by Alan Taylor
There was an order of women at that time in Glasgow, who, being either young widows not wealthy, or young women unprovided for, were set up in small grocery-shops in various parts of the town, and generally were protected and countenanced by some creditable merchant. In their back shops much time and money were consumed; for it being customary then to drink drams and white wine in the forenoon, the tipplers restored much to those shops, where there were bedrooms; and the patron, with his friends, frequently passed the evening there also, as taverns were not frequented by persons with affected characters of strict decency.
1751–1800
WHAT TO DO WITH DUNG
THE SARACEN’S HEAD, 1755
Robert Tennant
Prior to the 1750s, according to one nineteenth-century chronicler, Glasgow ‘possessed no inns for the accommodation of travellers, except small public houses to which stabling was attached, and the signboard of these petty hostelries generally bore the well-known intimation to wayfarers of “Entertainment for men and horses here”.’ The first purpose-built inn in the city was the Saracen’s Head, built in 1755, with stones recycled from the nearby medieval archbishop’s palace. The land was donated by Glasgow magistrates. It had thirty-six rooms and a large meeting room which could accommodate one hundred people. It soon acquired a good reputation and was used by judges on the circuit. In 1779, the ‘Sarrie Heid’, as it soon became known, hosted a charity dinner, attended by members of the nobility and country gentry who were pleasantly surprised to see ‘fifteen or sixteen elegant young cooks, with white aprons’ acting as waitresses. Robert Tennant, its original owner, told the Glasgow Courant:
The bed-chambers are all separate, none of them entering through another, and so contrived that there is no need of going out of doors to get to them. The beds are all very good, clean and free from bugs.
THE HUNT FOR THOMAS DIDDY, c. 1770s
Advert in a Glasgow paper
Glasgow’s – and Scotland’s – role in the slave trade has long been under-acknowledged, ignored and brushed under the carpet. While it is true that few vessels left Scottish ports for Africa to participate in this abhorrent business, and that Scots were at the forefront of the abolitionist movement, there can be no doubt that Scots in general and Glaswegians in particular were no innocent bystanders as human beings were treated like animals and traded like commodities.
From his master’s house in Glasgow, on the morning of Saturday 3d current, A NEGRO MAN. He is about 35 years of age, and 5 feet 9 or 10 inches high, pretty broad and stout made, broad faced, and somewhat yellowish complexioned. The white of his eyes are remarkably tinged with black, and he has a fairly gloomy aspect. His dress when he ran off, was an olive-coloured thickset coat, jacket and breeches, a black wig tied behind, and silver buckles in his shoes: but as they were all good, it is probable he would change them for worse, and thereby supply himself with cash.
His name is THOM, but sometimes he assumes the name of THOMAS DIDDY.
A Reward of FIVE GUINEAS, and payment of all reasonable charges, is hereby offered to secure said Negro in any jail in Scotland, so he may be kept safe, and delivered to his Master’s order. The money to be paid by Mr John Alston merchant in Glasgow, upon notice being sent to him of the Negro’s being secured.
All shipmasters are hereby cautioned against carrying the said Negro abroad; and if any person harbours him, or assists him in making his escape, they will be prosecuted therefor.
BEST OF THE SECOND-RATE, 1771
Thomas Pennant
Hailing from Wales, Thomas Pennant (1726–98) combined his interests in the natural world and travelling, about which he wrote copiously. His travel writings were admired by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, though the latter disapproving of his portrait of Scotland. Pennant, remarked Johnson, is ‘the best traveller I ever read; he observes more things than any one else does’. This, thought Boswell, ‘was too high praise of a writer who had traversed a wide extent of country in such haste’.
Reach Glasgow; the best built of any second-rate city I ever saw: the houses of stone, and in general well built, and many in good taste, plain and unaffected. The principal street runs east and west, is near a mile and a half long, but unfortunately not straight; yet the view from the cross, where the two other great streets fall into this, has an air of vast magnificence. The tolbooth is large and handsome, with the apt motto on the front:
Haec domus odit, amat, punit, conservat, honorat,
nequitiam, pacem, crimina, jura, probos.
