PANEL 69    The Tobacco Lords

The Act of Union may have been deeply unpopular in Edinburgh but it converted Glasgow into a very busy port. Its position on the Clyde was enormously important in the age of sailing ships. The trade winds first hit Europe in the west of Scotland and this gave ships sailing out of Glasgow for the American colonies a two-to-three-week advantage. From 1710 until c. 1760, the city boomed because of the trade in tobacco. The wealthiest and most enterprising merchant was John Glassford and he ran a fleet of 25 merchant ships. Known as the Tobacco Lords or sometimes the Virginia Dons, Glasgow merchants built huge mansions that gave their names to the city’s streets – Thomas Buchanan, Archibald Ingram and Glassford amongst them. The American Revolution of 1776 caused great difficulties. The Glasgow merchants had lent vast sums to the planters of Virginia and Maryland and, after the break with Britain, few of these debts were ever repaid. But, ever versatile, the Tobacco Lords switched their trade to cotton in the British West Indies. Their most lasting legacy is in Glasgow’s Georgian architecture.

 

Panel stitched by:

The Last Gasp Group

Marie Abbott

Jenny Barnett

Sheila Bruges

Elma Muir

Sally Nairn

Anne North

Pamella Roberts

Hilda Stewart

Stitched in:

Blairgowrie, Perth, Dunkeld