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 8¼ 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 1½ 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 3½ 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 23½ m., and an additional reservoir, holding 694,000,000 gallons, was constructed, increasing the supply held in reserve from 12½ days’ to 30½ days’. In 1909 the building of a dam was undertaken 1¼ m. west of the lower end of Loch Arklet, designed to create a sheet of water 2½ 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.
GLASITES, or Sandemanians,[1] a Christian sect, founded in Scotland by John Glas (q.v.). It spread into England and America, but is now practically extinct. Glas dissented from the Westminster Confession only in his views as to the spiritual nature of the church and the functions of the civil magistrate. But his son-in-law Robert Sandeman added a distinctive doctrine as to the nature of faith which is thus stated on his tombstone: “That the bare death of Jesus Christ without a thought or deed on the part of man, is sufficient to present the chief of sinners spotless before God.” In a series of letters to James Hervey, the author of Theron and Aspasia, he maintained that justifying faith is a simple assent to the divine testimony concerning Jesus Christ, differing in no way in its character from belief in any ordinary testimony. In their practice the Glasite churches aimed at a strict conformity with the primitive type of Christianity as understood by them. Each congregation had a plurality of elders, pastors or bishops, who were chosen according to what were believed to be the instructions of Paul, without regard to previous education or present occupation, and who enjoy a perfect equality in office. To have been married a second time disqualified for ordination, or for continued tenure of the office of bishop. In all the action of the church unanimity was considered to be necessary; if any member differed in opinion from the rest, he must either surrender his judgment to that of the church, or be shut out from its communion. To join in prayer with any one not a member of the denomination was regarded as unlawful, and even to eat or drink with one who had been excommunicated was held to be wrong. The Lord’s Supper was observed weekly; and between forenoon and afternoon service every Sunday a love feast was held at which every member was required to be present. Mutual exhortation was practised at all the meetings for divine service, when any member who had the gift of speech (χάρισμα) was allowed to speak. The practice of washing one another’s feet was at one time observed; and it was for a long time customary for each brother and sister to receive new members, on admission, with a holy kiss. “Things strangled” and “blood” were rigorously abstained from; the lot was regarded as sacred; the accumulation of wealth they held to be unscriptural and improper, and each member considered his property as liable to be called upon at any time to meet the wants of the poor and the necessities of the church. Churches of this order were founded in Paisley, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leith, Arbroath, Montrose, Aberdeen, Dunkeld, Cupar, Galashiels, Liverpool and London, where Michael Faraday was long an elder. Their exclusiveness in practice, neglect of education for the ministry, and the antinomian tendency of their doctrine contributed to their dissolution. Many Glasites joined the general body of Scottish Congregationalists, and the sect may now be considered extinct. The last of the Sandemanian churches in America ceased to exist in 1890.
See James Ross, History of Congregational Independency in Scotland (Glasgow, 1900).
(D. Mn.)