Next to the exchange: within is a spacious room, with full-length portraits of all our monarchs since James I, and an excellent one, by Ramsay, of Archibald, Duke of Argyle, in his robes as Lord of Sessions. Before the exchange is a large equestrian statue of King William. This is the finest and broadest part of the street: many of the houses are built over arcades, but too narrow to be walked in with any conveniency. Numbers of other streets cross this at right angles.
The market-places are great ornaments to the city, the fronts being done up in very fine taste, and the gates adorned with columns of one or other of the orders. Some of these markets are for meal, greens, fish or flesh: there are two for the last which have conduits of water out of several of the pillars, so that they are constantly kept sweet and neat. Before these buildings were constructed, most of those articles were sold in the public streets; and even after the market-places were built, the magistrates with great difficulty compelled the people to take advantage of such cleanly innovations.
Near the meal-market is the public granary, to be filled on any apprehension of scarcity.
The guardhouse is in the great street; where the inhabitants mount guard, and regularly do duty. An excellent police is observed here; and proper officers attend the markets to prevent abuses.
A MEDIOCRITY OF KNOWLEDGE, 1773
Samuel Johnson
James Boswell (1740–95) had long hoped to bring his hero, Samuel Johnson (1709–84), to his native Scotland and, in particular, to the Western Isles. Finally, in the autumn of 1773, he realised his ambition. The pair set off from Edinburgh – ‘a city too well known to admit description’ – and crossed the Firth of Forth, heading up the north-east coast before travelling westward, via Banff, Elgin and Inverness (where the intrepid duo bade ‘farewell to the luxury of travelling’), to the Highlands and Islands about which Johnson wrote with his usual forthrightness. Glasgow was one of the last stops on a journey that provided a template for countless future wayfarers.
To describe a city so much frequented as Glasgow, is unnecessary. The prosperity of its commerce appears by the greatness of many private houses, and a general appearance of wealth. It is the only episcopal city whose cathedral was left standing in the rage of the Reformation. It is now divided into many separate places of worship, which, taken all together, compose a great pile, that had been some centuries in the building, but was never finished; for the change of religion intercepted its progress, before the cross isle was added, which seems essential to a Gothick cathedral.
The college has not had a sufficient share of the increasing magnificence of the place. The session was begun; for it commences on the tenth of October, and continues to the tenth of June, but the students appeared not numerous, being, I suppose, not yet returned from their several homes. The division of the academical year into one session, and one recess, seems to me better accommodated to the present state of life, than that variegated of time by terms and vacations derived from distant centuries, in which it was probably convenient, and still continued in the English universities. So many solid months as the Scotch scheme of education joins together, allow and encourage a plan for each part of the year; but with us, he that has settled himself to study in the college is soon tempted into the country, and he that has adjusted his life in the country, is summoned back to his college.
Yet when I have allowed to the universities of Scotland a more rational distribution of time, I have given them, so far as my inquiries have inf
ormed me, all that they can claim. The students, for the most part, go thither boys, and depart before they are men; they carry with them little fundamental knowledge, and therefore the superstructure cannot be lofty. The grammar schools are not generally well supplied; for the character of a school-master being there less honourable than in England, is seldom accepted by men who are capable to adorn it, and where the school has been deficient, the college can effect little.
Men bred in the universities of Scotland cannot be expected to be often decorated with the splendours of ornamental erudition, but they obtain a mediocrity of knowledge, between learning and ignorance, not inadequate to the purposes of common life, which is, I believe, very widely diffused among them, and which countenanced in general by a national combination so invidious, that their friends cannot defend it, and actuated in particulars by a spirit of enterprise so vigorous, that their enemies are constrained to praise it, enables them to find, or to make their way to employment, riches, and distinction.
