; 29th Oct., loth Dec., 1788 ; Vol. viii.
p. 698.
10 Ibid, nth Jan., 1786 ; I5th June, igth Sept., 1791.
1 Jbid. I2th and 28th Feb., 1783.
FIRST POLICE FORCE 339
directed to carry a white rod when on duty, while his men were
to wear a red uniform with badges numbered and inscribed
" Police." The men had to take an oath, and find caution to
the amount of 50 each for their good behaviour, and their
remuneration was to be not more than is. 6d. per day. Thus
modestly was begun the police force of Glasgow which to-day
forms an army of over two thousand officers and men. 2
The tiny police force of 1788, however, was obviously too
small to protect the persons and property of the citizens both
by day and night. The Town Council therefore revived its
idea of a civic guard of the townsmen themselves, avoiding the
obstacle of expense by making the duty compulsory and with-
out pay. All citizens under sixty years of age and above sixteen,
whose yearly rents were 3 sterling or more, were summoned
in rotation, to the number of thirty each night, to meet in the
" laigh council chamber " and patrol the city in parties of
eight from ten o'clock at night till the following morning. The
guard was under the command of the sitting magistrate, with
a captain and other officers, and it seems to have served its
purpose efficiently enough. The duty could be avoided by
the payment of 2s. 6d. sterling for the payment of a substitute,
and it may be presumed that a large part of the guard very
soon came to consist of these substitutes, permanently em-
ployed. 3
While these arrangements were being made the great con-
vulsion of the French Revolution of 1789 broke out. In
Glasgow this was taken at first as the dawn of a new and better
era. Professor Anderson, the patron of James Watt, sent over
an artillery device which was accepted by the Republic, and a
subscription of 1200 was raised among the citizens to aid the
Government of Paris in its war against the emigrant princes. 4
It was in the flush of the same generous sentiment that Robert
2 Ibid. 26th Nov., loth Dec., 1788. 3 Ibid. 2yth Dec., 1790.
4 Forbes, Memoirs of a Banking House.
340 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Burns got into trouble with his superiors in the Excise, when
he presented the French revolutionaries with the guns he had
captured from a smuggling brig on the Solway. But presently
it began to be seen that a savage beast had broken loose, and
would, if unchecked, tear civilization itself to pieces. In Ire-
land, India, and Britain itself the agents of France were found
sowing the seeds of anarchy and revolution. The execution of
Louis XVI. and his queen, and the ghastly September massacres
in Paris, struck this country with horror, and when France,
mistaking Pitt's pacifist policy for weakness, declared war in
February, 1793, Britain was thoroughly roused. The worst of
the panic was seen in Scotland. Among others accused of
sedition, the young advocate, Thomas Muir, son of a Glasgow
merchant, owner of the small estate of Huntershill in Cadder
parish, was tried and sentenced to fourteen years transportation
to Botany Bay. He had become prominent as an orator of
the association known as " The Friends of the Constitution
and of the People." 5 Glasgow Town Council passed a special
resolution against factious meetings and seditious writings,
which it ordered to be published in the London, Edinburgh,
and Glasgow newspapers ; and it presented an address to the
King, declaring its abhorrence of attempts to overturn the
Government, and condemning the attempt of France " to dis-
seminate her destructive principles and to aggrandise herself
on the ruin of every established and well-regulated government
in Europe. 6
The revolutionaries and reformers, however, proved to be
only a handful ; the panic soon subsided, and the country rose
nobly to meet the emergency. Within a few months no fewer
than eight new regiments were raised in the Highlands, as well
as fourteen battalions of " Fencibles," a militia enlisted for
special service and local defence. Several of our most famous
5 Glasgow Mercury, 9th and 3oth Oct., 1792.
6 Burgh Records, loth Dec., 1792 ; 27th Feb., 1793.
BUILDING OF BARRACKS 341
Scottish regiments came into existence at that time, among
others the Cameron Highlanders and the Gay Gordons, re-
cruited by the famous Duchess with a guinea and a kiss for
each recruit.
While these events were taking place a succession of military
forces were quartered in Glasgow. By way of lodging, officers
and men were billeted on the citizens, and this proceeding was
felt to be a very real grievance. Occupants of houses rented at
more than 20 were liable to have two soldiers quartered upon
them for no less a period than eight weeks. Certain classes,
such as the procurators, claimed exemption, but the difficulty
was only overcome when on the suggestion of Aberdeen the Town
Council joined with that city in asking that the Government
should build barracks in both places. In the end the city gave
the ground and the Government built the barracks. 7 Curiously
enough, the site on the north side of Gallowgate was that of
the ancient Butts, or archery ground, scene of the fierce battle
between the Earls of Arran and Glencairn for possession of the
bailieship of Glasgow in 1544.
Previous to the building of these barracks the military head-
quarters of the city were at the Guardhouse in Candleriggs. 8
In 1794, the year in which the barracks were built, that
Guardhouse was the scene of a serious riot, in which the soldiers
themselves made the trouble. The first battalion of the newly
raised Breadalbane Fencibles was then quartered in the city.
A deserter of the battalion, who had escaped from the Guard-
house, was recaptured, and sentenced to a severe punishment.
This his comrades determined to prevent, and, defying author-
ity, they actually stood out for several days, and, as the mob
7 Ibid. 3oth Aug., 2oth Oct., 1788 ; i8th Oct., 1790 ; 22nd March, i8th
June, 1792 ; 4th March, 1794.
8 Previous to 1789 the Guardhouse stood, a somewhat imposing building,
at the foot of the street on the west side. In that year, as a valuable site,
it was sold for 1400 to James MacLehose, who erected a new Guardhouse
on the Green market farther up the street. Burgh Records, i$th June, 1789.
342 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
took their part, the riot assumed dangerous proportions. Part
of the battalion, however, remained loyal to its officers, and the
Royal Glasgow Volunteers, a force then being raised in the city
by Colonel Montgomery, also backed the civil authorities. But
it was not till Colonel Hugonin, at the head of the Fourth
Dragoons, rode into the city on the evening of i6th December
that the riot was effectively quelled, and the mutineers sur-
rendered. Lord Breadalbane sent them to Edinburgh for trial,
and himself accompanied them part of the way. But on his
return, along with Major Leslie, the mob rose again, assailed
him with stones, and forced him to take refuge in a house, till
the Lord Provost and magistrates, with a force of officers,
hastening to the spot, rescued him and dispelled the rioters. 9
It was probably in anticipation of some such troubles that,
only a month previously, a body of respectable citizens had
offered their services to assist the magistrates of the city " in
supporting peace and good order, and suppressing seditious
insurrections and tumults." Their services were accepted as
special constables, and it is not unlikely that they took part in
suppressing the riot. 10
Still another building which owed its erection to the de-
mands and developments of that time was the new Grammar
School. For over two hundred years this school had carried on
its work in the Greyfriars Wynd, the site of the old Greyfriars
monastery on the west side of High Street. From the first its
interests and the quality of its teaching had been carefully
fostered by the Town Council, which exercised its powers of
appointing and discharging its teachers, or " doctors " as they
were long called, with great discretion. Thus in 1782, when the
number of scholars had notably increased, the city fathers
tackled the situation with energy. They abolished the office
9 Scots Magazine, Dec. 1794, pp. 799, 800. MacGregor's History of Glasgow,
p. 378. Burgh Records, 2oth Dec., 1794-
10 Burgh Records, i^ih Nov., 1794.
HIGH SCHOOL REMOVED AND REMODELLED 343
of rector as unnecessary, gave all the four masters equal status,
appointed the master of the oldest class at the time to preside
in the common hall, and to have a casting vote, and arranged
that a committee of the Council, " accompanied with some
gentlemen of learning," should visit the school every month,
to report upon its progress, and ensure uniformity of teaching.
The regenting system in former use at the University was
adopted, one master enrolling all the new pupils each year, and
carrying them through their entire four years' course. If any
class exceeded fifty in number the teacher of that class was
obliged to give an hour's longer tuition each day to one-third
of the number the worst scholars.
A little later the Council gave a piece of the Ramshorn
ground for a new school, to be erected by public subscription,
in which there should be rooms for the teaching of French,
arithmetic, and book-keeping subjects not included in the
older Grammar School curriculum, but rendered necessary by
the new commercial conditions of the city's life. The building
of the new school was finished in 1792, and teachers and scholars
moved to class-rooms on the pleasant hillside above the Rams-
horn Church. 1
Meanwhile, the city fathers developed to a high degree the
art of " town planning " of which so much is said as if it were
a discovery peculiar to the twentieth century. The making of
new streets went steadily on. Sometimes this was a difficult
enterprise, when portions of private properties had to be
acquired, by purchase or excambion. But it must be said that
very few owners gave trouble ; in nearly every case the value
1 Ibid. i3th May, 26th June, 1782 ; 26th Mar., 1783 ; 4th Dec., 1786 ;
25th April, 1787 ; 22nd March, 9th Aug., 1792. The original site of the new
school was on the line of the present George Street. The buildings there,
however, became too small, and the school removed to the ground behind,
with an entrance from John Street, while the George Street building was taken
over by Anderson's College. The site of both schools is now occupied by the
Royal Technical College. See infra, chap. xlii. Also Burgh Records, i6th
and 2ist Oct., 1807.
344 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
was settled by friendly bargain or arbitration. Thus, on its
own ground of the Ramshorn,in 1782, the Town Council planned
the lay-out of George Square and the streets on the east of it as
far as Montrose Street, and calculated that the ground devoted
to the open square, some 11,360 yards, would be more than
paid for by the increased price to be got for the building space
around it. This price varied from is. to 2s. 6d. per square yard,
and was calculated to realize a very handsome profit for the
city. Restrictions were placed upon the ground thus feued or
sold, so that it should remain a residential area. A natural
feature which gave some trouble was a narrow ridge of whin-
stone which ran from east to west along the south side of the
Ramshorn ground. This obstructed the natural drainage of
the region till it was cut through at a number of places. 2
In accordance with the Town Council's plan, George Street
was laid out along the north side of the square, and eastward
between the new Grammar School and the Ramshorn burying-
ground, till it met another new road coming westward from
Carntyne, and now known as Duke Street, while another street
at right angle to this, running from Ingram Street northward
past the Grammar School to Rottenrow was laid out and named
John Street, from, it is said, the Christian names of the Lord
Provost, the three bailies, and perhaps the master of work, the
water bailie, and the two town clerks, of the year 1785, who all
rejoiced in bearing the name of the favourite apostle.
Till 1794 the lower part of Montrose Street was still known
as Inkle Street, from the inkle factory at its south-western
corner ; Cochrane Street, then re-named from the famous
provost of 1745, was still partly Cotton Street and partly St.
David's Street, and Hanover Street south of George Square was
still Pitt Street. 3
2 Burgh Records, i4th Aug., 1782 ; 5th April, i5th May, 1786. See plan at
end of Burgh Records, vol. viii.
3 Ibid. 4th Sept. 1802. The dates of opening of a large number of streets
at this time are furnished by Strang in Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 342 note.
BUILDING OF ST. ANDREW'S SQUARE 345
In another quarter, on the east side of Saltmarket, the
Town Council, immediately after completing the last purchase
of ground necessary for the purpose, proceeded to lay out a
square round St. Andrew's Church. The frontage of the
buildings was designed by William Hamilton, an architect of
repute, and the first stance was taken by David Dale. It was
that in the south-east corner, to which he presently transferred
the office of the Royal Bank. The price he paid was 75. 6d.
per square yard. 4
These town planning schemes of the civic authorities of
those years were well seconded by the activities of a private
company or building society organized in 1786 by Dugald
Bannatyne, a stocking-manufacturer, who afterwards became
postmaster and secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. This
company built the greater part of Brunswick Street, Hutcheson
Street, John Street, and George Square. 5 It expended 12,000
on the enterprise, 6 and was the first of the many firms of
speculative builders who, from that day till this, have extended
the area of the city and provided dwellings for the citizens by
their enterprising schemes.
* Burgh Records, 28th Dec., 1786 ; soth Jan., 1787. Hamilton was paid
21 for his plans (Ibid. 6th Feb., 1787).
5 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, pp, 133, 175. Burgh Records, 2gth Jan.,
1801.
8 Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 153.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE EIGHTIES AND NINETIES
AMID all the disturbances and convulsions of that time the
development of Glasgow somehow went steadily on. It was the
time, as we have seen, of the rise of the great cotton spinning
and weaving industry which was to remain a staple of Glasgow
business for several generations, till another American war, the
civil conflict of 1863 between the States themselves, put a
stop to supplies. In view of his services to this industry,
Richard Arkwright was made an honorary burgess and guild
brother of the city in 1784. 1 Cuthbert Gordon, also, the
inventor of the process for making cudbear, was, on the petition
of the dyers and manufacturers, recommended to parliament
for recognition and encouragement. Besides his original inven-
tion, it appears, he had " produced in cotton the colour known
by the name Nankeen, from the most common to the highest
red, which has hitherto defied all Europe, the Hindoo and
golden yellows, blues and greys of a variety of shades, and a
beautiful red, superior to madder and nearly equal to that of
the India red, even in its wild and uncultivated state." 2
An inventor, in another field, who also excited attention in
Glasgow, was Lunardi, the aeronaut. That famous balloonist
made two ascents from Glasgow, in November and December
1785. As a preliminary his balloon was exhibited, at a charge
of one shilling, in the middle space of the cathedral, between
the choir and the nave, and the ascents were made from St.
1 Burgh Records, ist Oct., 1784. 2 Ibid. i5th Jan., 1784.
346
FIRST GLASGOW DISTILLERY 347
Andrew's Square. On the first occasion he descended in the
neighbourhood of Hawick, and on the second in the parish of
Campsie. 3
When in the city on that occasion, Lunar di would have the
pleasure of listening to the " music bells," newly rearranged in
the tolbooth steeple, on which Joshua Campbell, musician, and
John Gardner, mathematical instrument maker, had lately been
engaged. The bells were played like a musical-box, by means
of a barrel, pegged on its revolving surface, and a different set
of tunes was arranged for each day of the week. 4 These were
the bells which brought Glasgow the reputation enshrined in
the rhyme
Glasgow for bells, Linlithgow for wells,
And Fa'kirk for bonnie lasses !
In the following year a change that was destined to take
place in social customs was marked by the establishment of
the first licensed distillery in Glasgow, that of William Menzies,
first of a family which from that day till this has been engaged
in the industry. Previously there were only three distilleries in
Scotland, Burns's " dear Kilbagie " and two others. 5 Formerly,
while claret was the drink of gentlemen and ale of ordinary
folk, the more potent spirit in request was French brandy. The
distilling of whisky, like the making of cudbear, was an industry
imported from the Highlands, and the spirit was destined to
grow in use till it became recognized as the national beverage
of Scotland.
An industry introduced to Glasgow in the same year, which
on the other hand owed its origin on a great scale in Scotland
to an Englishman, was the smelting of iron in the blast furnace.
From early times, iron had been smelted in small quantities in
the ovens known as bloomeries, of which traces are to be found
3 Senex, Old Glasgow, p. 238. 4 Burgh Records, 5th Oct., 1785.
6 Mitchell, Old Glasgow Essays, p. 382.
348 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
on many of the Scottish moors. The bloomeries were suc-
ceeded by the larger furnaces at Furnace on Loch Fyne and
Taynuilt on Loch Etive, started by an English company in
1754. These furnaces were lit only every twenty years, when
the woods of the respective neighbourhoods had grown enough
to furnish the necessary charcoal. The ore they smelted came
from England, and the iron they produced was sent back there. 6
Down to the year 1760, when George III. became king, nearly
all the iron used in Scotland was imported from Sweden and
Russia, and the Glasgow Nailerie, or Smithfield Company, with
its slit mill on the Kelvin and its workshop near the Broomielaw,
made only small articles, such as spades and hammers. It was
only in 1760 that the first Scottish blast furnaces were estab-
lished. These were erected on the Carron in Stirlingshire by
Dr. John Roebuck, a Sheffield man who had studied medicine
at Edinburgh and Leyden, and carried on a chemical laboratory
at Birmingham and a manufacture of sulphuric acid at Preston-
pans. 7 They smelted partly Scottish and partly English ore,
and after 1762 used pit coal for the purpose. They used their
whole output for their own foundry products, and the cast-iron
guns they made, known as " carronades," were used on every
British battlefield of the time.
Following the example of Carron, and encouraged by the
existence of iron ore and coal in the district, Thomas Edington
in 1786 founded the Clyde Ironworks at Tollcross, to the east
of Glasgow. 8 These furnaces were followed by others at various
places, including Govanhill to the south of the city, and were
the beginning of the great iron industry of the West of Scotland,
which brought wealth and employment to the whole region, till
the business was ruined by the disastrous General Strike of
6 Mitchell, Old Glasgow Essays, p. 294.
7 Jupiter Carlyle, Autobiography, p. 365. Roebuck's partners in the enter-
prise were Samuel Garbett, a Birmingham merchant, and William Cadell, a
Cockenzie shipowner.
8 Mitchell, pp. 295 and 382.
RISE OF IRON INDUSTRY 349
1926. Mushet's discovery in Lanarkshire of the rich deposits
of black band ironstone, an ore which almost smelted itself,
and the invention in 1829, by James Beaumont Neilson,
manager of Glasgow Gaswork, of the hot-blast, which turned
the waste gases and heat of the furnaces to further account,
made this iron industry the greatest in the world, and for a
century, till the tops of the furnaces were closed, in order to
save the gases, the flare at night made a striking feature of the
landscape. Alexander Rodger, the " Radical poet," celebrated
the effect in his spirited lines, addressed to the owner of Clyde
Ironworks, in his time :
The mune does fu' weel when the mune's i' the lift,
But oh, the loose limmer tak's mony a shift,
Whiles here and whiles there, and whiles under a hap
But yours is the steady light, Colin Dulap !
Na, mair like true frien'ship, the mirker the night
The mair you let out your vast columns o' light ;
When sackcloth and sadness the heavens enwrap,
Tis then you're maist kind to us, Colin Dulap.
Still later, Alexander Smith, in his fine poem, " Glasgow,"
described
The roar and flap of foundry fires
That shake with light the sleeping shires.
In Clyde Ironworks were cast many of the cannon used at
Waterloo.
Those were the years in which Glasgow became notably an
industrial city. After 1775, when James Watt and his partner,
Boulton, became able to supply steam engines freely for mills
and general manufacturing purposes, the owners of Glasgow
factories in constantly increasing numbers adopted steam as their
motive power. With the consequent growth of an industrial
population the severance between the interests of town and
country began which has been a feature of social and political
life from that day till this. The tendency was seen almost at
350 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
once in the attitude of Glasgow towards the proposed Corn
Law. That law was, to begin with, a tax by Government for
the raising of revenue. But it was also intended for the
encouragement of land reclamation and agriculture, then in a
very backward state. Unfortunately another of its conse-
quences was to raise the price of bread to the industrial workers,
and, as this was the aspect which immediately concerned them,
they resisted the proposal to the utmost of their power. In
Glasgow, in 1786, the Chamber of Commerce drew up a reasoned
protest against any alteration of the law which would tend to
raise the price of grain, and the Town Council sent the protest
to its member of parliament, as well as to all the royal burghs
of Scotland and to the Convention of Burghs. 9 From that
time onward the subject formed a bone of contention between
the agricultural and industrial classes of the kingdom, in which
Glasgow took an active interest, 10 until in the middle of the
next century the industrial interests were strong enough to
secure the repeal of the Corn Laws altogether. 1
Another sign of a cleavage between the social classes came
into evidence in the city about the same time. The incident
showed clearly the growth of a class consciousness, and was an
obvious attempt of the craftsmen in the community to assert
themselves and to seize control of the government machine.
The attempt was made quite constitutionally, through the
machinery of the Trades House. The leader of the attempt was
a certain William Lang, of the Hammermen craft, and he
handed the Lord Provost a resolution of a majority of the
Trades House, with letters demanding official answers from the
magistrates and council. The resolution began by recalling
that the duty upon ale and beer had been granted to the city
subject to supervision and control by the Merchants House
9 Burgh Records, 2oth Oct., ist Nov., 1786.
10 Ibid, igth Jan., 1791.
1 Green, Short History of the English People, p. 841.
DIVISION OF GORBALS 351
and Trades House. It asserted the right of the Trades House,
therefore, not only to modify the levying of the tax, but to
control the spending of the revenue which the tax produced.
Based upon this claim it asserted a right to inspect the books
of the Town Council, and exercise certain powers of direction.
The attack was of course opposed and resented by the city
fathers. They pointed out that the duty on ale had been re-
granted again and again to the city without any renewal of the
original stipulations, which had therefore lapsed. As for the
right to inspect the books and accounts of the city's affairs,
while they were willing to give that satisfaction to any private
burgess who might demand it, they knew of no right of the
Trades House or any other body to make the demand. To
grant that demand would be subversive of the legal authority
vested in the magistrates and council as administrators for the
community, and they therefore declared their resolve to use
their utmost endeavours to support, in a legal and constitutional
manner, their just rights and privileges against the " un-
warrantable and unprecedented attack " made by a majority
of the Trades House. 2
The bid for power which was thus stopped by the firmness
of the magistrates and council apparently left no feelings of
bitterness in its wake, for the difficult business of dividing the
barony of Gorbals, which was undertaken shortly afterwards,
was carried through without difference or acrimony. Hitherto
that barony had been held in partnership by Hutchesons'
Hospital, the Trades House, and the Town Council, the Hospital
being owner of one half and the Trades House and the Town
Council of one quarter each of the property. It was now
determined to divide the property into separate possessions,
and the division was carried out in very fair and able fashion.
2 Burgh Records, 6th Feb., 1787. The duty on ale and beer was worth
fighting for. In 1790 it was farmed out by the Town Council for 2400 (Ibid.
26th Nov.). It continued to be levied till 1839 (ibid. 4th Jan. 1833, note).
352 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
The minerals below the surface remained the common posses-
sion of the three parties in the same proportions as before. The
superiority, with the existing feu-duties and casualties, and
the rights of bailiary and justiciary of the whole, were retained
by the city, which paid Hutchesons' Hospital and the Trades
House 1200 sterling for their shares. The surface was then
divided into four portions of equal value, for which the parties
drew lots, Hutchesons' Hospital getting two portions and the
Town Council and the Trades House one each. The trans-
action, which was first suggested in 1788, took several years to
complete, but was finally settled by a decree arbitral in I795- 3
From that arrangement have come the names of those districts
of the southern side of Glasgow known as Hutchesontown and
Tradeston.
While this transaction was being arranged, the Trades
House had been establishing itself in new quarters. The site
chosen was in the street which had recently been laid out by
John Horn, the builder, on the grounds of the old Shawfield
Mansion, between Trongate and Ingram Street, and named
Glassford Street after the last owner of that mansion, John
Glassford of Dougalston. Previously the headquarters of the
Trades had been in the ancient manse of the prebendary of
Morebattle, in the old Kirkgate or High Street, immediately
south of St. Nicholas Hospital. 4 This manse had been acquired
shortly after the Reformation, and the bell in the belfry tower
on its roof had rung for funerals passing to the High Churchyard
for three hundred years. 5 At last, however, the time had come
for the Trades House to have a meeting place more in keeping
with its importance and dignity. For its purpose it employed
an architect of European distinction.
8 Burgh Records, loth Dec., 1788; nth. July, 1789; ist June, 1792;
I3th March, 1795. See also John Ord's Barony of Gorbals.
4 Macgeorge, Old Glasgow, p. 1 19. Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 224 note.
5 Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 224.
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ROBERT ADAM, ARCHITECT 353
Robert Adam was the most distinguished of four brothers,
all architects, who built the Adelphi, and much improved the
street architecture of London. It has sometimes been stated
that Robert Adam was the pupil of Sir William Bruce, Bart.,
of Kinross, architect of the later part of Holyroodhouse and
of the Merchants House in the Briggate of Glasgow. But
Bruce died eighteen years before Robert Adam was born.
Regarding the latter, Jupiter Carlyle, who was his contempor-
ary, writes that, after studying at Edinburgh University, he
" had been three years in Italy, and, with a first-rate genius
for his profession, had seen and studied everything that was in
the highest esteem among foreign artists. From the time of his
return viz. in February or March 1758 may be dated a very
remarkable improvement in building and furniture and even
stoneware, in London and every part of England." 6 Adam
was appointed architect to George III. in 1762, became a
Fellow of the Royal Society, and sat in parliament as member
for Kinross-shire.
It was this celebrated architect whom the crafts of Glasgow
employed to design the new Trades House, and the building
which he erected in Glassford Street remains a very interesting
and typical example of his work. The representatives of the
trades disposed of their ancient almshouse and meeting place
in the Kirkgate in 1790, and from 1794 have had their head-
quarters in the building of Robert Adam's design.
The Trades House, however, was by no means the only
building erected in Glasgow by this famous architect. The
laying out of new streets on the grounds of Ramshorn and
Meadowflat suggested to a body of citizens the project of
building a new and more commodious set of Assembly Rooms
for the use of the community. The plan, which had proved so
successful in the case of the older Assembly Rooms at the
Cross, was adopted. Following the astute device of the Italian,
8 Autobiography of Alexander Carlyle, p. 354.
H.G. III.
354 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Lorenzo Tonti, two hundred and seventy-four subscribers were
found to invest the sum of 25 each, on the speculative chance,
for each subscriber, that his nominee would prove the longest
liver, and would thus bring the entire property into the pos-
session of his heirs. The foundation stone of the building was
laid on nth March, 1796, by Gilbert Hamilton, ex-Lord
Provost, and the architects were the brothers, Robert and
James Adam. Only the centre part of the building was their
work : the wings were added nine years later, from designs by
Henry Holland, and for half a century these rooms in Ingram
Street, between Hanover Street and Frederick Street, formed
one of the rendezvous of the social life of the city. 7 For fifty
years after that they were the home of the Glasgow Athenaeum
and Commercial College, and when the General Post Office at
last acquired the site, the Adam part of the facade was removed
to form one of the gateways to Glasgow Green. 8
Yet another Glasgow building of Adam design was the
substantial residence of David Dale in Charlotte Street. It was
in that house that Dale's eldest daughter married Robert Owen,
the apostle of Socialism, who was to bring his father-in-law's
great enterprise at New Lanark into conspicuous notoriety as
the scene of his well-meant experiments in the formation of a
new order of society. 9 After serving as an Eye Infirmary for
some years, the house still remains to represent the domestic
style of the famous architect.
7 According to Strang (Glasgow and ^ts Clubs, p. 347), when the Assembly
rooms were first opened in 1798 the company consisted of 370 ladies and
gentlemen, and the Queen's assembly in the following year was attended by
460.
8 The Glasgow Athenaeum, by James Lauder, p. 30 ; Glasgow and its
Clubs, p. 171.
9 Lugton's Old Lodgings of Glasgow ; Curiosities of Citizenship , p. 65.
CHAPTER XL
THE OLDEST GLASGOW CHARITY
A PERSONAGE who figured constantly in the civic annals of the
later decades of the eighteenth century was John Campbell of
Clathic. The family name was originally Coats. In the early
days of 1746, when the Jacobite army moved out of Glasgow
and carried with it two substantial citizens, as hostages for the
completion of the subsidies which had been demanded, Archibald
Coats was one of the pair. One would like to think it was during
his march with the rebel force, and by way of a reward for his
hardships on that occasion, that he met the heiress of Campbell
of Clathic, near Crieff, who became his wife. On succeeding to
that estate his son added Campbell to his name, and became
John Coats Campbell of Clathic. With the substantial family
possession in Strathearn behind him, John Coats Campbell
became one of the great Glasgow " Tobacco Lords." He him-
self acquired the estate of Ryding to the east of the city, which is
now, in the twentieth century, the property of the Corporation,
and he married a daughter of Laurence Colquhoun of Killer-
mont, through whom that estate also came into his possession. 1
His son accordingly took the name of Campbell-Colquhoun, and
his descendant is Campbell-Colquhoun of Killermont and Gars-
cadden, on the western borders of the city at the present day. 2
1 Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 138.
2 It was to the first Campbell-Colquhoun of Killermont and his wife that Lady
Nairne is said to have addressed her fine song, "The Land o' the Leal," in sym-
pathy for the loss of a favourite child . This laird, Archibald Campbell-Colquhoun,
was Sheriff of Perthshire, Lord Advocate in 1803, Lord Clerk Register in 1816,
M.P. for Elgin from 1807 till 1810, and for Dunbartonshire from 1810 till 1820.
355
356 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Meanwhile John Coats Campbell of Clathic held a succession
of high offices in Glasgow. He was one of the original partners
in the aristocratic Thistle Bank in 1761, and one of the founders
of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce in 1783 . He was elected Dean
of Guild in 1767, 1775, and 1781, and in 1784 succeeded Patrick
Colquhoun as Lord Provost. After retiring from the office of
Chief Magistrate, he set himself to restore and consolidate the
fortunes of one of the oldest of the city's charitable institutions.
St. Nicholas Hospital had been founded by Bishop Andrew
Muirhead about 1460 for the support of twelve poor old men and
a priest to perform service for them. Martin Wan, chancellor
of the cathedral, bequeathed it some small ground rents in
1501, and Archbishop Leighton in 1677 left it 150 as a further
endowment. 3 Between these two last gifts, in 1590, John
Painter, master of the Sang Schule, left three pounds to the
twelve poor men in St. Nicholas Hospital, and twenty shillings
to the four poor men in the Back Almshouse. This latter was
the hospital founded by Roland Blackadder, sub-dean of
Glasgow, which stood a hundred yards or so further north,
near the Stable-green Port, and which appears ultimately to
have become united to the foundation of Bishop Muirhead.
Nisbet in his Heraldry in 1772 describes the curious little chapel
of St. Nicholas Hospital, which is to be seen in old Glasgow
prints. It was not demolished till 1808. Nisbet also states
that beside the hospital Bishop Muirhead built a residence for
the priest on which, as on the chapel, he placed his arms-
three acorns on a bend. These are still to be seen on a corby
stone of the building now known as Provand's Lordship, the
oldest house in Glasgow. 4
After the Reformation St. Nicholas Hospital, as a charitable
3 Macgeorge, Old Glasgow, p. 117.
4 For the history of this house, and its association with James IV. and
Mary Queen of Scots see The Story of Provand's Lordship, a brochure by Dr.
R. B. Lothian, and The Oldest House in Glasgow, Provand's Lordship, by
William Gemmell. The dwelling seems, at an early date, to have become
PROVAND'S LORDSHIP 357
institution, was taken in charge by the Town Council. In 1589
it was inspected by the bailies, who inserted a careful account
of it in the Town Council minutes. 5 During the next two
hundred years, however, dilapidations seem to have occurred.
At last, in 1783, John Brown, master of works, who was also
preceptor of the hospital, placed a statement of the revenues
before the Town Council. These were derived in small sums,
partly payable in bolls of meal, from properties scattered
throughout the town, and amounted to 139 2s. 5d. G
Five years later Campbell of Clathic had become preceptor,
and he set himself to discover items of revenue which had been
allowed to lapse. He found, for instance, that a hundred years
previously, in 1686, in purchasing from Robert Rae three acres
of Kinclaith, one of the most ancient possessions of the Glasgow
bishopric, to add to the New Green, the Town Council had
taken the ground burdened with a payment of three bolls of
bear annually to the hospital. The payment had not been
made since 1748, and its accumulated total now amounted to
80 155. 2d. sterling. 7 Campbell next proceeded to turn the
derelict properties of the hospital into real revenue. All the
buildings except the chapel were ruinous, and, on the plea that
the Town Council would probably require the ground for
the making of a street, he induced the city fathers to take it
the manse of the Canon of Barlanark and Laird of Provan, and therefore the
official residence of King James when he officiated in the cathedral. After
the Reformation William Baillie, President of the Court of Session, became
by royal charter owner of the great estate of Provan, and the broken sundial
on the wall of the building seems to have borne the inscription, including his
initials, " W Provand's Lordship B." Sir William was Queen Mary's
friend, and as this was the best house available in Glasgow at the time, it is
conjectured that the queen resided within its walls when she paid her memor-
able visit to her husband, Darnley, in 1567. In 1807 the Town Council ordered
enquiry to be made as to the ownership of the house, and sold it along with
an adjoining small building which had been the abode of the Glasgow hangman.
Burgh Records, i3th Feb., 2nd May, 1807.
5 Burgh Records, 3oth Dec., 1589. See also Presbytery Records, i2th Feb.
1606.
6 Ibid. 22nd Jan., 1783. 7 Ibid. 26th Nov., 1788.
358 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
over at an annual ground rent of 5 sterling. 8 Finally, dis-
covering that considerable doubt existed regarding the patron-
age of the hospital, whether it belonged to the Town Council
or the Crown, he induced the magistrates to apply to the Court
of Exchequer for a gift of that patronage. 9 As no copy of
Bishop Muirhead's original deed of mortification, founding the
hospital, could be produced the application lapsed, but in the
search upwards of fifty seisins were discovered granted upon
charters by early preceptors of the hospital, many of them of
subjects not included in the existing rent-roll. 10 Evidently
there had been serious carelessness in the management of the
hospital's affairs in former times ; but Campbell of Clathic
brought the subject into the limelight, and this oldest existing
Glasgow charity, sadly dilapidated though it is, remains solidly
indebted to him for the stoppage of its decay. 1
In the time of Campbell of Clathic two innovations were
made which, seemingly trivial enough, must have altered con-
siderably the conditions of life in Glasgow. The appearance of
8 Burgh Records, zothDec., 1788; aothAug., 1789. In 1808, when St. Nicholas
Chapel had also become ruinous, the town took it over, the ground rent was
cancelled, and the Town Council granted the hospital a bond of annuity for ^5
yearly payable for all time. Burgh Records, I3th Feb., 1807 ; ix. pp. 558, 705.
9 Ibid. 1 6th May, 1791 ; 23rd June, 1794.
10 Ibid. 5th May, 1796.
1 St. Nicholas Hospital has been the subject of reports to the Town Council
by James Reddie in 1844, by John Strang, LL.D. in 1861, and by James D.
Marwick in 1881. Of these the fullest is that on " Bursaries, Schools, Morti-
fications, and Bequests," by Dr. Strang. Till the Revolution of 1688 the
duties of Magister or Preceptor appear to have been discharged by the Arch-
bishop. Following that event the Lords of the Treasury and Exchequer
appointed a preceptor. In 1716, however, they ordered that the magistrates
of the city should do what the preceptor used to do, till further directions were
issued. On the strength of this order, since then the Town Council has ap-
pointed a preceptor to manage the affairs of the hospital. Since 1844 the
Magister or Preceptor has been the Lord Provost during his term of office. In
1919 Dr. William Gemmell bequeathed ^100 to what he termed " the most
ancient existing Hospital, the poorest, the most neglected, the veritable
Cinderella of hospitals in Glasgow." The hospital has now a capital of ^1277
and an annual income of ^79 173. 2d., out of which 27 pensioners receive ^3
each per annum.
THE FIRST UMBRELLA 359
the first umbrella was one of these. That ingenious contrivance
was brought from Paris in 1782 by a Glasgow surgeon, John
Jameson. It was made of yellow or green glazed linen, with a
ring at the top by which it could be hung on a peg, and was large
enough to shelter a small family group. 2 But it made a signal
difference in the possibilities of passing through the streets in
wet weather, and must have been welcomed hardly less by the
city magnates who wished to preserve the powder in their
perukes than by the dames fearful for the stiffening in their
muslins and calicoes.
The second innovation arrived six years later, when a
committee of magistrates, following the example of Edinburgh,
proceeded to appoint a body of caddies, to assist in watching and
patrolling the streets in the night time and lighting strangers
home in the dark. In the upshot a seal of cause was granted
to a company of " Running Stationers or Cadies," who were
to serve the public by going messages, by hiring as servants,
by assisting at balls, dinners, suppers, and public entertain-
ments, and in other ways. The number of acting caddies was
limited to twenty, and each had to find security to the amount
of 50 for his honesty and compliance with the rules. The
caddies were made a regular corporation, with office-bearers
and a common fund. They were to wear a badge, ply for hire
opposite the Exchange, and carry a lighted lantern after sunset.
Two of them were to patrol the city during the night, by way
of help to the police. Their charge was to be one penny for
carrying a message any distance under a mile, or two shillings
for a day of twelve hours. 3 The institution of this highly useful
body of men was probably felt to offer as great additional
facilities to business communciations in the end of the eigh-
teenth century, as the installation of the telephone did a
hundred years later.
2 Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 155.
3 Burgh Records, 2gth Dec., 1788 ; 3oth Dec., 1789.
360 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Neither these caddies, however, nor the small body of
police, and the night-guard of citizens, already mentioned,
which were appointed about the same time, appear to have been
able to prevent an alarming occurrence which took place
shortly afterwards in the heart of the city.
On the night of 15 th February, 1793, the citizens' night
watch, which used the session house of the Tron Church as its
guard room, made its usual rendezvous there. At three o'clock
in the morning it departed on its rounds, leaving a fire burning,
but no one in charge. By evil chance, in the absence of the
guard, there happened to come along certain members of a
society, students of the works of Tom Paine, who called them-
selves the Hell-fire Club. Somewhat elevated with their even-
ing's refreshment, they invaded the session-house, and by way
of testing their qualifications for residence at the club's head-
quarters, proceeded to heap fuel on the fire, and even went so
far as to wrench away some of the timbers of the session-house,
and place them on the burning mass. Soon the session-house
itself caught the flames, and before seven in the morning both
it and the church were a mass of ruins. Only the steeple, built
in 1637, escaped the conflagration, and still stands forth on the
pavement of the Trongate.
