The Merchants and their city

Aileen Torrance leads us on a tour of Glasgow shaped by the historic Tobacco Lords.

Glasgow's rejuvenated Merchant City area is a magnet for both tourists and locals alike.

Drawn by the opportunity to eat, drink and socialise in its plethora of trendy bars, cafés and restaurants, the one pleasure denied them is a cigarette, banned by the Scottish Parliament in all public places since 2006. All the more ironic then, that tobacco is the very product which provided the wealth on which the area is founded.

Back in 1707, when the Union of the Scottish and English Parliaments allowed Scots access to English colonies and trade routes, canny Glaswegians were quick to capitalise. Loading their ships with consumer goods, they ploughed back and forth across the Atlantic to barter with the plantation owners of America and the Indies for tobacco.

By 1770, more than two thirds of all tobacco imported into Britain came into Glasgow via the Clyde, supplying tobacco leaf to the domestic market, as well as the export markets of France, Holland and Germany.

The ‘Tobacco Lords' as the merchants of this lucrative trade came to be known, were among the wealthiest commoners in the land.

The Jamaica Gentry, Virginia Dons, or ‘princes on the pavement' as the merchants were variously labelled, assumed a distinctive style of dress which made them easily recognisable. Black silk breeches and lavishly trimmed long coats were offset by scarlet cloaks and accessorised with expensive ebony canes with gold or silver handles, tricorn hats and gleaming silver buckles on their shoes....

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• By : Aileen Torrance
• In : Walking Scotland
• Issue : 40
• Page : 42
• Words : 2,013