This article deals with the history of the city of Glasgow, Scotland.
Founding of the city
The present site of Glasgow has been settled since prehistoric times, being the furthest downstream fording point of the River Clyde, at its confluence with the Molendinar Burn. The Romans built outposts in the area and constructed the Antonine Wall to keep Roman Britannia separate from Celtic and Pictish Caledonia. Items from the wall, such as altars from Roman forts, including Balmuildy, can be seen in the Hunterian Museum. After the Romans withdrew from Caledonia, the village was part of the large Kingdom of Strathclyde, whose capital was at Dumbarton downstream. It merged in the 9th century with other regions to create the united Kingdom of Scotland.The City of Glasgow – The Third Statistical Account of Scotland, published 1958 The origins of Glasgow as an established city derive from its medieval position as Scotland's second largest bishopric. Glasgow increased in importance during the 10th and 11th centuries when this bishopric was reorganised by King David I of Scotland and John, Bishop of Glasgow.Alcock & Alcock, Excavations at Alt Clut; Koch, The Place of Y Gododdin. Barrell, Medieval Scotland, p. 44, supposes that the diocese of Glasgow established by David I in 1128 may have corresponded with the late kingdom of Strath
Glasgow Cathedral By the 12th century Glasgow had been granted the status of what can now be called a city and the cathedral was the seat of the Bishops and (after 1472) the Archbishops of Glasgow. While there may have been wooden buildings on the site, the first stone cathedral was consecrated in about 1136 and replaced by a bigger one which was consecrated in 1197. In the 15th century a private chapel was made to St Machan in the north nave to devolve to the congregation at the death of the founder."Supplementary abstracts to charters in volume 2: c.1116–1576." Charters and Documents Relating To the City of Glasgow 1175–1649 Part 1. Ed. J D Marwick. Glasgow: Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1897. 3–27. British History Online . Web. 2 March 2019. Extensions and alterations to the cathedral buildings have continued ever since. The most recent addition was the Millennium Window unveiled on 3 June 1999.David Daiches, Glasgow (1977) p 10-14
After the Scottish Reformation in 1560, the Catholic rituals ended and the Catholic statues and symbols were removed or painted over. The large Cathedral served three different Presbyterian parishes simultaneously. The choir was used by the Inner High parish. The nave was used by the Outer High parish (later named St. Paul's). The crypt was used by Laigh parish.Daiches, Glasgow (1977) p 29
University of Glasgow In 1451, the University of Glasgow was founded by papal bull and established in religious buildings in the precincts of Glasgow Cathedral. By the start of the 16th century, Glasgow had become an important religious and academic city and by the 17th century After 1870 the university attained international stature. The university's teaching quality was assessed in 2009 to be among the top 10 in Britain, along with its reputation as a "research powerhouse."Michael Moss, et al. University, City & State: The University of Glasgow since 1871 (2000)
Trade and the Industrial Revolution Atlantic trade
By the 16th century, the city's tradesmen and craftsmen had begun to wield significant influence, particularly the Incorporation of Tailors, which in 1604 was the largest guild in Glasgow; members of merchant and craft guilds accounted for about 10% of the population by the 17th century. With the discovery of the Americas and the trade routes it opened up, Glasgow was ideally placed to become an important trading centre with the River Clyde providing access to the city and the rest of Scotland for merchant shipping. However, Scottish trade opportunities were hampered when the Parliament of England passed the Navigation Acts in 1651, proscribing non-English shipping from trading with the English overseas possessions and transporting goods from non-European nations to England or its colonies. Scotland's loss of the colony of Nova Scotia as a result of the Anglo-French War of 1627–1629 also hampered Scottish trade. A second attempt at a Scottish colony, the Darien scheme, ended in disaster, bankrupting the country in 1700.Meighan 2013, p. 20. However, Scottish merchants were undeterred by the Navigation Acts, continuing small-scale smuggling with English colonies until the Act of Union in 1707.
Access to the Atlantic Ocean allowed the import of slave-produced cash crops such as American tobacco and cotton along with Caribbean sugar into Glasgow, which were then further exported throughout Europe. These imports flourished after 1707, when union with England made the trade legal. By 1760, Glasgow had outstripped London as the main port for tobacco in the Kingdom of Great Britain.Meighan 2013, p. 26. The American War of Independence put an end to most American trade, leading to financial ruin for some; trade turned to sugar, which largely came from slave plantations in the Caribbean.