A serious part of the loss was the damage to the records of
the Glasgow Presbytery and General Session, which used the
Tron session-house as their meeting place. The burning of the
church itself was not so great a loss, as the building had become
dilapidated, and the Town Council were just then debating the
taking of it down. A new church was built on the site in the
following year, to the design of James Adam, one of the famous
brothers, and the life currents of the Trongate and the city
flowed on steadily, as before. 4
4 Glasgow Courier, Feb. i6th and igth, 1793 ; Burgh Records, 28th Jan.,
ayth Feb., I4th March, 25th March, 1793 ; 4th March, 1794. As late as 1832
Glasgow Presbytery appealed to the Town Council for pecuniary assistance
towards the transcription of its records, which by their exposure to the fire were
DIRECT LABOUR 361
It is of interest to note that, in the building of the new Tron
Church, the Town Council departed from its previous practice
of employing the workmen directly. This had been the plan
followed in the erection of St. Andrew's Church and St. Enoch's
Church. In the case of St. Andrew's Church the workmen's
demands and payments went on for sixteen years, and formed
a serious drain on the resources of the city. Later experiences
of similar sort appear to have incited the Town Council to seek
a different plan. In 1791, the committee appointed to examine
tradesmen's accounts recommended that the whole of the
town's works should be done by contract. With this the
Council agreed, and ordained that in future all works of import-
ance should be done in this way. 5 Following this rule, for the
rebuilding of the Tron Church, the Town Council made contracts
with a mason and a wright, and arranged for definite sums to
be paid at certain stages of the building. Under this arrange-
ment the work was finished and the keys handed over in some
eight months' time. 6
The same plan was adopted in another important under-
taking of that year. Following the partition of the Gorbals
estate among its three bodies of owners a demand had arisen
for better means of reaching and developing that region. A
new bridge over the Clyde was demanded, to carry passengers
directly across the river from the foot of the Saltmarket. The
patrons of Hutchesons' Hospital and Robert Houston Rae, the
proprietor of large interests in Little Govan and its coalfields,
subscribed handsomely to the project. An Act of Parliament
was accordingly obtained, 7 and contracts were signed for the
in danger of becoming completely illegible. Ibid. 3oth Nov., 1832. Extracts
of these records, from 1592-1601, are printed in the Miscellany of the Maitland
Club, vol. i. pp. 51-96.
5 Burgh Records, 29th Sept., 1791. 6 Ibid. 4th March, 1794.
7 The Town Council now constantly followed the plan of applying to
Parliament for powers to carry out enterprises of any importance. The same
Act which sanctioned the Saltmarket Bridge authorized the rebuilding of the
Tron Church. Burgh Records, 3rd Jan., 1794.
362 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
erection of the bridge at a cost of 3300. 8 In this case the
city enjoyed an additional advantage from its adoption of the
plan of building by contract. The builders undertook to com-
plete the work by Martinmas, 1796. Before that date, however,
a disaster occurred. In the great flood of i8th November, 1795,
which has been already mentioned, the bridge, then nearly
finished, was thrown down, carrying with it a breastwork on
the river bank which the contractors had undertaken to main-
tain for seven years. 9 Had the work been carried out by the
Town Council directly the loss would have fallen entirely on
the citizens. As it was, after some bargaining, the contractors
offered to repay all the money which had been advanced to
them, and to remove all the stones and other material from the
bed of the river, on condition that they be allowed to cancel
their undertaking. To this the Town Council agreed. The only
inconvenience suffered by the citizens was the absence of a
viaduct over the river at the spot for several years, till a
wooden footbridge was erected by the feuars of Hutchesontown
in i8o4. 10
8 Burgh Records, i2th May, 1794.
9 Ibid. loth Dec., 1795.
10 Ibid, ist April, 1803 ; 5th Sept., 1804. Further up the river a passage
was afforded by Rutherglen Bridge, built in 1775 at a cost of ^1800. It was
the erection of this bridge which changed the name of " Barrowfield " to
" Bridgeton."
CHAPTER XLI
IN THE TIME OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
IN those difficult years, when the cries of revolution and the
cannon of continental war were filling the hearts of all with
foreboding, it is interesting to note that the city on the Clyde
never ceased to develop its amenities. Neither was its atten-
tion absorbed entirely by merely material things. It is signifi-
cant that the city raised the stipends of its ministers to 165
in 1788, and gave further additions of 35 in 1796, 50 in 1801,
50 in 1808, and 100 in 1814. l When it is remembered that
the Act of Parliament of 1810 enforced a minimum of no more
than 150, it will be seen that the townsmen set a high value
upon the stimulus they derived from the services of the clergy.
Their grateful regard was extended even to the bells in the
various church steeples, which summoned them to attend the
discourses of these spiritual and intellectual leaders. The great
bell of the High Kirk, which had sounded over the Bell o' the
Brae, and called the burgesses and their wives to worship for
some two hundred years, was cracked " by the hands of in-
considerate and unskilful men." Thereupon the Council sent
it to London, and had it re-cast by Thomas Hears at a cost of
30 6s. njd. 2 They also had the bells of the other kirks
1 Burgh Records, 28th Feb., 1788; i2th May, 1796; 4th Sept., 1801 ;
24th May, 1808 ; 3rd Mar., 1814.
2 Ibid. 1 8th Aug., 1790. This is the bell now preserved in the chapter-
house. Its material is believed to have been originally one of the bells hung
in the western tower of the cathedral by Archbishop Dunbar about 1544. It
was replaced in 1896 by a new bell, the gift of Mr. John Garroway.
363
364 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
inspected, to make sure that no unskilful ringing had damaged
their integrity.
Just then also Glasgow had followed the example of London
by the founding of a Humane Society, for recovering to life
persons apparently drowned. The Council encouraged this
benevolent enterprise by subscribing 10, and granting it per-
mission to build a boat-house and a house for its officer on the
Green. 3 From that day till this a constant succession of rescues
has been made from the Clyde by the officers of this Society.
Another benevolent act of the Town Council in the same
year throws light upon the risks to which British voyagers on
the high seas were exposed even so late as the end of the
eighteenth century. This was a subscription of 25 towards
the ransom from slavery of John Robertson, a native and
burgess of Glasgow, who had been captured and carried into
Algiers. The petition on Robertson's behalf, which had been
presented to the magistrates, was supported by authentic
documents, and declared that the unfortunate man had been
in slavery for several years. As considerable sums had already
been subscribed for his release by respectable inhabitants of
the city, it would appear that his ransom was by no means a
nominal amount. 4 Since very little of the shipping of Glasgow
then made its way into the Mediterranean, its burgesses
suffered comparatively little from the piracies of the corsair
state. But as late as 1816, when Algiers was bombarded by
Lord Exmouth, and the Dey compelled to release his Christian
prisoners, no fewer than 1211 of all nations regained their
liberty.
Nevertheless, as a trading city, with its fortunes on the sea,
Glasgow had a very vital interest in the protection of British
3 Burgh Records, i8th Aug., 1790. The institution of a Humane Society
was introduced from Holland to London by Dr. Cogan, and its work in the
restoration of persons apparently drowned was the subject of a paper read to
the Royal Society by the celebrated anatomist, Dr. John Hunter, in 1776.
4 Ibid, ist Oct., 1790.
THOMAS CAMPBELL AS BURSAR 365
shipping, and the Town Council continued to offer bounties
to seamen who might be induced to join the navy. The threat
of an outbreak of war with Spain in 1790 was the occasion of
one such offer, and others followed to meet later emergencies. 6
At the same time the city fathers had in their gift the
granting of a bounty providing stimulus in another direction,
and there is reason to believe that the exercise of its power on
one occasion during that troubled time contributed not a little
to the refreshment and strengthening of the national spirit at
a later date. In 1791 it presented Thomas Campbell, " son of
Alexander Campbell, merchant in Glasgow," to a bursary
founded in Glasgow University by Archbishop Leighton. 6 The
bursary was for three years in philosophy and two in divinity,
and without it, almost certainly, we should have had no
" Pleasures of Hope," and none of the great and stirring
paeans of battle, such as " Hohenlinden," " Ye Mariners of
England," and " The Battle of the Baltic," which did so much
to support the spirit of the nation in some of its darkest hours.
Campbell was fourteen years of age when he was awarded the
bursary. Seven years later, on the publication of his " Pleas-
ures of Hope," he was recognized as the greatest living poet in
Britain.
Again, within a month of presenting the benevolent old
archbishop's bursary to Thomas Campbell, the Town Council
gave its support to the founding of an institution which, during
the next hundred years, was destined to furnish incalculable
service to the intellectual development of the city. At that
date there were few public libraries in Scotland. The earliest
were those of the universities, which had taken the place of
those of the ancient monasteries. Next came that of the
Advocates in Edinburgh, founded by Sir George Mackenzie of
6 Ibid, nth May, 29th Nov., 1790.
8 Ibid. 3ist Dec., 1790 ; igth Jan., 1791. Campbell's father was one of
the Virginia merchants ruined by the revolt of the American colonies in 1775.
366 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Rosehaugh, the " Bluidy Mackenzie " of Covenanting tradi-
tion. There were Archbishop Leighton's library, mostly of old
divinity, at Dunblane, the library at Innerpeffray, near Crieff,
bequeathed by David, third Lord Madderty, in 1691, and the
library at Leadhills established in 1741. Edinburgh had seen
the first circulating library in Scotland set up by Allan Ramsay
in 1725, and his example had been followed in the western city
by John Smith, the Trongate bookseller, in 1753, and after-
wards by John Coubrough in High Street. 7 But Glasgow had
no library for public use till 1791. In that year Walter Stirling,
a member of the family which made the Monkland Canal and
developed the great Turkey Red dyeing industry, bequeathed
for the use of the citizens his house on the east side of Miller
Street, and his library, along with 1000 sterling and his share
in the Tontine society. The bequest was entrusted to the
management of a body of trustees, with the Lord Provost at
their head, and from that day till this has been a highly valued
institution of the city. 8
The Town Council was not without problems to settle in
those years. One of these arose out of a legal case in the court
of the Water Bailie. The defenders in that case questioned
the right of the Water Bailie to decide or try a civil action,
and appealed to the High Court of Admiralty on the subject.
The question was carried to the Court of Session, where the
Lord Justice Clerk sustained the jurisdiction of the Water
Bailie. This was only one of fourteen actions which the city
had pending at that time before the Supreme Court. 9
Another matter in which the Town Council acted firmly
was the attempt of riverside owners to obstruct the right of
7 Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 158.
8 Burgh Records, loth Feb., 1791. Originally readers were required to pay
an annual subscription of three guineas, raised to five in 1792 ; but this was
afterwards diminished, and was finally dropped on amalgamation with the
Mitchell Library in 1912.
9 Ibid. loth Feb., 1791 ; ist June, 1792.
PIAZZAS AT THE CROSS 367
way from the Broomielaw to Go van ferry and Par tick. The
fences and gates erected by these owners were ordered to be
removed, and a road 24 feet wide constructed. 10
Again, the piazzas in the four streets leading from the cross,
which, for a century and a half, had been one of the features on
which the townsfolk chiefly prided themselves, had begun to
appear an obstruction. They darkened the shops, which were
five feet behind the heavy pillars. In wet weather and on
market days they were crowded with country people. The
soldiers quartered in the town paraded there, and at night they
were the resort of thieves and disorderly persons. At the same
time they were so narrow that two people could hardly walk
abreast within them. The shopkeepers therefore applied to
be allowed to enclose the piazzas in their places of business.
On consulting counsel, however, the magistrates found that it
was no longer in their power to grant the application. The
space within the piazzas had been too long in public use, and
anyone who could prove an interest might insist on the space
being kept open. The proposal, therefore, was dropped for the
time. 1
A movement which demanded more immediate action was
a refusal of the Society of Porters to accept a new set of regula-
tions made by the Town Council. The Society had been granted
a seal of cause, conferring corporate powers and privileges, in
1748, and its functions, charges, and rules had been readjusted
in 1775. In view of changed conditions, the growth of the city
and the cost of living, the city fathers again revised the rules
10 Ibid, 1 9th May, 1785 ; lyth May, 1791.
1 Ibid, igth Sept., 1791 ; i8th Jan., 1792 ; i4th Aug., 1793 ; nth Oct.,
1800 ; 3rd June, 3istjuly, 4th Sept., 1801. The same reply was returned
when the Tontine Society, in 1833, petitioned the Town Council to close the
piazzas which had been constructed under the Council Hall and Assembly
Room. These piazzas, it was pointed out, had originally been designed as a
merchants' Exchange, but had become merely the crowded haunt of dis-
reputable persons. It required an Act of Parliament to have them abolished.
Ibid. 23rd Aug., i2th Sept., 9th Oct., 1833.
368 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
and terms of work in 1792. But by this time a new spirit had
arisen. Echoes of the French Revolution were in the air. The
porters refused to accept the ruling of the authorities, and
defied the Council. But they had counted without their host.
The Council gave them ten days to reconsider their position,
and as they still remained obdurate at the end of that time,
their seal of cause was cancelled, their badges were withdrawn,
and the magistrates advertised their willingness to confer the
forfeited privileges upon another body of sober and industrious
men who should be willing to give security for their good
behaviour and their observance of the magistrates' regulations. 2
When the Town Council took the city porters thus firmly
in hand the number of inhabitants of Glasgow and its suburbs
had just been ascertained. This was no longer merely an
estimate, but was a careful enumeration. The collector of
statute labour money reported that by the Council's instruc-
tions he had in 1791 made an accurate list of houses and
inhabitants. Within the city, royalty, and new town there
were 10,291 inhabited houses and 41,777 inhabitants, while in
the suburbs of Gorbals, Calton, Grahamston, Anderston, and
other districts, according to lists made up by the ministers and
other helpers, the number of inhabitants was 20,076, and in
the country parts of the Barony parish adjoining the city it
was 21,330. The total number, therefore, of the inhabitants of
what might fairly be called the Glasgow of that time was
66,i8 3 . 3
But though its population had grown thus considerably,
the city found it possible just then to absorb a large body of
strangers who were thrown upon the streets, like the flotsam
and jetsam of the sea. As a result of the forfeitures and other
misfortunes in the Highlands, which followed the Jacobite
rising of 1745, many of the inhabitants of the straths and glens
2 Burgh Records, 27th Dec., 1792 ; 25th Mar., I7th April., 1793.
3 Ibid. 9th Aug., 1792.
PROFESSOR JOHN ANDERSON, 1726-1796.
1 Tom the oil painting in the Royal Technical College.
FATHER MACDONELL 369
were forced to emigrate. In the early months of 1792 one of the
vessels carrying these emigrants was wrecked. Her passengers
were landed, almost destitute, at Greenock, and made their
way to Glasgow. This event was to have singular consequences.
Most of the strangers were Catholics, and few of them could
speak English. Their case roused the interest and energies of a
stalwart priest, Father Macdonell. He set about finding em-
ployment for them in the factories of Glasgow, undertook to
settle in the city himself, and act as their interpreter and chap-
lain, and he actually succeeded in finding work for six hundred
Highlanders. 4
Two years later, however, war with France having broken
out, British exports to the Continent almost stopped, factories
were forced to close down, and again the Highlanders found
themselves in severe straits. But Father Macdonell rose to the
occasion. Along with young Glengarry, he went to London,
and presented a loyal address to the King, offering to raise a
regiment of Glengarry Fencibles. He carried with him letters
from the Glasgow manufacturers, attesting the good character
of the Highlanders who had been employed by them, and
recommending that these Highlanders should be enrolled in the
service of the country. With these recommendations the offer
was accepted and the regiment enrolled. After service in Guern-
sey and Ireland, the Glengarry Fencibles returned to Scotland
in 1802, and like other Fencible regiments were disbanded.
Again the Highlanders were destitute, and again Father
Macdonell, who had acted as their chaplain, came to their
help. Against much discouragement he secured from the
Government an order to the Lieutenant-Governor of Canada to
grant two hundred acres of land to every Highlander who
should arrive and claim it. With the greater number of the
Glengarry Fencibles he emigrated to Canada, and formed the
famous settlement which is still known as Glengarry. Each
4 See supra, p. 315.
2 A Jf.G.jjj.
370 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
of the emigrants gave his new possession the name of the croft
he had once held in the Great Glen, and at the present hour
the Glengarry in Canada is even more Highland in speech and
spirit than the Glengarry in Scotland itself. 5
It was while these shipwrecked Highlanders were being
first settled in Glasgow that the dispositions were made which
gave the New Green its final and present shape. An oppor-
tunity arose to acquire the lands of Provosthaugh, otherwise
known as the Fleshers Haugh, about twenty-four acres in
extent, on the riverside, adjoining the ground already owned
by the city. Apparently the opportunity was urgent, for
payment was required within little more than a fortnight, and
the price was four thousand pounds sterling. But the provost,
James Macdowall, and two of his bailies, John Alston and
David Dale, were men of means, and, determining not to let
the opportunity slip, they agreed to make the purchase on
their own account. They then offered to hand over their
bargain to the Town Council, stating, at the same time, that
if the city did not wish to have the land, they were quite willing
to retain it themselves. The offer was accepted, however, and
the Provosthaugh duly became part of Glasgow Green. 6
While this transaction was being completed another con-
cerning the Green was begun. It had occurred to a number of
citizens that the higher ground, looking over the Green towards
the Clyde, offered an exceptionally fine site for dwelling houses.
By the sale of the site a large sum of money would be brought
into the coffers of the town ; if built according to an elegant
plan the houses would form a real ornament to the Green and
5 Adam's Clans, Septs and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands, p. 325.
The project of emigration was strongly opposed by the chiefs and gentlemen
of the Highland Society, who subscribed a large sum to frustrate it (Edinburgh
Advertiser, soth May, 1786), and Burns, in his " Address of Beelzebub, "
heartily abused them for doing so. To-day they are abused for exactly the
opposite reason.
6 Burgh Records, ist May, 22nd May, 1792.
FINANCIAL DISASTER OF 1793 371
the city ; and with the addition of the Provosthaugh, and a
field previously leased separately to one John King, there
would still remain a greater area than before for pasturing the
cows of the citizens. On these considerations, brought forward
by Lord Provost Macdowall, an architect was employed to
make a plan for laying off the Calton Green, and to draw plans
and elevations for buildings to be erected on it. In this way
was begun the movement which resulted in the laying out of
that highly fashionable quarter of its time, Monteith Row. 7
Already, however, while these transactions were being
carried out, events were happening which were to shake the
foundations of Glasgow's prosperity, and bring ruin and
disaster to many a Glasgow home. In February 1793 the Re-
public of France declared war against this country. The out-
break of the Revolution on the other side of the Channel four
years previously had given rise to unrest and anxiety in Britain
which were anything but good for trade. Many businesses
were already in difficulties through the closing of their markets
abroad and the interruption of that confidence and credit
which are among the first essentials of commerce. For them
the declaration of war was a knock-out blow. In that year
as many as 1956 bankruptcies were recorded in the Gazette.
These included no fewer than twenty-six banks, and of the
banks three were located in Glasgow Thomson's Bank, the
Merchants, and the Glasgow Arms. Of the three the Glasgow
Arms in the end paid all its creditors, and continued business
till incorporated with the Union Bank in 1830, but the ruin of
the others was final. 8
Two years later matters were still worse. The price of
wheat had risen from 505. to Sis. 6d. per quarter (in 1796 it was
963., and in 1812 it reached its highest, 1265. 6d.) 9 In the
7 Ibid, ist June, 1792.
8 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 148. Strang's Clubs, p. 212.
9 Mackinnon, Social and Industrial History of Scotland, p. 59.
372 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
general strain, disturbance, and upheaval the great West
India house of Alexander Houston & Company came down. It
was the greatest failure Glasgow had ever known, and nothing so
great was to occur again till the failure of the City of Glasgow
Bank three-quarters of a century later. The partners in the
business were Andrew Houston of Jordanhill, and his brother,
Robert Houston-Rae of Little Go van, with two grandsons of
the noted Colonel Macdowall, William Macdowall of Castle
Semple, M.P., and Lord-Lieutenant of Renfrewshire, and
James Macdowall, Lord Provost of Glasgow. The disaster was
brought about by an immense speculation in the purchase of
slaves, in anticipation of the passing of a bill for emancipation
introduced in Parliament. The bill did not pass, and the slaves
were left on the hands of the firm. They had to be fed and
clothed, their price fell heavily, and disease carried them off by
hundreds. Many years passed before the whole tangled skein
of the firm's affairs was unravelled. There were claims and
inhibitions, arrestments and multiple-poindings innumerable,
and a special Act of Parliament was required to enable the
trustee to deal with all the difficulties. But in the end every
debt was paid with interest. The assets, including the great
estates of the partners, realized over 1,000,000 sterling. The
Houstons were completely ruined and the Macdowalls were
left with only a fragment of the Castle Semple estate, which
they named Garthland after the patrimony of their ancestors
in Galloway. 10
10 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 223. Mitchell, Old Glasgow Essays,
378 note. Senex, Old Glasgow, p. 407.
CHAPTER XLII
ANDERSON'S UNIVERSITY
IT was in the midst of the disturbance and uncertainty of those
years of revolution that another new and valuable institution
had its origin in Glasgow. Professor John Anderson, its
founder, was a somewhat formidable figure in the life both of
the city and the University. His grandfather, an earlier John
Anderson, had been the first minister of the Northwest Church,
otherwise St. David's or the Ramshorn. A tombstone near the
east end of the south front of the church, details how he was
preceptor to the famous John, Duke of Argyll and Greenwich,
minister, to begin with, in Dunbarton, and author of several
ecclesiastical and political tracts. The inscription further
describes how this minister's eldest son, James, was minister
in Rosneath, and how his eldest son, again, John Anderson, was
Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow and
" Founder of an Institution in the City of Glasgow for lectures
in Natural Philosophy and in every branch of knowledge." 1
An account of the life of Professor Anderson appears in the
Glasgow Mechanics Magazine for 1825, and his portrait forms
the frontispiece of the volume, while a medallion of him by
G. Tassie is in possession of the Governors of the Glasgow and
West of Scotland Technical College. These representations
give the impression of a stalwart and combative personality,
which indeed he was. The most complete account of the
character and university career of Anderson, written with a not
1 Cleland's Annals, ii. p. 118.
373
374 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
too friendly pen, is given by Dr. David Murray in his Memoirs
of the Old College of Glasgow (pages 379-393).
After his father's early death Anderson was brought up by
an aunt in Stirling, and there at the age of nineteen he helped
to raise a regiment to defend the town against the Jacobite
rising under Prince Charles Edward. That taste of war gave
him an interest in things military which he never lost, and his
gun, sword, and bayonet were among the relics he bequeathed
to the college he founded. When the rebellion was over he
betook himself to Glasgow, completed his education, and
graduated Master of Arts. In 1755 he was appointed to the
Chair of Oriental Languages in the University, and two years
later was transferred to that of Natural Philosophy.
It was in those early years that he befriended James Watt.
In 1756 Watt was appointed mechanician to the University
and allowed a workshop within the College, and there is reason
to believe that the young professor's ideas and the use of his
library served as a stimulus to the struggling craftsman. As
all the world knows, it was Anderson's commission to repair
the model of the Newcomen engine which led to Watt's inven-
tion of the separate condenser and all his later improvements
in the use of steam. 2
The originality and forcefulness of Anderson's character
kept him in conflict during a large part of his career with the
authorities of the University, who, as is apt to be the case,
were all for precedent and tradition. His most notable quarrels
with them took place over the method of electing a Rector and
the keeping of accounts. 3 On an appeal to the courts of law he
lost his case. In their hour of triumph his opponents presented
2 See supra, p. 279.
3 Coutts, History of University of Glasgow, pp. 272-294. A generation previous-
ly the same subjects had been the cause of one of the most regrettable quarrels
in the history of the University, when the high-handed action of Principal
Stirling not only excluded the students from the election of the Rector, but
threw the whole affairs of the University into serious confusion. Ibid. p. 198.
THE ANTI-TOGA CLASS 375
their factor, Morthland, with a silver bowl inscribed with a
testimonial of their confidence. Later, however, the tables
were turned. Morthland was charged with defalcations amount-
ing to 10,000, and in his extremity cited as his chief defence
the testimonial he had received from the professors.
In the work of his own chair Anderson saw the possibility
of a very great development. Hitherto it had been purely
academic, dealing with the history of physics and with reasoning
regarding the facts of the material world by means of mathe-
matics. In his new development he taught, not by mathema-
tical reasoning, but by a direct appeal to the senses through
demonstration and experiment. Four days in the week he
lectured on the academic system, and two days on the practical.
With a view to the benefit to be conferred on industry by the
introduction of something better than mere rule of thumb
methods, and with a view, at the same time, to the educational
effect upon the workmen themselves, he encouraged the mech-
anics of the city to attend his practical lectures. Further, to
make it as easy as possible for them to do this, he invited them to
come in their working clothes, and excused them from wearing
the usual scarlet cloak of the student, calling theirs the Anti-
toga Class. An innovation of this kind was not looked upon
with favour by Anderson's fellow professors, but he persevered
with it to the end. The differences between his two courses
were explained in his Institutes of Physics, published in 1786,
a book which ran through five editions in its author's lifetime.
From the first also Anderson made it his practice to keep in
touch with the industrial life of the city. In his intercourse
with masters and men he ascertained how their processes could
be improved by a knowledge of the laws on which they were
based, and he set himself in his popular lectures to place that
knowledge within their reach.
In one field of applied mechanics he distinguished himself
in a highly practical way. Inspired by his early military
376 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
experience at Stirling, he devoted time to the study of war and
weapons. So clearly was his knowledge recognized that in
1759, when the French commander, Thurot, with four frigates
and 1200 men, was threatening the western coast of Scotland,
he was engaged to plan the fortifications at Greenock. He
experimented extensively with shot and shell, and demonstrated
the superiority of spheroid over round shot. He also invented
a field gun in which the recoil was stopped by the condensation
of air in the gun carriage. This invention he offered to the
British Government, but was met with a somewhat rude refusal.
In 1791, however, he took a model of his invention to Paris, and
presented it to the National Convention. That body received it
with thanks, and ordered it to be hung in the Hall of Assembly
with an inscription, ' The Gift of Science to Liberty."
Anderson then had a six-pounder made to his design, and
carried out a number of experiments near Paris, in the
presence of the famous Paul Jones, who declared his decided
approval of the new device.
Of strong Radical views, Anderson, like many others, hailed
the French Revolution as the dawn of a new era of greater
freedom for mankind. He was present in Paris when Louis
XVI was brought back from Varennes, and, amid the acclama-
tions of half a million of his subjects, and to the thunder of
five hundred cannon, took the oath to uphold the constitution.
Further, in sympathy with the new movement the inventor
translated his Essays on War and Military Instruments into
French, and distributed copies in Paris. And when the Ger-
man government drew a military cordon along the frontier, and
forbade the importation of French revolutionary literature,
Anderson suggested the use of small paper balloons, varnished
with boiled oil, and filled with hot air ; and thousands of
these were sent sailing over Germany carrying inflammatory
messages of " Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity."
What the Glasgow professor thought of the later excesses of
FIRST WOMEN STUDENTS 377
the Revolutionaries is not recorded. No doubt, as with thou-
sands more in this country, these proved a sad and serious dis-
illusionment. At any rate when he died in 1796 he left his
fortune, not for the propagation of wildcat projects for the
immediate creation of a millenium, but for the development of
intelligence, knowledge, and skih 1 among the classes who would
most benefit from the turning of these possessions to account
in the business of their lives. 4
Anderson's University, as planned by its founder, was to
consist of four colleges Arts, Medicine, Law, and Theology,
each with nine professors. The funds bequeathed by Anderson
amounted to no more than 1000, and of course were not
enough for the whole ambitious plan. The work began with
only a single course of lectures on Natural Philosophy and
Chemistry by Dr. Thomas Garnett. 5 It was equipped, however,
with the splendid apparatus and library of the founder, valued
at 3000, and in the first year the lectures were attended by no
fewer than a thousand students. From these beginnings " the
Andersonian " proceeded to grow. Its classes were started in
rooms lent by the Town Council in the new Grammar School in
George Street, and it included among its professors a succession
of distinguished men, such as Dr. George Birkbeck, A. S.
Herschel, Thomas Graham, afterwards Master of the Mint, and
Dr. Frederick Penny. Among the students who owed much of
the success of their careers to its instruction were James
Young of Kelly, creator of the great paraffin industry, David
Livingstone, the explorer of Africa, and Lord Playfair, the
celebrated chemist and politician.
Anderson's was the first university to admit women students
as well as men, and it appears to have afforded Count Rumford
the suggestion for the Royal Institution which he founded in
4 Burgh Records, gth June, 1796.
5 The district of Garnethill is said to derive its name from the fact that
Dr. Garnett had a cottage there.
HISTORY OF GLASGOW
London, and in which he induced Dr. Garnett to become the
first professor. Out of it also grew the movement, under Dr.
Birkbeck, for the founding of Mechanics' Institutes in London
and throughout the country, which for many years played a
notable part in the education and social life of the artizan classes.
For some thirty years the work was carried on in buildings
in John Street, but these became unsuitable, and in 1827
Anderson's trustees acquired the buildings of the Grammar
School in George Street, which had likewise become too small
for their original purpose, and had been unoccupied since 1821.
A lecture hall and galleried museum were added behind. In
these buildings the work was carried on for sixty years, chair
after chair being added, till in 1893 the staff consisted of ten
professors, nineteen lecturers, five extension lecturers, and
twelve industrial teachers, with seventeen chief assistants,
while in the day classes there were 223 students, and in the
evening classes 2685.
In 1887, under the Educational Endowments (Scotland)
Act, Anderson's College was united with three other institutions
to become the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical
College, the first of its kind in the kingdom ; and a few years
afterwards, on the site of the old Andersonian in George
Street, and sites adjoining, was erected the great building
which houses what is probably the most notable industrial
university of our time. At the same date the Medical depart-
ment of the Andersonian, which since the year 1800 had had a
highly useful and distinguished career, 6 was made an indepen-
dent institution, and established in Dunbarton Road as
Anderson's College Medical School. 7
6 For many years the professorships in Anderson's College medical faculty
were regarded as an almost certain step to chairs in Glasgow University ; no
fewer than seventeen of the holders having their services transferred in this
way.
7 A very full account of Anderson's College and its developments is con-
tained in The First Technical College, by Professor A. Humboldt Sexton, 1894.
CHAPTER XLII1
LEARNING AND LITERATURE
LITERARY activities took longer in the West of Scotland than
in the east to recover from the ecclesiastical obsession of the
Reformation and the Covenant. Perhaps the embargo of the
universities against the use of the vernacular was in both cases
a cause of delay in literary development. While Scotland was
rich, from early times, in songs and ballads, the entertainment
of the people, it was almost barren of a deliberate literature in
prose. An example was set in 1536, when John Bellenden, at
the command of James V., translated the Historia Scotorum
of Hector Boece into the vernacular. The example in the use of
the native language was followed by one or two historians of
Queen Mary's time, such as John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, and
Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, with, of course, Scotland's master
of partizan invective, John Knox.
In its literary record Glasgow can claim John Major, for he
seems to have written part of his Historia Majoris Britannia
after he became a regent of the College here, 1 but it cannot claim
Archbishop Spottiswood, for he wrote his history long after
1615, when he was transferred from the See of Glasgow to that
of St. Andrews. The city's achievements in literature may be
taken as having begun with the work of the redoubtable Zachary
Boyd, minister of the Barony, who, on an October Sunday in
1 Dr. David Murray thinks the latter part of Major's Historia may have
been written at Glasgow, as it was not published till 1521, and contains certain
detailed references to the city. Memories of the Old College of Glasgow, p. 23.
379
380 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the year 1650, from the pulpit in the Cathedral crypt, told
Oliver Cromwell exactly what he thought of him and the
church to which he belonged. From Boyd's poetical work,
Zion's Flowers, and metrical version of the Psalms, and his
prose Last Battle of the Soul in Death, Glasgow has no
literary production to record for fifty years and more, till 1721
when Robert Wodrow, the devout minister of Eastwood
parish, a few miles to the south of the city, published his
History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the
Restoration to the Revolution. That mine of Covenanting tradi-
tion, which drew a gift of a hundred guineas from George I.,
and supplied Macaulay with a large part of the material for his
account of the period, remains the most respected presentation
of its subject from the Covenanters' point of view.
After Wodrow came another silence, this time of a quarter
of a century, which was broken by a writer of very different
character indeed. Dougal Graham, the hump-backed skellat
bellman of the city, who had accompanied Prince Charles
Edward's army from its crossing of the Fords of Frew till its
overthrow at Culloden, has been justly called the Rabelais of
Scotland. The chapbooks which he wrote, printed, and sold
himself were probably the most popular literature of their
time, their coarse jokes and unspeakable episodes making the
merriment in every ploughman's bothy throughout the coun-
try. Hardly less popular was his rhymed History of the Rebel-
lion, which went through eight editions within sixty years ;
and among his shorter pieces in verse, his " Turnimspike "
won the admiration of both Burns and Sir Walter Scott.
It was at the same time that Smollett, on hearing of the
atrocities in the Highlands committed by the soldiers of the
Duke of Cumberland after the battle of Culloden, wrote his
fine verses " The Tears of Scotland." Though Smollett's novels
were not written in Glasgow, the first and the last of them,
Roderick Random and Humphrey Clinker, both contain im-
A POET PROVOST 381
pressions of the city and portraits of certain citizens which
make them part of the literature of the place. The shop of
Dr. John Gordon, the surgeon, with whom the novelist served
his apprenticeship, and in which he gained his knowledge of
Glasgow, stood at the north corner of Saltmarket and Princes
Street. 2
Mention has already been made of Mrs. Grant of Laggan,
whose father, Captain McVicar, was among those who lost their
estates in America on the outbreak of the War of Independence ;
but though she was born in the Goosedubs, and wrote some of
her poetry in the city after her return from America, her finest
song, " O where, tell me where," was written at Laggan, and
during the brilliant literary career which followed, she lived in
Edinburgh.
Another song, however, which is not less deservedly popular,
was written by a Lord Provost of Glasgow. When Scotsmen
gather to see the old year out and the new year in, " Here's to
the year that's awa' " expresses exactly the emotion of the
moment, and is almost as likely to be sung as " Auld Lang
Syne." Its author, John Dunlop, was born in Carmyle House
in 1755, and was Lord Provost in 1796. A member of the
famous Hodge Podge Club, described by Dr. Strang in Glasgow
and its Clubs, he was " a typical Glasgow citizen, social and
hospitable, who took much pleasure in listening to Scottish
songs, and could sing them himself to good effect." 3
The establishment of the Foulis Press and their publishing
and bookselling business by the brothers Foulis in 1741 no
doubt gave a new impetus to the taste for literature in Glasgow.
John Mayne, author of the earlier of the two finest poems
describing the city, served an apprenticeship of five years in
that establishment, and printed the first edition of that poem
in The Glasgow Magazine in 1783. An early edition of his most
famous poem, " The Siller Gun," describing the humours of
2 Literary Landmarks of Glasgow, p. 15. * The Glasgow Poets, p. 60.
382 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the annual wapinschawing at Dumfries, appeared in Ruddimaris
Magazine in the same year, and his " Hallowe'en," which
afforded Burns the model for his more famous poem on the
same subject, appeared in Ruddiman's three years earlier all
several years before the poet betook himself to London for a
journalistic career. Mayne was one of the most notable models
utilized by Burns, and in one instance at any rate Mayne's
" Logan Braes " which Burns took to be antique, and re- wrote
as " Logan Water " the Glasgow poet's production must be
acknowledged as the better of the two.
It seems strange that the two poets never met, but by the
time Burns had occasion to visit Glasgow in 1786 Mayne had
removed to Dumfries, and by the time Burns settled at Ellis-
land in 1787 Mayne had gone to London. 4
In the second half of the eighteenth century the divine fire
of intellectual life was burning at its brightest within the walls
of the venerable University in the High Street. The dead hand
of Latin speech in classroom and quadrangle had by that time
been entirely shaken off, though the brilliant Francis Hutcheson,
to whom the removal of that incubus was owed, was still up-
holding " commonsense " reasoning in the Moral Philosophy
classes in 1746. Robert Simson, who has been called the re-
storer of Euclid, and who was to leave to the University the
most complete collection of mathematical books in the king-
dom, was delivering his prelections in exact science till
1768. William Cullen, who revolutionized both the study of
chemistry and the practice of medicine, occupied the chairs of
these subjects in succession till 1756. Adam Smith, founder
of the science of Political Economy and author of that famous
classic on the subject, The Wealth of Nations, was Professor of
Logic and afterwards of Moral Philosophy from 1751 till 1763.
During those years he developed and published his great
ethical work, the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and though
4 The Glasgow Poets, p. 64.
' THE WEALTH OF NATIONS " 383
he did not write his monumental Inquiry into the Nature and
Causes of the Wealth of Nations till he had returned from his
three years' travels with the young Duke of Buccleuch in 1766,
he had, as he himself declared, acquired a knowledge of many
of the facts upon which that work was based from intercourse
with Provost Cochrane and other Glasgow merchants, and had
given his students the benefit of his theories on the subject.
When the Senate of Glasgow University in 1762 conferred on
him the degree of Doctor of Laws, it acknowledged the advan-
tage which had accrued to the students from " the ability with
which he had, for many years, expounded the principles of
jurisprudence." And when in 1787 he was elected Lord Rector
it was as much in grateful memory of these services, as in
esteem for the world-fame of his later career. 5
The activities of John Anderson, professor of Natural
Philosophy, have already been described. His fame lives not
so much by the matter which he taught as by the departure he
originated in the teaching of practical science, and the teaching
of it to a practical audience. Among the other occupants of
chairs were Thomas Hamilton, professor of Anatomy, who was
succeeded in 1781 by his more illustrious son, William Hamilton,
the celebrated surgeon, James Moor, professor of Greek, George
Ross, professor of Humanity, and William Leechman, professor
of Divinity, who became Principal in 1761.
The enlightened and social spirit of the time, in the Univer-
sity and the city, may be gathered from the fact that these and
other occupants of chairs, along with merchants like Robert
Boyle, William Crawford, and John Grahame of Dougalston,
with other individuals such as William Mure of Caldwell, John
6 The author of The Wealth of Nations is commemorated in Glasgow to-day
by the Adam Smith Chair of Political Economy founded in the University in
1896. The germs of The Wealth of Nations are to be found in the lately dis-
covered lectures on " Justice and Policy " which Adam Smith delivered to
his Moral Philosophy class in Glasgow. Mackinnon, Social and Industrial
History of Scotland, p. 41.
