# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Glasgow

See also Glasgow on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​GLASGOW, a city, county of a city, royal burgh and port of Lanarkshire, Scotland, situated on both banks of the Clyde, 4011/2 m. N.W. of London by the West Coast railway route, and 47 m. W.S.W. of Edinburgh by the North British railway. The valley of the Clyde is closely confined by hills, and the city extends far over these, the irregularity of its site making for picturesqueness. The commercial centre of Glasgow, with the majority of important public buildings, lies on the north bank of the river, which traverses the city from W.S.W. to E.N.E., and is crossed by a number of bridges. The uppermost is Dalmarnock Bridge, dating from 1891, and next below it is Rutherglen Bridge, rebuilt in 1896, and superseding a structure of 1775. St Andrew’s suspension bridge gives access to the Green to the inhabitants of Hutchesontown, a district which is approached also by Albert Bridge, a handsome erection, leading from the Saltmarket. Above this bridge is the tidal dam and weir. Victoria Bridge, of granite, was opened in 1856, taking the place of the venerable bridge erected by Bishop Rae in 1345, which was demolished in 1847. Then follows a suspension bridge (dating from 1853) by which foot-passengers from the south side obtain access to St Enoch Square and, finally, the most important bridge of all is reached, variously known as Glasgow, Jamaica Street, or Broomielaw Bridge, built of granite from Telford’s designs and first used in 1835. Towards the close of the century it was reconstructed, and reopened in 1899. At the busier periods of the day it bears a very heavy traffic. The stream is spanned between Victoria and Albert Bridges by a bridge belonging to the Glasgow & South-Western railway and by two bridges carrying the lines of the Caledonian railway, one below Dalmarnock Bridge and the other a massive work immediately west of Glasgow Bridge.
Buildings.—George Square, in the heart of the city, is an open space of which every possible advantage has been taken. On its eastern side stand the municipal buildings, a palatial pile in Venetian renaissance style, from the designs of William Young, a native of Paisley. They were opened in 1889 and cost nearly £600,000. They form a square block four storeys high and carry a domed turret at each end of the western façade, from the centre of which rises a massive tower. The entrance hall and grand staircase, the council chamber, banqueting hall and reception rooms are decorated in a grandiose style, not unbecoming to the commercial and industrial metropolis of Scotland. Several additional blocks have been built or rented for the accommodation of the municipal staff. Admirably equipped sanitary chambers were opened in 1897, including a bacteriological and chemical laboratory. Up till 1810 the town council met in a hall adjoining the old tolbooth. It then moved to the fine classical structure at the foot of the Saltmarket, which is now used as court-houses. This was vacated in 1842 for the county buildings in Wilson Street. Growth of business compelled another migration to Ingram Street in 1875, and, fourteen years later, it occupied its present quarters. On the southern side of George Square the chief structure is the massive General Post Office. On the western side stand two ornate Italian buildings, the Bank of Scotland and the Merchants’ House, the head of which (the dean of gild), along with the head of the Trades’ House (the deacon-convener of trades) has been de facto member of the town council since 1711, an arrangement devised with a view to adjusting the frequent disputes between the two gilds. The Royal Exchange, a Corinthian building with a fine portico of columns in two rows, is an admired example of the work of David Hamilton (1768–1843), a native of Glasgow, who designed several of the public buildings and churches, and gained the second prize for a design for the Houses of Parliament. The news-room of the exchange is a vast apartment, 130 ft. long, 60 ft. wide, 130 ft. high, with a richly-decorated roof supported by Corinthian pillars. Buchanan Street, the most important and handsome street in the city, contains the Stock Exchange, the Western Club House (by David Hamilton) and the offices of the Glasgow Herald. In Sauchiehall Street are the Fine Art Institute and the former Corporation Art Gallery. Argyll Street, the busiest thoroughfare, mainly occupied with shops, leads to Trongate, where a few remains of the old town are now carefully preserved. On the south side of the street, spanning the pavement, stands the Tron Steeple, a stunted spire dating from 1637. It is all that is left of St Mary’s church, which was burned down in 1793 during the revels of a notorious body known as the Hell Fire Club. On the opposite side, at the corner of High Street, stood the ancient tolbooth, or prison, a turreted building, five storeys high, with a fine Jacobean crown tower. The only remnant of the structure is the tower known as the Cross Steeple.