Glasgow's transformation from a provincial town to an international business hub was based originally on its control of the tobacco trade with the Thirteen Colonies. The trade was interrupted by the American Revolutionary War, and never recovered to even a fourth of its old trade. The tobacco merchants grew rich as their stocks of tobacco soared in value; they had diversified their holdings and were not badly hurt. Merchants turned their attention to the British West Indies and to textile manufacture. The trade, along with direct involvement in slave ownership, made a group of Glasgow merchants known as the "Tobacco Lords" very wealthy; they adopted the lifestyle of the landed gentry, and lavished vast sums on great houses and splendid churches of Glasgow.Tom Devine, "The tobacco lords of Glasgow," History Today (1990) 40#4 pp17-21; online; T.M. Devine, The Tobacco Lords: A Study of the Tobacco Merchants of Glasgow and their Trading Activities, 1740–90 (Edinburgh University Press, 1990) The merchants constructed spectacular buildings and monuments that can still be seen today, and reinvested their money in industrial development to help Glasgow grow further.
Civic improvements
As the city's wealth increased, its centre expanded westwards as the lush Victorian architecture of what is now known as the Merchant City area began to spring up. New public buildings such as the City Chambers on George Square, Trades hall on Glassford Street, and the Mitchell Library in Charing Cross epitomised the wealth and riches of Glasgow in the late 19th century with their lavishly decorated interiors and intricately carved stonework. As this new development took place, the focus of Glasgow city centre moved away from its medieval origins at High Street, Trongate, Saltmarket and Rottenrow, and these areas fell into partial dereliction, something which is in places still evident to the present day.
Largely due to the money generated by trade, but also thanks to the opportunities created by the different industries present in and around the city, Glasgow's population boomed. Where in 1750 it had numbered 32,000 inhabitants, by 1850 it counted 200,000.Meighan 2013, p. 76. Town planning began in earnest in about 1770, under the guidance of James Barrie who, in 1772, implemented a new grid system above Ingram Street.Meighan 2013, p. 78. However, this could not keep pace with the increasing population and conditions in the overcrowded slums were notoriously bad.
The de-silting of the Clyde in the 1770s allowed bigger ships to move further up the river, thus laying the foundations for industry and shipbuilding in Glasgow during the 19th century.
The abundance of coal and iron in Lanarkshire led to Glasgow becoming an industrial city. Textile mills, based on cotton and wool, became large employers in Glasgow and the local region.
Shipbuilding
In 1893 the burgh was constituted as the County of the City of Glasgow. Glasgow became one of the richest cities in the world, and a municipal public transport system, parks, museums and libraries were all opened during this period.
Glasgow became one of the largest cities in the world, and known as "the Second City of the Empire" after London [although Liverpool, Dublin and several other British cities claim the same].J. F. MacKenzie, "The second city of the Empire: Glasgow – imperial municipality", in F. Driver and D. Gilbert, eds, Imperial Cities: Landscape, Display and Identity (2003), pp. 215–23. Shipbuilding on Clydeside (the river Clyde through Glasgow and other points) began when the first small yards were opened in 1712 at the Scott family's shipyard at Greenock. After 1860 the Clydeside shipyards specialised in steamships made of iron (after 1870, made of steel), which rapidly replaced the wooden sailing ships of both the merchant fleets and the battle fleets of the world. It became the world's pre-eminent shipbuilding centre. Clydebuilt became an industry benchmark of quality, and the river's shipyards were given contracts for warships.J. Shields, Clyde Built: a History of Ship-Building on the River Clyde (1949).
Textile industry In the late 17th century, Scottish linen was a major export to England. In 1680, the linen industry employed about 12,000 people in the Glasgow area, and the industry was heavily promoted by the government.Michael Meighan, Glasgow: A History (Amberley Publishing, 2013), p. 21. Thanks to a series of government acts and beneficial tax measures, by 1770, Glasgow had become the largest linen manufacturer in Britain. Tastes, however, were shifting towards ever more diaphanous fabrics, and Scottish manufacture could not compete in terms of quality. The climate was ideal for processing cotton, and Glasgow textile manufacturers turned their attentions to the production of fine cotton muslins, at which they came to excel, challenging the dominion of Indian muslins traded by the East India Company by the 1780s.Margaret Swain, Scottish Embroidery: Medieval to Modern (BT Batsford, 1986), p. 95. Textiles, including plain, chequered and printed linens,Henry Hamilton, An Economic History of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 263. and clothing items were among Scotland's main exports to the tobacco-producing colonies from the 1720s onwards;see Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through The Whole Island of Great Britain. while the majority of these exports initially consisted in linen, by the close of the 18th century cotton had taken its place.Henry Hamilton, An Economic History of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 281.
From the 1750s, the fashion for silk gauze led to an industry being set up in Paisley, which was hugely successful. Silk gauze was worn by women of almost all social classes, and could not be washed without losing its lustre, so the market was immensely lucrative. By the 1780s, Paisley silk gauze was being exported to England, Ireland and Continental Europe. As the fashion changed, cotton and muslin took over.Kimberley Chrisman Campbell, "Paisley Before the Shawl: The Scottish Silk Gauze Industry", Textile History 33(2), 2002, 162–176.
20th century The First World War brought large war contracts to the shipbuilders, even as many of the most skilled workers went into the services.
The city council was unique in the United Kingdom in appointing an official war artist, Frederick Farrell.