384 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Callender of Craigforth, William Craig minister of the Wynd
Church, Sir John Dalrymple, advocate, and Robert Foulis, the
University printer, formed themselves in 1752 into the Literary
Society of Glasgow. That society met every Friday evening
in the University, and the quality of its transactions was in
every way worthy of the standing of its members. 6
Of the members of that society not a few were also members
of the celebrated Anderston Club, founded and presided over
by Professor Simson, who dined every Saturday in the hostelry
kept by " ane God-fearing host," John Sharp, in the village a
mile to the west of Glasgow cross. Something of the atmo-
sphere of that club may be surmised from the character of its
president as described by Jupiter Carry le. " Mr. Simson," he
says, " though a great humorist, who had a very particular
way of living, was well-bred and complaisant, was a comely
man of good size, and had a very prepossessing appearance.
He lived entirely in a small tavern opposite the College gate,
kept by a Mrs. Millar. He breakfasted, dined, and supped
there, almost never accepted any invitations to dinner, and
paid no visits but to illustrious or learned strangers who wished
to see the University. On such occasions he was always the
cicerone . ' ' When it is added that the Anderston Club applauded
Simson's Greek verse with great gusto, it will be judged that
this coterie was no mere commonplace convivial assembly.
Following the two-o'clock dinner, with its favourite introduc-
tory dish of " hen-broth " something stronger than to-day's
chicken soup there was talk " on philosophy and science, on
art and literature on all the world then knew, and all that it
was predicted it would become." 1
The weekly gatherings of the Literary Society and the An-
derston Club were in fact no unworthy equivalents of the
gatherings at the " Cheshire Cheese " and other Fleet Street
taverns of which Dr. Samuel Johnson was the autocrat and
6 Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 24. 7 Ibid. p. 25.
THE DRYGATE, WITH THE CATHEDRAL, 1832.
From oil painting by Horatio MacCulloch, R.S.A.
JAMES BOSWELL 385
leading luminary. It was merely their misfortune to have no
James Boswell to chronicle and embellish with a touch of genius
their annals, their wit combats, and their flashes of wisdom.
This last fact is the more to be regretted since Boswell was
himself a student at Glasgow University, and must have de-
rived from his experience there no little part of the inspiration
which was to make him one of the most brilliant writers of
travels as well as the greatest of all British biographers. It
was through the brothers Foulis of Glasgow that he published
his first highly popular works on Corsica and the Corsican
patriots whose leader was Paoli, and when in 1771, he escorted
Paoli to Glasgow, the visitors were received at the University
by a body of the professors, and entertained with cake and wine
in the library. 8 When, two years later, Boswell brought the
subject of his greatest book to Glasgow, and installed him in the
famous Saracen's Head Inn in Gallowgate, Dr. Johnson did not
in any way outshine or dominate the little group of University
professors and others who came to welcome him to the city. On
that occasion Johnson and Boswell entertained three of the
professors to breakfast ; they were conducted round the town
by Professor John Anderson, afterwards founder of Anderson's
College, and they visited Principal Leechman in his own house.
Among other notable literary pilgrims from the south of
the Border who were attracted to visit Glasgow at that time
was Thomas Gray, author of the " Elegy in a Country Church-
yard," who came in 1764 to arrange for the publication of an
edition of his poems by the brothers Foulis. Dodsley's editions,
published in London, the poet declared to be " far inferior to
that of Glasgow." 9 Also, thirty years after Boswell and
Johnson, came William Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy,
and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In her Memorials, Dorothy
recorded that it rained nearly all the time of their visit, and
8 Coutts, Hist. Univ. Glasgow, p. 305.
9 Literary Landmarks of Glasgow, p. 29.
2B H.G.III
386 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
they only noticed the busy streets, the picturesqueness of the
Trongate, and " the largest coffee-room I ever saw " probably
the Tontine. They did not see the Cathedral.
All these visitors lodged at the Saracen's Head, as also did
the Lords of Session when they came to hold their courts of
assize in the town. On these occasions " the Lords " enter-
tained the magistrates to feasts in which the mighty punch-
bowl of the establishment figured, as well as oceans of the claret
for which the hostelry was famous.
Next to the literary associations of the Saracen's Head, its
most famous memory was the arrival at its door of the first
mail-coach from London on 7th July, 1788. So important was
the event that the proprietor of the inn, with a troop of horse-
men, and trumpets blowing, rode out along the Gallowgate to
welcome the coach as it came galloping in.
It was, however, another inn to which Robert Burns re-
sorted when he visited Glasgow. The national poet was more 1
often in the city than has been generally supposed, and it was
only by chance that the first edition of his work was not pub-
lished there instead of at Kilmarnock. When, on a summer
day in 1786, he came in over the beautiful old bridge which still
stands in the glen at Cathcart, he had his poems in his pocket,
along with an introduction to William Reid, a young man in
the employment of Dunlop & Wilson, booksellers, printers,
and publishers in Trongate. The young assistant recognized
the merit of the poems. " Don't talk of the West Indies, sir ! "
he exclaimed, when Burns mentioned his project of going
abroad, "Edinburgh, not Jamaica, is the place for you! " But
neither Dunlop & Wilson, nor any other of the Glasgow printers,
would undertake the issue the Foulises were by that time out of
business and the poet, on his way home through Kilmarnock,
made his arrangement with John Wilson, the printer there. 10
10 Hately Waddell, Life and Works of Burns, quoted in Literary Landmarks
of Glasgow, p. 57.
ROBERT BURNS IN GLASGOW 387
The details of Burns's connection with Glasgow would have
been much more fully known but for the fact that in the flood
of the Clyde in February 1831, Reid's house was inundated, and
all his Burns letters were destroyed. 1 In 1787, however, and
in 1788 the poet was frequently in the city, and it seems some-
what surprising that he received there nothing like the recogni-
tion and ovation which greeted him in Edinburgh. Perhaps he
was too near home. Glasgow has always been rather apt to
fulfil the adage regarding a prophet in his own country. He
made the Black Bull at the foot of Virginia Street his head-
quarters, and there one night in February 1788, on arriving from
the capital, he sat down and wrote one of his most impassioned
letters to " Clarinda " herself, by the way, a Glasgow girl, her
father a Glasgow surgeon, and her uncle a Glasgow minister.
That night at the Black Bull he entertained his brother William
and Captain Richard Brown, the friend of his days at Irvine,
and next day Reid escorted him as far as Govan on his way to
Paisley. 2
Burns had a number of other friends in Glasgow, including
James Candlish, a student at the University, to whom he
wrote several interesting letters. But of these friends the most
notable was Dr. Moore, the author of Zeluco, and father of
the still more famous Sir John Moore, the hero of Corunna. It
cannot be forgotten that but for the contents of the poet's auto-
biographical letter to Dr. Moore we should be without many
most interesting details of his early life.
The statue of Burns unveiled in George Square in 1877 may
be held to testify for Glasgow nothing more than the admiration
of the poet displayed by Scotsmen everywhere ; but a quite
special memorial is the great collection of Burns literature in
1 Reid afterwards became a partner in the bookselling business of Brash
& Reid, and, something of a poet himself, wrote a third sixteen lines to his
friend's song " Of a' the airts the wind can blaw." The Glasgow Poets, p. 116.
2 Literary Landmarks, p. 64. A very full account of Burns's connections
with the city will be found in this work.
388 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the Poets' Corner of the Mitchell Library, probably the finest
collection in existence.
Another man of letters of the highest distinction who had a
close association with Glasgow in the late years of the eighteenth
century and the early years of the nineteenth, was Sir Walter
Scott. Like Burns, Scott was more frequently in Glasgow than
is generally supposed. His duties in connection with the
Court of Session brought him to the city at regular intervals.
On these occasions his resort for refreshment was the Institu-
tion tavern in King Street, and there, for many years after his
time, the ring at the door was pointed out as that to which he
fastened his horse, and visitors were shewn the " loupin'-on
stane " from which he reached the saddle. That " Institution "
was a favourite rendezvous of the College professors and stu-
dents, who presented it with a dozen silver tankards, duly in-
scribed. The tankards, eleven of them at least, are still in
existence, and were no doubt frequently used by Scott himself.
On one of these legal visits Scott was present at the trial
of the murderer Mackean, and afterwards went to see the con-
demned man in his cell the murder was a particularly dia-
bolical one, and the murderer a sanctimonious rascal. 3 In 1808
the novelist induced Constable to publish the little volume
including " The Poor Man's Sabbath," by the Glasgow cobbler-
poet, John Struthers. In 1814, at the end of his cruise in the
yacht of the Lighthouse Commissioners, he voyaged up the
Clyde, from Greenock to the Broomielaw, in one of the first river
steamers the " Comet " had been launched only two years
before. And in 1817, along with his friend Captain Adam Fer-
guson, he was conducted round the sights of the city by John
Smith, the bookseller of Hutcheson Street the tour in which
he gathered materials for his romance, Rob Roy. Still
later, in 1825, Scott passed through Glasgow again, accompanied
by his daughter Anne and Lockhart, and at dinner on the
3 Lockhart's Life of Scott, chap. viii. Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 489.
SIR WALTER SCOTT REJECTED 389
steamer as he sailed down the river, sat beside a certain Bailie
Tennant, who, as he brewed a second bowl of punch for the
party, remarked with a sly wink that in that office he " was
reckoned a fair hand, though not equal to his father, the
deacon."
In view of the greatness of the man, to say nothing of the
fact that he placed Glasgow permanently in the gallery of
literature with one of the greatest of his romances, Rob Roy, it
seems strange that Scott was three times a candidate for the
Lord Rectorship of the University against Sir James Mackin-
tosh, Lord Brougham, and Thomas Campbell without success.
It was only after he was dead, and the heroic drama of his
fight against misfortune was over, that the citizens hastened
to set up his monument in the middle of their Valhalla, George
Square.
In the later decades of the eighteenth century Glasgow was
producing its own galaxy of literary genuis. Greatest of its
stars was Thomas Campbell, who at the age of twenty- two,
upon the publication of his Pleasures of Hope, became the
greatest poet of the day. Born near the foot of Balmanno Brae
in George Street, 4 the eleventh child of one of the city's Virginia
merchants, he won an early fame at the old College in High
Street as a teller of stories, a player on the flute, and a winner
of prizes for English and Greek verses. His verse essay on
' The Origin of Evil " got him a reputation far beyond the
College walls, and the signboard which at midnight he set up
over the adjoining shops of two quarrelsome neighbours, a
publican named Drum and an apothecary Fyfe, who pierced
ears for earrings, set the whole town in a roar with its legend
' The ear-piercing Fife, the spirit-stirring Drum ! "
It was while tutoring General Napier's son at Downie House on
the Kintyre coast below Crinan, that a letter from his College
4 Literary Landmarks of Glasgow, p. 79.
390 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
friend, the witty Hamilton Paul, set him to writing The
Pleasures of Hope, for which, in 1799, Mundell, the Edinburgh
publisher, gave him 60 at sight and occasional sums of 50
afterwards. By that time his family had removed from their
later house in Charlotte Street to Edinburgh, and Campbell's
connection with Glasgow ceased, with the exception of one
glorious visit in 1815, till he returned in 1827 to be chaired
triumphantly as Lord Rector by the students of his old alma
mater. Curiously enough, on that occasion his election was
bitterly opposed by the professors, who even prevented him
from delivering two lectures to the students on ' ' The History of
Learning." His later championing of the cause of Poland
shewed him to be as broad in his sympathies as his songs
showed him to be patriotic in spirit.
Campbell remains the greatest of the Glasgow poets, but he
was not the only literary genius whom the city produced at that
time. It cannot be forgotten that the writers of the two greatest
biographies in the English language, James Boswell and J. G.
Lockhart, were students at the old CoUege Boswell as a
student of Civil Law and of Moral Philosophy under Adam
Smith, and Lockhart, son of the old minister of the Blackfriars
Church, as winner of a Snell exhibition which carried him, as
the SneU exhibitions have carried so many other men of future
distinction, to Balliol College at Oxford. 5 Lockhart left a
notable mark in the annals of Glasgow itself with " Captain
Pat on 's Lament," a quaint elegy on a quaint personage in the
city in his time. Dr. John Moore, son of one of the daughters of
that worthy citizen, John Anderson of Dowhill, 6 was the author
of many successful books besides the novel Zeluco, though
5 The Snell Exhibitions, now five in number, of 80 each, tenable for four
years, were founded by John Snell, himself a Glasgow student, who fought
for Charles II at Worcester, and acted as secretary to the Duke of Monmouth.
The late Lord Newlands increased the amount by ^100 per annum to each
holder.
6 Supra, p. 20.
CHRISTOPHER NORTH 391
he is chiefly remembered from the facts that he corre-
sponded with Burns and was the father of Sir John Moore.
James Grahame, author of The Sabbath, of Mary Stuart, an
Historical Drama, and of The Birds of Scotland, was the son of
a Glasgow writer, who got his inspiration on the bosky banks of
the Cart, south of the city, and notwithstanding the criticisms
of the Edinburgh Review and Lord Byron, is regarded, not un-
justly, as the Cowper of Scotland. It was his death, in 1811,
which first stirred the genius of his friend, John Wilson, to
poetry. 7 Wilson himself, the future " Christopher North,"
Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh, and one of the
brilliant coterie which made that city " the Modern Athens,"
won his earliest fame as much by his astonishing athletic ability
as by his facility in writing verse when attending the classes at
Glasgow University. He received there, from Professors Young
and Jar dine, the impulses which led him, later, to adopt a life
of letters, and which fitted him, when in 1808, his father, the
wealthy gauze manufacturer at Paisley, died, and he bought
the beautiful estate of Elleray on Windermere, to associate
with men like Wordsworth, Southey, and De Quincey, who
were making that region famous.
There were also the two sons of Dr. William Hamilton,
Professor of Anatomy and Chemistry. Of these the elder,
William, in 1816 revived the baronetcy of Preston, forfeited by
his ancestor Sir Robert Hamilton, leader of the Covenanters at
Drumclog and Both well Bridge, and, as Professor of Logic and
Metaphysics in Edinburgh, acquired a reputation as the first
metaphysician in Europe. The younger brother, Thomas, was
the author of Cyril Thornton, a novel which stands beside
Humphrey Clinker, Rob Roy, and Gait's Entail, for its pictures
of Glasgow life and character. Joanna Baillie, again, had been
at school in Glasgow for four years before her father became
Professor of Divinity in the University. Her plays have been
7 The Glasgow Poets, p. 125.
392 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
described as " the best ever written by a woman," her songs are
among the Scottish classics, and her friendship with Sir Walter
Scott remains one of the most famous in literature.
Joanna Baillie had yet another connection with Glasgow,
for her mother was a sister of the famous London surgeons and
anatomists, William and John Hunter. At his death in 1783
William Hunter left 2000 to the poetess, his practice to her
brother Matthew Baillie, and his great collections to his alma
mater, Glasgow University, where they still form a very
notable feature, the Hunterian Museum.
Something of a new departure for the West of Scotland was
made when Brash & Reid, from their shop in Trongate, between
the years 1795 and 1798, issued their Poetry, Original and
Selected. The production was evidently modelled on Allan
Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany. It was issued in penny num-
bers, and ultimately formed four volumes. It included a
number of Reid's own compositions, as well as some by Robert
Lochore, his fellow laureate of the Hodge Podge Club. But
perhaps its chief merit lay in suggesting the later Whistle-
binkie of 1832, to which the chief contributors were Alexander
Rodger, the " Radical Poet," author of " Robin Tamson's
Smiddy," " Behave yoursel' before folk," and other lyrics,
J. D. Carrick, editor of the famous collection of Scottish humour,
The Laird of Logan, and William Motherwell, journalist,
politician, and poet, whose Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern
remains perhaps the best representative collection of Scottish
ballads.
These last-named notables belong rather to the early decades
the nineteenth century than to the last decades of the
eighteenth. So also does Robert Pollok, author of that once
immensely popular poem, " The Course of Time," who died in
1827 at the age of 29, in the very hour of achieving fame.
Similarly cut off in his prime, in 1826, was William Glen, son
of a considerable West India merchant, who besides his well-
WILLIAM HUNTER, 1718-1783.
From the portrait in the Hunterian Museum.
Reproduced by permission of the University of Glasgow.
11 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG " 393
known song, " Wae's me for Prince Charlie," was the author of
a number of lyrics, some of which, like " The Battle of Vittoria,"
enjoyed a vast popularity in their day. And to the same
period, outstanding in the field of fiction, belongs Michael
Scott, born at Cowlairs House, whose creation, Tom Cringle's
Log, printed first as anonymous occasional articles in Black-
wood's Magazine, remains the richest and most racy picture of
the West Indian life of its author's time.
In the arena of learning it is worth remembering that the
founder of the famous McGill University at Montreal was a
Glasgow man. Born in the city in 1744, and migrating to
Canada before the American Revolution, James McGill carried
with him memories of the ancient College in High Street, and
when he died, a Member of Parliament and a Brigadier-General,
in 1813, left his estate of Burnside and a sum of 10,000 to
found the university which bears his name.
/
CHAPTER XLIV
WAR WITH FRANCE
s*
As the eighteenth century was drawing to an end the shadow of
want again darkened in the wynds of Glasgow. The city had
now an industrial population of many thousands who depended
entirely on wages and what wages could buy. The day was gone
when every family owned a cow and a kailyard, and was more
or less independent of prices in the market or shop. Under the
new order of things, in time of war, or the failure of a harvest,
or a change of trade or fashion, large numbers of persons, the
less provident or less competent or less fortunate, fell very soon
into distress. This happened in 1799, and the emergency was the
most serious the city fathers had yet been called upon to meet.
The country was then at war. The revolutionists of France,
having slaughtered their own aristocracy in the " September
massacres " of 1792, and guillotined their king and queen,
had set themselves to bring about revolution in this country.
They endeavoured to rouse India and Ireland to throw off the
British ' ' y oke . " Their agents were busy ' ' sowing revolution ' ' in
the courts of the Indian princes, in the organizations of United
Irishmen, and in the Constitutional Clubs in Britain itself. Pitt's
pious hopes that France would refrain from a war of conquest,
his pressure on Holland to remain neutral, and his efforts to main-
tain peace at almost any price, were regarded by the French re-
volutionaries as merely weakness. They accordingly proceeded to
attack Holland, and, in February, 1793, declared war on Britain. 1
1 Green, S/fo^ History, under dates.
394
MAKING OF ROADS 395
Of the stresses and distresses in the years that followed,
Glasgow had its natural share. Mention has already been made
of the commercial crisis of 1793 in which three of the Glasgow
banks went down, as well as of the tremendous crash of Alexan-
der Houston & Co. in 1795. It is true that in many respects
life went on, and the city conducted its affairs, as if the war
were being waged in another planet. The stipends of the city
ministers were raised to 200 ; 2 hackney coaches, which were
ousting sedan chairs, had their fares regulated ; 3 and a great
making of roads continued, amid which the Town Council
subscribed 500 for the highway over Beattock Summit in the
Leadhills, from Dinwiddie Green to Elvanfoot. 4 Contracts
were made for cleaning the streets, for 48 in 1796 and for 90
two years later, 5 while an order was given for whitewashing the
interior of the Outer High Church, otherwise the nave of the
cathedral. 6 In private business also, notable developments
took place. Among other enterprises, Charles Macintosh, son
of George Macintosh of cudbear fame, established the first alum
works in Scotland, at Hurlet, near Barrhead. 7
Again and again, however, the mighty matter of the war
became insistent. In June, 1795, Glasgow was called upon to
furnish a quota of 57 men for the Royal Navy. Only 15 could
be got to volunteer, and the expense of levying them amounted
to 290. For the deficiency the city had to pay 25 per man,
or 1050 altogether. These amounts were raised by a special
assessment, on the heritors, burgesses, and inhabitants. 8
It is to the credit of the city that no such violent outbreaks
occurred as took place in London, where George III., on his way
to open Parliament, was met with cries of " Bread," " Peace,"
and " No Pitt ! " and had an attempt made upon his life an
2 Burgh Records, I2th May, 1796. 3 Ibid. 3rd Aug., 1796; I3th Jan., 1800.
4 Ibid. 28th Dec., 1797. *Ibid. ist April, 1796; I2th June, 1798.
6 Ibid. 25th June, 1798. 7 Mitchell, Old Glasgow Essays, p. 382.
8 Burgh Records, i2th June, 1795.
396 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
outrage regarding which the Town Council sent a letter to the
king. 9
Sixteen months later the magistrates, merchants, and manu-
facturers sent an offer to the Government to raise two battalions
of foot, each 750 strong, for national defence, and at the same
time George Macintosh made an offer on his own account to
raise a battalion of 500 Highlanders. The Town Council
thanked Macintosh for an offer " which does him the highest
honour," but declined to send it on, " for particular reasons of
expediency." 10 Later in the same month came a further
requisition from the Government to raise a quota of 64 J men.
Of these, 9 men were actually forthcoming, at an expense of
189 6s. 4d., and the city paid 1387 los. for the 55 \ who
remained deficient. 1
These events were a sign of the anxious condition of the
nation's affairs. Since suggesting the strategy which drove the
British garrison out of Toulon in 1793, the young artillery
officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, had risen rapidly into power.
France had broken up the confederacy of nations Spain,
Austria, and Prussia which, in alliance with Britain, ringed
her round, and she had overrun Holland. It was true that our
fleets at sea had taken possession of the French West Indian
islands and the Dutch colonies of the Cape of Good Hope,
Ceylon, Java, and the Malacca Islands, but Napoleon had
marched an army over the Alps, and brought Austria to terms,
while Spain and Holland had become allies of France. Under
Pitt's policy of peace and retrenchment in previous years, the
British army had been reduced to insignificance, and, as in-
variably happens in such circumstances, the enemy was en-
couraged to attack. Ireland, seething with sedition, was on the
eve of revolt, and it was known that the French were planning
an invasion there. A mutiny which broke out in the fleet was
9 Burgh Records, 4th Nov., 1795. 10 Ibid. iyth March, 1797.
1 Ibid. 29th March, 1797.
BATTLE OF CAMPERDOWN 397
put down with difficulty, and in the general alarm the Bank of
England suspended payment. If the fleets of Spain and Hol-
land could unite with that of France to seize the Channel, an
overwhelming force was ready to be landed on our shores.
In this crisis Britain was saved by the skill and bravery of
her seamen. In February, 1797, when the Spanish fleet put to
sea, it was met by Admiral Jervis off Cape St. Vincent, and
driven back to Cadiz with the loss of four of its finest ships.
And in October, when the Dutch fleet sailed out of the Texel, it
was engaged, and, after a tremendous battle off Camperdown,
almost entirely destroyed by Admiral Duncan.
The relief felt by Glasgow, which was no doubt typical of
that of the rest of the country, was testified in no uncertain
fashion. The Town Council wrote a letter of congratulation to
George III., it conferred the freedom of the city on Admiral
Duncan, and it named the two avenues then being made west-
ward out of George Square respectively St. Vincent Place and
Camperdown Place 2 (now West George Street).
An exploit of particular gallantry following the Battle of
Camperdown, was singled out by the Town Council for special
recognition. During the conflict the Dutch battleship Vreyheid
had struck her colours to the British Director, and Lieutenant
John MacTaggart was put on board, with twenty-two British
seamen, to navigate the prize to a British port. The Vreyheid
had a complement of 500 men, nevertheless MacTaggart, with
his small prize crew, took possession, and successfully brought
the big Dutchman into Yarmouth Roads. The feat was ac-
complished in spite of excessive hardships through stress of
weather and fatigue. As a reward MacTaggart was promoted
to command the Ferret sloop of war, and, in recognition of his
meritorious and gallant behaviour, the magistrates and Town
Council of Glasgow made him an honorary burgess and guild
brother. 3 No doubt the gallant officer was a Glasgow man.
2 Ibid. 2ist Nov., 1797 ; 4th Sept., 1802. 3 Ibid. 29th March, 1798.
398 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Three months later, while the Irish, aided by a force under
General Humbert, which the French had managed to land in
August, were doing their utmost to stab Britain in the back,
the Town Council of Glasgow rose still further to meet the
occasion, by making a voluntary contribution of 1000 for the
support of the Government and the defence of the king-
dom. At the same time the citizens subscribed and sent to
London 13,500 for these purposes, and the first battalion of
the Royal Glasgow Volunteers by itself subscribed and
remitted to the Bank of England the sum of two thousand
guineas. 4
Glasgow just then had its own reason for knowing that the
Government was short of money. Since 1794 the city's account
for the ground in Gallowgate on which the barracks were built
had remained unpaid. With interest this now amounted to
more than 2000, and many applications to the Barrack-
master General had been made without result, that officer
assigning frankly as a reason that there were no funds in his
hands for the purpose. It was not till the year 1799 that a
settlement was obtained. 5
At that time the income from the " Common Good " of the
town, that is, from the tron and weigh-house, markets, cran dues,
ladles, and bridge tolls, amounted to no more than 3377, while
the impost duties upon ale and beer brought a further 2600.
The seat rents of the churches also brought in a certain sum.
There was then no regular system of rating, except for the
support of the poor, and the entire income of the city in 1797
was only 8943 43. 8d. 6 It will therefore be seen that the sums
voluntarily subscribed for the defence of the country represented
really substantial efforts. The Town Council indeed regarded
its own affairs as in a serious position, and urged the committee
4 Burgh Records, i5th Feb., 2oth Sept., 1798.
6 Ibid, nth June, 1799 ; 22nd Aug., 1800.
6 Ibid. 24th May, i4th Dec., 1797 ; 2nd Oct., 1801.
STARVATION IN 1799 399
charged with auditing the chamberlain's books to devise some
scheme for increasing revenue and diminishing expenditure.
For this, it declared, there appeared to be " the most urgent
necessity." 7
Like the rest of the kingdom, Glasgow was no doubt cheered
by the rout of the Irish rebels at Vinegar Hill in June, 1798,
and the surrender of the French force under General Humbert
who landed in August to assist them ; also by Nelson's de-
struction of the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile, and the
repulse of Bonaparte from the siege of Acre, which together put
an end to that enemy's designs for the conquest of India. By
way of commemoration the Town Council gave the name of
Nile Street to one of its new thoroughfares. 8
But the troubles entailed upon this country by the political
upheaval in France were really little more than begun, and
meanwhile Glasgow had its difficulties suddenly and enormously
increased from an altogether unexpected quarter. In the year !
1799 the harvest failed. The most grievous scarcity that had 1
yet been known was experienced in the city, and a large part of
the population was reduced to real danger of starvation. While
the pressure of want was felt by all, the most serious distress
was experienced by the working classes, and memories of
the events of the time remained among the fireside tales of
Glasgow folk for the better part of a century. Stories were told
of the struggles to secure the single peck of meal to which each
family was restricted, of the long hours of waiting for that
precious dole, and of the terrors of, the military guard which
prevented the hungry crowd from raiding the diminishing
store. 9
Fortunately the Town Council took early alarm. The Lord
Provost, Laurence Craigie, drew attention to the danger, not
only of starvation among the poorer inhabitants, but of the
7 Ibid. 2nd Oct., 1797. 8 Ibid. 4th Sept., 1802.
9 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 55.
400 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
disturbances likely to arise if precautions were not taken to quiet
the minds of the people. 10 On his suggestion, and following the
example set in the similar but smaller emergency of 1782, the
Town Council opened a guarantee fund, which it headed with a
subscription of 500, and appointed a committee to import
grain, meal, and other provisions, and distribute them, by sale
and otherwise, to the citizens. Within a month the sum of
12,000 was subscribed, and the committee was at work. From
first to last that body expended no less than 65,330. It is
interesting to note that the largest item was 28,150 for oats,
while wheat came next at 13,388. 8800 were spent on barley,
and 3881 on beans and pease, while 3360 barrels of flour were
purchased for 8191, and of potatoes there were no more than
165 tons, which cost 398. 1 In addition to this public effort,
private benevolence took part on a large scale. It was on this
occasion that David Dale imported and distributed his shipload
of Indian corn, which was welcomed by its recipients under the
name of " sma' peas." Altogether food to the value of 117,500
was imported. 2
Notwithstanding the strenuous efforts which were thus
made, the city did not escape disturbance. On I5th February,
1800, a bread riot broke out, and did considerable damage
to person and property, which had to be made good out of
the public purse. The " meal mob " of Glasgow, however,
attained no such serious proportions as the disturbances in
10 Thomas Paine, the stormy petrel of two continents and the Henry
George and Karl Marx of his time privateer, excise officer, and agitator in
England, who fought against this country in the revolt of the American
colonies, and became a French citizen and member of the Convention in 1 792
was just then stirring up trouble with his writings, " The Age of Reason " and
" The Rights of Man."
1 Burgh Records, i3th Nov., i6th Dec., 1799 ; 6th Nov., 1800 ; 7th Feb.,
1803.
2 Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship. The total public subscription amounted
to ^18,000. In addition the cost to the Town Council was j6n, but when
the Council proposed to raise this sum by taxation the proposal was strenuously
resisted. Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 359.
.
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ATTEMPT ON LIFE OF THE KING 401
London, where yet another attempt was made to assassinate
the king. 3
Fortunately the years that followed produced plentiful
crops. That of 1801 was stated to have been harvested in
better condition than any within living memory. The troubles
arising from scarcity of food accordingly came to an end. 4
3 Burgh Records, igth March, 24th Sept., 1800; 3oth March, 1801 ; 2ist
May, 1800.
* Ibid. 6th Nov., 1801.
2C H.G.II1.
CHAPTER XLV
GLASGOW WELLS AND WATER SUPPLY
IN modern times, when every citizen is aware of the serious
dangers of a polluted water supply, it is curious to find that
until the beginning of the nineteenth century Glasgow depended
entirely for this chief necessary of life upon a few wells and the
waters of the Molendinar, the Camlachie Burn, and the Clyde.
Until the middle of the eighteenth century the wells were
merely open holes in the ground, surrounded with a low parapet
wall, 1 and the water was drawn up by a bucket and windlass.
It was only by degrees that the wells were covered, and a pump
was substituted for the windlass and bucket. Of the thirty or
so public wells which existed at the end of the century most
were sunk in the streets of the town, and must have been liable
to serious pollution from the surface filth which was only occa-
sionally cleared away. As late as 1780 a well was sunk in
Jamaica Street to supply the occupants of the new houses then
being built in that thoroughfare. 2
The wells were one of the social institutions of the town.
Most famous of them were the well at the Barras Yett, near the
foot of Saltmarket, and the well in Trongate at the West Port,
near the head of the Stockwell. There the gatherings of
barefooted servant lasses, with their " girrs " and " stoups,"
waiting their turn to draw the household water for the day,
exchanged all the latest gossip, to be carried home and duly
retailed to their mistresses with exclamations and embellish-
1 Burgh Records, i8th June, 1664. 2 Ibid. 3oth Aug., 1780.
402
THE WELLS OF GLASGOW 403
ments. The Town Council regularly appointed an official
whose duty was to see that buckets and chains and pumps were
kept in good order.
Of these wells, those still in existence, though now
closed, are the famous Arns Well, 3 near the Humane Society
House on Glasgow Green, the well in the flower garden of the
Bishop's Castle, now Cathedral Square, the Lady Well under
the Necropolis, the well at the Dew Hill or Dowhill in Gallow-
gate, which supplied the Saracen's Head Inn, and the Deanside
spring or Meadow Well opposite the entrance to Shuttle Street,
which at one time supplied the Greyfriars Monastery, and which
made it almost impossible to erect some of the buildings round
its site at 88 George Street. Of the old private wells there
is one under the paving of the Argyll Arcade, not far from
Buchanan Street, where once lay the garden of a pleasant
suburban house. The oldest of all, of course, is St. Mungo's
Well, in the lower part of the Cathedral, which was probably
used for church purposes till comparatively recent times.
Regarding the water supply of the city McUre wrote in 1736,
" There is plenty of water, there being sweet water wells in
several closses of the toun, besides sixteen public wells, which
serves the city night and day as need requires." 4 Forty years
later, however, when the population was increasing at the rate
of a thousand each year, the Town Council began to foresee
scarcity. In 1769, as we have seen, 5 a committee was instructed
to consider means of bringing good water to the town, and a
fee of 12 i2s. was paid two Edinburgh plumbers for their
suggestions. Again in 1775 a clause was even inserted in a
parliamentary bill to authorize the enterprise, and Robert
McKell was employed to " enquire and search for fountains,
springs, and water of good quality " ; and in the following
3 Named from the " arn " or alder trees which grew about it. Strang,
Glasgow and its Clubs, pp. 160, 168.
4 History, p. 144. 5 Supra, chap. xxx.
404 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
year eight guineas were paid to another man, Dr. Irvine, for
similar services. 6 Later still, in 1783, the Town Council
returned to the problem, when an offer was got from David
Young for bringing water from the Forth and Clyde Canal in
a four-inch pipe, filtering it, and distributing it in pipes through
the city. Again the surveyor received a fee, and again nothing
was done. 7
Once more, in 1788, James Gordon, an Edinburgh architect
and master of works, submitted a scheme for supplying the city
with good water. There was evidently no urgency in the
project, for the Town Council only took up consideration of
this scheme four years afterwards, and then deferred it again
indefinitely. Gordon deprecated the Forth and Clyde Canal as
a source of supply because of the filth thrown into it by sloops
and passage boats. The source he recommended was the
Garngad Burn, to be supplemented in summer by the Monkland
Canal. He proposed to distribute the water through the city
by means of elmwood pipes, and pointed out that the under-
taking might prove highly profitable, as several water com-
panies in England enjoyed revenues of from 1500 to 50,000
sterling per annum. Even this bait did not stimulate the city
fathers to action, and again the project was laid aside and
forgotten. 8
In 1795, when the barracks were being built in Gallowgate,
the contractor arranged for a water supply to be brought in a
one-inch leaden pipe from George Macintosh's ground at
Dunchattan, and the Town Council hit upon the economical
idea of asking that the pipe should be increased in size to i|
inch, and that the extra water thus obtained should be dis-
tributed to the inhabitants in Gallowgate, whose supply from
6 Burgh Records, 8th Nov., 1769 ; ist Oct., 1770 ; i6th Mar., 29th Nov.,
I 775 > 27th Nov., 1776.
''Ibid. vol. viii., p. 633. I2th Feb., 1783 ; I7th Dec., 1789. Marwick,
Water Supply, p. 55.
8 Ibid. 23rd Oct., 1788 ; igth Sept., 1792.
WILLIAM HARLEY 405
the wells and streams was running short. Two years later this
arrangement was carried out by a subscription of the owners
in Gallowgate. 9
Still later, in 1800, the Town Council paid Bryce Macquiston,
land surveyor and engineer, a fee of 21 for five different
schemes for supplying the city with water to be pumped from
the Clyde by steam engines. Public opinion, however, was
against any public outlay, and the project was again dropped. 10
As in undertakings of more recent date, like the installation
of a tramway system and of electric lighting, it was not till
private enterprise had proved its feasibility that the Town
Council ventured upon the undertaking of bringing an outside
supply of water to the city. The projector of this business was
\Yilliam Harley, a native of Glendevon, who had learned weav-
ing at Kinross, and made money as a gingham manufacturer
in South Frederick Street. A man of public spirit, he carried
on a great Sunday school and evening classes in the Briggate,
and drew up a scheme for ensuring that every child in Glasgow
should receive an education. He also joined Robert Haldane
of Airthrey in touring the country to establish Congregational
churches : the little church at Sannox in Arran was one of
their planting.
In 1802 Harley developed in a new direction. He bought
a house named Willowbank, in the Sauchy Haugh, now Sauchie-
hall Street, near the site of the present Blythswood Street, and
two years later he set about his famous enterprise of supplying
Glasgow with water. There was a strong flowing spring at
Willowbank. He led its water in a pipe to a tank on the spot
where the Tramway Offices now stand in Bath Street, and
from that tank he distributed supplies by means of pony carts
throughout the town. The water was sold at a halfpenny a
stoup, and is said to have brought him a revenue of several
thousand pounds a year.
9 Ibid, ist June, 1795 ; lyth Mar., 1797. 10 Ibid, igth April, 1800.
406 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
This enterprise did not continue long without competition.
Its evident success stimulated certain other citizens to form a
Glasgow Water Works Company. In support of this scheme
the Town Council subscribed 1000. The company secured
powers from Parliament to pump water from the Clyde and
distribute it in pipes throughout the city. It began operations
in 1806, and had its pumping station and chief reservoir at
Dalmarnock, with other reservoirs at Sydney Street and Rotten-
row. 1 In the following year, 1807, another body entered the
arena. " The Company of Proprietors of the Cranstonhill
Water- works " obtained authority to pump water from the
Clyde at Anders ton Quay, and distribute it from reservoirs at
Cranstonhill. This company was to supply the suburbs only,
and not to encroach upon the royalty without permission of
the Town Council. 2 By reason of increasing steamboat and
other traffic on the river, the Clyde water at Anderston became
unfit for use, and in 1819 the company secured powers to pump
its supplies at Dalmarnock. In 1838 the two companies were
amalgamated, and ten years later a further supply was intro-
duced by the Gorbals Gravitation Company, which brought
water to Gorbals and the southern suburbs from the Brock
Burn and other streams and lochs in Renfrewshire, six miles
away. These companies kept the city supplied till the Town
Council in 1855 took over the water companies, and proceeded
to bring a more ample and permanent flow from Loch Katrine,
through the waterworks which were opened by Queen Victoria
on I4th October, i859. 3
Meanwhile William Harley did not confine himself to the
supply of water for domestic purposes. Adjoining his reservoir
he established baths, and on the top of Blythswood Hill, now
covered by Blythswood Square, he laid out pleasure gardens
1 Burgh Records, 25th Feb., I4th March, 1805 ; 28th Feb., 1806.
2 Ibid. Qth June, 1807 ; 26th Jan., 24th Mar., 1808.
3 For details see Sir James Marwick's Water Sttpply, etc.
HARLEY'S BATHS AND BYRES 407
after the style of Vauxhall and Ranelagh at London. He
feued all the rising ground westward from St. George's Church,
and, as an approach to his pleasure gardens, built a bridge
over the St. Enoch Burn, and laid out the street which took
its name from his bath establishment. He reclaimed and
cultivated Garnet Hill, and grew there strawberries of a
particularly fine flavour for the enjoyment of the visitors to
his Blythswood gardens, while the cream to be consumed
with these dainties came from a farm which he purchased at
Sighthill.