Although almost all the old public buildings of Glasgow have been swept away, the cathedral remains in excellent preservation. It stands in the north-eastern quarter of the city at a height of 104 ft. above the level of the Clyde. It is a beautiful example of Early English work, impressive St Mungo’s Cathedral. in its simplicity. Its form is that of a Latin cross, with imperfect transepts. Its length from east to west is 319 ft., and its width 63 ft.; the height of the choir is 93 ft., and of the nave 85 ft. At the centre rises a fine tower, with a short octagonal spire, 225 ft. high. The choir, locally known as the High Church, serves as one of the city churches, and the extreme east end of it forms the Lady chapel. The rich western doorway is French in design but English in details. The chapter-house projects from the north-eastern corner and somewhat mars the harmony of the effect. It was built in the 15th century and has a groined roof supported by a pillar 20 ft. high. Many citizens have contributed towards filling the windows with stained glass, executed at Munich, the government providing the eastern ​window in recognition of their enterprise. The crypt beneath the choir is not the least remarkable part of the edifice, being without equal in Scotland. It is borne on 65 pillars and lighted by 41 windows. The sculpture of the capitals of the columns and bosses of the groined vaulting is exquisite and the whole is in excellent preservation. Strictly speaking, it is not a crypt, but a lower church adapted to the sloping ground of the right bank of the Molendinar burn. The dripping aisle is so named from the constant dropping of water from the roof. St Mungo’s Well in the south-eastern corner was considered to possess therapeutic virtues, and in the crypt a recumbent effigy, headless and handless, is faithfully accepted as the tomb of Kentigern. The cathedral contains few monuments of exceptional merit, but the surrounding graveyard is almost completely paved with tombstones. In 1115 an investigation was ordered by David, prince of Cumbria, into the lands and churches belonging to the bishopric, and from the deed then drawn up it is clear that at that date a cathedral had already been endowed. When David ascended the throne in 1124 he gave to the see of Glasgow the lands of Partick, besides restoring many possessions of which it had been deprived. Jocelin (d. 1199), made bishop in 1174, was the first great bishop, and is memorable for his efforts to replace the cathedral built in 1136 by Bishop John Achaius, which had been destroyed by fire. The crypt is his work, and he began the choir, Lady chapel, and central tower. The new structure was sufficiently advanced to be dedicated in 1197. Other famous bishops were Robert Wishart (d. 1316), appointed in 1272, who was among the first to join in the revolt of Wallace, and received Robert Bruce when he lay under the ban of the church for the murder of Comyn; John Cameron (d. 1446), appointed in 1428, under whom the building as it stands was completed; and William Turnbull (d. 1454), appointed in 1447, who founded the university in 1450. James Beaton or Bethune (1517–1603) was the last Roman Catholic archbishop. He fled to France at the reformation in 1560, and took with him the treasures and records of the see, including the Red Book of Glasgow dating from the reign of Robert III. The documents were deposited in the Scots College in Paris, were sent at the outbreak of the Revolution for safety to St Omer, and were never recovered. This loss explains the paucity of the earlier annals of the city. The zeal of the Reformers led them to threaten to mutilate the cathedral, but the building was saved by the prompt action of the craftsmen, who mustered in force and dispersed the fanatics.
Excepting the cathedral, none of the Glasgow churches possesses historical interest; and, speaking generally, it is only the buildings that have been erected since the beginning of the 19th century that have pronounced architectural merit. This was due largely to the long survival Churches. of the severe sentiment of the Covenanters, who discouraged, if they did not actually forbid, the raising of temples of beautiful ​design. Representative examples of later work are found in the United Free churches in Vincent Street, in Caledonia Road and at Queen’s Park, designed by Alexander Thomson (1817–1875), an architect of distinct originality; St George’s church, in West George Street, a remarkable work by William Stark, erected in the beginning of the 19th century; St Andrew’s church in St Andrew’s Square off the Saltmarket, modelled after St Martin’s-in-the-Fields, London, with a fine Roman portico; some of the older parish churches, such as St Enoch’s, dating from 1780, with a good spire (the saint’s name is said to be a corruption of Tanew, mother of Kentigern); the episcopal church of St Mary (1870), in Great Western Road, by Sir G. G. Scott; the Roman Catholic cathedral of St Andrew, on the river-bank between Victoria and Broomielaw bridges; the Barony church, replacing the older kirk in which Norman Macleod ministered; and several admirable structures, well situated, on the eastern confines of Kelvingrove Park.
The principal burying-ground is the Necropolis, occupying Fir Park, a hill about 300 ft. high in the northern part of the city. It provides a not inappropriate background to the cathedral, from which it is approached by a bridge, known as the “Bridge of Sighs,” over the Molendinar ravine. The ground, which once formed portion of the estate of Wester Craigs, belongs to the Merchants’ House, which purchased it in 1650 from Sir Ludovic Stewart of Minto. A Doric column to the memory of Knox, surmounted by a colossal statue of the reformer, was erected by public subscription on the crown of the height in 1824, and a few years later the idea arose of utilizing the land as a cemetery. The Jews have reserved for their own people a detached area in the north-western corner of the cemetery.
Education.—The university, founded in 1450 by Bishop Turnbull under a bull of Pope Nicholas V., survived in its old quarters till far in the 19th century. The paedagogium, or college of arts, was at first housed in Rottenrow, but was moved in 1460 to a site in High Street, Glasgow University. where Sir James Hamilton of Cadzow, first Lord Hamilton (d. 1479), gave it four acres of land and some buildings. Queen Mary bestowed upon it thirteen acres of contiguous ground, and her son granted it a new charter and enlarged the endowments. Prior to the Revolution its fortunes fluctuated, but in the 18th century it became very famous. By the middle of the 19th century, however, its surroundings had deteriorated, and in 1860 it was decided to rebuild it elsewhere. The ground had enormously increased in value and a railway company purchased it for £100,000. In 1864 the university bought the Gilmore Hill estate for £65,000, the adjacent property of Dowan Hill for £16,000 and the property of Clayslaps for £17,400. Sir G. G. Scott was appointed architect and selected as the site of the university buildings the ridge of Gilmore Hill—the finest situation in Glasgow. The design is Early English with a suggestion in parts of the Scots-French style of a much later period. The main structure is 540 ft. long and 300 ft. broad. The principal front faces southwards and consists of a lofty central tower with spire and corner blocks with turrets, between which are buildings of lower height. Behind the tower lies the Bute hall, built on cloisters, binding together the various departments and smaller halls, and dividing the massive edifice into an eastern and western quadrangle, on two sides of which are ranged the class-rooms in two storeys. The northern façade comprises two corner blocks, besides the museum, the library and, in the centre, the students’ reading-room on one floor and the Hunterian museum on the floor above. On the south the ground falls in