HISTORY: 1700 - 1830
Foreign trade began in 1450 when William Elphinstone exported cured salmon and herrings (one of the first commodities of Glasgow) to France in return for French brandy and salt.
The Tobacco Lairds
When the trade routes between Europe and The Americas were opened up the river Clyde found itself well positioned for trade in tobacco. The journey from Glasgow to Virginia took 20 days less than the journey from London to Virginia and this 20 day advantage meant that almost half of the tobacco coming into Europe was distributed through Glasgow. The tobacco merchants (nicknamed ‘tobacco lairds ’) provided the colonists with commodities such as pottery, cloth and other essentials (manufactured in Glasgow) in exchange for tobacco. In 1735 sixty seven ships sailed up the Clyde for destinations such as Virginia, Jamaica, Antigua, St. Kitts, Boston, Gibraltar, Holland and London. The Glasgow merchants were now amongst the wealthiest in Europe.
Two of the most successful tobacco lords were William Glassford (after whom Glassford Street is named) and William Cunninghame (whose town house is now the Gallery of Modern Art). Other survivors of merchant wealth include the Virginia Mansion (originally built in 1841) on Ingram Street known today as the Corinthian (a night club, restaurant and bar) and the Tobacco Merchants House (1775) on Miller Street which is now the home for Glasgow Building Preservation Trust and the Scottish Civic Trust.
John Glassford and Family
Slavery
Virginia slaves 18th Century
Slaves were an important part of merchant business. Records show that slaves were being used as far back as the early 1500s. By the end of the 18th century, however, Glasgow was also leading the way in the abolition of this barbaric trade in human life. In recognition of the 200th anniversary of passing of the Wilberforce Act which ended Britain’s involvement in the slave trade, Glasgow Building Preservation Trust in partnership with Glasgow Anti Racist Alliance, have compiled an iPod walk on the city’s involvement in the trade:http://www.gbpt.org/doorsopenday/index.html
One of the only disadvantages Glasgow had was the depth of the river which fed it. The Clyde was too shallow for ocean-going ships to come into the city, so cargo was generally loaded and unloaded further west at Port Glasgow and then conveyed into the city on smaller craft. In 1770 dynamite was used to make the river Clyde deeper, enabling ships drawing six feet of water to come into the city centre.
Charlie is my Darlin’
On Christmas day 1745 a dejected and woeful looking Prince Charles Edward Stewart entered the city with a ragged and worn-out army of the clans. The people must have waited his arrival with baited breath, as Glasgow had sent six hundred men to fight against the Prince at the beginning of the rebellion. In fact, it is commonly believed that the city would have been burned to the ground if it hadn’t have been for the gentle pleading of Cameron of Lochiel. Instead, the exhausted army paraded along the Trongate to Glasgow Cross where the Prince was proclaimed the legitimate King of Scotland. It was whilst staying in the Merchant City that Charlie met and fell in love with the beautiful Clementina Walkinshaw. Clementina later joined Charlie in exile and together they had a daughter, Charlotte.
The cheeky Prince also stabled his horses in the foundations of St. Andrew’s Church, (now St. Andrew’s in the Square: Glasgow’s Centre for Scottish Culture) at that time still under construction, and demanded that the people of Glasgow provide his men with 6,000 cloth coats, 12,000 linen shirts, 6,000 pairs of shoes, 6,000 pairs of hose, 6,000 waistcoats and 6,000 blue bonnets.
St Andrews in The Square © St Andrews in The Square Trust
The Greatest Love Story Never Told
Of all the romantic figures to wander the streets of the Merchant City, few are better remembered than Robert Burns. Burns had met and fallen in love with Mrs Agnes McLehose whilst visiting Glasgow. Agnes, who lived in the Saltmarket, had married her brutish husband in St. Andrew’s in the Square, but after having several children, he had left her in favour of a new life in the colonies. She was sure she would never again feel a lover’s tender caress, until she met the handsome and talented Robert Burns with whom she corresponded in secret, signing herself as Clarinda whilst Burns signed his passionate epistles with the alias, Sylvander. Not many venues can boast of holding the wedding of Agnes McLehose (Clarinda), for whom Rabbie Burns wrote Ae Fond Kiss, or that Bonnie Prince Charlie's Highland Army, returning from England in 1745, camped within the semi-built walls of the Church. As a function space St. Andrew’s in the Square is stunning, with natural light by day and glittering chandeliers after dark.
Robbie Burns
The First Population Explosion
High St 19th Century © 2008 Glasgow City Council (Archives and Special Collections)
By the 1780s the population of Glasgow had grown to 48,000 and new streets were developed, many of them commemorating international trade like Virginia Street and Jamaica Street. Over the course of the next fifty years the city's population quadrupled and by 1830, 200,000 people lived and worked in Glasgow.
Dirty Old Town
The population explosion meant a huge increase in the amount of effluent running freely in the street; suddenly Daniel Defoe’s picturesque image of the city was becoming one of squalor, overcrowding and stench. The city’s dunghill grew so large that it blocked the street of traffic and disease was increasing. Medical skills needed to be advanced to deal with the health of the population and anatomy schools began to open - not all of them very reputable. These did however provide new employment opportunities - for ‘body snatchers’ - dubious gentlemen who would purloin bodies either straight from the grave, or worse, create fresh cadavers by lurking around dark alleyways armed with a sharp knife. The bodies they obtained were then sold to the schools of anatomy and thanks to this grim practice, modern medicine was born (as allegedly, was Mary Shelley’s monster in Frankenstein).
Crime was rife and led to the employment of the first ‘Polis’ (policeman) of the city in 1778 when an inspector was appointed at the cost of £100 a year. Punishments, however, were regarded as an entertainment. The practice of ‘Lug Pinning’ (where a villain would have his ear nailed to the prison door) for example was so popular, the burgh records noted how ‘it corrupted community life, weavers would leave their looms and children would play truant’ just to cheer on the lug pinnees as they tore themselves free.
‘Laughing policemen’ © Britannia Music Hall Trust
The Tron by Peter Howson © The Third Step Gallery
After King George III lost the American colonies, trade between Glasgow and Virginia ceased, ending the reign of the Tobacco Lairds. Fortunately, a young man named James Watt revolutionised the working of the industrial steam engine. With its natural mineral resources (coal and iron ore) Glasgow suddenly found itself at the front line of the Industrial Revolution.
James Watt
When James Watt was walking along Glasgow Green (Glasgow’s most ancient park just east of the Merchant City) one Sabbath in 1765 he suddenly came up with an idea that was to revolutionise the working of the Industrial Steam Engine. He wrote in his journal that after passing the wash house (laundry or 'steamie' as it's known in Glasgow) it came into his mind that "...steam was an elastic body, it would rush into a vacuum and, if a communication were made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel, it would rush into it and might be condensed without cooling the cylinder... I had not walked further than the golf house when the whole thing was arranged in my mind." Mr Watt could never have imagined what his advancements with the engine would mean to Glasgow, let alone the rest of the world.
Glasgow Green Archway © 2008 Glasgow City Council (Development + Regeneration Services)