After their first novelty the public tired of the pleasure
gardens, with their bowling-green and strawberry arbours, and
dubbed the view tower and summer house which he had built
in the centre as " Harley's Folly." The tower, however, was
afterwards used as an observatory by the University authorities
until the erection of a special building for the purpose, and
Harley proceeded to plan the building of Blythswood Square
as well as St. Vincent Street, West George Street, Sauchiehall
Street, and other residential quarters.
As with the pleasure gardens the public tired of Harley's
baths after their first novelty had worn off. But meanwhile,
beside the baths, to supply the demand for some refreshment
after a plunge, one cow and then another had been installed,
the enterprise of supplying Glasgow with sweet clean milk had
been set afoot, and by and by the great establishment by
which William Harley is best remembered came into existence.
" Harley's Byres " housed 260 cows, with numerous calves and
pigs, all scrupulously groomed, tended, and fed. The public
paid a fee to see the establishment, and its fame spread through
Europe. From these byres the milk was distributed throughout
the city in well-appointed carts, with harness and brass shining,
and every detail in perfect order. Harley was the pioneer, a
long way ahead of their time, of the great public baths and
spotless hygienic dairies which are notable features of the life
408 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
of every great city to-day. In 1814 the Highland Society pre-
sented him with a piece of plate bearing a complimentary in-
scription ; the visitors to the byres included the future Em-
peror Nicholas of Russia, and many other foreign princes, and
the charge for public admission is said to have realized as much
as 200 a year.
Harley's next enterprise, begun at the request of a number
of the principal citizens, was to supply the inhabitants of
Glasgow with pure and wholesome bread. In this again he
shewed the way for the development of an industry in which
Glasgow till the present day remains second to none.
This new venture, however, started in 1815, was only
beginning to establish itself when, with the British victory at
Waterloo, the long Napoleonic wars came to an end. As has
happened after a more recent war, the entire trade and industry
of the country suffered dislocation. While industry was
adapting itself to new requirements and commerce was finding
its way into fresh channels, there was widespread suffering
among the working classes, and in the maelstrom many long
established and previously prosperous businesses went down.
Among these were Harley's many enterprises. He was forced
into bankruptcy ; his assets were sold at throw-away prices,
the great establishment in Bath Street, which had cost over
10,000, realizing no more than 2550 ; and his fortune of
54,000 disappeared. He died in London in 1829 on his way to
St. Petersburg, to organize a dairy enterprise at the invitation
of the Russian Czar. 4
4 William Harley, a Citizen of Glasgow, by J. Galloway, Glasgow, 1900.
Before ruin came upon him Harley had acquired the old mansion of Enoch
Bank, near his baths and byres, and was residing there in 1810 and 1818.
Burgh Records, igth July, 1810 ; i4th Jan., 1818.
CHAPTER XLVI
A POLICE ACT AND A THIRD CANAL
THE stresses of the war with France, and the scarcity of food,
brought about certain changes which may not have appeared
very striking at the time, but which were actually the signs of
far-reaching new developments. One of these changes was the
giving up by the Town Council of what was known as the
" assize of bread." From time immemorial the city fathers had
ordained not only the weight of the loaf, but the price at which
it must be sold. This custom deprived the public of all the
advantage which should accrue from the competition of differ-
ent bakers. It was an interference with the law of nature which
secures efficiency and rewards enterprise. Under the pressure
of necessity the Town Council made up its mind to depart from
its ancient custom. It ordained that the weight of the loaf
must remain uniform, but it left the bakers to sell at their own
prices, and trusted to the competition among them to protect
the public from an overcharge. 1
To the same period belongs what may be regarded as
Glasgow's first comprehensive " omnibus " Act of Parliament.
This included such various matters as the extension of the
royalty of the burgh over certain adjoining lands, the division
of the city into wards, the paving, lighting, and cleansing of the
streets, the regulation of police and markets, and the raising of
money for these purposes. The Lord Provost himself attended
in London to secure the passing of the bill, and the account he
1 Burgh Records, 29th Jan., 1801.
409
410 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
afterwards furnished to the Town Council of his activities to
that end throws an interesting light on the procedure of that
time. He had to persuade the Speaker, in a preliminary inter-
view, that certain points were relevant, had to yield certain
points to Lord Walsingham before his lordship, as chairman of
committee, would introduce the bill to the House of Lords, and
had to secure the presence of a sufficient number of peers to
have the measure passed. Finally, the expense incurred in
securing the Act was 259 73. 8d. Evidently both tact and
energy were required on the part of the Lord Provost, and so
well pleased was the Town Council with his efforts that it
presented him with a special piece of plate. 2
Curiously enough, the omnibus bill did not include powers
to deal with another important matter which was then calling
for attention. For years the labour entailed in carrying on the
affairs of the city had made it difficult to secure men of ability
and standing as magistrates and councillors. Fines for refusing
to accept office were again and again increased, till in 1801 they
amounted to as much as 80 for a lord provost, bailie, dean of
guild or deacon-convener, and 40 for an ordinary councillor. 3
As a way out of the difficulty it was resolved to increase the
number of councillors and magistrates. This involved an alter-
ation in the " sett " or constitution of the burgh. It might
have been supposed that this alteration could be made by Act
of Parliament. The Speaker of the House of Commons, how-
ever, gave it as his opinion that the proper procedure was by a
charter from the King. 4 In the end it was ascertained that
since the Union similar alterations in the setts of several burghs
in Scotland had been made by authority of the Convention of
Royal Burghs. A petition was therefore prepared, and the
desired alterations were made by that authority. Under the
2 Burgh Records, 2oth Jan., 3rd July, 1800 ; ist July, 1801.
3 Ibid. 5th Feb., gth March, 2nd Oct., 1801.
4 Ibid. loth April, 1801.
CONVENTION OF ROYAL BURGHS 411
new sett the town was provided with three merchant and two
trades bailies instead of two and one respectively. 5
Considering its traditions, and the actual powers which it
possessed, there is room to marvel and perhaps to regret, that
the Convention of Burghs did not assume a larger share in the
local government of Scotland. After the Union of the Parlia-
ments it had an opportunity to develop functions which might
have been of very great service to the country, but, perhaps for
lack of a leader of vision and energy, its powers and possibilities
were allowed to slip and disappear, till, in the end of the nine-
teenth century, its existence was all but forgotten.
Midway between the two dates, however, it still retained
something of its earlier prestige. Proof of this is seen in a
contention made by the Provost of Perth. At the meeting of
the Convention in 1801 that dignitary produced and read to the
members a letter written by James VI. in 1594, commanding
the Earl Marischal to give the commissioner of Perth the second
place, next the commissioners of Edinburgh and before the com-
missioners of Dundee, in the Scottish parliament. Taking this
as a general patent of precedence, the Provost of Perth demanded
that the Lord Provost of Glasgow should give up to him the
seat on the right hand of the president of the Convention of
Royal Burghs which he and his predecessors had occupied with-
out challenge for a great length of time. The Convention itself
decided the question by declaring that no member except the
preses had a right to any particular seat. Against this the
Provost of Perth protested, but the Lord Provost of Glasgow
thought it more consistent with the dignity of his city to
acquiesce in the decision. 6
This was not the only question of dignity in which the first
5 Ibid. 3ist July, 1801. The powers of the Convention to alter setts of
burghs was challenged in 1824 by the law officers of the Crown, but the Glasgow
alterations of 1748 and 1801 were not interfered with. Ibid. 29th Oct.,
yth Dec., 1824.
8 Ibid, yth Feb., 1803 ; 26th July, 1804.
412' HISTORY OF GLASGOW
magistrate of Glasgow was called to exercise a dignified ac-
quiescence. For a considerable number of years it had been
the practice, when the Assize Courts were held in Glasgow, for
the Lord Provost to sit on the bench with the judges. At the
visit of the court in 1800, however, the Lords of Justiciary
pointed out that the distinction was apt to appear invidious,
as it was extended to the chief magistrate of no other burgh ;
and they recommended that some other seat of eminence should
be provided for the Lord Provost. After consulting the magis-
trates, the Lord Provost replied with sense and dignity that he
considered he would be more respectably seated at the head of
his own bench of magistrates than in any other place whatever,
and from that date he took his seat accordingly. 7
The dignity of others besides the Lord Provost was giving
the Town Council no little concern and trouble at that time.
As a result of the war the cost of living had risen very con-
siderably. To meet the rise, the town's officials one after
another applied for and received increases of salary, while the
fees charged by the town clerks were revised and augmented. 8
Presently the claims of the city ministers were brought before
the Council for consideration. There were now seven of these,
besides the ministers of the Inner High and the Barony
Churches. As recently as 1788 their stipends had been increased
to 165, and in 1796 to 200, but it was stated that these
stipends were now inadequate to support the expense of living
and the dignity of the ministry. The magistrates and Council
accordingly decided to augment the stipends by 50 apiece. 9
Over this proposal arose one of the set battles which have
from time to time enlivened the proceedings in the civic parlia-
ment. One of the councillors, Robert Finlay, made a formal
protest, which he required should be entered in the records,
and " took instruments in the hands of the town clerk with
7 Burgh Records, ryth March, 1801. 8 Ibid. 5th Feb., 1801.
9 Ibid. 3ist July, 4th Sept., 1801.
STATUE OF WILLIAM PITT 413
one guinea of gold." His protest was based upon the fact that
for years the income of the city had been less than the expendi-
ture. In the previous year, 1800, the revenue had been no
more than 9817 125. 3d., while the expenditure had amounted
to 11,199 4 s - 9^. The Lord Provost and his supporters, how-
ever, were optimists ; they pointed out that the city's revenue
was growing in five years it had risen by nearly 1500. The
Town Council, further, had lands to feu, valued at 71,000.
The protest and answer occupy many pages of the records, but
the augmentation of stipend was declared to be both necessary
and expedient, and forthwith took effect. 10
The optimism of the Lord Provost seemed to be justified by
the promise of better times when, in the following year, peace
was declared with France. Forthwith, upon that event, the
Town Council sent a letter of congratulation to King George,
and appointed a committee to raise a public subscription for
the erection of a statue to William Pitt. 1 That statue, of white
marble, by Flaxman, now in the city's Art Galleries at Kelvin-
grove, has been esteemed the finest achievement of the sculp-
tor's art in possession of Glasgow.
Alas, the peace with France was no more than a pretence,
a device to allow that country to recruit its forces for a still
greater effort to over-rule Europe. The war was renewed in
1803, and at once the country and Glasgow again were engrossed
in military undertakings. In March the Town Council had still
another occasion to congratulate the King on escape from a
conspiracy against his life, the design of Colonel Despard to
slay the king, seize the Government buildings, and establish
" constitutional independence and the equalization of all civic
rights." 2 In June, a meeting of the citizens sent an offer to
10 Ibid. 2nd Oct., 6th Nov., 1801. Seven years later the stipends were
raised to ^300. Ibid. 24th May, 1808.
1 Ibid. 1 5th May, yth June, 1802.
2 Ibid. 4th March, 1803. Despard was executed for high treason on 2ist
February.
414 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the Government to raise a regiment of volunteers, and two
months later the Council presented that regiment with a pair
of colours, and subscribed 500 guineas for its outfit. Colonel
Campbell, Inspecting Field Officer for the district, proposed to
raise another regiment at his own expense, if the city would
lend him its name. The offer was supported by Campbell of
Blythswood, but for some reason was not accepted. 3 Another
battalion of volunteers, however, was raised by the Trades
House, while yet a third battalion had been enrolled by the
Glasgow Grocers before the following May. 4
An outstanding event was the great review of troops held
on Glasgow Green in the autumn of 1804. The forces com-
prised some seven thousand men with eight guns, and, besides
a regiment of dragoons from Hamilton, a regiment of infantry
of the line, and a regiment of regular militia, included Glasgow
Volunteer Light Cavalry, Glasgow Volunteer Sharpshooters,
five regiments of Glasgow Volunteers, Canal Volunteers, two
battalions of Paisley Volunteers, Greenock and Port Glasgow
Volunteers, and Volunteer companies from Dunbarton, Kilsyth,
Cumbernauld, Airdrie, and Hamilton. The troops were re-
viewed by the Earl of Moira, afterwards Marquis of Hastings,
Commander-in-Chief in Scotland, and with the smoke and fire,
the thunder of the artillery and the continuous roll of musketry,
thrilled the immense gathering of people who had crowded into
the city for the occasion, almost as much as an actual battle
would have done. 5
The patriotic enthusiasm apparently fired all classes. On
one occasion this gave rise to serious trouble. Two mason's
3 Burgh Records, gth June, i6th Aug., 2ist Sept., 1803.
4 Ibid. 3rd Oct., 1803 ; 2ist May, i4th Sept., 1804. Further corps raised
in Glasgow to meet the national emergency were the Highlanders, the Sharp-
shooters, the Anderston Volunteers, the Canal Volunteers, the Armed Associa-
tion, and the Volunteer Light Horse. Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 375 note. The
total ran to 5000 infantry and 100 cavalry.
5 Glasgow Past and Present, vol. i. p. 236.
WATER BAILIE DEFIED 415
apprentices broke their indentures, and went on board His
Majesty's ship Tourterelle as volunteers. Their master applied
to the water bailie for a warrant to apprehend the runaways,
but the bailie's messenger was deforced by Captain Simpson,
the commander of the warship. The water bailie thereupon
issued a warrant for the apprehension of the captain himself,
and he was duly arrested at Greenock. Captain Simpson, how-
ever, asked permission to call upon the magistrates of Greenock,
then sitting in their council chamber. These magistrates
forthwith denied the power of the water bailie to grant warrants
within their jurisdiction. They accordingly liberated the
captain and committed the messenger. Simpson then brought
an action before the High Court of Admiralty, but the orders
of that court were " declined to be implemented " on the
ground that it had no authority in the matter of jurisdictions.
Against its decree an action was brought by the water bailie
before the Court of Session, where Lord Woodhouselee called
for the appearance of both Simpson and the High Admiral.
Petitions and complaints were prepared, and altogether some-
thing of a cause celebre appeared to be on the way, when it was
deemed more prudent, in the position of public affairs, to make
the action one for declaration of the water bailie's jurisdiction
over the River Clyde and its harbours. 6 Altogether it was a
very pretty embroilment which arose out of the warlike ardour
of a couple of runaway apprentices.
Amid these military preoccupations, nevertheless, the
general life and enterprise of Glasgow went forward with sur-
prising steadiness. Among other matters the music lovers of
the city carried on their accomplishment. As early as 1775
6 Ibid. 1 4th Sept., 1804. The jurisdiction of the Water Bailie had been
previously questioned in 1792 in a decision regarding a case of theft from one
of the boats carrying merchandise between Glasgow and Greenock. Against
the powers of the Water Bailie the jurisdiction of the ancient Vice-Admiral
of Scotland was cited, but the Court of Session decided in favour of the Water
Bailie. Senex, Old Glasgow, p. 326.
416 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
there -was an organ in use in the English Episcopal Chapel
beside Glasgow Green, which from that fact got the name of
" the Whistlin' Kirk." 7 Twenty-one years later a Sacred
Music Society was started, and brought from York an organ of
nineteen stops, " more powerful and smooth than any in
Scotland. ' ' 8 The society set up its organ and held its practisings
and concerts first in the Trades Hall in Glassford Street.
Presently, however, it was granted by the Town Council the
use of a middle space in the Cathedral, known at that time as
" the Choir." 9 This was the first organ set up in a Presby-
terian church in the West of Scotland, but it was not used for
public worship there. Upon the decline of the Sacred Music
Society it was bought by a company of the sitters in St.
Andrew's Church. But the hopes of these enthusiasts were
destined to disappointment. In August 1807, the news went
round the town that an organ had been played at a Sunday
service in that church. It was not the organ purchased from
the Sacred Music Society, but a smaller " chamber " instrument
hired apparently by way of trial. Instantly an angry storm of
protest arose, which was joined by presbytery, provost, and
public, and before the outcry the Rev. William Ritchie, D.D.,
minister of the congregation, deemed it prudent to bow. The
organ went back to its lender, James Steven, music-seller in
Wilson Street, but the controversy went on for months. In the
end the organ in the Cathedral, which had belonged to the
Sacred Music Society, was acquired by St. Andrew's Episcopal
Church, and was transferred thither through the snows of
1812, the Moscow winter. 10 Several generations were to come
and go before Town Council and Presbytery gave their consent
7 Glasghu Fades, p. 562.
8 Denholm, Hist. Glasgow, p. 350.
9 Burgh Records, yth Aug., 22nd Aug., 1800 ; 8th Jan., 1802.
10 Old Glasgow Essays, p. 45. Burgh Records, 8th Sept., 1806 ; ist Sept.,
24th Sept., 1807 ; 24th May, 1808.
SIR JOHN MOORE, I 761-1809.
From the portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
VACCINATION INTRODUCED 417
to the introduction of the " kist o* whistles " in the city
churches.
In 1800 the Town Council spent a modest sum in repairing
the foundations of the Old Bridge at the foot of the Stockwell-
gate. In the following year it built its first police office above
the guardhouse in Candleriggs ; and in 1802 it encouraged
James and David Laurie to make improvements on the south
bank of the river, to enable them to lay out their new southside
suburb of Lauriston, with its stately riverside front of Carlton
Place. 1
The cleansing of the streets was still carried out by the
police, the night watchmen devoting two hours twice a week
to the job. 2 Modern ideas of hygiene, however, were on the
way. For nearly a hundred years, since Lady Mary Wort ley
Montagu wrote her famous letter from Adrianople, endeavours
had been made to meet the deadly ravages of smallpox by
inoculation from the human patient. Nevertheless at the end
of the eighteenth century as many as one tenth of the popu-
lation died of the disease, and large numbers of persons, in-
cluding the national poet, Robert Burns, were " sair marked
wi' the pox." 3 Between 1796 and 1798, however, Dr. Jenner
introduced " vaccination," or inoculation with the cow-pox, as
a preventive of the disease. Within five years, on the sugges-
tion of Mr. Scott-Moncrieff, Glasgow Town Council appointed
a committee to consider the new process, and five years later
still it unanimously admitted Jenner to be an honorary burgess
as a mark of the high sense it entertained " of the important
benefits conferred on mankind by his invaluable discovery." 4
At the same time the first hint was given of another problem
1 Burgh Records, iyth Oct., 1800.; gth March, 1801 ; 22nd June, I2th
July, 1802.
2 Mackinnon, Social and Industrial History of Scotland, p. 246.
3 Hedderwick, Backward Glances, p. 23.
4 Burgh Records, 22nd April, 1803 ; ist Sept., 1808.
2D H.G.III.
4i8 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
affecting the health of the citizens which has troubled the well-
wishers of Glasgow from that day till now. With the rise of
industrialism and the coming of the steam engine, the clear
atmosphere of what had formerly been a garden city began to
be darkened with the cloud of smoke. Already, apparently,
some alarm or complaint had arisen on the subject, and there
was one ingenious individual who saw his way to turn that
public feeling to his private advantage. James Murdoch,
junior, owner of a property in the Havannah, a district north
of the College in High Street, proposed to set up a factory there.
For this he required a supply of water, and he petitioned the
Town Council to allow him to lay a one-inch pipe from the
Molendinar. By way of inducement he stated that the engine
he proposed to introduce would " consume its own smoke."
Permission was granted, but the Council took the precaution of
stipulating that the chimney of Murdoch's engine should be at
least fifty feet high. A month later the ingenious manufacturer
asked to be relieved of his undertaking to consume his own
smoke, but the Council held him to it, and presumably he had
to do without his free water supply. More than a hundred
years have passed since then, and the City Fathers are still
battling with the problem of enabling and inducing the citizens
of Glasgow to " consume their own smoke." 5
The Town Council, however, was just then invited to con-
sider another and greater project which illustrates the un-
daunted spirit of the citizens in face of the great war then
raging. In February 1803, the Council subscribed twenty
guineas towards the expenses of surveying the route of a canal
proposed to be made from Glasgow to Saltcoats. 6 The pro-
jector of this enterprise was Hugh, 12 th Earl of Eglinton, the
" Sodger Hugh " of Burns's poems, and perhaps the author
of the beautiful " Canadian Highlanders' Boatsong." On
6 Burgh Records, nth March, ist April, 26th May, 1803.
6 Ibid. 28th Feb., 1803.
PORT DUNDAS VERSUS BROOMIELAW 419
inheriting the title and estates this enlightened nobleman had
conceived the idea of doing a service to the city of Glasgow and
improving his family possessions at the same time.
So far the deepening of the Clyde by Golborne's plan had not
succeeded in making the river a highway for ocean-going ships.
The barges, gabberts, and fly-boats which carried the traffic still
found Dunglass a very necessary half-way harbour when the
tide turned or the weather made the passage difficult. 7 On the
other side of the river the use of the bank as a towing-path had
been objected to by Archibald Speirs of Elderslie, the son of
the famous " Tobacco Lord," and by his tenants at Shieldhall
and Bellahouston, and was presently made the subject of heavy
damages in a court of law. 8 In view of these difficulties and the
difficulties of the navigation of the river itself, the Forth and
Clyde Canal, with its harbour at Port Dundas, was regarded
by many as the future shipping outlet of the city, rather than
the shallow Clyde, with its harbour at the Broomielaw.
Ideas on the subject were probably quickened by an event
which took place in 1802. In that year, William Symington,
the Leadhills engineer, following his experiments on Dalswinton
Loch, placed the world's first practical steamer, the " Charlotte
Dundas," on the Forth and Clyde Canal. Further, in the same
year a bid for the Glasgow trade was made on behalf of Greenock.
A meeting was held in that town to consider the project of
7 In 1 80 1 the masters and owners of vessels navigating the river complained
to the Town Council regarding encroachments by Dunlop of Garnkirk and
Dixon of Govan Ironworks on the harbour facilities at Dunglass, and six
months later, in drawing up a table of fares for the fly-boats, the Council
specified the charge to be made for passengers landing or embarking there.
Ibid. loth April, I4th Oct., 1801.
8 Ibid. loth July, 1801 ; I3th Dec., 1803 ; 24th Jan., I5th Nov., 1804; i6th
Dec., 1805 ; et seq. The salmon fishing on the Clyde was still of some value.
In 1798 David Tod, a proprietor on the south bank at the harbour, was
accused of interrupting the draft of the town's salmon fishing opposite his
grounds, and two years later these salmon fishings from the bridge downwards
were let for three years at 26 per annum. Ibid. 5th July, 1798 ; I3th Jan.,
1800.
420 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
constructing an iron railroad between Glasgow, Paisley, and
Greenock, and the Town Council of Glasgow was approached on
the subject. That body replied that it had " no interest or
concern " in the matter, and refused to give it any countenance ;
but the suggestion shews that minds were at work on the
subject. 9
The Earl remembered that the original harbour for Glasgow's
trade overseas had been Irvine, on the Ayrshire coast, and he
reasoned that another harbour on the Ayrshire coast might be
made the entrepot of Glasgow's trade in days to come if the
proper measures were taken. Saltcoats, on his own estate, was
already a place of some shipping of salt and coal, the latter
commodity being brought to it from the coal-pits by means of
a canal. He planned, accordingly, a great harbour at Ar-
drossan, close to that place, with a canal across country
affording cheap communication with Glasgow. This was the
enterprise for the original survey of which the Town Council
subscribed twenty guineas. Three years later, on the invita-
tion of the Earl, it subscribed 1000 towards the making of
the canal, 10 and the work was then begun at the same time as
the building of the Ardrossan harbour. Work on the latter
came to a standstill in 1815, when 100,000 had been spent on
it, and the Earl's resources were exhausted ; but it was resumed
when his son, the thirteenth Earl, came of age in 1822, and
was completed at a cost of as much again.
For similar reasons the making of the canal stopped when
it had been completed no farther than from Glasgow to
Johns tone in Renfrewshire. By the time when it might have
been continued roads had been greatly improved and railways
were on the way. For fifty years and more, however, a busy
traffic was carried on the narrow winding waterway. Its
terminus to the south of Glasgow was named Port Eglinton,
9 Burgh Records, 6th April, 1802.
10 Ibid, 26th Aug., 8th Sept., 26th Sept., 1806.
EGLINTON STREET 421
from the name of its projector, and when, about the year 1807,
by the joint action of Town Council, Trades House, Hutchesons'
Hospital, and other land owners, a new " very splendid and
convenient approach " to the city from Ayrshire was con-
structed to Jamaica Bridge, it received from that connection
the name of Eglinton Street. 1
1 Ibid, i gth March, 8th July, 1807.
CHAPTER XLVII
DR. JAMES CLELAND AND SIR JOHN MOORE
DURING those years of the Napoleonic War the population of
Glasgow continued to increase rapidly. From 66,578 in 1791 it
rose to 83,769 in 1801, the increase being more than the entire
number of inhabitants in 1740, when the population numbered
17,043. By 1811 it had risen still more rapidly to 110,460.
Nor were the developments of the community in other
directions checked. In 1804 its benevolence was directed to the
sad condition of those mentally deranged. Till then these
unfortunates, when paupers, had been confined in cells at the
rear of the town's hospital or poorhouse, looking out on Rope-
work Lane, while those in better circumstances were relegated
to private asylums, the possible abuses of which were to be
pictured at a later day in such writings as the novel of " Valen-
tine Vox." The citizens of Glasgow were much ahead of their
time in projecting an asylum under responsible and enlightened
management, and in 1806 the Town Council granted a seal of
cause to the managers of the institution, which at the present
hour carries on its beneficent work as the Royal Glasgow Asylum
at Gartnavel. 1
Though the ancient public " meithing " or riding of the
marches had been stopped on account of the rabble and abuses
which attended it, the magistrates found time to perambulate
the boundaries of the royalty to make sure that these were not
1 Burgh Records, 28th Dec., 1804 ; 26th May, 1806. The principal promoter
of the asylum was Robert McNair of Belvidere.
422
THE BELL O' THE BRAE 423
infringed upon, a precaution which, as the facts shewed, was
not without reason. 2
For the third time, by way of ease to the public in the
upper part of the town, the Town Council attacked that famous
feature of the city, the " Bell o' the Brae," at the upper part
of High Street, and lowered it still further. 3
The city fathers also continued to provide generously
for the wives and children of the Glasgow men who were
fighting the country's battles ; 4 and when news of Lord
Nelson's great victory over the French and Spanish fleets at
Trafalgar reached this country, the magistrates and Town
Council joined the paean of national rejoicing over that im-
mortal achievement by writing a letter of congratulation to
the king, and the citizens rose promptly to the occasion by
erecting a monument to the fallen admiral on Glasgow Green. 5
The business and amusements of the citizens, however,
went on. When the news of Trafalgar arrived there was
pending before the Town Council a request for the use of a
vacant piece of ground next the Theatre in Queen Street for a
temporary circus, and the Council agreed to the request, though
the projectors of the circus did not proceed with their enter-
prise. 6
2 Ibid. 2nd Aug., 1805.
3 Ibid, 2oth Aug., 1805. This, however, was not the final alteration of the
ancient landmark. In the course of the work of the City Improvement Trust
in the latter part of the century, when the picturesque but insanitary old
closes and houses of the region were swept away, a still further lowering of the
thoroughfare took place. In early times the Bell o' the Brae must have been
a really considerable eminence, entirely preventing a view of High Street from
the Bishop's Castle, and rendering highly feasible an exploit such as that
attributed to Sir William Wallace in the thirteenth century. This fact seems
hitherto to have entirely escaped the notice of historians.
4 Ibid. 23rd May, 1805 and onward.
6 Ibid. 23rd Nov., 1805 ; 26th May, 1806. On Sunday, 5th August, 1810,
during one of the most terrific thunderstorms which ever broke over Glasgow,
Nelson's Monument was struck by lightning and rent nearly from top to
bottom. Scots Magazine, 1810, p. 633.
6 Ibid. 2ytri Dec., 1805 ; 2jth Jan., 1806.
424 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
More important was the building of another church, the
eighth under the patronage of the Town Council. Once again
the Wynd Church, in the crowded region south of Trongate,
was becoming dilapidated. Fifty years earlier St. Andrew's
Church had been built to take its place. But the Wynd Church
remained. Its minister was the redoubtable Dr. Porteous, " for
forty years the great clerical leader of the west," and the build-
ing was no longer large enough to contain those who wished to
attend his services. The Town Council therefore proceeded to
build St. George's Church. The site first proposed was at St.
Vincent Street, but Camperdown Place, now West George
Street, was finally fixed upon, and the building was thus made
to close another fine city vista, westward from George Square.
The erection of this church brought into public notice a
personage who was to be one of the most outstanding figures
in the life of Glasgow during the next thirty years. The
whole work of superintending the building was undertaken
" in the most handsome manner," free of charge, by Bailie
James Cleland, who himself laid the foundation stone. The
work was expeditiously carried out, and in recognition of his
services the Town Council presented Cleland with a piece of
plate. 7 This was the first of many important services done
for the City by James Cleland, who is best remembered to-day
by the " Annals of Glasgow," in two volumes, which he wrote
for behoof of the funds of the Royal Infirmary in 1816. The
annalist was a wright and builder, and it was upon his plans
that the new Grammar or High School was erected between
upper Montrose Street and John Street in i8o7. 8 Seven years
later he purchased the tolbooth at the foot of High Street,
excepting the beautiful old steeple, and erected a hand-
some building on the site. 9 In view of his shrewdness and
7 Burgh Records, 8th Aug., 26th Aug., 1806 ; 23rd April, 1807 ; 22nd Sept.,
5th Nov., 1808.
8 Ibid. 2ist Oct., 1807. 9 Ibid. 4th Feb., 1814.
IMPROVEMENT OF GREEN 425
services a new office was created for him, and he was made
Superintendent of Works. 10 So well pleased was the Town
Council with his labours that a year after his appointment it
raised his salary from 200 to 500. l This was the beginning
of a highly interesting and useful public career. During the
times of hardship which culminated in the " Radical Risings "
in 1819 and 1820 he directed the labours of the weavers and
other unemployed in the work which was found for them in
improving Glasgow Green, a service for which the Town
Council made him a complimentary gift of 50. 2 This work
was in compliance with " A Description of the Manner of
improving the Green of Glasgow " which he had drawn up and
printed seven years earlier. It included the making of sewers
and a parapet wall in front of Monteith Row, the covering in of
the Camlachie Burn, and the draining and levelling of the
Calton Green and part of the High Green, resulting in the
addition of several acres of grass land to the city's public park. 3
Cleland also carried out a census of the population of Glasgow
and its suburbs, printed in 1820, which contained several new
features, and earned the high commendation of the Town
Council. 4 Three years later a special vote of thanks was
recorded for his erudite and successful labour in adjusting the
different weights and measures used in the city, and for the
ability and accuracy of his historical treatise on the subject. 5
Following this achievement his salary was spontaneously raised
by 100, and two years later, when he had superintended the
rebuilding of the Ramshorn Church, he was awarded a special
10 Ibid. 4th Feb., 6th Sept., 1814.
1 Ibid. 25th July, 1815.
2 Ibid. 2nd May, 1820 ; 2oth Feb., 1821.
3 Ibid. 1 6th Jan., 1821. The most complete account of the Green and its
history is that furnished by Cleland in his Annals of Glasgow, ii. 457, repro-
duced verbatim, with additions, by Senex in Old Glasgow and its Environs,
p. 56.
4 Ibid. 29th May, 1820. 5 Ibid. 4th Feb., 1823.
42b HISTORY OF GLASGOW
gift of a hundred guineas, and had his salary increased by
another 150. 6
One of Cleland's numerous suggestions for the improvement
of the city, which was not carried out, would have made a
curious difference in the appearance of Glasgow to-day. St.
George's Church, the building of which had been superintended
by himself, had certain architectural shortcomings. The four
large statues with which Stark, the designer, had proposed to
ornament the tower, had proved too expensive, and had been
replaced by four much less effective stone pinnacles. Also,
while the front towards Buchanan Street was dignified enough,
the rear was barnlike and commonplace. It was probably in
view of these facts that Cleland made his suggestion. In a
letter to the Lord Provost in 1829 he proposed that St. George's
Church should be converted into Council Chambers, with Guild
Hall, Court Hall, and Committee rooms, and that the congre-
gation should be removed to a new church in Nile Street, facing
the end of Regent Street. By selling the crypt and surrounding
ground for burying-places, the cost of the two buildings would,
he estimated, be reduced to 3000. 7
This was one of the very few of Cleland's schemes which
definitely missed fire. 8 It has been stated, no doubt with
justice, that " no one man in Glasgow ever had to do with the
getting up of so many churches, monuments, and public works
6 Burgh Records, i$th Oct., 1824; 2yth Jan., I4th Feb., iyth Aug., 1826.
7 Frazer, The Making of Buchanan Street, p. 66. Cleland's proposal was
strongly opposed by a committee of citizens, who feared that the removal of
the Council Chambers westward would depreciate the value of property east
of the Cross. Burgh Records, 3ist March, 1829.
8 Another was his suggestion in 1813 for raising a sum of ^30,000 by
taxation for the building and endowment of two new churches in the city,
and the increase of all the city ministers' stipends by ^100. He calculated
the rental of the city at that time to be not less than 200,000. Burgh Records,
i6th Sept., yth Dec., 1813. Still another of Cleland's suggestions which was
not accepted was to roof over the burying-ground round the Ramshorn Church
and use the space thus provided above the arches as a market. The burying-
ground would then have become a sort of crypt. Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 544.
CLELAND TESTIMONIAL 427
of all kinds." As late as the year 1837 he was chairman of the
committee which organized the great dinner to Sir Robert Peel,
and erected for the purpose the famous Peel Pavilion in the
orchard behind the house of Gordon of Aikenhead in Buchanan
Street, which is now Princes Square. 9 He was the author also
of many treatises on public matters which were notable for
their accuracy and practical utility. Of these Dr. Dibdin, the
celebrated bibliographer, wrote " I hold in my hand the
accurate and triumphant folio volume of the great statist of
the north, Dr. James Cleland, by which we are carefully
initiated into ail the mysteries of commerce and mazes of
prosperity."
From his letters recorded in the town's minutes, Cleland
appears to have had a personality of much modesty, gracious-
ness, and tact, and from first to last the Council held him in the
highest regard. He was held in similar regard by the authori-
ties of the University, who conferred on him the degree of
LL.D. When he retired from the office of Superintendent of
Works in 1834 a meeting of the most prominent citizens was
held in the Black Bull Hotel, a subscription of 4603 6s. was
raised, and a building known as the " Cleland Testimonial,"
erected with it at the south-east corner of Sauchiehall Street
and Buchanan Street, was presented to him as a token of public
esteem. 10
While Cleland was still at the beginning of his career of
public utility, two proposals were made which for a considerable
time failed to secure accomplishment. One of these was the
making of a wet dock at the Broomielaw to provide accommo-
dation for the increasing number of vessels coming up the river.
The original proposal was to make the dock on the north side
of the harbour, and apparently the plan was to enclose part
of the river for the purpose. The suggestion however, was
opposed by the owners of houses in the low-lying parts of the
9 The Making of Buchanan Street, p. 74. 10 Ibid. p. 75.
428 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
town above the bridge, who feared that the obstruction would
bring about the flooding of their property in times of spate. 1
In 1819, partly by way of relieving the serious unemployment
and discontent of that time, the Government agreed to lend
30,000 for the making of the dock, and Telford, the celebrated
engineer, was employed to make a plan. 2 In 1832 the project
was removed to the south side of the river, and the Town
Council, for 7370, sold to the Clyde Trustees part of the
Windmillcroft opposite the Broomielaw 3 ; but it was not till
1867 that the Kingston Dock, Glasgow's first artificial harbour
basin on the Clyde, was actually opened. 4
Of more ambitious scope was the next proposal of Cleland's
time, which was still longer in attaining fulfilment. Glasgow was
then supplying large numbers of recruits for the army, while
its proportion of militia was greater than that of all the rest of
Lanarkshire, and considerable difficulty arose from the fact
that the whole management of these Crown matters was
centred in the headquarters of the Lord Lieutenant of the
county at Hamilton or Lanark. In the absence of the Marquess
of Douglas, who was Lord Lieutenant, the magistrates ap-
proached the vice-lieutenant, Lord Belhaven, with the sugges-
tion that the Lord Provost might be made, ex officio, a deputy-
lieutenant. The suggestion, however, met with a rather definite
snub. The Town Council then sent a letter to the Lord Advo-
cate, to be laid before the Ministers of the Crown, asking that
the city should be disjoined from the county of Lanark, and
made a separate district, with a Lord Lieutenant of its own.
The reply of Lord Melville, then all powerful in Scottish affairs,
for the Government, was that a Lord Lieutenant could not be
appointed till the city was made a county in itself. 5 Thus the
1 Burgh Records, i3th Feb., igth March, i5th April, 1807.
2 Ibid. 27th Dec., 1819 ; 22nd Aug., 29th Dec., 1820.
3 Ibid. vol. xi., p. 683. 4 Merwick, The River Clyde, p. 206 note.
6 Burgh Records, igthDec., 1806; 2ist Oct., 28th Oct., 1807; 28th March,
1808.
THE HIGHLAND LIGHT INFANTRY 429
matter stood for something like a hundred years, till the city
was made a separate county, with the Lord Provost as its Lord
Lieutenant, in 1893.