terraces towards Kelvingrove Park and the Kelvin. On the west, but apart from the main structure, stand the houses of the principal and professors. The foundation stone was laid in 1868 and the opening ceremony was held in 1870. The total cost of the university buildings amounted to £500,000, towards which government contributed £120,000 and public subscription £250,000. The third marquess of Bute (1847–1900) gave £40,000 to provide the Bute or common hall, a room of fine proportions fitted in Gothic style and divided by a beautiful Gothic screen from the Randolph hall, named after another benefactor, Charles Randolph (1809–1878), a native of Stirling, who had prospered as shipbuilder and marine engineer and left £60,000 to the university. The graceful spire surmounting the tower was provided from the bequest of £5000 by Mr A. Cunningham, deputy town-clerk, and Dr John M’Intyre erected the Students’ Union at a cost of £5000, while other donors completed the equipment so generously that the senate was enabled to carry on its work, for the first time in its history, in almost ideal circumstances. The library includes the collection of Sir William Hamilton, and the Hunterian museum, bequeathed by William Hunter, the anatomist, is particularly rich in coins, medals, black-letter books and anatomical preparations. The observatory on Dowan Hill is attached to the chair of astronomy. An interesting link with the past are the exhibitions founded by John Snell (1629–1679), a native of Colmonell in Ayrshire, for the purpose of enabling students of distinction to continue their career at Balliol College, Oxford. Amongst distinguished exhibitioners have been Adam Smith, John Gibson Lockhart, John Wilson (“Christopher North”), Archbishop Tait, Sir William Hamilton and Professor Shairp. The curriculum of the university embraces the faculties of arts, divinity, medicine, law and science. The governing body includes the chancellor, elected for life by the general council, the principal, also elected for life, and the lord rector elected triennially by the students voting in “nations” according to their birthplace (Glottiana, natives of Lanarkshire; Transforthana, of Scotland north of the Forth; Rothseiana, of the shires of Bute, Renfrew and Ayr; and Loudonia, all others). There are a large number of well-endowed chairs and lectureships and the normal number of students exceeds 2000. The universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen unite to return one member to parliament. Queen Margaret College for women, established in 1883, occupies a handsome building close to the botanic gardens, has an endowment of upwards of £25,000, and was incorporated with the university in 1893. Muirhead College is another institution for women.
Elementary instruction is supplied at numerous board schools. Higher, secondary and technical education is provided at several well-known institutions. There are two educational endowments boards which apply a revenue of about £10,000 a year mainly to the foundation of bursaries. Schools and colleges. Anderson College in George Street perpetuates the memory of its founder, John Anderson (1726–1796), professor of natural philosophy in the university, who opened a class in physics for working men, which he conducted to the end of his life. By his will he provided for an institution for the instruction of artisans and others unable to attend the university. The college which bears his name began in 1796 with lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry by Thomas Garnett (1766–1802). Two years later mathematics and geography were added. In 1799 Dr George Birkbeck (1776–1841) succeeded Garnett and began those lectures on mechanics and applied science which, continued elsewhere, ultimately led to the foundation of mechanics’ institutes in many towns. In later years the college was further endowed and its curriculum enlarged by the inclusion of literature and languages, but ultimately it was determined to limit the scope of its work to medicine (comprising, however, physics, chemistry and botany also). The lectures of its medical school, incorporated in 1887 and situated near the Western Infirmary, are accepted by Glasgow and other universities. The Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College, formed in 1886 out of a combination of the arts side of Anderson College, the College of Science and Arts, Allan Glen’s Institution and the Atkinson Institution, is subsidized by the corporation and the endowments board, and is especially concerned with students desirous of following an industrial career. St Mungo’s College, which has developed from an extra-mural school in connexion with the Royal Infirmary, was incorporated in 1889, with faculties of medicine and law. The United Free Church College, finely situated near Kelvingrove Park, the School of Art and Design, and the normal schools for the training of teachers, are institutions with distinctly specialized objects.
The High school in Elmbank is the successor of the grammar school (long housed in John Street) which was founded in the 14th century as an appanage of the cathedral. It was placed under the jurisdiction of the school board in 1873. Other secondary schools include Glasgow Academy, Kelvinside Academy and the girls’ and boys’ schools endowed by the Hutcheson trust. Several of the schools under the board are furnished with secondary departments or equipped as science schools, and the Roman Catholics maintain elementary schools and advanced academies.
Art Galleries, Libraries and Museums.—Glasgow merchants and ​manufacturers alike have been constant patrons of art, and their liberality may have had some influence on the younger painters who, towards the close of the 19th century, broke away from tradition and, stimulated by training in the studios of Paris, became known as the “Glasgow school.” The art gallery and museum in Kelvingrove Park, which was built at a cost of £250,000 (partly derived from the profits of the exhibitions held in the park in 1888 and 1901), is exceptionally well appointed. The collection originated in 1854 in the purchase of the works of art belonging to Archibald M‘Lellan, and was supplemented from time to time by numerous bequests of important pictures. It was housed for many years in the Corporation galleries in Sauchiehall Street. The Institute of Fine Arts, in Sauchiehall Street, is mostly devoted to periodical exhibitions of modern art. There are also pictures on exhibition in the People’s Palace on Glasgow Green, which was built by the corporation in 1898 and combines an art gallery and museum with a conservatory and winter garden, and in the museum at Camphill, situated within the bounds of Queen’s Park. The library and Hunterian museum in the university are mostly reserved for the use of students. The faculty of procurators possess a valuable library which is housed in their hall, an Italian Renaissance building, in West George Street. In Bath Street there are the Mechanics’ and the Philosophical Society’s libraries, and the Physicians’ is in St Vincent Street. Miller Street contains the headquarters of the public libraries. The premises once occupied by the water commission have been converted to house the Mitchell library, which grew out of a bequest of £70,000 by Stephen Mitchell, largely reinforced by further gifts of libraries and funds, and now contains upwards of 100,000 volumes. It is governed by the city council and has been in use since 1877. Another building in this street accommodates both the Stirling and Baillie libraries. The Stirling, with some 50,000 volumes, is particularly rich in tracts of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the Baillie was endowed by George Baillie, a solicitor who, in 1863, gave £18,000 for educational objects. The Athenaeum in St George’s Place, an institution largely concerned with evening classes in various subjects, contains an excellent library and reading-room.
