of such light textures as plain, striped and figured muslins, ginghams
and fancy fabrics. Thread is made on a considerable scale, but jute
and silk are of comparatively little importance. The principal
varieties of carpets are woven. Some factories are exclusively
devoted to the making of lace curtains. The allied industries of
bleaching, printing and dyeing, on the other hand, have never
declined. The use of chlorine in bleaching was first introduced in
Great Britain at Glasgow in 1787, on the suggestion of James Watt,
whose father-in-law was a bleacher; and it was a Glasgow bleacher,
Charles Tennant, who first discovered and made bleaching powder
(chloride of lime). Turkey-red dyeing was begun at Glasgow by
David Dale and George M‘Intosh, and the colour was long known
locally as Dale’s red. A large quantity of grey cloth continues to be
sent from Lancashire and other mills to be bleached and printed in
Scottish works. These industries gave a powerful impetus to the
manufacture of chemicals, and the works at St Rollox developed
rapidly. Among prominent chemical industries are to be reckoned
the alkali trades—including soda, bleaching powder and
soap-making—the preparation of alum and prussiates of potash,
bichromate of potash, white lead and other pigments, dynamite and
gunpowder. Glass-making and paper-making are also carried on, and
there are several breweries and distilleries, besides factories for the
making of aerated waters, starch, dextrine and matches. Many
miscellaneous trades flourish, such as clothing, confectionery,
cabinet-making, bread and biscuit making, boot and shoe making,
flour mills and saw mills, pottery and indiarubber. Since the days
of the brothers Robert Foulis (1705–1776) and Andrew Foulis
(1712–1775), printing, both letterpress and colour, has been identified
with Glasgow, though in a lesser degree than with Edinburgh.
The tobacco trade still flourishes, though much lessened. But the
great industry is iron-founding. The discovery of the value of
blackband ironstone, till then regarded as useless “wild coal,” by
David Mushet (1772–1847), and Neilson’s invention of the hot-air
blast threw the control of the Scottish iron trade into the hands of
Glasgow ironmasters, although the furnaces themselves were mostly
erected in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire. The expansion of the industry
was such that, in 1859, one-third of the total output in the United
Kingdom was Scottish. During the following years, however, the
trade seemed to have lost its elasticity, the annual production
averaging about one million tons of pig-iron. Mild steel is
manufactured extensively, and some crucible cast steel is made. In addition
to brass foundries there are works for the extraction of copper
and the smelting of lead and zinc. With such resources every
branch of engineering is well represented. Locomotive engines are
built for every country where railways are employed, and all kinds of
builder’s ironwork is forged in enormous quantities, and the
sewing-machine factories in the neighbourhood are important. Boiler-making
and marine engine works, in many cases in direct connexion
with the shipbuilding yards, are numerous. Shipbuilding, indeed, is
the greatest of the industries of Glasgow, and in some years more
than half of the total tonnage in the United Kingdom has been
launched on the Clyde, the yards of which extend from the harbour
to Dumbarton on one side and Greenock on the other side of the river
and firth. Excepting a trifling proportion of wooden ships, the
Clyde-built vessels are of iron and steel, the trade having owed its
immense expansion to the prompt adoption of this material. Every
variety of craft is turned out, from battleships and great liners to
dredging-plant and hopper barges.
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 814 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 112 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 513 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 312 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 2312 m., and an additional reservoir, holding 694,000,000 gallons, was constructed, increasing the supply held in reserve from 1212 days’ to 3012 days’. In 1909 the building of a dam was undertaken 114 m. west of the lower end of Loch Arklet, designed to create a sheet of water 212 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