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN BRENTFORD? 1773
James Boswell
In his journal of the tour of the Western Isles he undertook with Samuel Johnson, James Boswell was as keen to relay what his companion was doing and saying as to describe the people and places visited. But though he was in awe of Johnson, Boswell was a brilliant and colourful reporter and his biography of Johnson, which drew heavily on his infamous journal, is one of the main reasons why the great polymath is still remembered. Boswell was born in Edinburgh, the eldest son of Lord Auchinleck. He studied law at Glasgow but his passion was for literature and making friends with the famous. He first met Dr Johnson in a bookshop in London in 1763. When he told Johnson that he came from Scotland, he was told: ‘That, Sir, I find, is what a great many of your countrymen cannot help.’
On our arrival at the Saracen’s Head . . . I was made happy by good accounts from home; and Dr Johnson, who had not received a single letter since we left Aberdeen, found here a great many, the perusal of which entertained him much. He enjoyed in imagination the comforts which we could now command, and seemed to be in high glee. I remember, he put a leg on each side of the grate, and said, with mock solemnity, by way of soliloquy, but loud enough for me to hear it, ‘Here am I, an English man, sitting by a coal fire.’
The professors of the university being informed of our arrival, Dr Stevenson, Dr Reid and Mr Anderson, breakfasted with us. Mr Anderson accompanied us while Dr Johnson viewed this beautiful city. He had told me that, one day in London, when Dr Adam Smith was boasting of it, he turned to him and said, ‘Pray, sir, have you ever seen Brentford?’
DUNG-MOVING, 1781
Glasgow Mercury
An extract from an advertisement placed by the magistrates of Glasgow, who were clearly determined to force their fellow citizens to clean up their act.
That all proprietors of houses in this city shall, as soon as the season will admit, remove all water-barges, and fix and erect rones and pipes for the purpose of conveying the water from the eaves of of their respective buildings; so constructed as to prevent loose slates from falling upon the streets; and it is recommended to those the inhabitants who have already conveyed down their water in this manner that they will cause their pipes to be lengthened so as to prevent inconvenience to the public in rainy weather.
That all persons using ladders for repairing houses shall remove the same every evening before sunset, and no mason or slater, or any person working on the roofs of the houses in this city, shall throw over rubbish of any kind without keeping a person as a watch to prevent danger to the inhabitants.
That the person or persons having properties in dunghills in the closes opposite to which the dung of the street is laid down, shall remove the same in twelve hours after it is collected by the scavengers, and no dung going to the country will be suffered to remain on the street after sunset on any pretext whatsoever.
That all boys shall be discharged by their parents and masters from playing tops, shinty, or using any diversion whatever upon the flags [flagstones] that may be incommodious to the inhabitants; they are likewise discharged from playing shinty on the Green.
That no person shall shake carpets, or throw water or nastiness over any of the windows of this city.
That all boys, or others, who shall be detected at any time, throwing stones, making bonfires, crying for illuminations, or attempting to make any disturbance on the streets of this city, calculated to endanger public peace, shall be punished with the utmost severity. On all such occasions parents and masters are to be accountable for their children or apprentices, and a reward is hereby offered of Five Pounds sterling to any person who shall detect or discover boys, or others, guilty of these practices, to be paid on conviction of the offenders.
That as the poor who have a right to the charity of the city are amply provided for, it is earnestly recommended to the inhabitants to give their assistance in suppressing and discouraging vagrant and public beggars.
That all horses going to water shall on no pretence be rode hard, nor shall any person be permitted to gallop through the streets or avenues of this city.
1801–1850
HAUNTS OF VAGRANCY
GLASGOW GREEN, 23 AUGUST, 1803
Dorothy Wordsworth
Accompanied by her brother William, and for a short period by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dorothy Wordsworth (1771–1855) travelled north from their home in the Lake District on a tour of Scotland which took them through the Scottish Lowlands and south-western Highlands. As summer slid into autumn they covered over 660 miles. On their return home, Dorothy recorded with warmth and poetic imagery her impressions in a journal she entitled Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, A.D. 1803.