Though these important projects were seriously delayed at
the time, they were significant as proofs that the city was
instinct with energy and alive with the spirit of progress. The
narrower burghal ideas of previous centuries, it is true, had not
yet all passed away. In 1808, for example, the Lord Provost
was thanked for his zeal, when Dean of Guild, in the previous
year, in compelling large numbers of unfreemen carrying on
trade in the city to become burgesses. But the fact that the
fees collected on the occasion amounted to 1200 shows that
the old rule was breaking down, and that more and more
strangers were settling in the city to contribute to its productive-
ness. 6
Glasgow was shewing its spirit in military efforts not less
than in industry. When Lord Macleod, eldest son of the Earl
of Cromarty attainted for his part in " the '45," was in 1777
raising the first battalion Macleod's Highlanders, he was joined
at Elgin by 236 Lowlanders and 34 English and Irish recruits,
enrolled in Glasgow. In consequence of his distinguished
service with that battalion, Lord Macleod had the forfeited
Cromarty estates restored to him In 1786 the regiment took
the name of the 7ist. In 1804, when a second battalion was
embodied at Dunbarton, the recruiting was carried on so
successfully in Glasgow that the regiment got the name of
' The Glasgow Highland Light Infantry," and four years later
the name was approved by King George III. The fact that
Lord Macleod's family name was Mackenzie accounts for the
tartan still worn by this famous Glasgow regiment. 7
In 1808 the city also offered to raise another regiment,
but Lord Castlereagh declined to sanction the raising of a new
6 Ibid. 2oth Oct., 1808.
7 Adam, Clans, Septs, and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands, p. 297.
430 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
corps while the existing forces remained below their appointed
strength. 8
At the same time Glasgow was not slow to do honour to the
military heroes of the hour. It conferred its honorary burgess-
ship on Viscount Cathcart and Admiral Hood, 9 and, two months
later, on receiving news of the death of Sir John Moore in the
hour of victory at Corunna, it at once took measures to raise
a monument to his memory, the Town Council opening the
subscription with ioo. 10
That famous native of Glasgow, son of Dr. John Moore, the
author of " Zeluco " and friend of Robert Burns, shares with
Colin McLiver or Campbell, Lord Clyde, the honour of being
Glasgow's most illustrious soldier son. As a British general in
the Napoleonic wars, his achievement ranks second only to
that of the Duke of Wellington, but he had the fate of nearly
every leader who makes the first essay in a campaign for this
country, of being inadequately supplied with men and means. 1
In the hour when Sir John Moore fell at the battle of
Corunna the fortunes of Britain in her war with Napoleon on
the continent of Europe were at their lowest. The French
despot was master of all that continent, and had placed his
brothers on four of its thrones. When Spain rose against the
8 Burgh Records, 4th March, 1808. 9 Ibid. 2nd Dec., 1808.
10 Ibid. 7th Feb., 1809.
1 Another notable Glasgow soldier of the same period was Major-General
Sir Thomas Monroe. Of him George Canning said, " Europe never produced
a more accomplished statesman, nor India, so fertile in heroes, a more skilful
soldier." Born in 1761, Monroe was the son of a substantial merchant who
resided in the Stockwellgate. After three years at Glasgow University he
went to India at the age of eighteen, as an infantry cadet. He served in the
war against Hyder Ali, acted as secretary in the administration of Mysore,
and formed a lasting friendship with Colonel Wellesley, the future Duke of
Wellington. He greatly distinguished himself in organizing and developing
Indian administration. After the second Mahratta war, in which he served
as a brigadier-general, he was made a K.C.B., and appointed Governor of
Madras, and for his services in the first Burmah war he received a baronetcy.
He was making a farewell tour of the ceded territories when he died of cholera
in 1827.
GEORGE III. JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS 431
usurpation of its crown the British minister Canning had
poured supplies into that country, and sent Moore with his
small army to its help. But Napoleon asserted his power by
marching upon Madrid with two hundred thousand men, and
the defeat of the Spanish forces on the Ebro, and the retreat and
death of Moore, seemed to end the campaign. Following that
event the second Earl of Chatham had lost a British army in
the marches of Walcheren, Napoleon had crushed an Austrian
effort at the battle of Wagram, and Wellesley, who had taken
up the forlorn hope in Spain, after winning one desperate battle
and a peerage at Talavera, had been forced by Marshal Soult
to retire on Badajos. In view of these reverses something like
a panic seized London, where a petition was signed for the
withdrawal of the British forces from the Peninsula. 2
It is of interest to find that, in that trying time, the spirit
of Glasgow remained undaunted. Nothing could better shew
this to be the case than the account of the proceedings in the
northern city on the occasion of its celebration of the jubilee
of King George III. The date was the 25th of October, 1809,
and in describing what took place the records of the Town
Council furnish a vivid picture.
' This being the day," runs that account, " on which our
gracious Sovereign entered into the 5oth year of his reign, the
same was celebrated in the city of Glasgow with every demon-
stration of affection and joy. At 8 o'clock in the morning the
great bells of the city commenced ringing, and continued till
ten. At half-past ten the lord provost, magistrates, and council,
with the ministers of the city in their gowns and bands, the
lord dean of guild and members of the Merchants House,
the deacon-convener and members of the Trades House, the
lord rector of the University of Glasgow and the principal and
professors in their gowns, the officers of the ist, 4th, 5th and 6th
Royal Lanarkshire local militia, assembled in the town hall,
2 Green, Short History, p. 825.
432 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
and went in grand procession to Saint George's Church, where
an excellent sermon was preached by the Rev. Dr. Porteous
from Chronicles c. xxix. v. 20 : ' And David said unto all the
congregation, " Now bless the Lord your God." And all the
congregation blessed the Lord God of their fathers, and bowed
down their heads, and worshipped the Lord and the King.'
After the service an appropriate hymn was sung by the band,
and the King's anthem in full chorus. The procession then
returned in the same order to the town hall. The streets were
lined by the permanent staff of the before-mentioned regiments
of local militia. From 12 till 2 appropriate tunes were played
on the music bells. At 6 the magistrates gave a grand enter-
tainment in the town hall, which was numerously attended,
enthusiasm and joy beaming in every countenance. After a
short address by the lord provost, admirably suited to the
occasion, many loyal and constitutional toasts given by his
lordship were drunk with the most rapturous applause, the
band of -the Stirlingshire Militia playing appropriate tunes." 3
3 Burgh Records, 25th Oct., 1809. More than once, at that period, Glasgow
Town Council celebrated some notable event with a procession. At the laying
of the foundation stone of St. George's Church in 1807, the city fathers, with
the ministers and representatives of other public bodies, walked in procession
from the Council Chambers to the spot, and in 1810 the magistrates and
council walked in procession to the Low Green, where the Lord Provost laid
the foundation stone of the new court house, public offices, and jail at the foot
of Saltmarket. Ibid, 3rd June, 1807 ; i8th Sept., 1810.
KIRKMAN FINLAY, 1773-1842.
From the portrait by John Graham Gilbert, R.S.A.
CHAPTER XLVIII
KlRKMAN FlNLAY, HENRY BELL, AND DAVID NAPIER
ONE of the reasons for Glasgow's stronger feeling of confidence
regarding the issue of the war with Napoleon may have arisen
from the fact that the chief trade of the Glasgow merchants
with the sugar colonies in the West Indies remained unhurt.
Since the destruction of the French and Spanish fleets at
Trafalgar in 1805 and the capture of the Danish fleet after the
bombardment of Copenhagen two years later, the British navy
had kept the mastery of the seas. Not only was Napoleon's
plan for the invasion of Britain made impossible, but all his
efforts to interfere with British commerce were rendered futile.
This was the snag upon which all Buonaparte's schemes of
conquest finally came to grief. From west to east and from
north to south he marched across the continent of Europe,
defeating armies and destroying kingdoms ; but all the time
he knew that across the blue waters of the narrow Channel,
behind the cliffs which could be seen from Calais, lay an enemy
whom he could not reach, but who, sooner or later, might send
across an army which would strike a vital blow, and bring to
ruin all the schemes and conquests of his career. This was,
of course, what actually happened in the end, when a British
-expeditionary army under Wellington brought his whole
ambitious achievement to wreck on the battlefield of Waterloo.
The consciousness of that possibility, and perhaps the
foreboding of that event, urged him to attempt the destruction
of British resources by a boycott of British trade. The famous
2E 433 H.G. III.
434 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
decree which he issued from Berlin in November, 1806, declared
the British islands to be in a state of blockade. All commerce
with Britain was forbidden, all British goods found in France
or the territories of her allies were subject to confiscation, and
the harbours of these countries were closed against all British
vessels, or vessels which had touched at British ports. Napo-
leon, however, had no fleet with which to enforce these edicts,
and as a matter of fact the countries of the continent could not
very well, just then, get along without British manufactures.
The Berlin decrees were made entirely ineffectual by a few
daring British traders, who proceeded to set up a great contra-
band system for running British goods across the frontiers.
Among these contraband traders perhaps the most daring
and successful was a Glasgow merchant. Kirkman Finlay was
a member of a family which, like the Buchanans, a century
earlier, came from the neighbourhood of Killearn. 1 His father,
James Finlay, was the fourth son of John Finlay of The Moss,
birthplace of the famous Latinist of Queen Mary's time, George
Buchanan. Coming to Glasgow he founded the business of
James Finlay & Co., in Bell's Wynd, now Bell Street, off Candle-
riggs. In the procession, already described, which beat up for
recruits for the American war in 1778, he is said to have been the
"gentleman playing on the bagpipes," and in the list of subscrip-
tions the name of James Finlay & Co. is down for fifty guineas. 2
Kirkman was James Finlay's younger son, and carried on
the family business. He got his somewhat curious Christian
name from Alderman Kirkman, his father's London corre-
spondent and friend. In 1793, three years after his father's
death, he bought the cotton mills of Ballindalloch on the
Endrick from his relatives, the Buchanans ; in 1 80 1 he bought
the mills at Catrine in Ayrshire from David Dale and Alexander
1 A very full account of the Finlays and all their family connections is
given in J. O. Mitchell's Old Glasgow Essays, p. 26.
2 Glasgow Mercury, 2gth Jan., 1778. Senex, Old Glasgow, p. 169.
BERLIN DECREE FLOUTED 435
of Ballochmyle ; and in 1808 he bought Deanston mills on the
Teith from their Quaker owner, Benjamin Flounders. 3 He was
also, however, a merchant, and it was Napoleon's Berlin
decree which gave him his great opportunity. Aware that a
ready market awaited our manufactures if they could be
smuggled into the Continent, he established depots in Heligo-
land and elsewhere at strategic points, and organized a great
system of contraband in which, if the risks were great, the
rewards were correspondingly high. In that bold game he
must be held to have fairly beaten his powerful opponent,
Napoleon himself. It is said that the Emperor's own troops
were clad in overcoats made at Leeds, and marched in shoes
made at Southampton. 4 The result shewed the world that
British commerce was beyond Napoleon's power to ruin, and
the blow thus struck at the Emperor's prestige, with the
service rendered to British industry, contributed not much less
to the overthrow of the dictator than the defeat of his military
forces by the Duke of Wellington.
Kirkman Finlay also played a notable part in the overthrow
of another monopoly. For two hundred years, since it received
its charter from Queen Elizabeth, the East India Company had
enjoyed a monopoly of all the trade of this country to the east
beyond the Cape of Good Hope. From time to time the charter
fell to be renewed. This had been done in 1744 and in 1780,
largely by dint of immense loans to the Government. When
the charter again approached expiration in 1812 Kirkman
Finlay induced the Town Council of Glasgow to enquire into
the conditions. 5 In the Indian and Pacific Oceans he saw vast
possibilities for extending the commerce of Glasgow, and no
sooner was the trade thrown open than he freighted the " Earl
3 Old Glasgow Essays, p. 33. 4 Green, Short History, p. 823.
6 Burgh Records, 8th and 24th Jan., 2oth March, igth May, gth June, 1812.
Later, in 1830, the Town Council again made appeal to Parliament against
renewal of the exclusive privileges of the East India Company. Burgh Records,
26th Feb., 1830.
436 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
of Buckinghamshire " and sent it out to Bombay. That
vessel, of 600 tons, which was despatched in 1816, was the
first to sail direct from the Clyde to an eastern port. In the
following year Kirkman Finlay sent out the " George Canning "
the first Glasgow ship for Calcutta ; and in 1834 ne ventured
still further, and despatched the " Kirkman Finlay," the first
Glasgow ship for China. 6 Thus, by his courage and enterprise,
he opened up the great trade with the Far East which has
brought an endless stream of prosperous commerce to the Clyde.
Under its shrewd and far-seeing chief the firm of James
Finlay & Co. carried on a vast business. In the course of a
legal case it was shewn that the profits of the firm in twenty
years amounted to more than a million sterling. For his
Glasgow hoiise Kirkman Finlay bought the fine mansion of
James Ritchie of Busby, the Virginia " tobacco lord," on the
west side of Queen Street, 7 and on the Firth of Clyde he sdt a
fashion by forming and planting a noble estate and building
the mansion of Castle Toward. Personally he .was of the finest
type of Glasgow merchant, liberal and kindly, a generous
master and a fair opponent, whose word was as good as his
bond. 8 In addition to his own business he took an active part
in public affairs. He was Governor of the Forth and Clyde
Navigation, President of the Chamber of Commerce, Lord
Provost, Lord Rector of the University and Dean of Faculties
thereof. In 1812, when he was elected Member of Parliament,
the enthusiasm of the citizens passed all bounds. They paid his
expenses and struck a medal in his honour, drank his health
with cheers and applause in front of the Town Hall at the
cross, and, unyoking his horses, dragged him in his carriage to
his own house in Queen Street. Alas, however, for the fickle-
ness of fame ! three years later they paid him another visit.
6 Table of Dates in Old Glasgow Essays, pp. xlii and xliii.
7 Depicted in Stuart's Views and Notices of Glasgow.
8 Old Glasgow Essays, p. 34.
THE FIRST STEAMBOAT 437
He had voted in parliament for Prosperity Robinson's Corn
Bill, and, finding him from home, they attacked his house and
smashed his windows, pelted with mud and stones the horse
patrol which was turned out to disperse them, and were only
brought to reason by the arrival of a detachment of the 7ist
Foot and by two troops of cavalry from Hamilton. That,
however, is the way of the " profanum vulgus." When Kirk-
man Finlay died at Castle Toward he was buried with much
honour in Blackfriars Aisle at the cathedral, and a statue of him,
by Gibson, was set up in the vestibule of the Merchants House. 9
It was in the year in which this very notable Glasgow
merchant was elected Member of Parliament that Henry Bell
placed his " Comet " on the waters of the Clyde. Hardly could
a greater contrast be found than that between the humble pro-
jector of steam navigation in this country and Kirkman Finlay
with his great schemes of commerce which played a part in
destroying Napoleon and in opening the eastern world to
Glasgow trade. Henry Bell was not, of course, the inventor of
the steamboat. He was not even the first to put a practical
and successful steamer on British waters. As early as the year
1543 Blasco de Gary is said to have launched a boat propelled
by a jet of steam on the harbour at Barcelona. In 1707 Denis
Papin, inventor of the atmospheric engine, placed a paddle-
boat on the river Fulda at Cassel ; and in 1736 Jonathan Hulls
patented a form of paddle-steamer in England. After the
improvement of the steam engine by James Watt, attempts,
more or less successful, were made, in France by the Marquis
de Jouffroy in 1783, and in America by James Rumsey in 1786
and by John Fitch in 1787. One of Fitch's boats attained a
speed of seven miles an hour, and plied as a passenger steamer
on the Delaware. In Scotland the first practical application of
steam to the propulsion of vessels was made by Patrick Miller,
the retired banker, on the little loch on his estate of Dalswinton,
9 Ibid. pp. 34, 35. Curiosities of Glasgow Citizenship, p. 207.
438 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
in Dumfriesshire, in 1788, in the presence of no less notable
persons than Robert Burns, Nasmyth the painter, and the
future Lord Brougham. The application of steam to the paddle-
wheels, with which Miller had been experimenting, was made on
the suggestion of James Taylor, his family tutor, and the engine
was constructed by William Symington, a native of Lead-
hills. In the following year Miller had a more powerful
vessel built at Carron Ironworks, which attained a speed of
seven miles an hour on the Forth and Clyde Canal. Thirteen
years later Symington was in the field again. Commissioned by
Thomas, Lord Dundas, in 1802 he placed a stern- wheel steamer,
the " Charlotte Dundas," on the canal. The vessel towed two
laden barges of seventy tons each a distance of twenty miles
against a strong head wind in seven hours, and must be con-
sidered " the first practically successful steamboat ever built."
Her performance on the canal was only stopped because the wash
of the paddles threatened to destroy the banks. Meanwhile the
little ship had been inspected by two ingenious individuals,
Robert Fulton and Henry Bell. The former, after experimenting
with a steamboat on the Seine in 1803, launched on the Hudson
in America in 1807 the steamer " Clermont," which was the
progenitor of all the steamship enterprise of the New World. 10
Henry Bell, who, five years later, played the same part in
the steamship enterprise of this country, was a native of the
little old-world village of Torphichen, near Linlithgow. He
learned in succession the crafts of stone-mason, mill-wright, and
shipbuilder, and was employed for a time in London by Rennie
the celebrated civil engineer. In 1790 he set up in business in
Glasgow as a wright or house carpenter. His brain, however,
was full of ambitious projects in other fields, and in 1800 and
1803 he approached the Government with schemes of steamship
construction. Lord Melville and James Watt both discouraged
the idea, and, though Lord Nelson declared strongly in its
10 Symington, Brief History of Steam Navigation.
THE "COMET' 439
favour, nothing came of the application. Bell does not appear
to have made much of his business as a wright in Glasgow, and
in 1807 his wife undertook the superintendence of the public
baths at Helensburgh, then recently founded by Sir James
Colquhoun at the mouth of the Gareloch. Beside the baths she
carried on an inn, the Baths Hotel, and it was in the interest of
this undertaking, and of the little burgh, of which he was
provost from 1807 till 1809, that Bell at last turned his specu-
lative ideas to practical account. In 1811 he induced John
Wood & Co. of Port-Glasgow to build a vessel for him. The
engine was made by John Robertson & Co. and the boiler came
from the foundry of David Napier in Glasgow. The " Comet/'
named from a celebrated comet which appeared in the heavens
at that time, was launched with steam up on i8th January
1812, and proved its success by steaming at five miles an hour
against a head wind. In August it was advertised to sail " by
the power of air, wind, and steam," three times a week from
Glasgow to Greenock and Helensburgh, and in September the
voyage was extended to Oban and Fort William. 1
Bell himself made little of his enterprise. Some of his bills
remained unpaid ; but he was the pioneer of a great develop-
ment for Glasgow and the Clyde. 2 In view of this, on his ap-
proaching old age a subscription was raised on his behalf, which
realized a considerable sum, while the Clyde Trustees granted
an annuity of 100, which was continued to his widow. After
his death in 1830 an obelisk to his memory was built at Dunglass
Castle on the riverside above Dunbarton, and in 1872 another
was erected on the esplanade at Helensburgh. His dust rests
in Rhu churchyard.
1 A full account of Henry Bell's undertaking and the rapid development
of river steamer enterprise which followed will be found in Captain James
Williamson's volume, The Clyde Passenger Steamer.
2 During the ten years which followed the launch of the " Comet " no
fewer than forty-eight steam vessels were constructed in shipbuilding yards
on the Clyde. Mackinnon, Social and Industrial History, p. 95.
440 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
A man to whom Glasgow and the Clyde owe much more
than they do to Henry Bell was David Napier, the maker of the
boiler for the " Comet." Besides the workshop in Howard
Street in which that boiler was made, Napier had a foundry at
Camlachie, and he is said to have used the Camlachie Burn as
an experimental tank for testing the comparative merits of the
models of his ships. In this way he ascertained the best shape,
the clipper bow, for ocean going steamers, and among his other
inventions was the " steeple engine," which took the place of
the old and awkward beam-engine on board ship. He placed
steam carriages on the roads, and a fleet of river steamers on
the Clyde ; he placed the first steamers on Loch Lomond and
Loch Eck, and he opened up the Loch Eck route to Inveraray.
His cousin, Robert Napier of Shandon, who succeeded to his
business when he went to London, enjoys most of the credit
to-day ; but David Napier was the actual pioneer of the
modern shipbuilding industry of the Clyde. 3
Presently iron was substituted for wood in the Clyde ship-
building yards. The first boat made of iron in Scotland was
the " Vulcan " which was built in 1817 at Faskine on the Monk-
land Canal by Thomas Wilson, and which, two years later,
began service as a passenger vessel on the Forth and Clyde
Canal. The first iron steamer was the " Fairy Queen," built by
Neilson at the Oakbank Foundry, Glasgow, carted to the Clyde,
and launched at the Broomielaw in 1831. Since then the de-
velopment of Glasgow's overseas trade and of Clyde-built ships
and engines which ply on every ocean of the world, has been
almost beyond belief, and the city does well to remember what
it owes to the initiative of Kirkman Finlay, David Napier, and
Henry Bell. 4
3 David Napier, Engineer. The Clyde Passenger Steamer, pp. 52, 70.
4 A highly interesting detailed account of the development of ship building
on the Clyde is furnished by Professor Mackinnon in his Social and Industrial
History of Scotland, p. 93.
N
! ii
*
CHAPTER XLIX
AFTER WATERLOO : DR. CHALMERS : THE RADICAL RISING
IF facts were wanted to show that a nation's greatest de-
velopments are made during a time of war, they might be
found in the experience of Glasgow at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. The conflict with Napoleon, in which the
country was then engaged, was a life and death struggle, as
was the conflict in which Marlborough won his triumphs a
hundred years earlier, and our conflict with the Central Powers
of Europe a century later. In the carrying on of these
wars the nation was forced to exert its utmost powers, and
the effort seems to have quickened the national spirit in all
directions.
Much has been said already in these pages to show the
developments in Glasgow while the Napoleonic war went on.
These developments were by no means entirely of a physical
or material kind. The city had already for many years been
notable for its clubs not the stately abodes in stone and lime
with which the name is associated to-day, but gatherings like
those in which Ben Jonson and Dr. Samuel Johnson were the
leading spirits in London in their times for social intercourse
of a quickening kind. By way of illustrating the history of
Glasgow from the year 1750 downwards, Dr. John Strang has
described the proceedings and personalities of some thirty of
these bodies in his entertaining volume, Glasgow and its
Clubs. The habits and proceedings of the Anderston Club,
the Hodge Podge Club, the Coul Club, and their like, live again
44 i
442 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
in his pages. A body of more definite purpose, however, was
the Glasgow Philosophical Society, whose objects are sufficiently
indicated in its name. This learned society, still active in 1934,
was founded in 1802, and has afforded a platform and furnished
an audience for many valuable contributions to the thought of
its time.
A distinct fillip to the intellectual life of the city, again, was
afforded by the founding of the Hunterian Museum in 1804.
Its donor, William Hunter, the famous anatomist, was a native
of East Kilbride and a graduate of Glasgow University, who
attained in London the positions of Physician in Ordinary to
the Queen, and President of the Royal College of Physicians.
The collection which he left to the University was valued at
130,000, and contained a library of 12,000 volumes, one of the
finest collections of coins and medals in the world, and a number
of pictures by such masters as Rembrandt, Rubens, and
Salvator Rosa. The building to contain the collection was
erected at the rear of the College in High Street in 1808, and
was regarded as the best example of classic architecture then
in Britain.
The same year saw the founding of the Glasgow Society
for Promoting Astronomical Knowledge, and the building on
Garnethill of a complete observatory. Among its appliances
the institution had a revolving cupola, a sidereal clock, and two
Herschelian telescopes, one ten feet long on the terrace and
another fourteen feet long on the roof. It was the finest
observatory in Britain, after that at Greenwich. 1 The institu-
tion, however, was not sufficiently provided with funds, and
the citizens of Glasgow soon tired of their new toy. In 1812
1 An earlier Observatory was that set up by the University on the College
Green in 1757, with, among others, the instruments bequeathed by Alexander
Macfarlane of Jamaica. For that bequest the donor's brother, the Laird of
Arrochar, himself a noted antiquary, was made an LL.D. The first Professor
of Astronomy was Alexander Wilson, the typefounder, friend of the brothers
Foulis. Coutts, Hist. Univ. Glasgow, p. 229.
EARLY GLASGOW RAILWAYS 443
it was offered to the University, whose own observatory on the
College Green was sadly handicapped by the smoke in its neigh-
bourhood ; but the University was without money for the pur-
chase. Presently the Astronomical Discourses of Dr. Chalmers
at the Tron Church revived interest in the subject, but when
St. John's Church was built for him on the south side of the
College grounds it seriously obstructed the view from the College
Observatory. In 1819 and in 1821 the Garnethill Observatory
was again offered to the University, and again was refused,
whereupon the enterprise seems to have come to an end. 2
Ingenuity and enterprise were especially quickened in
developing the means of communication. The device of John
Loudon M'Adam for making roads of broken stone " mac-
adamizing," as it has since been termed was hastening and
improving road construction in all directions from Glasgow,
and already even better facilities were being devised. In 1809
the Town Council agreed to subscribe thirty pounds towards
the survey for an iron railway to run from the Monkland Canal
to Berwick-on-Tweed. 3 Shortly afterwards it sold ground to
William M'Dowall of Garthland for the making of a railway
from the coal works of Govan to the basin of the Ardrossan
Canal ; and five years later it considered a proposal by the
Monkland Canal Company to lay a railroad from that canal by
Dobbie's Loan, Sauchiehall Road, and Nile Street to the
Broomielaw. These railroads were iron tracks on which the
wheels of heavy waggons could run more smoothly and easily
than on the surface of the ordinary thoroughfare, and they
prepared the way for the iron railroads on which steam loco-
motives were afterwards to run. 4
In the midst of these very modern developments it is curious
3 Ibid. p. 353-
3 A survey for this railway was made by Telford, the celebrated engineer,
who estimated its cost at ^2926 per mile, but the work was never begun.
4 Burgh Records, 3oth May, igth June, 29th June, 1809 ; 4th Sept.,
1912 ; nth Feb., 1814 ; 7th April, 1818.
444 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
to find that six hours a day were still devoted to the study of
Latin in the Grammar School. The time was only reduced to
four hours in 1813. The curriculum was then, however,
increased to five years, and, reviving the former office, a rector
was appointed to carry the classes into the higher branches,
including the elements of Greek. 5
The older world, however, had not yet altogether passed
away. Representing that older world, the Tolbooth Steeple
still stood at the foot- of High Street. With the intended
removal of the Tolbooth itself, after its purchase by Dr.
Cleland, the security of this interesting feature of the city was
threatened, and the Town Council discussed the question of
demolishing, repairing, or rebuilding it. Following a report by
experts, the iconoclasts were defeated, the steeple was strength-
ened and repaired at a cost of 450, and the beautiful old
building, so closely associated with Glasgow's history, was
assured of existence for another hundred years. 6
Though no longer carried out at the Tolbooth after that
date when the new Court-houses at the foot of Saltmarket
were at that time opened executions for trivial offences
were still frequent. In 1787 three culprits were hanged, one
for stealing a piece of cloth from a bleachfield, the other two
for attacking and robbing a surgeon at the west end of Argyll
Street. The place of execution was the old Castle yard, and so
dense was the crowd that it took an hour to march the con-
demned men from the Tolbooth to the spot. 7 For duty on
these occasions the Town Council kept a hangman of its own.
While the office was vacant in 1813 the city paid 40 43. 4d.
sterling for the services of the Edinburgh executioner to despatch
5 Burgh Records, 6th April, 3oth April, 1813 ; 6th Dec., 1814; 4th April,
1815.
6 Ibid. 22nd April, 5th May, 28th June, 1814. Curiously enough, the same
arguments were used when the demolition of the steeple was twice proposed
in the early years of the twentieth century.
7 Glasgow Mercury, 3oth May, 1787.
BATTLE OF WATERLOO 445
two delinquents. 8 There is an old-world atmosphere about the
fact that highway robberies were common round the city and
neighbouring counties, and were the subject of special measures
of repression as late as 1814, when Higgins and Harold, two
practitioners of the Dick Turpin fraternity, were hanged for
their exploits. 9
From their names these two " stand and deliver " adven-
turers were obviously importations from the south. During
these years the surge of war was constantly flowing and ebbing
through the city, and no doubt casting up its flotsam and
jetsam of undesirable kind.
For eleven long years the war went on, with its anxieties
and preoccupations, and when at last, in June, 1815, the news
arrived that Napoleon had been finally defeated by the Duke of
Wellington on the field of Waterloo, the population let itself
go in an orgy of rejoicing. There were public bonfires, the city
was illuminated, and, at the request of the magistrates, the bands
of the regiments in the garrison paraded the streets. At the
same time the Town Council celebrated the great event in its
own way, and sent an address of congratulation to the Prince
Regent.
Before long, however, Glasgow was to discover that victory
in a war is followed by evils only less deadly than defeat.
Already, before the war was over, some change had appeared in
the spirit of the people. The change became early evident in the
attitude of the public towards the Church. In 1813 it had
become apparent that additional parish churches were required
to accommodate the rapidly increasing population. Previously
8 Burgh Records, i2th Nov., yth Dec., 1813. As late as 1833 arrangements
were made for the provision of an assistant to the city's hangman. Ibid.
1 4th May, 1833. The last of the Glasgow hangmen was Thomas Young, who
lived with his family in two apartments within the Justiciary Buildings, on
a wage of one guinea a week, with coal and candle. After his retiral the city
made use of the services of Calcraft, the London executioner. Mackenzie,
Reminiscences, p. 304.
9 Ibid. 1 8th Nov., 1814.
446 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the city churches had been built out of the revenues of the
" Common Good," or property belonging to the city, supple-
mented by the seat rents, the sale of burial-places, and the
like. It was now becoming doubtful, however, whether this plan
could be continued. A proposal therefore was made to raise the
money required by levying a rate on the rents of houses. By the
citizens of a previous generation the building of these churches
would have been regarded as a sacred duty, but another spirit
was now in the air. The Trades House led the revolt with a
respectful but strongly worded protest, declaring its " repug-
nance and disapprobation " ; a committee of the citizens
followed with the intimation that it would resist the passing
of the necessary Act by every constitutional means ; and a
memorial against the project was even presented by the Society
of Friends. Faced with such formidable opposition, the Council
withdrew the proposal. 10
The city's ordinary revenue in 1813 was 13,161 53. 8d.,
and its ordinary expenditure 12,736 gs. 2d., while there was
a debt of 98,000, covered only in part by available assets of
62,533, along with certain other property yielding no revenue,
but valued at 71,679. The revenue of the existing churches
was 2250, while their expenditure was 2986, and there was
a further loss of 50 on the stipends paid to the ministers of the
High Church and the Barony. 1 In these circumstances the
Town Council acted with liberality in raising the stipends of all
the city ministers from 300 to 400, 2 but the building of
additional city churches was delayed for several years.
It came about ultimately through the appearance upon the
scene of a man who was to leave his mark upon the history,
not only of Glasgow, but of Scotland. Thomas Chalmers was
appointed minister of the Tron Church by the Town Council in
November, 1814, seven months before the battle of Waterloo. 3
10 Burgh Records, 26th Nov., yth Dec., 1813. x Ibid. 24th Feb., 1814.
z Ibid. 3rd Mar., 1814. a Ibid. 25th Nov.
CHALMERS'S ASTRONOMICAL DISCOURSE 447
As minister of Kilmany in Fife he had shown himself to be of
strong character, with the courage of his opinions, and several
quaint traditions are still recounted of him there. No sooner
was he settled in Glasgow than his vigour and originality began
to be seen. Burning with evangelical zeal, he proceeded to
awaken a new religious fervour in the city. The series of "Astro-
nomical Discourses," which he delivered on Thursdays in the
Tron Church, drew streams of merchants from office and coffee-
room to listen to " the brilliant glow of a blazing eloquence." 4
When the " Discourses " were published twenty thousand
copies were sold within a year, and the editions ran an almost
equal race with Scott's Tales of a Landlord? Amid the
aftermath of the war, Chalmers was horrified by the utter
ignorance and neglect amid which the young people of his
parish were growing up, and he noticed that not one-third of the
citizens attended any church. In his sermon on the death of the
Princess Charlotte, only child of George IV., in 1817, he made
the bold demand for " twenty more churches and twenty more
ministers for the city. The demand raised a clamour of protest,
but already the magistrates had agreed to the erection of one
new church, St. John's, off the Gallowgate. 6 Chalmers himself
was appointed its first minister, 7 and forthwith proceeded with
a series of enlightened schemes which revolutionized the public
outlook, both of magistrates and citizens.
His plans met with strenuous opposition from the " General
Session " the ministers and elders of the other city churches.
Hitherto the churches had pooled their collections for the help
of the poor of the city. But the collection in St. John's
amounted to 8 per week, while those in the other churches
averaged only 2. Having ideas of his own as to the best
4 Foster, quoted in Hanna's Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers, ii. 87.
5 " These sermons," said Hazlitt, " ran like wild-fire through the country,
were the darlings of watering-places, were laid in the windows of inns, and
were to be met with in all places of public resort." Memoirs of Chalmers, ii. 89.
c Burgh Records, i5th Oct., 1816. 7 Ibid. 5th June, 1818.
448 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
methods of affording help, Chalmers asked that his congregation
should be allowed to administer its own collections. With full
confidence in the good work that the minister of St. John's was
doing, the Town Council at once gave its consent, but the
General Session was furious. It not only objected to Chalmers's
request, but roundly told the Town Council it had no authority
on the subject, and threatened that, if the request were granted,
it would itself throw up the task of relieving the poor. In its
letter to the Town Council the General Session took a high
dictatorial and rather insolent attitude. It was a last attempt
of the clergy of the city to imitate the Hebrew prophets of old,
and dictate a policy to the civil authorities. The attempt
failed. The magistrates answered firmly and with dignity ;
but they took the General Session at its word, and proceeded to
remodel the system of parochial poor relief, and provide for the
setting up of parochial schools on plans very similar to those of
Dr. Chalmers, and independent of the General Session. 8
Dr. Chalmers then proceeded to carry out his proposal
to employ the surplus of his collections for the founding of
parochial schools after the fashion of the schools in country
districts. These schools were so well managed that wealthy
city merchants sought admission to them for their children.
For one of them, in Macfarlane Street, beside St. John's Church,
Chalmers collected 500, which was handed to the Town Council
to furnish a salary of 25 a year to the teacher. 9 At the same
time his methods of relief of the poor were thoroughly efficient.
While the deserving were sympathetically cared for, the idle
and the profligate were thrown upon their own resources, and
compelled to work. 10
8 Burgh Records, i8th Aug., yth Sept., 28th Sept., 1819 ; 2oth Feb., 1821 ;
I7th Aug., 1826.
9 Ibid. 8th Nov., 1822.
10 The description of the discretionary methods insisted upon by Chalmers
in dealing with applications for parochial relief, contained in Raima's
Memoirs (vol. ii, chap, xiii.) affords a very perfect model for all such work.
fl
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DISTRESS AFTER WATERLOO 449
It is interesting to remember that for three years, from 1819
till 1822, Chalmers had as assistant the not less famous Edward
Irving, afterwards founder of the Catholic Apostolic Church.
When Irving returned to Glasgow to die in 1834 he must have
had many stirring and pathetic memories of those strenuous
early years.
The eight years of Dr. Chalmers's work in Glasgow ended
by his appointment as Professor of Moral Philosophy at St.
Andrews in 1823 were among the most troubled and dis-
astrous the city and the country had seen. In 1813, two years
before the end of the war with Napoleon, the trouble began
with a general strike of 40,000 weavers throughout Scotland.
With wages at 8s. 6d. per week, and the peck of meal at 35.,
their case was hard enough, but the strike did not make the
times better, and with the arrest of the leaders it collapsed
after a couple of months. 1 But already there was serious
distress in the country. A succession of bad harvests threatened
the farmers with ruin. To help them, in 1815 an Act of Parlia-
ment, the much disputed " Corn Law," was passed, prohib-
iting the importation of grain so long as the average price was
below eighty shillings per quarter. This Act materially raised
the price of food for the people. With the end of the war the
countries which, in spite of Napoleon's decrees, had been large
purchasers of our merchandise, began to manufacture for them-
selves, and placed tariffs against our trade. At the same time,
among our people, starving and unemployed, the ideas of the
French Revolution were at work, to propagate discontent and
instigate rebellion. So serious was the distress that in some
parts of England the poors rates swallowed the whole income of
those who had any income with which to pay, and large tracts
of the country went out of cultivation. Lord Brougham de-
clared that " the national misery had reached a height wholly
without precedent in our history since the Norman Conquest."
1 Mackinnon, Social and Industrial History, p. 100.
2 F H.G. III.
450 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
The full blast of disaster descended on Glasgow in 1816. In
the first three months of that year the bankruptcies in the city
involved sums amounting to two millions sterling. 2 In June
the distress among the labouring class had become so serious
that the Lord Provost called for special provision for its relief, 3
and in the following winter subscriptions amounting to 9653
were distributed among 23,130 people in want. Soon, however,
the political agitator was at work. In October some 40,000
persons assembled at Thrushgrove, near the city, and passed
resolutions demanding redress of grievances ; and so fearful
were the magistrates of a riotous outbreak that they had the
42nd Highlanders at the barracks in Gallowgate and the
dragoons in the cavalry quarters under arms in readiness for
action. 4 That gathering marked the opening of the " Radical "
movement in the West of Scotland. In December some actual
rioting did occur, but was suppressed by the prompt action of
the magistrates, the sheriff-depute, and the justices of the
peace. 5
The spirit of lawlessness, however, was rising. Large
numbers of illicit distilleries were at work throughout the west
and north of Scotland. In a single parish, Kilmaronock, on the
south-east side of Loch Lomond, the smoke of a dozen " sma'
stills " was sometimes to be seen rising into the air at once. 6
The bands of smugglers became so numerous and daring as to
defy the revenue officers and the police, and the Town Council
appealed to the Government to suppress a trade which not only
2 Curiosities of Citizenship, p. 127. On a single dark morning in the month
of February stoppages to the extent of something like a million and a half
sterling were declared. Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 441.
3 Burgh Records, 2yth June, 1816.
4 Macgregor's History of Glasgow, p. 400.
6 Burgh Records, 2yth Dec., 1816 ; i6th June, 1818.
6 This fact was stated to the writer by the late R. D. Mackenzie of Cal-
darvan, from his personal observation as a boy. The smuggling enterprise
of the district was only suppressed when the Government placed a revenue
cutter on Loch Lomond.