Charities.—The old Royal Infirmary, designed by Robert Adam and opened in 1794, adjoining the cathedral, occupies the site of the archiepiscopal palace, the last portion of which was removed towards the close of the 18th century. The chief architectural feature of the infirmary is the central dome forming the roof of the operating theatre. On the northern side are the buildings of the medical school attached to the institution. The new infirmary commemorates the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. A little farther north, in Castle Street, is the blind asylum. The Western Infirmary is to some extent used for the purposes of clinical instruction in connexion with the university, to which it stands in immediate proximity. Near it is the Royal hospital for sick children. To the south of Queen’s Park is Victoria Infirmary, and close to it the deaf and dumb institution. On the bank of the river, not far from the south-eastern boundary of the city, is the Belvedere hospital for infectious diseases, and at Ruchill, in the north, is another hospital of the same character opened in 1900. The Royal asylum at Gartnavel is situated near Jordanhill station, and the District asylum at Gartloch (with a branch at West Muckroft) lies in the parish of Cadder beyond the north-eastern boundary. There are numerous hospitals exclusively devoted to the treatment of special diseases, and several nursing institutions and homes. Hutcheson’s Hospital, designed by David Hamilton and adorned with statues of the founders, is situated in Ingram Street, and by the increase in the value of its lands has become a very wealthy body. George Hutcheson (1580–1639), a lawyer in the Trongate near the tolbooth, who afterwards lived in the Bishop’s castle, which stood close to the spot where the Kelvin enters the Clyde, founded the hospital for poor old men. His brother Thomas (1589–1641) established in connexion with it a school for the lodging and education of orphan boys, the sons of burgesses. The trust, through the growth of its funds, has been enabled to extend its educational scope and to subsidize schools apart from the charity.
Monuments.—Most of the statues have been erected in George Square. They are grouped around a fluted pillar 80 ft. high, surmounted by a colossal statue of Sir Walter Scott by John Ritchie (1809–1850), erected in 1837, and include Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort (both equestrian) by Baron Marochetti; James Watt by Chantrey; Sir Robert Peel, Thomas Campbell the poet, who was born in Glasgow, and David Livingstone, all by John Mossman; Sir John Moore, a native of Glasgow, by Flaxman, erected in 1819; James Oswald, the first member returned to parliament for the city after the Reform Act of 1832; Lord Clyde (Sir Colin Campbell), also a native, by Foley, erected in 1868; Dr Thomas Graham, master of the mint, another native, by Brodie; Robert Burns by G. E. Ewing, erected in 1877, subscribed for in shillings by the working men of Scotland; and William Ewart Gladstone by Hamo Thornycroft, unveiled by Lord Rosebery in 1902. In front of the Royal Exchange stands the equestrian monument of the duke of Wellington. In Cathedral Square are the statues of Norman Macleod, James White and James Arthur, and in front of the Royal infirmary is that of Sir James Lumsden, lord provost and benefactor. Nelson is commemorated by an obelisk 143 ft. high on the Green, which was erected in 1806 and is said to be a copy of that in the Piazza del Popolo at Rome. One of the most familiar statues is the equestrian figure of William III. in the Trongate, which was presented to the town in 1735 by James Macrae (1677–1744), a poor Ayrshire lad who had amassed a fortune in India, where he was governor of Madras from 1725 to 1730.
Recreations.—Of the theatres the chief are the King’s in Bath Street, the Royal and the Grand in Cowcaddens, the Royalty and Gaiety in Sauchiehall Street, and the Princess’s in Main Street. Variety theatres, headed by the Empire in Sauchiehall Street, are found in various parts of the town. There is a circus in Waterloo Street, a hippodrome in Sauchiehall Street and a zoological garden in New City Road. The principal concert halls are the great hall of the St Andrew’s Halls, a group of rooms belonging to the corporation; the City Hall in Candleriggs, the People’s Palace on the Green, and Queen’s Rooms close to Kelvingrove Park. Throughout winter enormous crowds throng the football grounds of the Queen’s Park, the leading amateur club, and the Celtic, the Rangers, the Third Lanark and other prominent professional clubs.
