Glasgow

Glasgow , city (1991 pop. 688,500) and council area, S central Scotland, on the river Clyde. Glasgow is Scotland's leading seaport and largest city and is the center of the great Clydeside industrial belt. Once known for its large shipyards, metalworks, and engineering works, Glasgow's manufactured products now include electronic equipment, computers, chemicals, carpets, textiles, tobacco, and machine tools. Printing, engineering, and tourism are also important. Plagued by widespread slums, the city began a rebuilding program in the late 1950s. Many small companies have moved into industrial parks in surrounding new towns, which has decreased congestion in the inner city. It is connected to London and Edinburgh by rail and has bus and subway systems and an international airport.

Glasgow was founded in the late 6th cent. by St. Mungo (St. Kentigern), who is remembered in the city's arms and motto. The battle of Langside (1568) was fought in what is now a suburb. Glasgow's modern commercial growth began with the American tobacco trade in the 18th cent. and the cotton trade in the early 19th cent. Its proximity to the Lanarkshire coal fields and location on the Clyde (first deepened at Glasgow in 1768) aided its development as an industrial center during the mid-19th cent. By the 1990s Glasgow had largely rid itself of its image as a slum-ridden, unpleasant city by emphasizing its cultural attributes.

Points of interest include St. Mungo's Cathedral (mostly 13th cent.); Kelvingrove Art Galleries and Museum; the Hunterian Art Gallery (at Glasgow Univ., est. 1807); the Provand's Lordship (Glasgow's oldest house, built 1471); the Museum of Transport; the Burrell Museum; the Lighthouse, an architecture, design, and urban planning center; and Norman Foster 's Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (1984), popularly known as the "armadillo." Glasgow was the center of a school of realistic art in the late 19th cent. and the home of the architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh , who designed the Glasgow School of Art and Queen's Cross Church. Educational institutions include the Univ. of Glasgow (1451), the Univ. of Strathclyde, Glasgow Caledonian Univ., and a 17th-century public school.

Glasgow, an ancient burgh (1175–8), first developed as an ecclesiastical centre on a hill near the cathedral. Having a grammar school from the early 14th cent., in 1451 the burgh acquired its university by papal bull and became an archbishopric in 1492. An attractive residential market town with its annual summer fair, Glasgow, little affected by the Reformation, was remarkable for its amenities.

From the mid-17th cent. Glasgow began to develop its overseas trade with Europe and the American colonies. By 1668 Port Glasgow had been established by Glasgow merchants. After the Union of 1707 Glasgow dominated the tobacco trade because of natural advantages reinforced by superior organization, and the city with about 12,000 inhabitants in 1700 began to grow as a manufacturing centre with its merchants controlling fine linen production over a wide area and developing other industries.

By 1776 Glasgow merchants imported more than half of Britain's tobacco and had lucrative re-export markets in Europe. The improvement of Glasgow harbour and the development of a diversified industrial economy had also progressed; the problems posed by the American War led to the formation of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce (1783) and the growth of the West Indies trade. Cotton imports became significant, and Glasgow by 1850 had become a manufacturing city with a population of 345,000.

The importance of cotton diminished in the late 19th cent., but this was offset by the rise of heavy industry. Situated in a region rich in coal and iron, Glasgow became a major shipbuilding and engineering centre, the Clyde leading the world for tonnage launched and railway rolling stock and machinery produced. These industries were supplied by engineering firms which competed in world markets. By 1911 Glasgow had become the second city of the empire with a population of just over 1 million. A city with massive housing and other social problems, Glasgow was economically successful up to 1920.

The 20th cent. witnessed the decline of heavy industries. They were vulnerable to the vagaries of world markets, lacked adequate capital investment, and their record in labour relations was poor. Glasgow acquired the reputation of a politically radical city, Labour taking more and more political control, and the corporation embarking upon a public housing programme from the 1920s. Service industries gradually provided more employment, and consumer industries became more significant. Glasgow has gone full circle, important for its amenities—education, leisure, entertainment—and white-collar employment.

John Butt