TREASON AND RIOT 451
meant a loss to the revenue, but depraved the habits of the
people, excited a spirit of insubordination, and destroyed respect
for the law. 7
Still more ominous, an attempt on the life of the Prince
Regent, as he returned from opening Parliament early in 1817,
drew another address from the Town Council. 8 At the same
time, in Glasgow itself, serious conspiracies were said to be afoot.
The unemployed cotton spinners were known to be plotting
lawless outbreaks, 9 and a secret enquiry by the Government
discovered the existence of a treasonable oath by which certain
persons had bound themselves to secure universal suffrage and
annual parliaments, either by peaceful means or by force.
The Rev. Neil Douglas, also, a dissenting minister in the city,
did what he could to inflame the crowds which went to hear
him, by fierce invective against the King, the Prince Regent,
and the House of Commons. Prosecutions against the delin-
quents in the High Court at Edinburgh broke down, but Earl
Grey stated in the House of Lords that Glasgow was " one of
the places where treasonable practices were said, in the report
of the secret committee of both Houses, to prevail to the
greatest degree." 10
The city's troubles were not made less by a great invasion
of Irish beggars who took up quarters in the narrow wynds
and closes of the older parts of the town, and kept alive an
epidemic of contagious fever, which developed into a plague of
typhus in the winter of iSig. 1
Meanwhile acts of lawlessness became more and more
common. A riot on the King's birthnight, 4th June, 1819, did
a considerable amount of damage. 2 So serious were the
7 Burgh Records, 29th Feb., 1816. 8 Ibid. 3rd Feb., 1817.
9 Mackinnon, Social and Industrial History, p. 162.
10 Mackenzie, Reminiscences, vol. i. pp. 113, 123.
1 Burgh Records, 2ist April, igth June, 1818 ; I4th Feb., 1820.
2 Ibid. 23rd June, loth Aug., 1819.
452 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
demonstrations of lawlessness that a very notable personage
was prevented from paying the city a visit. Prince Leopold of
Saxe-Coburg, who had been husband of the much lamented
Princess Charlotte, and who afterwards became King of the
Belgians, was visiting the Duke of Montrose at Buchanan
House, and the Town Council proposed to confer the freedom
of the city upon him, and entertain him at a banquet. The
Lord Provost, Henry Monteith, accordingly posted out, over
the Stockiemuir, to convey the invitation to His Royal Highness.
The Prince received him most graciously, and expressed in
strong terms his wish to have visited Glasgow, but declined
doing so lest his presence might be made the occasion of
mischief which he should never cease to regret. 3
To relieve the distress hundreds of the workless were
given employment, as already mentioned, in improvements on
Glasgow Green ; the Government was approached and agreed
to make a grant of 30,000 towards the cost of forming dry and
wet docks at the Broomielaw, and, to stave off actual starvation,
soup kitchens were opened for the winter. 4
The spirit of rebellion, nevertheless, was becoming more
evident. As in all such times of distress, there appeared hot-
heads who seized the opportunity to urge the proletariat to
extreme acts. 5 Among the friends of the extremists it 'was
afterwards urged that the troubles were stirred up by Govern-
ment agents, who first fomented rebellion, and then profited
by betraying the rebels. Even the precautions taken by the
authorities to maintain order were blamed as acts of repression
which stimulated outrage. But there were shootings at certain
millowners and workmen, and throwings of vitriol, which
cannot be excused by any such sophistry, 6 and the open taking
3 Burgh Records, I3th and 28th Sept., 1819.
4 Ibid. I4th Feb., 2nd May, 1820 ; loth Aug., 2jth Oct., 2yth Dec., igth
Nov., 1819.
6 Ibid, igih Nov., 1819.
6 Mackinnon, Social and Industrial History, p. 162.
THE RADICAL RISING 453
of arms is an act for which the doer of it must at all times
himself bear the entire responsibility.
Throughout the autumn of 1819 the Town Council had
found it necessary, for the preservation of peace, to have
cavalry stationed in the city. 7 A corps of special constables
also was requisitioned. Night after night the streets were
crowded with an idle populace, ready for riot, and again and
again cavalry was required to clear the thoroughfares. 8 Glas-
gow was believed by the Government to be the headquarters
of the revolutionists in Scotland, and it was in Glasgow that
the actual outbreak took place.
On Sunday morning, ist April, 1820, the citizens, as they
went to church, found posted on the walls a direct incitement
to rebellion. " Friends and Countrymen," it ran, " Roused from
that state in which we have been sunk for so many years, we
are at length compelled ... to assert our rights at the hazard
of our lives.' 1 It then went on, in glowing terms, to urge the
people to take arms to regenerate their country. The document
was signed " By Order of the Committee of Organization for
forming a Provisional Government." Rumours were spread
that England was already in arms for the cause of reform, that
fifty thousand troops were on their way from France to help
the movement, that five thousand French soldiers were to
encamp on Cathkin Braes, and that Glasgow and its wealth
were to be seized in name of the Provisional Government.
Already, it was said, an army from England had reached
Falkirk, and was about to seize Carron Iron Works, the great
cannon foundry of the kingdom.
So seriously was the proclamation regarded that the Rifle
Brigade, the 8oth and 83rd Regiments of Foot, the 7th and loth
Hussars, several regiments of Yeomanry, and the Glasgow
Sharpshooters, a body commanded by Samuel Hunter, editor
''Burgh Records, 2yth Oct., 1819 ; 28th Jan., 1820.
8 Glasgow and its Clubs, p. 498.
454 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
of the Glasgow Herald, were all ordered to be under arms in
Glasgow and its neighbourhood. All shops were ordered to be
shut at six o'clock, and the streets to be cleared by seven. On
8th April a Royal Proclamation at the cross offered 500 for
the detection of the authors and printers of the treasonous
document. 9
Not a great many obeyed the call of the revolutionaries.
On hearing the news, James Wilson, a weaver at Strathaven,
otherwise known as " Perley Wilson " from the fact, it is said,
that he invented the pearl stitch in knitting, set out from his
house with some twenty followers. As the country seemed
quiet, however, and there were no signs of a general rising,
they presently changed their minds, and returned home.
There, on that same day, Wilson was arrested and taken,
first to Hamilton barracks, and afterwards to Glasgow jail.
Next, late on the Tuesday night there was a gathering in the
Fir Park, now the Necropolis, when pikes, swords, muskets,
and ammunition were handed out, and about seventy men,
headed by a weaver, Andrew Hardie, ancestor of Keir Hardie,
a similar spirit of a later day, started to join their English
friends at Falkirk. At the village of Condorrat, where they
halted for a space, they were joined by John Baird and another
small party of weavers. On approaching Falkirk they were
surprised to find no signs of the English, and, thoroughly
disheartened, most of them abandoned the company and went
home. The remainder, some thirty strong, were resting among
some enclosures at Bonnymuir, when a troop of the yth Hussars
came up with them. They refused to surrender, and made some
attempt at defence, but on the cavalry attacking they were all
made prisoners, most of them being wounded. On 6th July
eighteen of them were brought up for trial at Edinburgh on a
charge of high treason, and notwithstanding the eloquence of
Francis Jeffrey, who was retained for their defence, all were
9 Macgregor, History, p. 408.
EXECUTIONS 455
convicted. Hardie and Baird, as ringleaders, were executed
at Stirling on 8th September, and the others were transported.
James Wilson was tried at Glasgow on 20th July, and hanged
and beheaded on 3oth August, in the presence of 20,000
spectators in front of the jail at Glasgow Green. 10 Late that
night his daughter carried his body home to Strathaven, and
buried it in the cemetery there, and every spring the site of the
cottage from which he set out on his ill-fated adventure is
bright with a thick carpet of crocuses.
Thus ended the notorious " Radical Rising " of 1820. The
object of its leaders was legitimate enough to redress their
grievances by securing a voice in the government of the country,
but their method of attaining that object by force of arms
made them justly liable to the penalties they suffered.
10 Macgregor, History of Glasgow, pp. 407-411.
CHAPTER L
THE CONVENTION OF BURGHS ; THE RESURRECTIONISTS ;
GEORGE IV IN SCOTLAND
AMID these " excursions and alarms " democracy may be
said to have made its first bid for power in modern times
in this country. It is notable enough, and significant of
the spirit and hereditary character of the people, that move-
ments such as this and the war of the Covenant against
the arbitrary actions of Charles I, should both have had
their opening act played in Glasgow. It may be claimed
to have been the same racial quality which urged William
Wallace of Elderslie, near Glasgow, to strike the first blow
for freedom against the usurped authority of Edward I of
England.
Meanwhile it is curious to remark that, at the actual time
of the Radical Rising, the Town Council had reason to complain
of certain acts of the Convention of Burghs which illustrate
one of the weaknesses and dangers of democracy. In the
Convention the representatives of all the royal burghs had equal
votes, though these burghs did not all contribute equally to
the funds at its disposal. A tendency had arisen for the repre-
sentatives of the smaller burghs, which had the majority of
votes, to combine in voting considerable sums to each other for
purposes not always strictly legitimate. Glasgow had always
been generous in affording help when disaster overtook any
other community, or some smaller burgh was faced with such
extraordinary expenditure as the building of a bridge or a
456
A DEAD MAN GALVANIZED 457
harbour. But it was quite another matter when the smaller
burghs combined to impose assessments and then vote the
money for the relief of their own debts and the carrying out
of ambitious local schemes, in defiance of the larger burghs,
which were called upon to furnish nearly all the funds. So
serious became the grievance that in 1822 the Town Council
appealed to Parliament, suggesting that the money grants of
the Convention should be decided, not by majority of votes
alone, but by majority and value of votes. The appeal was
without result. In 1823, out of the common fund, Dumfries
secured 400 for improvement of the navigation of the
Nith, and two years later Crail was granted 500 " upon
public grounds." With difficulty several later applications
for grants of money by the minor burghs were successfully
resisted, but these attempts at plunder brought the Conven-
tion itself into such disrepute that after the passing of the
Reform Act, it was proposed to bring in a bill for its complete
abolition. 1
Strangely enough, at the same time, progress in another
arena had also its obverse to show, and Glasgow had something
more than its own share of a terror which affected not so much
the living as the dead. The medical schools at the universities
of Edinburgh and Glasgow were then developing rapidly, and
one of their difficulties was the scarcity of subjects for dissection
in the anatomy classes. The bodies of criminals who were
hanged were handed over for the purpose till one terrible
occasion when, in the course of an experiment in galvanism
in Glasgow the murderer came to life again. To the horror
of those present, the man opened his eyes, breathed, and began
to rise from his chair, whereupon the professor, Dr. James
Jeffrey, sprang forward and plunged a lancet into his jugular
artery. After this occurrence the judges ceased to order
1 Burgh Records, 27th June, 23rd Sept., 1816 ; gth Dec., 1818 ; 9th May,
1822; 25th July, 1823 ; I2th Aug., 1825 ; igth July, 1832 ; igth July, 1833.
HISTORY OF GLASGOW
the bodies of executed criminals to be handed over for
dissection.
To secure subjects a practice then grew up of plundering
graveyards of their newly buried dead. Spring-guns and other
devices were employed by the public to prevent desecration,
and one student was actually shot in the Blackfriars church-
yard ; but the practice went on. When it was known that even
the Cathedral graveyard had been plundered, public indigna-
tion reached its height, and a mob smashed Dr. Jeffrey's
windows in the College. Following the disappearance of the
body of a Mrs. McAllister from the Ramshorn burying-ground, a
warrant was issued, and a police raid was made on the dissecting
rooms of Dr. Pattison in College Street. There, at the bottom
of a tub full of water, were found some remains, including a
jawbone with teeth, recognised by her dentist as those of the
missing woman. In consequence, Dr. Pattison, his assistant,
and two of his students were tried before the High Court in
Edinburgh on 6th June, 1814. The accused were acquitted
because of a technical flaw in the evidence parts of the body
identified as that of Mrs. M'Allister, who was a mother of
children, were proved to be those of an unmarried woman.
But public resentment was so strong that Dr. Pattison found
it necessary to emigrate to America, and the activities of the
resurrectionists ceased for a time. On a revival of these
activities in 1823 associations of watchers were formed in the
different parts of the city, 2 and till quite recently in certain of
the city burying-grounds were to be seen the heavy railed
iron enclosures erected by the wealthier classes over their
family graves, and the watch-towers from which relatives
kept guard till the danger of desecration was past. It was not
till after the trial in Edinburgh in 1829 of the notorious Burke
and Hare, who had murdered no fewer than fifteen persons,
and sold their bodies to the College professors for dissection,
2 Burgh Records, 2oth May, 25th July, 1823 ; 23rd Feb., 1825.
BOTANIC GARDENS 459
that arrangements were made by law for an adequate supply
of subjects for anatomical purposes. 3
Another need of the University just then provided the city
with an amenity which may be allowed to have offset the terror
of the body-snatching. Hitherto, as part of its pleasure-
grounds, the college had possessed a botanic garden on the
ground which sloped down, behind its quadrangles, to the
Molendinar. But the building of the Hunterian Museum
there, and the increasing smoke of the city, had destroyed the
suitability of the spot. These drawbacks led to the forma-
tion of another pleasure-ground for the citizens. In 1816
a society was formed, for which nearly 6000 were subscribed
in ten-guinea shares, to establish a Botanic Garden in a more
favourable location. The University subscribed 2000 on the
understanding that a lecture room and the plants in the garden
should be available for the use of the Botany class, and the
Government also made a grant of 2000 out of the teinds of
the burgh and the Barony parish. 4 The society was incor-
porated as the Glasgow Royal Botanic Institution by the Prince
Regent ; it bought some six acres of land on the Sauchiehall
Road, a mile to the west of the city, and proceeded with much
enthusiasm to lay out the ground for the twin purposes of
science and pleasure. 5
An amenity of greater importance was the lighting of the
city by coal gas. As early as 1792 William Murdoch, the
Ayrshire engineer and inventor, who was afterwards manager
of Boulton and Watt's engineering works at Soho, lighted the
3 The Anatomy Act, 1832, 2 and 3 Will. IV. c. 75. The story of the Glas-
gow resurrectionists is given with much detail by Peter Mackenzie in his
Reminiscences of Glasgow, vol. ii. pp. 462-500.
4 Burgh Records, 5th March, 1824.
5 Later in the century Fitzroy Place was built on the spot, and the Gardens
were removed to Great Western Road. They remained a private possession
till 1887, when they were taken over by the Corporation, and they were
opened as a public park in 1891.
460 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
offices and miners' cottages at Redruth in Cornwall with gas
distilled from coal. In 1813 Westminster Bridge was lit with
the new illuminant, and the device began to spread throughout
the country. Glasgow was still lit by dim oil lamps in i8i6, 6
when a committee approached the Town Council with the
suggestion that it should either itself embark on the enterprise
of lighting Glasgow with gas, or give its countenance to a
private company to be formed for the purpose. The Town
Council cautiously chose the latter alternative, but agreed to
take shares to the amount of 500 in the Gas Light Company, 7
which was then formed, with a capital of 40,000. The Com-
pany's light was first turned on at the grocery store of James
Hamilton, at 128 Trongate, on 5th September, 1818, and on
the 1 8th, when a great audience crowded the Theatre Royal
in Queen Street, to see Mozart's " Giovanni," the grand crystal
lustre hanging from the roof was, for the first time, " illuminated
with sparkling gas." 8
Notwithstanding the progress and growth of the city thus
indicated, it is curious to note that, so late as 1817, when a
public market was formed upon its site, there was still a
bowling-green on the east side of Candleriggs, 9 and that not
till the same year could imported goods be placed in bond in
Glasgow, Greenock and the parent city having been regarded,
for customs purposes, merely as " creeks " of Port-Glasgow till
1812. 10 Not less curious is the fact that as late as 1818 the
Town Council actually consented to the proposal of Campbell
of Blythswood to have his lands of Blythswood, which were
8 Mackenzie, Reminiscences, ii. 141.
7 Burgh Records, I5th Oct., igth Nov., 27th Dec., 1816.
8 Mackenzie, Reminiscences, ii. 141. A very full account of this great
occasion is furnished by the gossipy historian.
9 Burgh Records, 28th Feb., 1817.
10 Ibid. i6th Dec., 1817; i8th May, 1818. "Reminiscences of Glasgow
Custom House." in Glasg. Arch&ol. Soc. Transactions, ist Series, vol. i. pp. 55,
57-8.
BURGHERS AND ANTI-BURGHERS 461
separated from the royalty of Glasgow only by St. Enoch's
Burn, erected into a separate burgh of barony. 1 In dealing
with this proposal, however, the Town Council was sufficiently
alive to the possibilities of the city's development to stipulate
that its consent should form no bar to future extension of
Glasgow's boundary to the westward.
The Council was also sufficiently conscious of the develop-
ment of democratic ideas to agree to join the Merchants House
and the Trades House in considering whether a change in the
method of electing its members might be " conducive to the
public welfare." This was a concession to the stalwarts of the
Trades' House, which had made an attack on the time-honoured
plan of the Town Council itself electing its successors. 2
The city fathers also showed themselves so modern and free
from prejudice as to concede a substantial request of the four
Seceding congregations in the city. The form of the oath to be
taken by burgesses at their enrolment had brought about the
notorious split between the " Burgher " and the " Anti-
Burgher " religious bodies. This oath, as a matter of fact, had
for a long time ceased to be applied in Glasgow, and the Town
Council found no difficulty in agreeing to abolish it altogether. 3
Shortly afterwards the Council conferred a favour on another
of the dissenting " bodies " of the city, by agreeing to purchase
the Methodist chapel and schoolrooms in Great Hamilton
Street. The building was transformed into yet another city
church the ninth and received the name of St. James's.
The new church was expected to relieve the Tron and St. John's
of part of the immense load of pauperism attached to them,
and also to afford a fair trial to Dr. Chalmers's plan of manage-
ment, and thus reduce the city's assessment for the poor. 4
By that time the reign of George III. one of the longest in
British history was drawing to a close. On 2Qth January,
1 Ibid. 25th June, 1818. z Ibid. gib. July, 1818 ; 2jth May, 1819.
3 Ibid. 25th March, 1819. 4 Ibid. 28th Jan., i4th Feb., 2yth July, 1820.
462 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
1820, the old King died. The Town Council duly sent an address
of congratulation to his successor, George IV., 5 but one of the
first acts of the new King raised an undesired commotion in the
city. The bill of pains and penalties which he caused to be
introduced into the House of Lords to procure a divorce from
Queen Caroline excited throughout the country a large amount
of sympathy for the Queen. A granddaughter of George II.
and a cousin of the King, she had been forced as a bride by
George III. upon his son, and she had been deserted by her
husband a year after her marriage, persecuted by his mistresses,
and subjected to repeated indignities. Glasgow was just then
distracted by the Radical Rising and the trials and executions
which followed, but an address was drawn up by a committee
of citizens, and sent, with 35,000 signatures, notwithstanding
the opposition of the magistrates, to the unhappy Queen. The
majority for the third reading of the bill in the House of Lords
on loth November was so small that the Premier, the Earl of
Liverpool, withdrew the measure, and when the news reached
Glasgow the event was celebrated with illuminations and the
lighting of bonfires. Fearful of trouble, after their recent
experience, the magistrates caused the Riot Act to be read,
and called out the dragoons and artillery. No disturbance took
place, but on the soldiers proceeding to disperse a crowd at the
foot of Salt market, large numbers crowded upon the wooden
bridge at the spot, and under their weight it broke down, and
threw them into the river. Fortunately the tide was out and
no lives were lost. 6
In the following year the King's coronation was celebrated
in Glasgow with an entertainment in the town hall and fire-
works on the Green 7 ; but in London the poor Queen was
forcibly excluded from the coronation ceremony itself in
Westminster Abbey, and soon afterwards died broken-hearted.
6 Burgh Records, nth Feb., 1820. 6 Macgregor, History, p. 410.
7 Burgh Records, 24th July, 1821.
GEORGE IV. DECLINES INVITATION 463
A year later still saw George IV.'s visit to Scotland. Largely
on the invitation of Sir Walter Scott, he was splendidly feted
in Edinburgh, which had received no visit from a crowned
monarch since Charles I. came and went uncomfortably, nearly
two centuries before. Before the event Glasgow Town Council
enquired whether the King intended to honour their city with
a visit, but received an answer from the Home Secretary, Mr.
Peel, that on account of the limited time at his disposal His
Majesty would be unable to visit the West of Scotland. No
doubt the recent Radical Rising, and the rejoicings in the city
over the failure of his action against Queen Caroline, had not a
little to do with this decision, as with the previous refusal of
Prince Leopold.
The questionable reputation of Glasgow as a law-abiding
place was under a cloud just then for other reasons also. In the
preceding February, on the rumour that a colour merchant
named Provand was implicated with the resurrectionists, a
furious mob broke into his house in Clyde Street and destroyed
its contents. So serious was the outbreak that the Riot Act
had to be read and the military called out. In consequence
five persons were transported, and one was whipped through
the city. 8
Again on Saturday, 2ist July, less than a month before the
King's visit to Scotland, occurred the great outbreak in which
a mob threw down the wall at West thorn, by which Thomas
Harvey, a distiller, sought to close the footpath by the riverside.
On this occasion an actual conflict occurred with the Innis-
killing Dragoons, and several persons were thrown into the
Clyde. 9
No whit daunted, however, by the King's refusal to come
to Glasgow, the Town Council voted 1000 for the expenses
8 The culprit on that occasion was the last on whom the punishment of
public whipping was inflicted in Glasgow.
8 The question of right of way was decided against Harvey by the Court
of Session in the following year.
464 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
of a deputation to Edinburgh, where the Lord Provost duly
presented a somewhat effusive address. The deputation
stayed in the capital for upwards of a week, " in suitable style
and with state equipage." It had the honour of kissing hands
at a levee at the Palace of Holyrood House on I7th August,
and a month later the Town Council subscribed one hundred
guineas for an equestrian statue to commemorate His Majesty's
" auspicious visit to Scotland." 10
While the civic chiefs were thus sunning themselves in the
smiles of royalty at Edinburgh, it is only fair to say that they
were by no means neglecting the town's interests at home.
They were widening and strengthening the Old Bridge of
Glasgow at the foot of the Briggate, on plans drawn up by the
engineer Telford, at a cost of 5590 l ; they were carrying on
active operations to ascertain the value of the coal seams
under Glasgow Green 2 ; and they were anxiously considering the
possibilities of applying a recent Act of Parliament for the
consumption of the factory smoke which already was darkening
the city's atmosphere and blackening its walls. 3
10 Burgh Records, 2nd Aug., 6th Sept., 26th Sept., 1822.
1 Ibid. 8th March, 1822.
z Ibid, isth, 26th Nov., 1821 ; sistMay, 23rd July, igth Nov., 1822 ; 3rd
June, 1824. There were found to be six seams of coal, of a thickness al-
together of 24 feet 9 inches.
3 Ibid. 8th Nov., 1822.
CHAPTER LI
THE LAST YEARS OF THE OLD REGIME
THE ten years which followed the visit of George IV. to Scotland
were the last of the old regime in the country and in Glasgow.
With the passing of the Parliamentary Reform Bill in 1832,
and of the Burgh Reform Bill in 1833, the system of govern-
ment by aristocracy came to an end, and the great experiment
of government by democracy was begun. It will be the
business of the historian of the future to compare the efficiency
of the two systems, and to ascertain how far the glowing hopes
have been realized of the enthusiasts for the new order who,
like the poet Tennyson, foresaw a noble future of " freedom
broadening slowly down from precedent to precedent/'
Meantime, so far as Glasgow was concerned, those last ten
years, in which the affairs of the city were managed by a
" close corporation," a Town Council which elected its own
successors without any popular voting, were years of wise
and steady administration. In those years the Town Council
rebuilt two of the city churches, St. Enoch's and the Ramshorn,
re-named from that time St. David's, at the request of the
minister, the Rev. Dr. Ranken ; as a heritor in Gorbals it
contributed to the rebuilding of the parish church of Govan,
and it undertook an extensive repair of the Cathedral, towards
which the Government was induced to make a grant of 3000. l
It also erected a new stone bridge at the foot of Saltmarket,
1 Burgh Records, I5th Feb., 28th Dec., 1827 ; isth Jan., 1824 ; 8th Sept.,
1825 ; 28th Feb., 1827 ; 5th Mar., 1824.
2 Q 465 IJ.G, ill,
466 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
and arranged for the rebuilding of the bridge at the foot of
Jamaica Street, this last at a cost of 27,979 5 s - 8d. 2 It took
an active part in encouraging the development of railways,
which was presently to become one of the most outstanding
features of the time. Though it refused to support the project
of a railway from the Monkland coalfields to Kirkintilloch,
which lay in reality outside its sphere of interest, 3 it petitioned
Parliament in favour of the Glasgow and Garnkirk line, the
earliest part of the great Caledonian Railway system, 4 and in
favour of a railway and tunnel for conveying coal from the
north-east of the city to the Broomielaw 5 ; it opposed the
scheme of the Glasgow and Paisley Railway to cross the river
and invade the city streets, 6 a scheme which was nevertheless
carried out fifty years later ; and it took action in Parliament
against the Pollok and Govan Railway Bill, which threatened
to damage the property of the city and of Hutcheson's Hospital
on the south side of the river. 7 In this last case the Town
Council shrewdly foresaw that it would one day wish to use, for
an extension of the harbour, the Windmillcroft, opposite the
Broomielaw, which the railway projectors proposed to con-
vert into a coal terminus. At a later day the Kingston Dock,
Glasgow's earliest harbour basin, was constructed on the spot.
At the same time the city fathers were quick to realize the
advantages of a proposed railway between Glasgow, Edinburgh,
and Leith, and petitioned both the House of Commons and the
House of Lords in favour of the undertaking. 8
Among internal developments, the fashionable terrace,
Monteith Row, facing Glasgow Green and looking over the
2 Burgh Records, 4th Feb., 1825 ; 5th March, 1833 ; vol. xi. p. 686.
3 Ibid. 5th Mar., 23rd Mar., 1824. This was the first successful locomotive
railway line in Scotland (Mackinnon, Social and Industrial Hist., p. 132)
and the first instalment of the great North British system.
4 Ibid. 4th May, 1827. 5 Ibid, i^th Jan., i3th Feb., 1830; 2nd Feb., 1831.
6 Ibid. 2nd Feb., 1831. 7 Ibid. 22nd Sept., 1831 ; i8th Jan., 1832.
* Tbid. 1 6th Mar., 1832.
THE GREEN A FASHIONABLE RESORT 467
Clyde to the Cathkin Braes, had been named in compliment to
the Lord Provost, the great mill-owner, Henry Monteith, and its
area was steadily feued and built upon by substantial citizens. 9
To afford a worthy approach to Monteith Row and the
Green from Glasgow Cross, the Town Council encouraged the
formidable enterprise of creating London Street. For this
purpose a joint-stock company was formed by Kirkman Finlay,
Henry Monteith, and other outstanding citizens. In that
company the Council took shares to the amount of 1,000, at
the same time granting it the imprimatur of a " seal of cause." 10
The street itself almost changed the direction of Glasgow's
development, eastward instead of westward.
At the same time, by way of adding further to the amenities
of the region, the Town Council undertook the making of a
carriage drive round the Green. It was a time of serious
unemployment among the weavers, and the work served the
urgent purpose of relieving distress. It was carried out partly
by public subscription, and, by way of inducement, certain
privileges were accorded to subscribers. A subscription of 20
secured a free ticket for life for the holder's carriages and horses,
while a subscription of 10 procured a permit for two- wheeled
carriages, riding horses, and the admission of friends living
more than ten miles from the city. Upon all other persons on
horseback or on wheels a substantial toll was levied. For
this work, for which 2050 was raised, an Act of Parliament
was obtained in 1827, and the ride and carriage drives were
opened in T.828. 1 Under these arrangements the Green became
a fashionable resort, with very much the character of Hyde
Park and Rotten Row in London at the present day. It was
8 Ibid. 8th July, 1819 ; 2ist Aug., 1823 ; 6th Aug., 1824.
10 Ibid., 2oth May, igth June, 25th July, 2ist Aug., lyth Sept., 1823;
2oth Jan., 1824. The undertaking was financed by " The Glasgow Lotteries."
Glasgow Herald, 6th Dec., 1902.
1 Ibid. 1 5th May, 23rd May, 1826 ; 3rd Mar., 1827.
468 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
so described in John Maynes' spirited poem, " Glasgow,"
already quoted.
A still greater undertaking, in the way of street construc-
tion, was the forming of Parliamentary Road. The purpose of
the new thoroughfare was to connect the Kirkintilloch Road
with the Garscube Road, the cost was some 13,000, and it is
difficult to understand why the Town Council were eager to
push forward the undertaking, seeing it enabled traffic to pass
from east to west without entering the city. Like other enter-
prises of the time, however, the work afforded subsistence to
the unemployed, and, from their experience with other streets,
the Town Council no doubt foresaw the likelihood of making
a handsome profit from the f euing of the building sites along the
line of the thoroughfare. Such feuing, in fact, formed a consid-
erable part of the revenue of the city at that time. In the Act
of Parliament authorising the enterprise the magistrates and
council were appointed trustees for the making of the road, and
they proceeded vigorously with the undertaking. 2 Parliamentary
Road runs along the upper course of the St. Enoch's Burn.
Less formidable as an undertaking, but not less interesting
by reason of the memories of the spot, was the improvement of
High Street by still further reducing the height of the " Bell
o' the Brae." To this undertaking the Town Council agreed
to contribute the sum of 5oo. 3 Before its successive reduc-
tions the scene of Wallace's traditional conflict with the
English garrison of the Bishop's Castle must have been a knoll
of quite considerable height, completely concealing the High
Street even from the ramparts of the castle. 4
The Town Council, however, was by no means occupied
entirely with material considerations. In 1825 it subscribed
2 Act Parl. 6 George IV, c. 107. Burgh Records, 24th Mar., 1829 ; 26th
Sept., 1832 ; i6th Oct., 1833.
3 Ibid. 25th July, 1823 ; 3ist Aug., 1824.
4 See supra, p. 423.
MONUMENT TO JOHN KNOX 469
a hundred guineas for the memorial to James Watt by Chantrey,
which now stands in George Square. 5 In 1826 it supported an
application to the House of Commons for an allowance to the
somewhat luckless Henry Bell, projector of steam navigation
on the Clyde. 6 Bell's successive " Comets " had both been
wrecked, the first in the tide-race off the Dorus Mohr, outside
Crinan, in 1820, and the second by a collision off Gourock,
with a loss of seventy lives, in October, 1825. 7
Further, in 1827 tne Town Council was induced to counte-
nance, with qualified ardour, the erection of another monument,
that of the redoubtable John Knox. As long previously as the
year 1650 the Merchants House had acquired from Stewart of
Minto some five acres of the Wester Craigs, the height after-
wards known as the Fir Park, on the east side of the Molen-
dinar, opposite the Cathedral. This it had laid out as a
pleasure-ground for its members, when a group of enthusiasts,
led by the Rev. Stevenson M'Gill, D.D., Professor of Theology
in Glasgow University, set afoot a proposal to erect a statue to
the Reformer. In 1824 Dr. M'Gill secured permission from the
Merchants House to erect the monument on the Fir Park, and
he himself laid the foundation stone in the following year. When
all expenses were paid, the Town Council agreed to hold the
balance of subscriptions, some 71, for future upkeep, "under
this express declaration, that the Corporation shall not, by
doing so, be held to have become in any shape responsible for
the expense of repairing and maintaining the said monument,
beyond the sum so deposited." 8 It was not till 1829 that, on
the suggestion of James Ewing, afterwards Lord Provost and
M.P., the Merchants House agreed to convert the Fir Park
6 Burgh Records, nth Jan., 1825.
6 Ibid. 25th Oct., 28th Dec., 1826.
7 Williamson, Clyde Passenger Steamers, pp. 12 and 45.
8 Burgh Records, i6th Oct., 1827. The Merchants House of Glasgow, pp. 44
and 330.
470 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
into a burying ground, and the first burials in the new Necro-
polis took place in i833. 9 Meantime it is curious to note that,
if tradition is to be believed, the monument to John Knox
stands on the spot on which the rites of the sun-worshippers of
pre-Christian times were performed.
Not least important of the civic transactions of those years
were its acts in the arena of education. In 1824 tne magistrates
and council granted a seal of cause to the Mechanics Institu-
tion. 10 That seal of cause gave the imprimatur to a movement
which had far-reaching beneficent results. The Mechanics
Institution had originally been the Mechanics Class formed
in Anderson's University by the celebrated Dr. George Birkbeck
while Professor of Natural Philosophy there. In 1823 it hived
off from the parent college, and opened proceedings in the
upper part of a disused chapel in Shuttle Street, on 8th
November, three days before the formation of the London
Mechanics Institution was decided upon. It was the first of
all Mechanics Institutions, and continued to flourish and
increase in usefulness till 1886, when, under the Educational
Endowments Act, along with Anderson's College and other
institutions, it was formed into the Glasgow and West of
Scotland Technical College, the first of all technical colleges. 11
In those same years the fortunes of the ancient Grammar
School reached something like a crisis. So far, as its name
implied, the school had been devoted only to the branches of
knowledge necessary for students entering the University.
But with the change of times, and the opening of lucrative
careers in industry and commerce, this purpose had become
less important, and the numbers attending the classes at the
Grammar School had seriously diminished. The masters in
the school itself were invited to give an opinion, and they
9 The Merchants House, p. 347 ; Burgh Records, I4th May, 1833.
10 Burgh Records, 23rd Mar., 22nd June, 1824.
11 Humboldt Sexton, The First Technical College, p. 69.
CHANGES AT HIGH SCHOOL 471
urged that the school should be equipped to furnish a complete
English education, with arithmetic, mathematics, modern
languages, geography, and drawing, suitable for the require-
ments of a large commercial city. By way of experiment in
this direction the Town Council added the teaching of arith-
metic, writing, and mathematics. 1
The Town Council at the same time took the opportunity
of putting an end to an ancient custom of the school which was
open to many objections. It had always been the habit for
the scholars, on Candlemas Day, to bring offerings to the
masters. This had long been felt to be degrading to the masters,
a temptation to the boys, and invidious to the parents. The
custom had been abolished elsewhere, but retained in the
Grammar School probably from reluctance to break with an
ancient tradition. It was now, however, ordered to be dis-
continued and the loss made up by a quarterly payment of 195.
to the rector and 133. 6d. to each of the other masters. 2
The demand for Latin and Greek, however, continued to
decline, and four years later the city fathers found it advisable
to reduce the staff. Once again, after fifteen years of trial,
the office of rector was abolished, and each of the four masters
was directed to take his pupils through the whole four years of
their course, the plan followed by the ancient " regents " at
the University. 3 Four years later, in 1834, tne system of the
school was entirely remodelled, and the name was changed to
High School, 4 but the rectorship was only restored half a
century later still, when the school was removed once more, to
Elmbank Street, a mile west of its third site, in John Street.
As a matter of fact, by 1830 the Grammar School no longer
enjoyed a monopoly, but found itself competing for pupils
with many other schools in the city. There were the private
1 Burgh Records, 4th Feb., 1825 ; gth Nov., 1826.
* Ibid. loth Jan., I4th Feb., 1826. 3 Ibid. 2nd Sept., 1830.
4 Cleland's Historical Account of the School (1878), pp. 58, 59.
472 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
" English " schools, which no longer, as in the seventeeth
century, required a licence from the Town Council, and which
supplied education in the subjects needed for the commercial
and industrial life of the time. There were also the parish
schools which owed their start to the enthusiasm of Dr.
Chalmers. 5 Hutcheson's School, founded in 1641, had grown
immensely in resources through the development of its lands
on the south side of the river. And between 1823 and 1831 no
fewer than four handsome legacies for educational purposes
were intimated to the Town Council. First came a sum of
8972 45. bequeathed by a Calcutta merchant, John M'Lach-
lan, for the establishment of a free school for poor Highland
children. 6 Next, the widow of James Maxwell, a merchant of
Lisbon, who died suddenly in Glasgow, fulfilled her husband's
dying wish by " mortifying " a sum of 2000 in the hands of
the City Chamberlain to endow a school for poor children in the
city. 7 Again, James Murdoch, a Glasgow merchant, be-
queathed 5000 to maintain a school for boys, for the teaching
of reading, writing, and arithmetic. 8 Most notable of all was
the great legacy of Dr. Andrew Bell. A native of St. Andrews
who had been a tutor in Virginia, an army chaplain in India,
superintendent of an orphan asylum in Madras, rector of
Swanage, and prebendary of Westminster, Dr. Bell, before his
death in 1832, directed 120,000 of bank stock to be divided
between five towns, of which Glasgow was one, for the promo-
tion of education upon the Madras or Lancastrian System,
which he had originated. 9 Glasgow's share of the bequest was
9007 os. iod., and, as it was found that the system, which was
5 Burgh Records, 23rd Aug., 1833.
6 Ibid. 4th Feb., 1823. Notes on Mortifications, printed for the Magistrates,
1878, p. 29.
7 Ibid. 28th June, i2th Aug., 3oth Aug., 1825.
8 Ibid. 28th Dec., 1826.
9 Notes on Mortifications (1878), pp. 51-61. Burgh Records, 2ist June,
1 8th Aug., 1 8th Nov., 1831.
BEQUESTS 473
built upon mutual instruction and moral discipline, could be
fitted into that of the parochial schools of the city, the annual
interest of the bequest, along with that of Murdoch's legacy,
was turned to the support of these seminaries. 10 The name of
Dr. Bell's system has not been perpetuated in Glasgow, but the
Madras College remains one of the best-known institutions of
the generous educationist's native town, St. Andrews.