A cold morning. Walked to the bleaching ground [Glasgow Green], a large field bordering on the Clyde, the banks of which are perfectly flat, and the general face of the country is nearly so in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. This field, the whole summer through, is covered with women of all ages, children, and young girls spreading out their linen, and watching it while it bleaches. The scene must be very cheerful on a fine day, but it rained when we were there, and though there was linen spread out in all parts, and great numbers of women and girls were at work, yet there would have been many more on a fine day, and they would have appeared happy, instead of stupid and cheerless. In the middle of the field is a wash-house, whither the inhabitants of this large town, rich and poor, send or carry their linen to be washed. There are two very large rooms, with each a cistern in the middle for hot water; and all round the rooms are benches for the women to set their tubs upon. Both the rooms were crowded with washers; there might be a hundred or two, or even three; for it is not easy to form an accurate notion of so great a number; however, the rooms were large, and they were both full. It was amusing to see so many women, arms, head, and face all in motion, all busy in an ordinary household employment, in which we are accustomed to see, at the most, only three or four women employed in one place. The women were very civil. I learnt from them the regulations of the house; but I have forgotten the particulars. The substance of them is, that ‘so much’ is to be paid for each tub of water, ‘so much’ for a tub, and the privilege of washing for a day and, ‘so much’ to the general onlookers of the linen, when it is left to be bleached. An old man and woman have this office, who were walking about, two melancholy figures.
The shops of Glasgow are large, and like London shops, and we passed by the largest coffee-shop I ever saw. You look across the piazza of the Exchange, and see to the end of the coffee-room, where there is a circular window, the width of the room. Perhaps there might be thirty gentlemen sitting on the circular bench at the window, each reading a newspaper. They had the appearance of figures in a fantoccine, or men seen at the extremity of the opera-house, diminished into puppets.
INDESCRIBABLY UNDERBRED, 1818
Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus
Born in Edinburgh, the daughter of a Highland landowner, Elizabeth Grant (1797–1885)
spent her formative years in London, holidaying in Scotland in summer. In 1814, the family returned permanently to Edinburgh. She is known chiefly for her diary, Memoirs of a Highland Lady (1898) and its sequel, The Highland Lady in Ireland.
Glasgow was not a place to improve in. We were there once, I forget in what year. My father went to collect evidence in some political business, my Mother and I with him, as a cloke I suppose. We were at Aunt Leitch’s pretty new house in St Vincent Street, and she took a great deal of trouble for us in making up parties at home, engagements abroad, and even directed an Assembly. We were not very refined in manners in Edinburgh, some of us, but there were brains with us, abilities of a high order, turned to a more intellectual account than could be the general employment of them in a mere manufacturing seaport town, for into that had Glasgow sunk. Its college, as to renown, was gone; its merchants no longer the Cadets of the neighbouring old County families, but their clerks of low degree shot up into the high places. ‘Some did remain who in vain mourned the better days when they were young,’ but as a whole the Society was indescribably underbred.
THE NATIONAL JEALOUSY OF THE ENGLISH, 1818
Sir Walter Scott
The influence and importance of Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) is incalculable. Born in Edinburgh, he is forever associated with the Borders, where he built a house, Abbotsford, on the banks of the Tweed near Melrose. Called to the Bar in 1792, he combined a career in the law with writing. His first fame came as a poet but it is as a novelist that he is best remembered. His first novel, Waverley, appeared anonymously in 1814, but his secret was soon out. Many others followed and drew admirers from across the globe. The following extract is taken from Rob Roy (1817), which is set immediately before the Jacobite rising of 1715. One of its main characters, and a great favourite with readers, is Bailie Nicol Jarvie of Glasgow.