Parks and Open Spaces.—The oldest open space is the Green (140 acres), on the right bank of the river, adjoining a densely-populated district. It once extended farther west, but a portion was built over at a time when public rights were not vigilantly guarded. It is a favourite area for popular demonstrations, and sections have been reserved for recreation or laid out in flower-beds. Kelvingrove Park, in the west end, has exceptional advantages, for the Kelvin burn flows through it and the ground is naturally terraced, while the situation is beautified by the adjoining Gilmore Hill with the university on its summit. The park was laid out under the direction of Sir Joseph Paxton, and contains the Stewart fountain, erected to commemorate the labours of Lord Provost Stewart and his colleagues in the promotion of the Loch Katrine water scheme. The other parks on the right bank are, in the north, Ruchill (53 acres), acquired in 1891, and Springburn (531/4 acres), acquired in 1892, and, in the east, Alexandra Park (120 acres), in which is laid down a nine-hole golf-course, and Tollcross (823/4 acres), beyond the municipal boundary, acquired in 1897. On the left bank Queen’s Park (130 acres), occupying a commanding site, was laid out by Sir Joseph Paxton, and considerably enlarged in 1894 by the enclosure of the grounds of Camphill. The other southern parks are Richmond (44 acres), acquired in 1898, and named after Lord Provost Sir David Richmond, who opened it in 1899; Maxwell, which was taken over on the annexation of Pollokshields in 1891; Bellahouston (176 acres), acquired in 1895; and Cathkin Braes (50 acres), 31/2m. beyond the south-eastern boundary, presented to the city in 1886 by James Dick, a manufacturer, containing “Queen Mary’s stone,” a point which commands a view of the lower valley of the Clyde. In the north-western district of the town 40 acres between Great Western Road and the Kelvin are devoted to the Royal Botanic Gardens, which became public property in 1891. They are beautifully laid out, and contain a great range of hothouses. The gardens owed much to Sir William Hooker, who was regius professor of botany in Glasgow University before his appointment to the directorship of Kew Gardens.
Communications.—The North British railway terminus is situated in Queen Street, and consists of a high-level station (main line) and a low-level station, used in connexion with the City & District line, largely underground, serving the northern side of the town, opened in 1886. The Great Northern and North-Eastern railways use the high-level line of the N.B.R., the three companies forming the East Coast Joint Service. The Central terminus of the Caledonian railway in Gordon Street, served by the West Coast system (in which the London & North-Western railway shares), also comprises a high-level station for the main line traffic and a low-level station for the Cathcart District railway, completed in 1886 and made circular for the southern side and suburbs in 1894, and also for the connexion between Maryhill and Rutherglen, which is mostly underground. Both the underground lines communicate with certain branches of the main line, either directly or by change of carriage. The older terminus of the Caledonian railway in Buchanan Street now takes the northern and eastern traffic. The terminus of the Glasgow & South-Western railway company in St Enoch Square serves the country indicated in its title, and also gives the Midland railway of England access to the west coast and Glasgow. The Glasgow Subway—an underground cable passenger line, 61/2 m. long, worked in two tunnels and passing below the Clyde twice—was opened in 1896. Since no more bridge-building will be sanctioned west of the railway bridge at the Broomielaw, there are at certain points steam ferry boats or floating bridges for conveying vehicles across the harbour, and at Stobcross there is a subway for foot and wheeled traffic. Steamers, carrying both goods and passengers, constantly leave the Broomielaw quay for the piers and ports on the river and firth, and the islands and sea lochs of Argyllshire. The city is admirably served by tramways which penetrate every populous district and cross the river by Glasgow and Albert bridges.
Trade.—Natural causes, such as proximity to the richest field of coal and ironstone in Scotland and the vicinity of hill streams of pure water, account for much of the great development of trade in Glasgow. It was in textiles that the city showed its earliest predominance, which, however, has not been maintained, owing, it is alleged, to the shortage of female labour. Several cotton mills are still worked, but the leading feature in the trade has always been the manufacture ​of such light textures as plain, striped and figured muslins, ginghams and fancy fabrics. Thread is made on a considerable scale, but jute and silk are of comparatively little importance. The principal varieties of carpets are woven. Some factories are exclusively devoted to the making of lace curtains. The allied industries of bleaching, printing and dyeing, on the other hand, have never declined. The use of chlorine in bleaching was first introduced in Great Britain at Glasgow in 1787, on the suggestion of James Watt, whose father-in-law was a bleacher; and it was a Glasgow bleacher, Charles Tennant, who first discovered and made bleaching powder (chloride of lime). Turkey-red dyeing was begun at Glasgow by David Dale and George M‘Intosh, and the colour was long known locally as Dale’s red. A large quantity of grey cloth continues to be sent from Lancashire and other mills to be bleached and printed in Scottish works. These industries gave a powerful impetus to the manufacture of chemicals, and the works at St Rollox developed rapidly. Among prominent chemical industries are to be reckoned the alkali trades—including soda, bleaching powder and soap-making—the preparation of alum and prussiates of potash, bichromate of potash, white lead and other pigments, dynamite and gunpowder. Glass-making and paper-making are also carried on, and there are several breweries and distilleries, besides factories for the making of aerated waters, starch, dextrine and matches. Many miscellaneous trades flourish, such as clothing, confectionery, cabinet-making, bread and biscuit making, boot and shoe making, flour mills and saw mills, pottery and indiarubber. Since the days of the brothers Robert Foulis (1705–1776) and Andrew Foulis (1712–1775), printing, both letterpress and colour, has been identified with Glasgow, though in a lesser degree than with Edinburgh. The tobacco trade still flourishes, though much lessened. But the great industry is iron-founding. The discovery of the value of blackband ironstone, till then regarded as useless “wild coal,” by David Mushet (1772–1847), and Neilson’s invention of the hot-air blast threw the control of the Scottish iron trade into the hands of Glasgow ironmasters, although the furnaces themselves were mostly erected in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire. The expansion of the industry was such that, in 1859, one-third of the total output in the United Kingdom was Scottish. During the following years, however, the trade seemed to have lost its elasticity, the annual production averaging about one million tons of pig-iron. Mild steel is manufactured extensively, and some crucible cast steel is made. In addition to brass foundries there are works for the extraction of copper and the smelting of lead and zinc. With such resources every branch of engineering is well represented. Locomotive engines are built for every country where railways are employed, and all kinds of builder’s ironwork is forged in enormous quantities, and the sewing-machine factories in the neighbourhood are important. Boiler-making and marine engine works, in many cases in direct connexion with the shipbuilding yards, are numerous. Shipbuilding, indeed, is the greatest of the industries of Glasgow, and in some years more than half of the total tonnage in the United Kingdom has been launched on the Clyde, the yards of which extend from the harbour to Dumbarton on one side and Greenock on the other side of the river and firth. Excepting a trifling proportion of wooden ships, the Clyde-built vessels are of iron and steel, the trade having owed its immense expansion to the prompt adoption of this material. Every variety of craft is turned out, from battleships and great liners to dredging-plant and hopper barges.