A more unusual bequest, still of an educational kind, was
that of 100 from an Edinburgh lady, Mrs. Gibson, niece of
the celebrated Dr. Hugh Blair, for the preaching of an annual
sermon against cruelty to animals by a popular minister of the
Church of Scotland. The sermon is still preached in the month
of March each year. 1
Partly educational and partly philanthropic, again, was
another gift, the first of its kind received by Glasgow. In
1829, Mr. James Yates, of Woodville, in Devon, a native of
Glasgow, gave the island of Shuna, off the West Coast of Scot-
land, to the city, the University, the Royal Infirmary, and
Anderson's College. To start with, the experience of the Town
Council in connection with this gift was inauspicious, for the
heir at law brought an action to reduce the settlement ; and
after holding it for a hundred years, at a frequently falling
rental, the legatees were glad to sell the island in 191 1. 2 In view
of that and later experiences it is apparent that sheep farming
in the Highlands or islands is not the sort of enterprise to be
successfully attempted by the Town Council of Glasgow. It is
true that, a few years before receiving the gift of Shuna, the
magistrates had contributed fifty pounds towards the expense of
the cattle show held by the Highland Society in the city, and had
conferred the freedom of Glasgow on Lord Tweeddale, president
of the Society, who had taken a leading part in the enterprise. 3
10 Burgh Records, 23rd Aug., I2th Sept., 1833.
1 Ibid. 8th Mar., 1828. z Ibid. 2nd Feb., 1831.
3 Ibid. 1 4th Sept., gth Nov., 1826.
474 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
But the interest of the magistrates arose less from the
desire to encourage agriculture than from the wish to bring
to the city possible purchasers of its merchants' wares. Their
purpose appears to have been fulfilled, for the city renewed its
support for the Highland Show held in Glasgow two years later. 4
The city itself, nevertheless, was now more and more rapidly
extending into the country, and westward of St. Enoch's Burn,
the line of the present West Nile Street, a good deal of house
building had been done. With a view to enjoying the advan-
tages of street paving, lighting, and police equally with the
fashionable Charlotte Street and Monteith Row, the inhabi-
tants of that region, the Blythswood estate, petitioned to be
annexed to the city. Naively enough, while they desired to
enjoy all the advantages of citizens, they expressed the wish
to be exempted from the common burdens assessment for the
poor and for statute labour, as well as from the burgh customs
and the exclusive privileges of the incorporated trades. By
that time the superior had given up the idea of having Blyths-
wood erected into a barony ; the demand of the petitioners
for exemption from public burdens was met by compromise,
and the Town Council procured an Act of Parliament annexing
these lands to the royalty. 5
This was the third enlargement of the royalty, the first
having been the addition of the Tenandry of Rottenrow by
James VI in 1613, and the second the inclusion of Ramshorn
and Meadowflat in 1800. During the next hundred years it was
followed by ever larger and larger additions.
At that time the ancient " land meithing," or perambula-
tion of the marches of the royalty, which had been abolished
as a popular function, was still performed by a committee of
the magistrates, deacons of crafts, and officials, and at the
4 Burgh Records. A grant has been given for subsequent shows.
5 Ibid. 28th Dec., 1827; 5th Nov., nth Nov., 1828; aoth Sept., 1829;
1 3th Feb., 1830. Act 2 George IV, c. 42.
THE CITY'S ASSETS 475
next occurrence of the ceremony directions were given for the
erection of iron plates to mark the extended boundaries. 6
The heritors and inhabitants of the Blythswood lands were
not without reason in desiring to be exempted from at least
one of the burdens of the older royalty. The maintenance of
the city's poor cost 9565 in 1826 and 9479 in 1832, and in
the latter year it was found necessary to appoint an official to
devote his whole time to the work of collecting the money. 7
The burden in the Barony, in which the Blythswood lands had
previously been included, was much lighter, and for some
years a quarrel went on with the Barony heritors regarding the
actual sum to be levied in Blythswood and handed to them
as compensation. 8
Another growing expense also was the cost of maintaining
the city churches. In 1829 the ministers of all these churches,
except the Rev. Duncan Macfarlane, D.D., of the " Inner
High," who was also Principal of the University, petitioned for
a further increase of stipends. 9
In some alarm regarding these growing expenses and the
fact that the expenditure of the city exceeded its revenue, the
Town Council ordered a careful statement to be prepared,
detailing the value of all its possessions. That statement may
be summarized as follows :
Lands, - -153,893 9 o
Houses, quarries, salmon fishery, burial-grounds - 13,164 o o
Shares in canal, water, gas, building companies and
various debtors 77*842 17 6
244,900 6 6
Less bonds, bills, sums mortified, doubtful debts,
and obligations for roads - 117,203 10 10
Leaving net free stock at 29th Sept., 1829 - 127,696 15 8
8 Ibid. i4th June, 1831. 7 Ibid. 28th Dec., 1826 ; soth Nov., 1832.
8 Ibid., 28th June, I2th Sept., 4th Dec., 1833. 9 Ibid, gth Nov., 1827.
476 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
The town also derived revenue from :
Markets and market dues - - 1,200 7 o
Glasgow Green and wash-house 529 4 5
Ladle dues and multures - 1,914 o o
Burgess entries and freedom fines - 277 6 i
Impost on ale and beer - 890 9 4
4,811 6 10
There was property, further, from which no revenue was
derived :
Justiciary buildings - 40,000 o o
Cells in Bridewell - - 2,700 o o
Grammar School - - 5,000 o o
Town Hall - 2,000 o o
Court-house in Gorbals - - 1,000 o o
50,700 o o
Against this the Town Council was liable for guarantees not
likely to be called upon, for :
The Trustees of the Clyde and harbour - 16,952 7 3
The Trustees of Port-Glasgow harbour - - 4,000 o o
The Trustees of the Glasgow to Renfrew road - 4,35o o o
The Trustees of the Glasgow to Carlisle road - - 5,ooo o o
The Trustees of the Renfrew to Greenock road and
Inchinnan bridge - - 22,327 o o
52,629 7 3
It was pointed out that in the year 1829, by the sale of
superiorities and feuing of land, the revenue of the city had
been increased to exceed the expenditure, but, on considering
the financial statement, the Council felt that it was not war-
ranted in adding a substantial sum to the burdens already
carried, and accordingly, instead of increasing the stipends of
the nine city ministers by 50, as had been proposed, it granted
an increase of 25 only.
RATES LEVIED ON INCOME 477
The crisis was one of those with which the Town Council has
been faced from time to time in its long history, when increasing
expense has threatened disaster, and the city fathers very
wisely met the emergency by resolving to " cut their coat
according to their cloth." 10
It was while the Town Council was engaged with this
problem, and the assessment for the support of the poor was
threatening to become a serious burden, that the first sug-
gestion was made of a new basis for the levying of the rates.
Hitherto these had been levied according to the means and
substance of the citizen in other words, upon income or
ability to pay. It was the method appointed by an Act of the
Scottish Parliament in 1579 ( c - 74) an( ^ by a proclamation of
the Privy Council on 2gth August, 1693. But this method was
found to be invidious, inquisitorial, and difficult. Already the
Barony parish had adopted the plan of levying the rates upon
rental, and a committee of the Council recommended this
simpler method as preferable. A thousand copies of the com-
mittee's report were therefore printed and distributed among
the citizens, and, apparently with popular approval, the
Council resolved to seek the authority of Parliament for making
the change. 1
But even then the whole structure of society was in the
melting-pot, and parliamentary reform and burgh reform were
about to inaugurate the great experiment of democratic
government, under which many amazing changes were to take
place.
10 Burgh Records, 4th, 23rd, and 26th March, 1830.
1 Ibid. 30th Sept., 1829 ; 26th Feb., 4th March, 1830.
CHAPTER LII
REFORM
MANY circumstances contributed to bring about the passing
of the Reform Acts of 1832 and 1833. Chief of these was the
tremendous development of industry and commerce in the last
quarter of the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the
nineteenth. That development had brought into existence
great new populations with interests which they thought were
not sufficiently attended to by the old parliamentary machine.
Again and again, during the Napoleonic war, they petitioned
for the closing of the distilleries, which used large quantities
of grain, and so raised its price against the inhabitants of the
towns. 1 Again and again, also, they petitioned against the
" Corn Laws," which levied a tax upon imported grain so long
as it remained below a certain price. 2 In neither case had they
been successful, and they attributed their want of success to
the fact that Parliament was mostly elected by the great land-
owners, whose interest lay in keeping up the price of grain.
This was only one of the grievances under which the industrial
and trading communities chafed, and which they thought might
be removed if they had a voice in electing their law-makers.
From that attitude of mind it was an easy step to believing that,
if they had the right of voting for the election of members of
Parliament, they could bring about many other improvements
in the conditions of their lives which at present were denied
them. There are few men who do not imagine that, if they
1 Burgh Records, ryth Oct., 1811. z Ibid. 2ist Nov., 1826.
478
TYPHUS AND CHOLERA 479
had the power of law-making, they could very shortly make the
world " a place fit for heroes to live in."
But the demand for change received its effective stimulus
from the hardships of the war-time and the great debacle in
industry which followed our victory at Waterloo. In Glasgow
in particular the trouble was by no means ended by the sup-
pression of the " Radical Rising " of 1820, already described.
Winter after winter saw unemployment, distress, and dis-
content in the city. In 1826 the " year of the short corn,"
when the grain in the fields could not be cut, but was pulled by
hand with the roots the Lord Provost was obliged to call a
public meeting to raise a subscription for the relief of the
unemployed weavers and other operatives. To the fund then
raised, King George IV himself contributed a thousand pounds,
while a committee in London, raising subscriptions for a
general fund, allotted another thousand. It was to afford relief
at that time also that the proposal to form a carriage road
round Glasgow Green was revived, the public and the London
committee each subscribing 600 and the Corporation 400
towards the work. 3
On the head of these troubles, and partly, no doubt,
by reason of the lowered vitality of the starving people, an
outbreak of typhus and cholera took place, and so serious
were the ravages of the latter that the Town Council was
compelled to purchase special ground for the burial of its
victims. 4
Against conditions like these the soul of a people rises in
ferment, and threatens to overwhelm the established order of
things. In Glasgow, as in other industrial centres, the belief
grew stronger that the trouble could be cured by political
means. The city, it was declared, should have its own repre-
sentation in Parliament, instead of sharing a member with
3 Burgh Records, i$ih and 23rd May, 1826.
4 Ibid. i6th Dec., 1831 ; yth Aug., 1832.
480 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
Renfrew, Rutherglen, and Dunbarton ; and the choice of that
representative should be made directly by the citizens, and
not by the nomination of the Town Council .
Just then two events occurred which gave an impetus to
the movement. One was the revolution in France, which
drove Charles X from the throne, and replaced him with his
cousin, Louis Phillipe, as a constitutional monarch. The other
was the death of George IV, with the accession of his brother,
William IV. The new King was favourable to reform, and the
new French revolution flooded Britain with a glowing enthu-
siasm for the acquisition of political rights. These events
occurred in the summer of 1830.
As the movement grew, and it became common knowledge
that there were actually boroughs in England in which a
member of Parliament was returned by a single voter, a sense
of injustice spread through the community, and the demand
for " Reform " became insistent and even threatening. The
refusal of the Duke of Wellington, then Prime Minister, to
transfer members from the " rotten " and corrupt boroughs of
East Retford and Old Sarum to the rising cities of Manchester
and Birmingham, which were entirely unrepresented in the
House of Commons, brought about the fall of his Govern-
ment, and its replacement by the Whig Government of Earl
Grey. Glasgow then entered the lists and added its weight to
the popular demand. In December the Town Council sent a
petition to both Houses of Parliament urging both parlia-
mentary and burgh reform. 5
On ist March in the following year Lord John Russell
introduced the famous Reform Bill in the House of Commons.
That Bill proposed to take away the right of returning members
from fifty-six decayed boroughs, and to give the seats thus
made available to counties and large towns hitherto unrepre-
sented. It gave the vote to householders paying 10 rent in
6 Burgh Records, 3rd Dec., 1830.
A POLICEMAN : OLD GLASGOW COSTUME.
REFORM BILL AGITATION 481
towns or 50 in the country. In the new distribution of seats,
two members were allotted to Glasgow.
Throughout the country feeling ran high and strong re-
garding the Bill, and in the Houses of Parliament the battle
was bitter and fierce. The preliminary debate on the motion
for leave to introduce the Bill was carried on with vehemence
for seven nights. While this was taking place a public meeting
was called in Glasgow by the senior bailie, in the absence of the
Lord Provost, and spirited speeches in favour of the Bill were
made by some of the most prominent citizens, while petitions
were sent to both Houses of Parliament, and an address, which
was signed by nearly 30,000 persons in a few hours, was sent to
the King. 6 This was followed by petitions to Parliament and an
address to the King from the Town Council itself, 7 and petitions
from the Merchants House, the Faculty of Procurators, and
all the incorporated trades.
At four o'clock in the morning of 22nd March the second
reading of the Bill was passed in the House of Commons by a
majority of one. In Glasgow the issue was awaited with great
excitement. A party of prominent citizens met the mail at
Hamilton, and when they galloped to the cross waving their
hats and shouting the news, they were met by a cheering
crowd, the bells of the city were ordered to be rung, and the
Town Council directed a general illumination to be made. 8
The Reform Bill, however, was not yet passed. A month
later, on igth April, it was thrown out in committee, and three
days later, at the request of Earl Grey, the King dissolved
Parliament. The dissolution was the signal for an outbreak of
hooliganism in London, in which the dwellings of opponents
of the measure were attacked, and all the windows of Apsley
House, the residence of the Duke of Wellington, were smashed.
Peter Mackenzie, Reminiscences, p. 234.
7 Burgh Records, i8th March, 1831.
8 Mackenzie's Reminiscences, p. 244.
2 H H.G. in.
482 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
In Scotland the demonstrations of the reformers were hardly
less violent.
In the new House of Commons, when the measure was
introduced again on 4th July, it passed the second reading by
367 votes against 231 ; but its fate still hung in the balance.
The Bill was still dragging its way through the committee
stage when the coronation of King William and Queen
Adelaide took place on 8th September. This event was made
the occasion for another great demonstration, in which a vast
crowd, with bands and banners, marched to Glasgow Green
cheering and acclaiming " the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing
but the Bill." 9 A few days later the Town Council sent another
memorial to the House of Commons and the House of Lords
urging the passing of the measure on the ground that it would
" by uniting all classes of the community in support of the
great interests of the nation, tend effectually to secure the
stability of the constitution, and to promote the prosperity
and happiness of the British empire." 10
Yet another address was sent to the King when the Bill was
thrown out on 8th October by the House of Lords. 1
From end to end the country was by that time awakened
by the cry of " Reform." Political Unions, which had been
organized for the purpose, actively stirred up the popular
fervour, and in the industrial centres there were threats of
revolution if the measure were not passed into law. In
Glasgow Peter Mackenzie, secretary of the local Political
9 Mackenzie's Reminiscences, p. 256. A notable demonstration of this time
was the procession of the Crafts of Glasgow. It included, perhaps for the last
time, the mediaeval pageant of " King Crispin," got up by the Cordiners, in
which King Crispin himself appeared, splendidly arrayed in royal robes,
accompanied with banners and masques and music, in very gorgeous style.
MacGeorge, Old Glasgow, p. 266. St. Crispin was closely associated with
Glasgow. The Feast of St. Crispin (25th October) was the statutory day on
which the University met in the chapter-house of the cathedral before the
Reformation, to elect a Rector and other officials. Cosmo Innes, Sketches,
223 ; Coutts, Hist. University, p. 13.
10 Burgh Records, 22nd Sept., 1831. * Ibid. i8th Oct., 1831.
70,000 ON GLASGOW GREEN 483
Union, did his utmost to keep public feeling up to the explosive
point, and the Loyal Reformers' Gazette, which he launched and
carried on in the interest of the movement, was one of the
typical fulminators of the hour. The character of its editor,
and much of the spirit of the Reform Party of the day, are
reflected in the garrulous pages of Mackenzie's Reminiscences.
To give time for reflection, Parliament was prorogued on
25th October, 1831. In the interval the demonstrations
became more and more serious. Alarming riots took place in
Bristol and other towns, and Glasgow was threatened with a
similar outbreak. When Parliament met again on 6th Decem-
ber, the Reform Bill was again introduced, and passed in the
House of Commons with large majorities, and in the House of
Lords the second reading was passed with a majority of nine.
When the Lords, however, came to consider it in committee,
the measure was rejected by a majority of thirty-five. The
public furore then reached still greater heights, and when it
was rumoured that the King had refused the unsportsmanlike
demand that he should create enough new peers to overturn
the decision of the House, and that Earl Grey's Government
had resigned, the clamour became prodigious. 2
A gathering of 70,000 persons assembled on Glasgow Green,
and an address was sent to the King, beseeching him to recall
Earl Grey, and to take measures for the passing of the Reform
Bill as it stood. Glasgow, to its credit, did not go so far as
London, where an abusive gutter press incited the mob to the
2 An example of the declamation which flooded the country may be found
in Peter Mackenzie's appeal published in the Loyal Reformers' Gazette :
" Reformers of Glasgow ! The Tories, the Anti-Reformers, may regain the
ascendancy for a short-lived moment ; but the brilliant star of Freedom can
never be obscured by them. No, never ! But if all should fail if Anarchy
should even overthrow us, we shall not despair. Yea, though society should
be dissolved into its elements, and moral chaos overspread the land, we still
believe that God-like Liberty, surmounting all, will change discord into order,
divide light from darkness, bid man's free form arise once more erect, and cause
a renovated world to spring from the confusion." Loyal Reformers' Gazette,
I2th May, 1832. Reminiscences, p. 339.
484 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
worst extremes of violence, and an attempt on the King's life
was made at Ascot races 3 ; but the situation was certainly
precarious.
In the upshot the King, though hardly at the recommenda-
tion of Peter Mackenzie and his friends, as that worthy does
not hesitate to suggest, invited Earl Grey to retain office, and
make certain alterations in the Bill to meet some of the objec-
tions urged against it. This was done, and the new Bill, intro-
duced to the House of Lords, was read a third time and finally
passed on 4th June, 1832.
By the new Act Glasgow became entitled to send two
members to the House of Commons, and seven thousand and
twenty-four persons became entitled to vote for their election.
The first election for the new House of Commons took place in
December, 1832, and the " hustings," or platform for candidates,
was erected in front of the Justiciary Buildings facing the
Green. On the I7th the election writ was read, and nominations
were received by the Sheriff before a crowd of some 20,000
persons. There were six candidates ; voting took place on the
i8th and igth, and the members elected were the Lord Provost,
James Ewing, and James Oswald of Shieldhall. 4 To keep the
peace on the occasion a force of special constables was enrolled,
and the total expense to the authorities, was 753 75. ofd. 5
What the cost may have been to the candidates there is no
means of knowing, but it was probably enormous, for the
" free and independent voter " was largely influenced by
material considerations.
Thus the new era of popular government was inaugurated
in this country. It removed many anomalies and abuses, but
it was not without its weaknesses and drawbacks. Perhaps its
chief merit lies in the fact that if the Government makes
mistakes the people have no one to blame but themselves for
8 Burgh Records, 3rd May, 1832. 4 Mackenzie, Reminiscences, pp. 345-349.
5 Burgh Records, I2th Feb., 1833.
BURGH REFORM 485
having placed the power in its hands. On the other side, it is
open to question whether the last word of wisdom really lies
with the less tutored and less disciplined multitude.
No sooner had the Act for Parliamentary Reform received
the King's signature than the Government began active pre-
parations for a measure of reform in the government of royal
burghs. The first taste of the new measure in Glasgow and the
other Scottish burghs was not a little ominous. It was a
request from the Government for a detailed statement of the
burgh accounts for the last five years, and of minute particulars
of transactions and statistics in scores of other arenas, going
back in some cases as far as twenty years. The city fathers
were greatly startled by the demand, which meant not only a
vast deal of trouble, but also very considerable expense. It
was an experience to be repeated on countless occasions later,
when parliamentary action was concerned. To meet the
expense an attempt was made to procure a subsidy from the
Government, a device which also has been resorted to in
instances without number. 6 This request, however, was
refused. The returns were duly made, and on them and the
returns from the other Scottish royal burghs, elaborate reports
were drawn up and presented to Parliament in i835. 7
The Town Council itself drew up a series of suggestions for
the new constitution of the burgh. It proposed to increase
the number of councillors to forty, each serving for five years,
so that the city should benefit by their experience in manage-
ment. No one was to be eligible unless he was a burgess and
occupied a house of 30 rental. Of the eight members elected
annually one was to be the Dean of Guild, elected by the
Merchants House, and another the Deacon Convener, chosen by
the Trades House. The other six were to be elected by burgesses
8 Burgh Records, yth Aug., 1832.
7 Ibid. 26th Sept., 1832. General Report, p. 7. Local Reports, Part II.
PP- 1-53-
486 HISTORY OF GLASGOW
assessed at the same rental as for the parliamentary vote. The
Lord Provost and six bailies, as well as the River Bailie and
the bailie of Gorbals, were to be elected annually by the Town
Council. The Lord Provost and two bailies might be re-elected
for a second year. 8
Glasgow, as the largest Scottish burgh to be affected by
the proposed new measure, urged that it should have a separate
Bill of its own ; but the suggestion was rejected by the Lord
Advocate, Francis Jeffrey, who was in charge of the Bill. 9
Before the House of Lords, again, a strong effort was made to
confine the vote to burgesses, who, it was said, were the sole
owners of the city's property ; but this was opposed by the Lord
Chancellor, Lord Brougham, who, however, allowed the
burgess interest to be directly represented in the Town Council
by the Dean of Guild of the Merchants House, and the Deacon
Convener of the Trades. 10 Upon this footing the Royal Burgh
Reform Act was duly passed into law. 1 By that Act the old
system of a close corporation appointing its own successors
was abolished, and the system of popular election, which had
been abandoned because of its abuses in the days of James II, 2
the middle of the fifteenth century, was restored. Under the
Act the city was divided into five wards, each electing six
councillors in the first year, and replacing two in each year
afterwards, while the Dean of Guild and the Deacon Convener
became members ex official The first election took place on
5th November, 1833, and the new Town Council held its first
meeting on 8th November, choosing Robert Graham of White-
hill to be Lord Provost.
Thus passed the old regime, with its drawbacks and its
advantages. The new regime was begun by its supporters with
the highest hopes.
8 Burgh Records, 23rd Feb. 1832. 9 Ibid, nth June, 1833.
10 Ibid. 27th Sept., 1833. * 3 and 4 William IV, c. Ixxvi. 2 See supra, p. 78.
8 London Gazette, i8th Oct., 1833. Burgh Records, 23rd Oct., 1833.
IRON, SHIPBUILDING, RAILWAYS 487
Meanwhile certain factors of quite other kind were at work
which, far more than the mere possession or exercise of the
franchise, were to wipe out finally the disastrous effects of the
Napoleonic war, and bring prosperity, comfort, and happiness
to vast numbers of people. To the east and south of Glasgow
the great furnaces of the Dunlops, the Dixons, the Bairds, and
other ironmasters were, on a gigantic and growing scale,
turning to the service of man the riches of coal and iron existing
in the region. In 1828 James Beaumont Neilson, foreman
and manager of the Glasgow Gasworks, by his device of
smelting the ore with a hot-air blast instead of a cold one,
trebled the output of these furnaces with the same amount of
fuel. The genius of David Napier and the business ability of
his cousin Robert were starting the real shipbuilding industry
on the Clyde, which, first in wood and afterwards in iron, was
to become the greatest in the world. Railway after railway was
planned and built, till the enterprise threatened to become a
mania, like the Darien Scheme or the South Sea Bubble. 4
Foreign trade at the same time was increasing. The revenue
of the Clyde Trustees, which had been 6328 in 1820, was
20,296 in 1830, and Glasgow itself in the latter year owned
39,432 tons of shipping, more than twice as much as it had
owned ten years before. In those ten years also the population
of the city had increased by more than 55,000, from 147,043
in 1821 to 202,426 in 1831. Glasgow was in fact, in 1833, a
great workshop, fully engined, manned, and equipped, getting
into its stride for the hundred years of usefulness which we
recognize as the Modern Age, the most wonderful in the story
of the world.
4 The craze was probably stopped short of a disastrous issue by Professor
Aytoun's amusing satire, " The Glenmutchkin Railway," which appeared
timeously in Blackwood's Magazine.
INDEX
A Journey through Scotland by John
Macky, 104.
Adam, Robert, architect, designs new
Trades House, 353.
Alexander, John, of Blackhouse, 75.
Allan, Bailie, and the Glasgow regi-
ment, 208.
Allan, David, painter, 192
America, French wars in, 285.
outbreak of war with, 289.
American Colonies, revolt of, 285-294.
American War, end of, 293.
Anatomy classes, subjects for dis-
section in, 457.
Anderson, George, printer, 189.
Anderson, professor John, 373-378.
and James Watt, 278.
Anderson, John, younger of Dowhill,
20-27.
and petition for free election of
Town Council, 8, 9.
and Robert Brock's slander, 24-25.
and murder of Robert Park, 26-27.
Andersons, of Dowhill, import cherry
sack direct, 20.
Anderson, Marion, grandmother of
Sir John Moore, 35.
Anderson's College founded, 377 ff.
Anderson's College, Medical School,
378.
" Annals of Glasgow " by James Cle-
land, 424.
Apprentices, conditions of, no.
Archella dye, 303.
Ardrossan harbour commenced, 420.
Argyle Street, development of, 239.
formed, 267.
Argyll, duke of, commander-in-chief
in Scotland, 89.
requests a Glasgow regiment, 90.
fall of, 183.
Argyll, earl of, his debts written off,
14-
Argyll's, earl of, regiment quartered
in Glasgow, 5.
Argyll, Synod of, and Port-Glasgow
parish, 97.
Arkwright, Richard, and the " spin-
ning jenny," 315.
made honorary burgess, 346.
Arms for defence of Glasgow, 1745,
208.
Arts, Foulis Academy of Fine, 192.
Assembly Room, building of, 255.
Astronomical Discourses, Chalmers',
447-
Astronomical Knowledge, Glasgow
Society for Promoting, 442.
Asylum, Royal Glasgow, founded,
422.
Atherton (Lanes) , subscription to new
chapel at, 144.
Auchencruive Estate and Richard
Oswald, 261.
Austin & McAslan, nurserymen,
108.
Ayrshire Society, seal of cause granted
to, 272.
Bagnel, Robert, potter, 292.
Baillie, Joanna, 391.
Baillie, Sir William, granted Lands of
Pro van, 17.
Baird, John, revolutionary leader,
454-
Bakers, strike of, 46.
Bakery, William Harley's, 408.
Baldernock Manse, rioting at, 2.
Ballantine, James, of Kelly, 180.
Banks and Banking :
Banking in Glasgow, 215-221.
Banks, jealousy of Edinburgh, 219.
Banks, union of, 220.
Banks, failure of, in 1793, 371.
Bank of England, 215.
Bank of Scotland, 215.
Ayr Bank, failure of, 261.
Glasgow Arms Bank founded, 219.
action against, 220.
failure of, 371
489
490
INDEX
Banks and Banking (contd.) :
Glasgow Bank founded, 220.
Merchant Banking Company found-
ed, 220.
Merchants Bank, failure of, 371.
Royal Bank of Scotland, founding
of, 216.
Royal Bank, David Dale and, 318.
Ship Bank founded, 218.
Thistle Bank founded, 220.
Thomson's Bank founded, 220.
failure of, 371.
Bankruptcy Law, revision of, sug-
gested, 332.
Bankruptcies, in 1816, 450.
Barbers and surgeons, dispute be-
tween, 80.
Barnes, provost John, and his finan-
cial dealings, 13.
Barracks, building of, in Gallowgate,
341-
Barrell, Daniel, dancing master, 166.
Barrowfield House, 122.
Baths, William Harley's, 407.
Bell, Henry, and the " Comet," 437 ff.
allowance to, 469.
Bell o' the Brae, further lowerings,
423, 468.
Bells, repair of Kirk, 363.
Bells, Tolbooth, rearrangement of,
347-
Beltane, festival of, 188.
Billeting of soldiers, 341.
Black, John, keeper of water wells, 96.
Blackadder, colonel, commander of
Glasgow regiment, 90.
Blackadder, Roland, and his hospital,
356.
Blackburn, Peter, imprisoned for
Sabbath breaking, 255.
Blantyre, Lord, and damage to
Erskine Quay, 226.
Blast furnaces, establishment of, in
Scotland, 348.
Bleaching industry, the, 306.
Blythswood, a burgh of barony, 460.
annexation of, 474.
Bookkeeping, municipal, 270.
Book sales, 192.
Boston, Rev. Thomas, 168.
Bos well, James, 385.
Botanic Gardens, the, 459.
" Bottlehouse him," 152.
Boulton, Matthew, and James Watt,
280.
Boundary plates set up, 475.
Bounty to seamen, 289.
Bowling-green laid out, 53.
Bowman, John, dean of guild, and
Glasgow riots, 70.
Boyd, Mr., minister of Carmunnock,
assault on, 2.
Boyd, Zachary, works by, 380.
Brash & Reid, booksellers, 392.
Bread, " assize " of, 409.
Brewing in Glasgow, 1724, 133.
Bridge building, contributions to,
250.
Bridge-building, 465-466.
Bridge, Saltmarket, 361.
Brock, Robert, goldsmith, and slander
of Provost Peadie, 24, 25
Broomielaw bridge, building of, 251-
252.
Broomielaw quay extension, 143.
Buchanan family, the, 239 ff .
Buchanan, Andrew, senior, appointed
city chamberlain, 294.
death of, 294.
Buchanan, Andrew (2), 239.
Buchanan, Archibald, of Auchen-
torlie, 239.
Buchanan, George, deacon-convener,
and Glasgow riots, 70.
Buchanan, George, of The Moss, 239.
Buchanan, George (2), 241.
Buchanan, provost James, appointed
inspector of police, 293.
Buchanan, Neil, M.P., 239.
Buchanan, Andrew, & Co., failure of,
293, 309.
Buchanan, Hastie, & Co., failure of,
293. 309.
Buchanan Society, founding of the,
201.
Building boom, 267.
Building regulations, 158.
Burgess oath abolished, 461.
Burgess privileges without payment,
77-
Burgh reform, agitation for, 485.
suggestions for, 485.
Burgoyne, general, surrender at Sara-
toga, 289.
Burns, Robert, and Mrs. Oswald's
funeral, 261.
Burns, Robert, visit to Glasgow,
386 ff.
Burt, Edward, description of Glasgow
in 1726, 104.
Bushell, captain, and the Shawfield
riots, 136 ff.
INDEX
491
Business hours in Glasgow, 1717,
io6ff.
Byres, William Harley's, 407.
Cambric factory and bleaching field
established, 153.
Cambrics, weaving of, 310-311.
Campbell, Daniel, merchant, 75, 76 n.
builds Shawfield mansion, 95.
wealth of, 134.
in favour of malt tax, 135.
compensation paid to, 140.
purchases I slay and Jura, 141.
exactions of, 145.
Campbell, John Coats, of Clathic,
355 ff-
Campbell, Matthew, merchant, 75.
Campbell, Thomas, poet, 365, 389 ff .
Campbell, Dale & Co., 315.
Canadian fencibles, mutiny of, 306 n.
Canals : canals, James Watt reports
on, 283 ; Forth and Clyde canal,
proposals for, 280 ; Glasgow to
Johnstone canal, 420 ; Monk-
land canal, proposals for, 282 ;
canal, proposed Saltcoats, 418.
Candles, price of, fixed, 81.
Carlyle, " Jupiter," on Glasgow man-
ners, 107.
Carrick, Robert (Robin), banker, 218.
Carron, ironworks established at, 348.
Carters, trouble with, 197.
Carts, charges on, 49.
Cartwright, Edmund, and the power
loom, 312.
Cash, shortage of, 216.
" Caunel Kirk, the," 317.
Causewaying of streets, 142.
Chalmers, Dr. Thomas, 443, 446 ff.
Chamberlain, appointment of town,
252.
Chapel, Gaelic, granted seal of cause,
272.
first Roman Catholic, 293.
Charitable funds, management of,
198-201.
Charities, David Dale's, 318.
Charles Edward, prince, and Clemen-
tina Walkinshaw, 126-127.
demand for ^15,000, 204.
in Glasgow, 209-212.
Chartulary of the archbishopric of
Glasgow, 1 86.
China, opening of direct trade with,
436.
Chlorine gas, introduction of, 284.
Chlorine gas and bleaching, 307.
Churches : churches, the city, 166 ;
churches, city, disputes about,
268 ; churches, proposed new
parish, 446 ; Blackfriars church,
rebuilding of, 52 ; High church,
repair of, 143 ; Ramshorn church
(St. David's), building of, 129 ;
St. Andrew's church, building of,
1 66 ; built by Allan Dreghorn,
181 ; St. Enoch's church, build-
ing of, 329 ; St. George's church,
built, 424 ; St. James's, 461 ;
Tron church, burning of, 360 ;
Wynd church, building of, 268.
Clay thorn estate, 167.
Cleland, bailie James, 424 ff.
" Cleland Testimonial " building, 427.
Clark, Rev. James, and union riots in
Glasgow, 66.
Clubs, famous Glasgow, 441.
Anderston Club, 384.
Clyde, Colin Campbell, lord, 430.
Clyde, river, improvement of, 221 ff.
Clyde Navigation Act, first, 225.
Clyde, channel of, James Watt's re-
port on, 283.
difficulties of navigation of, 419.
Clyde ironworks founded, 348.
Coach, stage, proposed between Glas-
gow and Edinburgh, 196.
Coalfields, Monkland, 282.
Coalmining, David Dale and, 318.
Coalpits worked under Barrowfield
estate, 126.
Cochrane, provost, and the Jacobites,
205-214.
expenses in London, 214.
Cochrane, Mungo, and provost Walter
Gibson's debts, 58.
Cochrane, Mungo, lessee of Riddrie,
75, 76 n.
Cochrane, William, of Ochiltree, 75.
Cochrane, William, portrait painter,
192.
Cochrane, Andrew, John Murdoch &
Co., 219.
Coinage, English, adopted, 94.
Coleridge, S. T., visits Glasgow, 385.
Colquhoun, Patrick, 320-326.
and London's social problems, 325.
Colquhoun, Robert, and the Sanders
legacy, 199.
Commerce, Glasgow Chamber of, and
Patrick Colquhoun, 321 ff.
Compurgators, activities of, 254.
492
INDEX
Conduits, underground, introduced,
187.
Constitution, alterations in burgh,
410.
Contraband trade, Kirkman Finlay
and, 435.
Contract, work by, 361.
Convention of Royal Burghs, powers
of, 410.
grievances against, 456.
Coopers, Incorporation of, and in-
fringement of privileges, 23.
Cope, general, and Prestonpans, 206.
Corn Law, passing of the, 449.
Corn Laws, Glasgow and the, 350.
Cornwallis, lord, surrender of, 332.
Cotton industry, the, 309-319.
Cotton spinning in Glasgow, 306.
Council, town, of Glasgow, method of
appointment in seventeenth cen-
tury, 7, 8.
Covenanters, persecutions by, 6, 7.
demonstrations against union by,
70.
Cranstonhill Waterworks Company,
406.
Crawford, Thomas, younger, of Carts-
burn, and the excise duties, 17.
Crime, increase of, 337.
Crispin, king, pageant of, 482 n.
Cudbear, objections to use of, 305.
Cullen, professor William, 382.
Culloden, battle of, 213.
Cumbrae, Little, lighthouse built on,
195-
Cuninghame, William, of Lainshaw,
242 ff.
Cunningham of Eckatt and rising at
Hamilton, 70.
Dale, David, agent of Royal Bank,
217.
and James Monteith, 312.
< and cotton spinning, 314 ff.
Dale, Campbell, Reid and Dale, 315.
Dancing " assemblies," 166.
Dancing master appointed, 53.
Darien Expedition, 28-33.
Darien Company, opposition of Eng-
lish Parliament and King Wil-
liam, 31.
fate of the expedition, 31.
winding-up arrangements, 32.
and expedition to Madagascar, 32.
Darroeh, Marion, wife of provost
Anderson, 33.
Deaths, register of, instituted, 42.
Defence of Clyde against Paul Jones
and Thurot, 289.
Defoe, Daniel, description of Glas-
gow in 1727, 105.
Demoniacal possession in Scotland, 44.
Dewhill. See Dowhill.
Directory, first Glasgow, 330.
Distillery projected, 40.
first licensed, in Glasgow, 347.
Distilleries, illicit, 450.
Distress, working class, in 1799, 399.
after Waterloo, 449.
Dock, proposed wet, 427.
Domestic habits in Glasgow, 1717,
106 ff .
" Douglas Cause, The," 273-274.
Dowhill, extent of, 20.
" Dragon, Bob," 182.
Dramatic art in Scotland, 233 ff.
Dreghorn, Allan, and his work, 180-
182.
Dreghorn, Robert, of Ruchill, 182.
Drumikill, garrison at, relieved by
Glasgow magistrates, 10.
Dumfries, demonstration against
union at, 70.
Dunbarton resigns harbour dues and
rights, 54.
Dunbartonshire Society, seal of cause
granted to, 272.
Duncan, admiral, freedom of city con-
ferred on, 397.
Duncan, James, printer, 99, 189.
Dundas, Sir Lawrence, M.P., 281.
Dunlop, principal William, 75.
and contributions to Darien Com-
pany, 30.
Dunlop, Colin, Alexander Houston &
Co., 218.
Dyeing industry, beginning of, 299.
East India Company, Kirkman Finlay
and, 435.
Edinburgh, religious riots in, 2.
and the Shawfield riot, 138.
Education, interest in, 82.
Educational bequests, 472.
Election at Rutherglen, bribery at,
183.
Endowments of St. Nicholas Hos-
pital, 356.
Erskine, Ebenezer, and the Secession
Church, 169.
Excise duties leased by Town Coun-
cil, 17.
INDEX
493
Excise duty on ale and beer, 39.
Executions, public, 444.
Expenses of living, 265.
Export, articles of, 296.
Failures caused by American War,
293-
Falkirk, battle of, 213.
Feuing of New Green, proposed, 197.
Fine Arts, encouragement of, 232.
Fines for non-attendance at Council
meetings, 253.
Finlay, James, & Co., founded, 434.
