GLASGOW 



3548 



GLASGOW 



quarrels. When, encouraged by 

 Henry VIII of England, the earls 

 of Lennox and Glencairn, chiefs of 

 the Protestant party, seized the 

 bishop's castle at Glasgow, their 

 forces were defeated by the regent 

 Arran on the Gallowmuir E. of the 

 city, and for the part the burgesses 

 had taken Arran hanged the de- 

 fenders of the castle and steeple, 

 plundered the town, and threatened 

 to reduce it to ashes. 



In 1560 James Beaton, the last 

 Roman Catholic archbishop, fled 

 to France, but at that time, when 

 abbeys and cathedrals everywhere 

 went down in ruin, the cathedral 

 of Glasgow alone of all those on the 

 mainland of Scotland remained un- 

 destroyed. On the flight of the 

 archbishop, Glasgow seized the 

 common lands, feued them to the 

 inhabitants, and declared its right 

 to elect its own magistrate. This 

 right was confirmed by a letter of 

 James VI in 1611, and by charters 

 of Charles I in 1636, and of William 

 and Mary in 1690. 



In 1638 Glasgow Cathedral 

 was the meeting - place of the 

 great general assembly which de- 

 fied the order of Charles I's high 

 commissioner to dissolve, and pro- 

 ceeded to pass the decree abolishing 

 episcopacy in Scotland. 



From Glasgow, Graham of Claver- 

 house rode out with his dragoons 

 to capture the Covenanters who 

 had murdered Archbishop Sharp. 

 After his defeat, it was at Glasgow 

 Cross that he set up barricades and 

 defended himself against the 

 attacks of the Covenanters and 

 their friends, who, upon news of his 

 overthrow, had marched after him 

 to follow up their victory. 



By this time the city of Glasgow 

 had become a thriving business 

 centre. Following the rights of 

 fair and market secured by Bishop 

 Jocelin from William the Lion, 

 Bishop Walter in the 13th century 

 obtained from King Alexander II 

 charters protecting the burgh from 

 invasion by the bailies of Ruther- 

 glen on the E. and giving the citi- 

 zens the right of free trade in all 

 the regions of Lennox and Argyll 

 without hindrance from the bailies 

 of Dumbarton. 



Birth of Foreign Trade 



Glasgow thus began to be the 

 mart for trade with the W. High- 

 lands which it remains to the 

 present day. Its foreign trade is 

 said to have been begun by 

 William Elphinstone, who about 

 1420 began curing salmon and 

 herring and sending them to 

 France, where they were exchanged 

 for brandy and salt. A hundred 

 years later Archibald Lyon, a son 

 of Lord Glamis, " undertook great 

 adventures and voyages in trading 



to Poland, France, and Holland." 

 Considerable jealousy existed be- 

 tween the traders and the mer- 

 chants of the city till in 1605 Sir 

 George Elphinstone drew up his 

 Letter of Guildry, which fixed the 

 separate rights and powers of the 

 Trades House and the Merchants' 

 House. 



In 1656 Cromwell's commissioner 

 reported that, except those con- 

 nected with the college, all the 

 people of Glasgow were traders, 

 some to Ireland, some to France, 

 and some to Norway. They had 

 even adventured to Barbados, and 

 owned twelve vessels, the three 

 largest being of 150 tons. In 1674 a 

 whale-fishing company was started 

 which had five ships on sea, a 

 blubber and curing factory in 

 Greenock, and a soapworks in 

 Glasgow itself. And in 1686 

 Walter Gibson began curing the 

 first red herrings, and trading 

 with them to France. 



Steamships on the Clyde 



But the greatest of all the in- 

 dustries started then was the 

 weaving of cotton, of which the 

 first web produced in Scotland 

 was made by James Monteith in 

 the village of Anderston, near the 

 city, in 1780. Three years later 

 David Dale, with Richard Ark- 

 wright, the inventor of spinning 

 by water power, set up his great 

 cotton mills at New Lanark and 

 elsewhere, and soon cotton spin- 

 ning and cotton weaving were an 

 immense trade. 



Great impetus was given to this 

 and other industries by James 

 Watt's improvements in the steam- 

 engine. Following this came the 

 invention of the steamboat by 

 William Symington, who in 1789 

 had a steamer running at seven 

 miles an hour on the Forth and 

 Clyde canal. After this came the 

 launch of the first passenger 

 steamer, the Comet, on the Clyde in 

 1812, and so began the great mod- 

 ern steamship industry of Glasgow. 



To accommodate this industry 

 the Clyde was gradually deepened. 

 At an earlier day the Glasgow mer- 

 chants had used Irvine as a port, 

 and, when its harbour silted up, 

 had built Port Glasgow for the 

 purpose. Schemes to deepen the 

 river had been propounded by 

 Smeaton in 1755, and by James 

 Watt a few years later, but it was 

 not till the 19th century that the 

 systematic deepening and clear- 

 ing of the channel began. Now, 

 instead of a depth of 15 ins. at the 

 Broomielaw, and 2 f fc. at Dumbuck 

 ford at low water, it is possible 

 for the largest and heaviest ships 

 in the world to pass down the 

 waterway. Following the rise of 

 the shipping industry, David 



Napier, and afterwards his cousin 

 Robert, set about the building of 

 vessels. These men of enterprise 

 were followed by others, and to- 

 day the whole riverside for many 

 miles is occupied either by docks 

 or by shipbuilding yards. 

 Trade with America 



At the end of the 18th century the 

 enterprise of Glasgow sufferei its 

 first staggering blow by the col- 

 lapse of the great Darien expedi- 

 tion in which the merchants of 

 Glasgow had taken a large share, 

 and part of which sailed from the 

 Clyde. But the union of Scotland 

 and England in 1707 opened up 

 great new possibilities of trade 

 across the Atlantic, which the 

 merchants of Glasgow were prompt 

 to seize. Within five years the 

 number of ships belonging to 

 Glasgow and the Clyde had grown 

 from 21 to 183, and Glasgow was 

 on the straight road to prosperity. 

 Daniel Defoe described the place 

 at that time as " a large, stately 

 and well-built city, standing on a 

 plain in a manner four square ; and 

 the four principal streets are the 

 fairest for breadth and the finest 

 built that I have ever seen in one 

 city together. In a word, it is one 

 of the cleanliest, most beautiful 

 and best built cities in Great 

 Britain." 



This was the appearance of the 

 city when Prince Charles Edward 

 entered it on Christmas Day, 1745, 

 at the head of his Highland army, 

 on his way back from the march to 

 Derby. On that occasion he levied 

 from the magistrates a large 

 quantity of clothing for his men, 

 and held a review of his troops on 

 Glasgow Green. 



INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE. The 

 Glasgow merchants were becoming 

 meanwhile the greatest importers 

 of tobacco in the country. In 1772, 

 of the 90,000 hogsheads of the 

 leaf imported into Britain, Glasgow 

 alone imported 49,000, and many 

 great fortunes were built up by the 

 tobacco lords, as these merchants 

 were called. In 1775 the trade of 

 Glasgow suffered its second great 

 catastrophe by the revolt of the 

 American colonies. When this 

 occurred the American planters 

 were owing the Glasgow merchants 

 a million sterling, and many of the 

 latter were ruined. But already 

 other trades had sprung up. In 

 particular the first sugar house had 

 been established here in 1667. 

 While quartered in the island of 

 St. Kitts two of the king's officers, 

 Colonel William MacDowall and 

 Major James Milliken, had married 

 a mother and daughter, owners of 

 great sugar estates. On returning 

 to Glasgow the two proceeded to 

 develop the sugar trade with 