The Port.—The harbour extends from Glasgow Bridge to the point where the Kelvin joins the Clyde, and occupies 206 acres. For the most part it is lined by quays and wharves, which have a total length of 81/4 m., and from the harbour to the sea vessels drawing 26 ft. can go up or down on one tide. It is curious to remember that in the middle of the 18th century the river was fordable on foot at Dumbuck, 12 m. below Glasgow and 11/2 m. S.E. of Dumbarton. Even within the limits of the present harbour Smeaton reported to the town council in 1740 that at Pointhouse ford, just east of the mouth of the Kelvin, the depth at low water was only 15 in. and at high water 39 in. The transformation effected within a century and a half is due to the energy and enterprise of the Clyde Navigation Trust. The earliest shipping-port of Glasgow was Irvine in Ayrshire, but lighterage was tedious and land carriage costly, and in 1658 the civic authorities endeavoured to purchase a site for a spacious harbour at Dumbarton. Being thwarted by the magistrates of that burgh, however, in 1662 they secured 13 acres on the southern bank at a spot some 2 m. above Greenock, which became known as Port Glasgow, where they built harbours and constructed the first graving dock in Scotland. Sixteen years later the Broomielaw quay was built, but it was not until the tobacco merchants appreciated the necessity of bringing their wares into the heart of the city that serious consideration was paid to schemes for deepening the waterway. Smeaton’s suggestion of a lock and dam 4 m. below the Broomielaw was happily not accepted. In 1768 John Golborne advised the narrowing of the river and the increasing of the scour by the construction of rubble jetties and the dredging of sandbanks and shoals. After James Watt’s report in 1769 on the ford at Dumbuck, Golborne succeeded in 1775 in deepening the ford to 6 ft. at low water with a width of 300 ft. By Rennie’s advice in 1799, following up Golborne’s recommendation, as many as 200 jetties were built between Glasgow and Bowling, some old ones were shortened and low rubble walls carried from point to point of the jetties, and thus the channel was made more uniform and much land reclaimed. By 1836 there was a depth of 7 or 8 ft. at the Broomielaw at low water, and in 1840 the whole duty of improving the navigation was devolved upon the Navigation Trust. Steam dredgers were kept constantly at work, shoals were removed and rocks blasted away. Two million cubic yards of matter are lifted every year and dumped in Loch Long. By 1900 the channel had been deepened to a minimum of 22 ft., and, as already indicated, the largest vessels make the open sea in one tide, whereas in 1840 it took ships drawing only 15 ft. two and even three tides to reach the sea. The debt of the Trust amounts to £6,000,000, and the annual revenue to £450,000. Long before these great results had been achieved, however, the shipping trade had been revolutionized by the application of steam to navigation, and later by the use of iron for wood in shipbuilding, in both respects enormously enhancing the industry and commerce of Glasgow. From 1812 to 1820 Henry Bell’s “Comet,” 30 tons, driven by an engine of 3 horse-power, plied between Glasgow and Greenock, until she was wrecked, being the first steamer to run regularly on any river in the Old World. Thus since the appearance of that primitive vessel phenomenal changes had taken place on the Clyde. When the quays and wharves ceased to be able to accommodate the growing traffic, the construction of docks became imperative. In 1867 Kingston Dock on the south side, of 51/3 acres, was opened, but soon proved inadequate, and in 1880 Queen’s Dock (two basins) at Stobcross, on the north side, of 30 acres, was completed. Although this could accommodate one million tons of shipping, more dock space was speedily called for, and in 1897 Prince’s Dock (three basins) on the opposite side, of 72 acres, was opened, fully equipped with hydraulic and steam cranes and all the other latest appliances. There are, besides, three graving docks, the longest of which (880 ft.) can be made at will into two docks of 417 ft. and 457 ft. in length. The Caledonian and Glasgow & South-Western railways have access to the harbour for goods and minerals at Terminus Quay to the west of Kingston Dock, and a mineral dock has been constructed by the Trust at Clydebank, about 31/2 m. below the harbour. The shipping attains to colossal proportions. The imports consist chiefly of flour, fruit, timber, iron ore, live stock and wheat; and the exports principally of cotton manufactures, manufactured iron and steel, machinery, whisky, cotton yarn, linen fabrics, coal, jute, jam and foods, and woollen manufactures.