Finlay, Kirkman, 434 ff.
Finlay, leader of Glasgow rioters, 67-
69.
Finnic, Mr., minister of Cathcart,
assault on, 2.
Fire Insurance Society, 230.
Fisher, Peter, author of The Marrow
of Modern Divinity, 168.
Fleshers' Haugh, lands of acquired,
37-
Fletcher, Andrew, of Saltoun, 63.
Flood, the greatest Clyde, 331.
Flooding, David Dale's dinner party
interrupted by, 318 n.
Forbes, Duncan, of Culloden, and the
Shawfield riot, 139.
Foulis Academy of Paintings, 192.
Foulis, Andrew, birth of, 190.
death of, 193.
Foulis, Andrew, younger, 194.
Foulis Press established, 191.
Foulis Press, productions of, 191-192.
Foulis, Robert, birth of, 190.
death of, 194.
France, purchases of tobacco by, 242.
war with, effect on Glasgow, 394 ff .
French Government and Professor
John Anderson, 376.
French, grammar and teaching of, 42.
French, teaching of, 53.
Fulton, Robert, and the steamer
" Clermont," 438.
Gas, chlorine, introduction of, 284.
Gas, coal, lighting by, 459.
George, Duke of Cambridge, made
burgess, 87.
Gibson, Andrew, and provost Walter
Gibson's debts, 58.
Gillespie, John, tailor, and murder of
Robert Park, 26.
Gipsies, Jedburgh, transported, 84.
Glasgow, religious disturbance in
(1688), i ; Prince of Orange pro-
claimed king, i ; Loudoun, earl
of, burns effigies of pope and
archbishops, i ; mob action
against Episcopalians, 2; Quakers,
persecution of, 3 ; minister of
Barony Parish assaulted, 3 ;
cathedral, rioting in, during ser-
vice, 3 ; town guard raised, 4 ;
Glasgow regiment raised and dis-
banded, 4 ; town guard, muni-
tions for, 5 ; method of appoint-
ment of town council in seven-
teenth century, 7, 8 ; secures free
election of magistrates, 8, 9
troops quartered in city, 10
enactions against publicans, 12
first Volunteer movement, 12
troubles with city funds, 13, 14
financial settlements with city
ministers, 15, 16 ; financial
troubles, 16 ; tax levied on brew-
ings, 1 6 ; council leases inland
excise duties, 17 ; the Darien
Expedition, 28-33 > contribu-
tions to Darien Company, 29-30 ;
share of " Equivalent " repaid,
32 ; population in 1708, 36 ;
westward trend of, 36-37 ; land
purchases and municipal trading,
36-43 ; estates to east along
Gallowgate, 37 ; acquires Gor-
bals in 1650, 37 ; sugar refining
in, 39 ; sanitary reform, 45 ;
strike of bakers, 46 ; observance
of Lord's Day, 46 ; financial ar-
rangements, 48 ; pensions an-
nulled, 48 ; harbour dues insti-
tuted, 48 ; street paving and
charges on carts, 49 ; poor, main-
tenance of, 50 ; first bowling
green, 53 ; malt-making, 59 ;
outstanding industries, 1696, 59 ;
rope work established, 59 ; glass
work established, 59 ; financial
position (1701), 60; prepara-
tions for defence under Act of
Security, 65 ; union riots in,
66 ff. ; population and rental,
1708-12, 74 ; merchants losses in
trading, 74 ; industrial enter-
prise, 75 ; glass-work set up, 76 ;
gifts to " town's friends," 77 ;
Town Council, method of elec-
tion, 1711, 78 ; fixing of prices
494
INDEX
by Town Council, 81 ; Glasgow
in " the '15," 86-93 > ff er to
raise regiment, 88 ; regiments
raised for King George, 90 ; pre-
parations for defence, 91 ; cost to
city of Mar's rebellion, 92-93 ; rise
of industry and trade, 94-102 ;
enterprises at sea, 100 ; social
life and manners, 103-111 ; hous-
ing conditions in, 1708-12, 105 ;
habits of living in, 1717, 106 ff. ;
university life, 1 1 2-1 20 ; Glasgow
Jacobites, 121-128 ; the Shaw-
field riot, 129-141 ; brewing in,
133 ; building developments,
1721-1723, 142 ff. ; funding of
town's debt, 146 ; sugar trade,
age of, 150-151 ; reviving trade,
171 ; industries, new, 172 ; dam-
age by great storm of 1739, 175 ;
city revenues in 1740, 178 ; and
fall of Walpole, 183-184 ; in-
structions to M.P. how to vote,
185 ; letterpress printing and
typefounding in, 189-194 ; Fine
Arts in, 192 ; charitable bene-
factions to, 198-203 ; Glasgow
Highland Society, founding of,
202 ; Prince Charles Edward
and, 204-214 ; banking in, 215-
221 ; Glasgow Tanwork Com-
pany and moneylending, 217 ;
harbour, improvement of, 221 ff.;
labour troubles, 228 ff . ; fire
brigade established, 231 ; dra-
matic art in, 233 ; the Tobacco
Lords, 237-248 ; Town Council
borrowings, 250 ; regulations for
constituting the Council, 253 ;
the Oswald family, 257 ff. ; me-
chanics wages, 265 ; expansion
of the city, 267 ; water supply,
269 ; city revenues, 1767, 270 ;
James Watt and, 277-284 ; re-
volt of American Colonies, 285-
294 ; growth of poverty, 288 ;
Glasgow raises 83rd regiment,
289 ; riots against Roman Catho-
lics, 292 ; manufactures and
manufacturers, 295-302 ; Cud-
bear, Turkey Red, and Bleaching
Powder, 303 ; Glasgow Highland
Volunteers, 306 n. ; cotton in-
dustry, the, 309-319 ; Chamber
of Commerce founded by Patrick
Colquhoun, 321 ; in 1783, 327-
334 ; proposed arming of inhabi-
tants, 332 ; distress in, 335 ff . ;
guard, civic, established, 339 ;
French Revolution (1789) and,
339 ff. ; guardhouse, riot in, in
Candleriggs, 341 ; population of,
1791. 368 ; learning and litera-
ture, 379 ; Glasgow Literary
Society formed, 384 ; war with
France, 394 ff . ; wells and water
supply, 402 ff. ; Gallowgate,
water supply to, 404 ; Glasgow
Waterworks Company, 406 ;
first " omnibus " bill, 409 ; in-
crease of population, 1811, 423 ;
Green, improvement of, 425 ;
Glasgow county of the city, pro-
posal for making, 428 ; military
efforts, 429 ; " Glasgow High-
land Light Infantry " raised,
429 ; social history from 1750,
441 ; Glasgow Philosophical
Society, 442 ; distress in 1816,
450 ; treason and riot, 451 ;
Green, carriage drive round the,
467 ; the city's assets, 1829, 475-
476 ; the Reform Bill, support
for, 480-481 ; Royal Burgh Re-
form Act, 486 ; the future, 487.
Glassford, John, of Dougalston, 242 ff .
Glen, William, 392.
Glencairn's, earl of, regiment quar-
tered in Glasgow, 5.
Glencairn, earl of, and Port-Glasgow
church patronage, 98.
Glencoe, massacre of, 55.
Glengarry (Canada), settlement of,
370.
Glengarry fencibles, enrolment of, 369.
Golborne, John, report on River
Clyde, 225.
plan for deepening the Clyde, 283.
Golf club on Glasgow Green, 266.
Gorbals, feuars of, disputes with, 83.
fire in, 231.
division of barony of, 351.
Gorbals Gravitation Company, 406.
Gordon, Cuthbert, and Cudbear, 303.
and crottal dyeing, 303.
and invention of dyes, 346.
Gordon, James, report on water sup-
ply, 404.
Graham, Dougal, and the Jacobites,
212-213.
Graham, Dugald, and his chapbooks,
380.
INDEX
495
Graham Society, seal of cause granted
to, 272.
Grahame, James, 391.
Grammar School, new, 342.
changes in the, 470-472.
Grandpre, John, teacher of French,
83-
Grant, Mrs., of Laggan, 381.
Grant & Watson, cambric manufac-
turers, 311.
Gray, Thomas, visits Glasgow, 385.
Gray, William and Andrew, and their
cambric factory, 153.
Greenock, rivalry of, as a port, 223.
fortifications of, 376.
Gun, field, invented by professor John
Anderson, 376.
Hamilton, duchess of, high sheriff of
Lanarkshire, 77.
Hamilton, Margaret, opens first res-
taurant, 41.
Hamilton, Sir Robert, sells lands of
Provan to Glasgow, 18.
Hamilton, professor Thomas, 383.
Hamilton, Thomas, author, 391.
Hamilton, William, of Gilbertfield
and Blind Harry's Wallace, 119.
Hamilton, professor William, 383.
Hamilton, Sir William, 391.
Hangman, city, 444.
Harbour dues at Broomielaw and
Port-Glasgow, 48.
Hardie, Andrew, revolutionary leader,
454-
Hardware factories set up, 75.
Harley, William, and Glasgow's water
supply, 405 ff.
bankruptcy of, 408.
Harvest, failure of, in 1799, 399.
Harvey, Thomas, and Westthorn
riots, 463.
Harvey, William, sets up a tape fac-
tory, 99-
Hatmaking, 297 n.
Hay, John, Jacobite quartermaster,
206.
Hay, Marion, wife of provost Ander-
son, 34.
Heathfield, Staffordshire, James Watt
dies at, 284.
Helensburgh, founding of, 439.
Hervey, Mr., merchant and incle
making, 154.
High School, the, see " Grammar
School."
Highland labour at New Lanark, 316.
Highlanders, threatened descents of,
10.
threats by, 91.
Jacobite, reach Glasgow, 209.
influx of, 368.
Highlands, poverty of the, 316.
Hill, Ninian, of Lambhill, sells Rams-
horn and Meadowflat lands to
magistrates, 38.
Home, earl of, in command of Glas-
gow forces, 208.
Horace, the " immaculate," 191.
Horse hirers, union of, 229.
Hospital, town's, finances, 198.
Hospital, St. Nicholas, 356 ff.
Hospitality of council, 177.
Hounds, the Glasgow, 266.
Housing conditions in Glasgow, 1708-
12, 105.
Houston, Alexander, & Co., 151.
failure of, 372.
Humane Society founded, 364.
Hunter, Samuel, editor of the Glas-
gow Herald, 453.
Hunter, Dr. William, 392.
Hunterian Museum, the, 442.
Hutcheson, professor Francis, and the
new learning, 119.
and the Foulis Press, 191, 382.
Hutcheson' s Hospital acquires Rams-
horn and Meadowflat estates, 38.
Improvement of the Green, 425.
Improvements, city, 465-466.
Incle (linen tape), manufacture of,
started, 154.
India, opening of direct trade with,
436.
Infirmary, Royal, founding of, 337.
Ingram, provost Archibald, and the
bleaching industry, 297.
Inn, the Saracen's Head, 249.
Insane, Royal Glasgow Asylum for,
founded, 422.
Insurance, fire, instituted, 158.
Irish beggars, invasion of, 451.
Iron, first used for shipbuilding, 440.
Iron smelting, 347 ff .
Ironfounding commenced, 154.
Ironstone, blackband, discovered by
David Mushet, 349.
Ironworks, Clyde, founded, 348.
Irving, Edward, and Dr. Chalmers,
449-
496
INDEX
Jeffreys, Dr., anatomist, 457.
Jenner, Dr., and vaccination, 417.
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, visits Glasgow,
385.
Jones, Paul, 290-291.
Judiciary, Lords of, and Lord Pro-
vost's seat in court, 412.
Kelvingrove, estate purchased by
Patrick Colquhoun, 321.
Kilmarnock, earl of, 90.
King George I. proclaimed in Glas-
gow, 86.
loyal address to, 87.
George II. 's European wars, 285-
286.
birthday celebrations, 1745, 207.
George III. succeeds to the throne,
287.
jubilee celebrations, 431.
George IV., visit to Scotland,
463-
William's equestrian statue, 161.
William, and episcopacy in Scot-
land, 5, 6.
and Dunbar's rising, 7.
orders election of town council, 8.
William III., death of, 61.
King street, sugar house, 154.
Knox, John, monument to, 469.
Labour troubles, 331.
" Lady Dowhill." See Marion Hay.
Lainshaw mansions, the, 246.
Land, grants of, in America, 287.
" Land mei thing," 157.
Latin spoken at college, 112.
Law, John, of Lauriston, 28.
Law, suggested revision of bank-
ruptcy, 332.
Leechman, principal, 383.
Leighton, archbishop, 356.
Leprosy dies out in Glasgow, 45.
Leven, Vale of, printfields, 301.
Lewis, Mr., engaged by magistrates to
teach music, 42.
Libraries, circulating, in Scotland,
366.
Libraries, public, in Scotland, 365-
366.
Library, Stirling's, founded, 366.
Lichen, importation of, 305.
Lighthouse, building of, on Little
Cumbrae, 195.
Linen industry in Scotland and Glas-
gow, 130-132.
jealousy of English merchants,
131-
duty on linen, 131.
fostering of, 173.
Literary Society, first, 192.
Literary Society of Glasgow, 384.
Loaf, weight and price of, fixed, 81.
Loans to city, 271.
Loch Lomond, illicit distilleries round,
450.
Lockhart, J. G., 390.
Logwood, importation of, 299.
London, activities of Patrick Col-
quhoun in, 323 ff.
Loudoun, earl of, i.
Luke, Robert, sets up a tape factory,
99.
Lunardi, aeronaut, ascents from Glas-
gow, 346.
M'Adam, John Loudon, and road-
making, 443.
Macdonell, father, and Highland im-
migrants, 369.
MacDowall, colonel William, of Castle
Semple purchases Shawfield
mansion, 141.
and the West India trade, 150.
purchases Castle Semple estate,
150.
McGill, James, founder of McGill
University, Montreal, 393.
Macintosh, George, enterprises of , 304.
and Turkey Red dye, 305.
raises Glasgow Highland Volun-
teers, 306 n.
McKell, Robert, and the iron indus-
try, 174.
Macky, John, description of Glasgow
in 1723, 104.
McNair, Robert, of Belvidere, and the
asylum for the insane, 422 n.
Macrae, James, story of, governor of
Madras, 161 ff.
MacTaggart, lieutenant John, honor-
ary burgess, 397.
McUre, John, description of Glasgow
in 1736, 99, 104.
and publication of The Ancient and
Modern State of Glasgow, 176.
McVicar, captain, 247.
Madder, importation of, 299.
Mailcoach from London, first, 386.
Major, John, and his History, 379.
INDEX
497
Malt, tax on, 133.
resistance to, 134.
riots in Glasgow, 136-138.
and the Trades House, 350.
Mansion, the Virginia, 241.
Mansions, town, of the Tobacco Lords,
238 ff.
Mar, earl of, rising of, 89.
Marches, perambulation of the, 157.
Markets, covered, in King Street, 144.
" Marrow " controversy, 168.
Marshall, Mr. Henry, and Incorpora-
tion of Surgeons, 22, 23.
Marshall, Richard, inspector of police,
338.
Marwick, Sir James, Charters and
other Documents relating to the
city of Glasgow, 187.
Maxwell, colonel, of Cardoness, 91.
presentation to, 92.
Mayne, John, poet, 255, 381.
Meadowflat, lands of, acquired by
magistrates, 38.
Mechanics Institutes, movement for,
378.
Mechanics Institution, the, formed,
470.
Menzies, major, and murder of Robert
Park, 25-27.
Menzies, William, establishes first dis-
tillery in Glasgow, 347.
Merchants House and town's finance,
16.
Mew, Thomas, teacher of writing, 83.
Middens, regulation of, 96.
Military troops quartered in Glasgow
and the citizens' troubles there-
with, ii.
Military roads, general Wade's, 277.
Milk supply, William Harley's, 407.
Mill dams on Kelvin, trouble with, 47.
Miller, provost, and the Shawfield
riots, 136 ff.
and magistrates arrested, 139.
annuity granted to, 172.
Miller, Patrick, of Dalswinton, 437.
Miller, Thomas, of Barskimming,
town clerk, 272.
Milliken, major James, 150.
Milliken, James, & Co., 151.
Milne, Mr., minister of Cadder, assault
on, 2.
Ministers, city, financial settlements
with, 15, 16.
stipends, 268.
Mississippi Scheme and John Law, 28.
21
Mitchell, William, bequest, 147, 203.
Monroe, major-general Sir Thomas,
430 n.
Monteith, Henry, gardener, 310.
Monteith, Henry (2), 306, 313 ff.
Monteith, James, of Anderston, 310 ff.
Monteith, John, 312.
Montgomery, Francis, and murder of
Robert Park, 26.
Montgomery, James, younger, mer-
chant, 76.
Montgomery, James, jailor, 85.
Montrose, marquess of, entertained,
53-
Moor, professor James, 383.
Moore, Dr. John, 387.
Moore, Sir John, grandson of Marion
Anderson, 35, 430.
Morals, rules for improving, 196.
Morthland, professor Charles, 117.
Mortification, the Tennent, 200.
the William Mitchell, 203.
the Luke, 201.
Muir, James, teacher of navigation,
83.
Muir, Thomas, seditionist, 340.
Muirhead, bishop Andrew, 356.
Muirhead, professor George, and
James Watt, 278.
Municipal debt, borrowings from
citizens, 180.
Municipal hospitality, 53, 54.
Murdoch, bailie George, 213.
Murdoch, William, inventor of gas
lighting, 459.
Mushet, David, discovers blackband
ironstone, 349.
Music, spread of, 416.
teaching of, by Mr. Lewis, 42.
Naismith, Mungo, and the Town Hall
" faces," 164.
Napier, David, and shipbuilding, 440.
Napier, Robert, and shipbuilding, 440.
Napoleon and the Berlin decrees, 434.
Natural Philosophy, Chair of, in Uni-
versity, 375.
Naval, charter of vessels for Irish
war, 12.
Navigation, teaching of, 53.
Navy, quota for Royal, 395.
Necropolis, the, formed, 470.
Neilson, James Beaumont, and the
hot blast, 349.
Nelson, monument to, 423.
H.G. Ill
498
INDEX
Newcomen engine and James Watt,
279.
New Lanark spinning mills, 315.
Newspapers : newspaper, first Glas-
gow, 98 ; newspapers, Glasgow,
330 ; Caledonian Mercury, 138 ;
Edinburgh Evening Courant, 138 ;
The Glasgow Advertiser founded
by John Mennons, 330 ; The
Glasgow Courant, 98 ; Herald,
The Glasgow, 330 ; The Glasgow
Journal, 98 ; Glasgow Journal,
appearance of the, 176 ; West
Country Intelligence, 98.
Observatories, 442-3.
Offerings to grammar schoolmasters,
471.
" Old Scotch Independents," 317.
Organs and church music, 416.
Orr, John, purchases Barrowfield,
147.
Orseille dye, 303.
Oswald family, the, 257 ff.
Oswald, Rev. James, and his presby-
tery, 262.
Oswald, Richard, migrates to London,
260.
Oswald, Richard Alexander, M.P.,
263.
Owen, Robert, son-in-law of David
Dale, 319.
Painters granted seal of cause, 272.
Paintings, Foulis Academy of, 192.
Paisley and damage to river Cart, 227.
Paoli, Pasquale de, visits Glasgow,
385-
Park, Robert, town clerk, murdered
by major Menzies, 26.
Paterson, John, archbishop of Edin-
burgh, imprisoned, 7.
Paterson, William, banker, and the
Darien Company, 29.
Pattison, Dr., anatomist, 457.
Persecution, religious, in west of Scot-
land, 3, 4.
Perth, provost of, and his dignity,
411.
Piazzas at the Cross, 367.
" Pighouse " (pottery) in Gallowgate,
152.
Pipe, cable, invented by James Watt,
284.
Pipe organ, James Watt's, 280.
Pitt, William, 286.
Pitt, statue of, 413.
Plaids, gifts of, to Princess of Wales,
88.
Pococke, Richard, bishop of Meath,
describes Glasgow's trade, 295-
296 n.
Police force, beginning of, 338.
reform of, in London, 324.
Pollok, Robert, 392.
Pollokshaws, first bleachfield at, 297.
Poor, maintenance of, 50.
provision for the, 156.
distress among, in 1740, 179.
relief, measures for, 288.
relief of, in London, 323.
relief of, in Glasgow, 336.
relief measures in 1799, 399.
Dr. Chalmers' proposals for relief
of, 448.
Ports, demolition of Glasgow's, 238.
Gallowgate, demolition of, 249.
Port-Glasgow, harbour dues insti-
tuted, 48.
customhouse, 97.
parish and synod of Argyll, 97.
church and earl of Glencairn, 98.
lease of town's interest in, 148.
dues rouped, 158.
damage by great gale of 1739, 175.
graving dock constructed, 283.
harbour, James Watt reports on,
283.
becomes independent, 328.
Porteous, Dr. William, and poor re-
lief, 336.
Porters, union of, 229.
Society of, seal of cause cancelled,
368.
Postal arrangements, 98.
Posts, delivery of, 329-330.
Poverty, growth of, in Glasgow, 288.
Powder magazine, proposed, in cathe-
dral, 197.
Preceptor of St. Nicholas Hospital,
358 n.
Presbytery records, damage to, 360.
Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, 452.
Princess of Wales, gifts to, 88.
Printfields, 301.
Printing, letterpress, in Glasgow, 189-
194-
Prison, Glasgow, building of, 338.
Privateers, fitting out of, 290.
Provand, chamberlains of, and ar-
rears of rent, 13.
Provand' s Lordship, 356.
INDEX
499
Pro van, lands of, proposals to sell, 17.
proposals fall through, 18.
feued, 19.
rights pertaining to, 78.
estate, sale of, 147.
Pro van, bailieship of, 149.
feu -duties sold, 271.
Provosts : Aird, provost, and union
riots in Glasgow, 67 ; Anderson,
John, elder, provost, 1655 and
1667, 21 ; enterprises of, 21 ;
Anderson, John, younger, bailie
1666 and 1683, dean of guild, 21 ;
missions to London, 21, 22 ;
commissioner to meeting of
estates, four times provost, 22 ;
represents town council on board
of directors of Darien Company,
30 ; affairs of, 33 ; appointed
town's accountant, 33 ; pen-
sions to his daughters, 35 ; and
Dumbarton harbour dues, 54 ;
Bowman, John, 241 ; and Glas-
gow regiment, 91 ; Buchanan,
Andrew, of Drumpellier, 239-
240 ; Buchanan, James, 241 ;
John Coats Campbell, 356 ;
Coulter, provost, 164 ; Craigie,
Thomas, 399 ; Dunlop, Colin,
238 ; Dunlop, John, 381 ; Ew-
ing, James, and M.P., 470 ; Gib-
son, Walter, and his troubles,
56 ff. ; possessions of, 57 ; im-
prisonment of, 58 ; and expan-
sion of trade, 43 ; Ingram, Archi-
bald, 192 ; James Macdowall,
370 ; Charles Miller, 136 ; Hugh
Montgomerie of Busby, 61 ;
Monteith, Henry (2), and M.P.,
314, 452 ; Murdoch, George, 238 ;
Peadie, James, 24 ; dispute with
Robert Brock, 24 ; Stirling,
John, 300 ; Wyllie, Hugh, 248.
Provosthaugh, lands of, acquired, 370.
Pujolas, John, engaged to teach
French, 42.
Queen Anne, accession, 61.
death of, 86.
Caroline and Glasgow's sympathy,
462.
Radical rising, the, 455.
Rae, James, purchases Wester Com-
mon, 147.
Rae, Peter, minister of Kirkbride, and
printer, 189.
Railways :
Railway, proposed, to Greenock,
419.
Railways, first, 443.
Glasgow, Edinburgh and Leith
Railway, 466.
Glasgow and Garnkirk Railway,
466.
Glasgow and Paisley Railway, 466.
Pollok and Govan Railway, 466.
Railways, projected, 466.
Ramsay, Allan, and The Gentle Shep-
herd, 119.
Ramshorn, lands of, acquired by
magistrates, 38.
Ransom of John Robertson, 364.
Rates, questions of levying, 477.
Reform, demand for, 479.
Reform Bill, the, 480-485.
Reformatory, first, 232
Regality Court, the, 274.
Regiment, Glasgow, raised 1745, 208.
raised for American War, 289.
raised for defence against France,
414.
Register of the Bishopric of Glasgow,
186.
Reid, William, bookseller, 386.
Religious observance, decline of, 103.
Renfrew and damage to salmon fish-
ing, 226.
Rentals in Glasgow, 1708-12, 105.
Requisitions by Jacobites, 212.
Restaurant, first, opened, 41.
Resurrectionists, the, 458.
Revenue of city in 1740, 178.
Revenues, city, 252.
Review of troops on Glasgow Green,
414.
Revolution, French (1789), and Glas-
gow, 339.
Revolutionary ringleaders, execution
of, 455-
Riots :
Union, in Edinburgh, 66.
in Greenock and Port-Glasgow,
288.
against Roman Catholics in Edin-
burgh and Glasgow, 292.
labour, 331.
in Candleriggs guardhouse, 341.
bread, in 1800, 400.
in 1816, 450.
and treason, 451-453, 463.
5oo
INDEX
Ritchie, James, of Busby, 242 ff .
Road and bridge building, contribu-
tions to, 250.
Road-making, 468.
McAdam and, 443.
Roads. See also " Streets."
Roads, condition of, 196.
Roads and bridges, upkeep of, 81.
Robberies, highway, 445.
Robertson, John, ransom of, from
slavery, 364.
Robertson, John, & Co., builders of
engines of the " Comet," 439.
Robertson, Dr., and the power loom,
312.
Robison, professor, and James Watt,
279.
Rodger, Robert, elected M.P., 73.
Roebuck, Dr., and James Watt, 280.
and the Carron ironworks, 348.
Roman Catholics, penal laws against,
291.
Rope manufactory established, 59.
Rose, Dr., bishop of Edinburgh, and
King William, 5.
Ross, Mrs., Renfrew, assault on, 2.
Ross, professor George, 383.
Rothesay spinning mills, 315 n.
Rottenrow, " Tennandry of," 37.
Royal Burghs, convention of, powers
of, 410.
Royal Burghs Reform Act, the, pass-
ing of, 486 ; effects on Glasgow,
486.
Royal Exchange, the, 246.
Royal Glasgow Volunteers, 342.
" Running Stationers or Caddies,"
seal of cause granted to, 359.
Russell, Mr., minister of Go van,
assault on, 2.
Sacred Music Society, 416.
Sage, Rev. John, and " rabbling " of
clergy, 2.
Salaries, of University regents, 118.
increases of, 412.
Salmon fishings, value of, in 1800, 419
Sandbanks in Clyde, removal of, 222.
Sanders, Robert, printer, 189.
legacy to Merchants House, 199.
Sanitary regulations, 96.
Saracen's Head Inn, the, 249.
famous visitors to, 385.
School, New Grammar, 343.
Schools, parochial, 448.
" Scotland, The Company of, trading
to Africa and the Indies," 29-33.
See also under " Darien Com-
pany."
Scotland, economic condition of (i 701 ),
61 n.
Scott, Michael, 393.
Scott, Sir Walter, visits to Glasgow,
388.
Sculptures in cathedral crypt, 160.
" Seals of cause," granting of, 271-
272.
granted to framework knitters,
298.
granted to madder dyeing indus-
try, 299.
granted to Sedan Chairmen, 272.
Secession movement, the, in the
Church of Scotland, 168.
" Secret work," Macintosh's cudbear
factory, 304.
Security, Act of (Scottish), 1703, 63.
Shaw, Christian, of Bargarran, and
witchcraft, 44.
Shaw, Sir John, and Port-Glasgow
customhouse, 97.
Shawfield mansion, building of the,
95-
destruction of, 137.
Shawfield rioters, sentences on, 140.
Sheriff muir, battle of, 91.
Shieldhall estate bought by Alex-
ander Oswald, 263.
Shipbuilding on Clyde for American
trade, 100.
Shipbuilding, David and Robert
Napier and, 440.
Ships :
A nnandale seized in the Thames, 64.
Charlotte Dundas, 438.
on Forth and Clyde canal, 419.
Comet, 437.
Comets, the, wreck of, 469.
Content, the, fitted out for Mada-
gascar, 32.
Earl of Buckinghamshire sails for
Bombay, 436.
Fairy Queen, first iron steamer,
440.
George Canning sails for Calcutta,
436.
Greenock embarks Jedburgh gipsies,
84.
James, the, of Glasgow, 12.
Kirkman Finlay sails for China,
436.
INDEX
Ships (contd.) :
Lady Maxwell, privateer, 291.
Speedy Return, returns to Greenock
with remnants of Darien expedi-
tion, 31.
fitted out for Madagascar and
seized by pirates, 32.
Unitie, of Glasgow, 12.
Vulcan, first iron boat in Scotland,
440.
Worcester seized in the Forth, 64.
Shuna, island of, gifted to the city,
473-
Simpson, John, and hire of pilots for
Londonderry, n.
Simson, professor John, and heresy,
168.
Simson, professor Robert, 119, 382.
professor, 384.
Slaves, speculation in, 372.
Slezer, captain John, imprisoned, 7.
" Slit Mill," the, established, 174.
Sloss, bailie James, and Quakers, 3.
Smallpox, ravages of, 417.
Smeaton, John, and improvement of
the Clyde, 224.
Smith, Adam, 382-383.
Smith, Thomas, dean of guild and
M.P., 73.
Smoke problem, the, 418.
Smollett, Tobias, and Glasgow, 380.
Smollett, Tobias, of Bonhill, provost
of Dumbarton, 54.
Smuggling, pamphlet against, 195.
Snell Exhibitions, the, 390.
Snuff, manufacture of, 266.
Snuff, export of, 297.
" Soaperie " of Whalefishing Com-
pany, 37.
Soap work set up, 76.
Soap factory, difficulties of, 155.
Sobieski, princess Clementina, 123-
125.
South Sea Company, 28.
Spain, war with, 1739, 182.
Speirs, Alexander, of Elderslie, 242 ff .
Spinningdale mills and village, 316.
St. Andrews University, cost of cur-
riculum, 113.
St. George, chevalier de, romance of,
123-125.
St. Nicholas Hospital, 356 ff.
Stage plays, 234.
popular opinion against, 235.
Stalker, Andrew, editor of the Glas-
gow Journal, 176.
Steamboats, early, 437.
Stevenson, Robert, glazier, and mur-
der of Robert Park, 26.
Stewart, Andrew, of Torrance, anti-
quary, 1 86.
Stewart kings, proof of legitimacy,
186.
Stipends, city ministers', 268, 363,
446.
Stirling family, the, 299-302.
Stirling, Andrew, of Drumpellier, 301.
Stirling, James, of Stair, 301.
Stirling, James, and improvement of
Clyde, 223.
Stirling, John, of Tilliechewan, 301.
Stirling, William, & Sons, founded,
300.
and the Monkland Canal, 282.
failure of, 302.
resuscitation of, 302.
Stirling's library founded, 300, 366.
Stocking-making, 298.
Streets, formation and names of:
Buchanan Street, development
of, 239 ; Brunswick Street, 345 ;
Camperdown Place (West George
Street), named, 397 ; Cochrane
Street, 344 ; Cotton Street, see
Cochrane Street, 344 ; Duke
Street, 344 ; Dundas Street,
origin of name, 282 n. ; East
Howard Street formed, 263 ;
Eglinton Street formed, 421 ;
Garthland Street, development
of, 245 ; George Square, layout
of, 344 ; George Street, 344 ;
Glassford Street, development
of, 245 ; Hanover Street, 344 ;
High Street, lowering of, 329 ;
Hutcheson Street, 345 ; Ingram
Street formed, 267 ; Inkle
Street, see Montrose Street, 344 ;
Jamaica Street formed, 267 ;
John Street, 344 ; King Street,
making of, 143 ; Maxwell Street
developed, 263 ; Monteith Row,
laying off of, 371 ; Monteith
Row, improvements round, 467 ;
Montrose Street, 344 ; Parlia-
mentary Road, construction of,
468 ; Queen Street formed, 267 ;
St. Andrew Square, layout of,
345 ; St. Vincent Place named,
397 ; Stirling Road, origin of
name, 282 n. ; Virginia Street,
development of, 240.
502
INDEX
Streets, cleansing of, 417.
Street lighting, 187.
Strike, journeymen wrights and
masons, 228.
Student life, 109.
Students, nationality of, 113.
fare of, at St. Andrews, 113-114.
lodgings, cost of, 114.
restrictions due to rank, 115.
rules for resident, 116.
Subscriptions for defence of country,
398.
Sugar refining and sugar houses,39, 40.
refined, export of, to West Indies,
297.
refinery and distillery set up, 75.
trade, rise of, 150.
trade, West Indian, 433.
Superintendent of works, office
created, 425.
Surgeons, Incorporation of, and in-
fringement of privileges, 22.
Surgeons and barbers, dispute be-
tween, 80.
Surgeons final breach with barbers,
130.
Symington, William, and the Charlotte
Dundas, 419.
Tape factory set up, 99.
Tassie, James, 193.
Tavern keepers, restraints on, 13.
Taverns, their uses and abuses, 109.
Taxation, troubles regarding, 132.
Teachers, salaries of, 269.
Technical College, Glasgow and West
of Scotland, 378.
Telfer, William, hammerman, and
ironfounding, 154.
Tennant, Charles, and bleaching
powder, 307.
Tennent, Robert, and his " morti-
fication," 200.
Theatre, wooden, demolished by mob,
235-
Theatres in Glasgow, 235.
Theory of Moral Sentiments, by Adam
Smith, 382.
Thomson, Alexander, and bakers'
strike, 47.
Thurot, admiral, 290.
Tobacco trade, commencement of
restrictions on, 40.
growth of, 100-102.
jealousy of English merchants,
101.
Tobacco Lords, the, 237-248.
spinners, granted seal of cause,
272.
export of manufactured, 297.
value of imported, 309.
Tolbooth, new peal of bells, 171.
jailor of the, profits of, 275.
sale of intoxicating liquors in, 338.
steeple threatened, 444.
Tontine Assembly Rooms, 353.
Tontine Exchange, building of, 329.
Town-clerk, functions of, defined, 273.
Town Council, method of election,
1711, 78-79.
Town Hall, first Glasgow, 164.
Town planning schemes, 344-346.
Trade, communal restrictions on, 40-
41.
development of, in Glasgow, 75.
difficulties of, export, 295.
expansion of, to France and
America, 43.
prosperity, 1741, 179.
Trades House, grant for building, 51.
building of new, 352.
dispute between, and Town
Council, 351.
Trades union, first, 229.
Trafalgar, rejoicings over, 423.
Troops, review of, on Glasgow Green,
414.
Trotter, Alexander, and Glasgow
banks, 219.
Turkey red, first dyework, 305.
David Dale and, 318.
Type-foundry started, 99.
Typefounding in Glasgow, 189 ff.
Umbrella, the first, in Glasgow, 359.
Unemployment, first mention of, 288.
Union of Scotland and England, early
efforts at, 62.
commission appointed and ter-
minated, 63.
Articles of, 1706, and the" Equiva-
lent," 32.
scheme of, effect in Scotland, 65.
riots in Edinburgh, 66.
riots in Glasgow, 66 ff .
demonstration against, at Dum-
fries, 70.
Act of Union passed, 70.
and development of trade, 72 ff.
University curriculum, cost of, at St.
Andrews, 113.
INDEX
503
University, Glasgow, subscription to
Darien Company, 30.
and rebuilding of Blackfriars
Church, 52.
and burgh, conflict between juris-
dictions, 115.
professorships instituted, 117.
teachers, conditions of, 117.
regents' salaries, 118.
claim exemption from public bur-
dens, 229.
jurisdiction of, settled, 273.
- James Watt and the, 278-279.
accounts and professor John
Anderson, 374.
Urie, Robert, printer, 189.
Urie, Robert, & Co., printers, 176.
Verreville, crystal factory founded,
321.
Volunteer, first, company raised, 12.
Volunteers, Royal Glasgow, 398.
Votes, faggot, at Rutherglen, 183.
Wade, general, marches on Glasgow,
139-
Walker, John, and proposed stage
coach, 196.
Walkinshaw, Clementina, birth of,
125.
and Prince Charles Edward,
126-128, 210.
Walkinshaw, John, I., dean of guild,
121.
Walkinshaw, John, II., of Barrow-
field, 122.
Walkinshaw, John, III., of Barrow-
field, 121-128.
and Princess Sobieski, 125.
Walkinshaw, Katharine, and her hus-
band's escape from Stirling
Castle, 122.
and coal worked under Barrow-
field, 126.
Walpole, Sir Robert, fall of, 184.
Wan, Martin, chancellor of the cathe-
dral, 356.
Water-bailie, jurisdiction of, 366.
jurisdiction of, challenged, 415.
Water, conveyance of, through pipes,
173 n.
pipes, 269.
supply, 402 ff .
wells, 96.
Waterloo, rejoicings over, 445.
distress after, 449.
Watt, James, report on river Clyde,
225, 277-284.
and professor John Anderson,
374-
memorial to, 469.
Watt, John, surveyor, 177.
Weavers, trouble with, 313.
Weights and measures, English
adopted, 94.
Wells, Glasgow, 402 ff .
Wester Common, sale of lands of, 147.
Whitefield, George, evangelist, 169.
Wightman, general, 89.
Wilson, Alexander, typefounder, 99.
professor and typefounder, 190.
Wilson, James, revolutionary leader,
454-
Wilson, John (Christopher North),
391-
Wilson Society, seal of cause granted
to, 272.
Witches hanged at Paisley, 44.
imprisoned in Tolbooth, 44.
Wodrow, Rev. Robert, 199, 380.
Wogan, Charles, and Clementina
Sobieski, 124.
Women shipped to Virginia, 155.
students, first, 377.
Wood, John, & Co., Port-Glasgow,
builders of the Comet, 439.
Woollen mill set up in Glasgow, 75.
Wordsworth, William and Dorothy,
visits to Glasgow, 385.
Workhouse, building of, 156.
Writs, transcript of town's, 187.
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1921
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