Government.—By the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 the city was placed entirely in the county of Lanark, the districts then transferred having previously belonged to the shires of Dumbarton and Renfrew. In 1891 the boundaries were enlarged to include six suburban burghs and a number of suburban districts, the area being increased from 6111 acres to 11,861 acres. The total area of the city and the conterminous burghs of Govan, Partick and Kinning Park—which, though they successfully resisted annexation in 1891, are practically part of the city—is 15,659 acres. The extreme length from north to south and from east to west is about 5 m. each way, and the circumference measures 27 m. In 1893 the municipal burgh was constituted a county of a city. Glasgow is governed by a corporation consisting of 77 members, including 14 bailies and the lord provost. In 1895 all the powers which the town council exercised as police commissioners and trustees for parks, markets, water and the like were consolidated and conferred upon the corporation. Three years later the two parish councils of the city and barony, which administered the poor law over the greater part of the city north of the Clyde, were amalgamated as the parish council of Glasgow, with 31 members. As a county of a city Glasgow has a lieutenancy (successive lords provost holding the office) and a court of quarter sessions, which is the appeal court from the magistrates sitting as licensing authority. Under the corporation municipal ownership has reached a remarkable development, the corporation owning the supplies of water, gas and electric power, tramways and municipal lodging-houses. The enterprise of the corporation has brought its work prominently into notice, not only in the United Kingdom, but in the United States of America and elsewhere. In 1859 water was conveyed by aqueducts and tunnels from Loch Katrine (364 ft. above sea-level, giving a pressure of 70 or 80 ft. above the highest point in the city) to the reservoir at Mugdock (with a capacity of 500,000,000 gallons), a distance of 27 m., whence after filtration it was distributed by pipes to Glasgow, a further distance of 7 m., or 34 m. in all. During the next quarter of a century it became evident that this supply would require to be augmented, and powers were accordingly obtained in 1895 to raise Loch Katrine 5 ft. and to connect with it by tunnel Loch Arklet (455 ft. above the sea), with storage for 2,050,000,000 gallons, the two lochs together possessing a capacity of twelve thousand million gallons. The entire works between the loch and the city were duplicated over a distance of 231/2 m., and an additional reservoir, holding 694,000,000 gallons, was constructed, increasing the supply held in reserve from 121/2 days’ to 301/2 days’. In 1909 the building of a dam was undertaken 11/4 m. west of the lower end of Loch Arklet, designed to create a sheet of water 21/2 m. long and to increase the water-supply of the city by ten million gallons a day. The water committee supplies hydraulic power to manufacturers and merchants. In 1869 the corporation acquired the gasworks, the productive capacity ​of which exceeds 70 million cub. ft. a day. In 1893 the supply of electric light was also undertaken, and since that date the city has been partly lighted by electricity. The corporation also laid down the tramways, which were leased by a company for twenty-three years at a rental of £150 a mile per annum. When the lease expired in 1894 the town council took over the working of the cars, substituting overhead electric traction for horse-power. One of the most difficult problems that the corporation has had to deal with was the housing of the poor. By the lapse of time and the congestion of population, certain quarters of the city, in old Glasgow especially, had become slums and rookeries of the worst description. The condition of the town was rapidly growing into a byword, when the municipality obtained parliamentary powers in 1866 enabling it to condemn for purchase over-crowded districts, to borrow money and levy rates. The scheme of reform contemplated the demolition of 10,000 insanitary dwellings occupied by 50,000 persons, but the corporation was required to provide accommodation for the dislodged whenever the numbers exceeded 500. In point of fact they never needed to build, as private enterprise more than kept pace with the operations of the improvement. The work was carried out promptly and effectually, and when the act expired in 1881 whole localities had been recreated and nearly 40,000 persons properly housed. Under the amending act of 1881 the corporation began in 1888 to build tenement houses in which the poor could rent one or more rooms at the most moderate rentals; lodging-houses for men and women followed, and in 1896 a home was erected for the accommodation of families in certain circumstances. The powers of the improvement trustees were practically exhausted in 1896, when it appeared that during twenty-nine years £1,955,550 had been spent in buying and improving land and buildings, and £231,500 in building tenements and lodging-houses; while, on the other side, ground had been sold for £1,072,000, and the trustees owned heritable property valued at £692,000, showing a deficiency of £423,050. Assessment of ratepayers for the purposes of the trust had yielded £593,000, and it was estimated that these operations, beneficial to the city in a variety of ways, had cost the citizens £24,000 a year. In 1897 an act was obtained for dealing in similar fashion with insanitary and congested areas in the centre of the city, and on the south side of the river, and for acquiring not more than 25 acres of land, within or without the city, for dwellings for the poorest classes. Along with these later improvements the drainage system was entirely remodelled, the area being divided into three sections, each distinct, with separate works for the disposal of its own sewage. One section (authorized in 1891 and doubled in 1901) comprises 11 sq. m.—one-half within the city north of the river, and the other in the district in Lanarkshire—with works at Dalmarnock; another section (authorized in 1896) includes the area on the north bank not provided for in 1891, as well as the burghs of Partick and Clydebank and intervening portions of the shires of Renfrew and Dumbarton, the total area consisting of 14 sq. m., with works at Dalmuir, 7 m. below Glasgow; and the third section (authorized in 1898) embraces the whole municipal area on the south side of the river, the burghs of Rutherglen, Pollokshaws, Kinning Park and Govan, and certain districts in the counties of Renfrew and Lanark—14 sq. m. in all, which may be extended by the inclusion of the burghs of Renfrew and Paisley—with works at Braehead, 1 m. east of Renfrew. Among other works in which it has interests there may be mentioned its representation on the board of the Clyde Navigation Trust and the governing body of the West of Scotland Technical College. In respect of parliamentary representation the Reform Act of 1832 gave two members to Glasgow, a third was added in 1868 (though each elector had only two votes), and in 1885 the city was split up into seven divisions, each returning one member.
Population.—Throughout the 19th century the population grew prodigiously. Only 77,385 in 1801, it was nearly doubled in twenty years, being 147,043 in 1821, already outstripping Edinburgh. It had become 395,503 in 1861, and in 1881 it was 511,415. In 1891, prior to extension of the boundary, it was 565,839, and, after extension, 658,198, and in 1901 it stood at 761,709. The birth-rate averages 33, and the death-rate 21 per 1000, but the mortality before the city improvement scheme was carried out was as high as 33 per 1000. Owing to its being convenient of access from the Highlands, a very considerable number of Gaelic-speaking persons live in Glasgow, while the great industries attract an enormous number of persons from other parts of Scotland. The valuation of the city, which in 1878–1879 was £3,420,697, now exceeds £5,000,000.
History.—There are several theories as to the origin of the name of Glasgow. One holds that it comes from Gaelic words meaning “dark glen,” descriptive of the narrow ravine through which the Molendinar flowed to the Clyde. But the more generally accepted version is that the word is the Celtic Cleschu, afterwards written Glesco or Glasghu, meaning “dear green spot” (glas, green; cu or ghu, dear), which is supposed to have been the name of the settlement that Kentigern found here when he came to convert the Britons of Strathclyde. Mungo became the patron-saint of Glasgow, and the motto and arms of the city are wholly identified with him—“Let Glasgow Flourish by the Preaching of the Word,” usually shortened to “Let Glasgow Flourish.” It is not till the 12th century, however, that the history of the city becomes clear. About 1178 William the Lion made the town by charter a burgh of barony, and gave it a market with freedom and customs. Amongst more or less isolated episodes of which record has been preserved may be mentioned the battle of the Bell o’ the Brae, on the site of High Street, in which Wallace routed the English under Percy in 1300; the betrayal of Wallace to the English in 1305 in a barn situated, according to tradition, in Robroyston, just beyond the north-eastern boundary of the city; the ravages of the plague in 1350 and thirty years later; the regent Arran’s siege, in 1544, of the bishop’s castle, garrisoned by the earl of Glencairn, and the subsequent fight at the Butts (now the Gallowgate) when the terms of surrender were dishonoured, in which the regent’s men gained the day. Most of the inhabitants were opposed to Queen Mary and many actively supported Murray in the battle of Langside—the site of which is now occupied by the Queen’s Park—on the 13th of May 1568, in which she lost crown and kingdom. A memorial of the conflict was erected on the site in 1887. Under James VI. the town became a royal burgh in 1636, with freedom of the river from the Broomielaw to the Cloch. But the efforts to establish episcopacy aroused the fervent anti-prelatical sentiment of the people, who made common cause with the Covenanters to the end of their long struggle. Montrose mulcted the citizens heavily after the battle of Kilsyth in 1645, and three years later the provost and bailies were deposed for contumacy to their sovereign lord. Plague and famine devastated the town in 1649, and in 1652 a conflagration laid a third of the burgh in ashes. Even after the restoration its sufferings were acute. It was the headquarters of the Whiggamores of the west and its prisons were constantly filled with rebels for conscience’ sake. The government scourged the townsfolk with an army of Highlanders, whose brutality only served to strengthen the resistance at the battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Brig. With the Union, hotly resented as it was at the time, the dawn of almost unbroken prosperity arose. By the treaty of Union Scottish ports were placed, in respect of trade, on the same footing as English ports, and the situation of Glasgow enabled it to acquire a full share of the ever-increasing Atlantic trade. Its commerce was already considerable and in population it was now the second town in Scotland. It enjoyed a practical monopoly of the sale of raw and refined sugars, had the right to distil spirits from molasses free of duty, dealt largely in cured herring and salmon, sent hides to English tanners and manufactured soap and linen. It challenged the supremacy of Bristol in the tobacco trade—fetching cargoes from Virginia, Maryland and Carolina in its own fleet—so that by 1772 its importations of tobacco amounted to more than half of the whole quantity brought into the United Kingdom. The tobacco merchants built handsome mansions and the town rapidly extended westwards. With the surplus profits new industries were created, which helped the city through the period of the American War. Most, though not all, of the manufactures in which Glasgow has always held a foremost place date from this period. It was in 1764 that James Watt succeeded in repairing a hitherto unworkable model of Newcomen’s fire (steam) engine in his small workshop within the college precincts. Shipbuilding on a colossal scale and the enormous developments in the iron industries and engineering were practically the growth of the 19th century. The failure of the Western bank in 1857, the Civil War in the United States, the collapse of the City of Glasgow bank in 1878, among other disasters, involved heavy losses and distress, but recovery was always rapid.
Authorities.—J. Cleland, Annals of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1816); Duncan, Literary History of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1886); Registrum Episcopatus Glasgow (Maitland Club, 1843); Pagan, Sketch of the History of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1847); Sir J. D. Marwick, Extracts from the Burgh Records of Glasgow (Burgh Records Society); Charters relating to Glasgow (Glasgow, 1891); River Clyde and Harbour of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1898); Glasgow Past and Present (Glasgow, 1884); Munimenta Universitatis Glasgow (Maitland Club, 1854); J. Strang, ​Glasgow and its Clubs (Glasgow, 1864); Reid (“Senex”), Old Glasgow (Glasgow, 1864); A. Macgeorge, Old Glasgow (Glasgow, 1888); Deas, The River Clyde (Glasgow, 1881); Gale, Loch Katrine Waterworks (Glasgow, 1883); Mason, Public and Private Libraries of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1885); J. Nicol, Vital, Social and Economic Statistics of Glasgow (1881); J. B. Russell, Life in One Room (Glasgow, 1888); Ticketed Houses (Glasgow, 1889); T. Somerville, George Square (Glasgow, 1891); J. A. Kilpatrick, Literary Landmarks of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1898); J. K. M‘Dowall, People’s History of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1899); Sir J. Bell and J. Paton, Glasgow: Its Municipal Organization and Administration (Glasgow, 1896); Sir D. Richmond, Notes on Municipal Work (Glasgow, 1899); J. M. Lang, Glasgow and the Barony (Glasgow, 1895); Old Glasgow (Glasgow, 1896); J. H. Muir, Glasgow in 1901.