Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland

GLASGOW
Within the limits of the harbour there are ferries at
York Street, Clyde Street, Stobcross, and Kelvinhaugh.
These have screw steam ferry boats of from 6 to 7\ horse-
power, and carry from 93 to 110 passengers. Steam was
first used in 1865, but now it would be impossible
to overtake the traffic without it. At Stobcross Ferry
is the unique elevating platform steamer Finnieston,
designed and built by Messrs William Simons & Co.,
Renfrew, and placed here in 1890. Her distinguishing
feature is a deck which can be raised or lowered to the
extent of 15 feet by means of six large and powerful
steel screws with bevel gearing, so that the upper movable
deck is always kept at the same level as the quay what-
ever be the state of the tide. Built of steel the vessel
is 80 feet long, 44 wide, and 12 deep, with a draft of
9J feet when loaded, and has two propellers at each end
driven by triple-expansion engines of 56 horse-power,
and independent engines for elevating or lowering the
deck. The movable deck is 78 feet long by 32 wide,
and can carry eight loaded carts and horses with 300
passengers, while if no carts be carried the number of
passengers may be increased to 700. The necessity for
the increase of cross-harbour conveyance thus provided
is shown by the fact that during the first year after the
Finnieston began to ply the number of vehicles carried
across the river was 201,524, against 69,473 for the year
before. At Govan, above the mouth of the Kelvin, is
a ferry boat of 20 horse-power also worked by steam,
in which carriages, carts, live stock, etc. , may cross the
river. It carries 8 horses and carts and 140 passengers,
or 500 passengers alone. The boats at Clyde Street,
Stobcross, and Govan ply both day and night; the others
work from five a.m. to eleven p.m. There are also
ferries at Meadowside below the mouth of the Kelvin,
at Whiteinch below the harbour, and at Oatlands near
the S end of Glasgow Green above. At Stobcross there is
also a subway for both cart and foot traffic. Nine of the
steam ferry boats can be used as floating fire engines.
In 1884 a number of passenger steamers called Cluthas,
from Clutha, the Celtic name of the Clyde, began to
ply up and down the harbour from Victoria Bridge to
Whiteinch, a distance of Sh miles. These vessels are of
from 12 to 18 horse-power, and designed to carry from
235 to 360 passengers. They ply at intervals of ten
minutes, calling at floating piers on both sides of the
harbour, the fare for the whole distance being one penny.
The number of passengers carried during the year ex-
ceeds three millions, while cross-river ferries in the same
period carry about nine million passengers, besides
vehicles, etc., the gross revenue being nearly £20,000.
Glasgow is the third largest shipowning port in the
kingdom, and holds the sixth place as regards clearances
to foreign countries and British possessions.
The Clyde Trust. — All the improvements on the har-
bour and river have been carried out under the care of
the Trustees of the Clyde Navigation, whose jurisdiction
extends from the upper harbour for more than 18 miles
down the river to a line drawn from Newark Castle to
Cardross, beyond this the care of deepening the chan-
nel rests on the Lighthouse Trust. Under an Act of
Parliament, passed in 1759, power was given to the
magistrates and town council of Glasgow ' to cleanse,
scour, straighten, and improve ' the river Clyde from
Dumbuck Ford to the Bridge of Glasgow, and further
empowering them to charge certain duties for defray-
ing the expenses, these to be levied as soon as the
looks recommended by Smeaton were finished. For-
tunately for Glasgow no locks were ever built, and in
1770 the town council procured another act, which
declared that the magistrates and council were 'now
advised that by contracting the channel of the said
river Clyde, and building and erecting jetties, banks,
walls, works, and fences in and upon the same river,
and dredging the same in proper places between the
lower end of Dumbuck Ford and the Bridge of Glasgow,
the said river Clyde may be further deepened and the
navigation thereof more effectually improved than by
any lock or dam,' and then went on to provide that the
former duties, which were not to be payable till the
OSb
GLASGOW
locks were erected, should now be payable as soon as the
Clyde should be ' navigable from the lower end of Dum-
buck Ford to the Bridge of Glasgow aforesaid, so as
there shall be at least 7 feet of water at neap tides in
every part of the said river within the bounds aforesaid. '
By a third act, obtained in 1809, the depth was fixed at
9 feet, and the magistrates and council were appointed
Trustees of the Clyde Navigation. In 1825 power was
given by a fourth act to deepen the river to 13 feet, and
the constitution of the Trust was widened by the addi-
tion as Trustees of ' five other persons interested in the
trade and navigation of the river and firth of Clyde,'
which persons were to be appointed by the magistrates
and council. In 1840 a further act was obtained pro-
viding for the deepening of the river to 17 feet at neaps,
and between 1846 and 1882 various acts were obtained
arranging for the construction of docks, the borrowing
of money, and the provision of harbour tramways, and
for the construction of graving docks. One of these,
obtained in 1858, and known as the Consolidation Act,
materially affected the constitution of the Trust, which,
however, remains, as it has always been, one of the most
public-spirited and business-like bodies in Scotland.
By this act the number of Trustees was fixed at twenty-
five, consisting of the Lord Provost and nine members
of the town council, two members chosen by the Cham-
ber of Commerce, two of the matriculated members of
the Merchants' House, two chosen by the members of
the Trades' House of Glasgow, and nine by the ship-
owners and ratepayers, the qualification of the latter
members of the trust being ownership to the extent of
at least 250 tons, or payment of rates to at least the
extent of £25 per annum ; and the qualification of those
who elect them, ownership to the extent of at least 100
tons or payment of £10 of rates or upwards. The last
great improvement carried out by the Trust in connec-
tion with the deepening of the river was the removal of
Elderslie rock, a volcanic dyke 320 feet broad, which
extends across the Clyde a short distance above Renfrew,
and the existence of which was first made known by the
grounding on it, in 1854, of the Glasgow, one of the
first steamers trading between Glasgow and New York.
During 1860-67 blasting operations removed enough to
give a depth of 14 feet at low and 23J feet at high water
over half the channel, but in 1880-90 the whole water-
way was cleared so as to give a uniform depth of 20 feet
at low and 30J feet at high water of spring tides, the
boring being done by diamond drills and the blasting
with dynamite. The offices of the Trust are in a hand-
some red stone building (1885) in Robertson Street,
between Argyle Street and the Broomielaw. Projecting
from the front in high relief are representations of the
prows of two ancient galleys; while the entablature has
figures representing the Eastern and Western hemi-
spheres bringing their merchandise to the Clyde, over
which is a gigantic Neptune, trident in hand, seated on
a car drawn by plunging sea-horses. Two boyish figures
support the arms of the Merchants' House. Further
details in connection with the deepening of the river
and the Clyde Trust will be found in the article Clyde.
The care of the river below the limits of the juris-
diction of the Clyde Trust is in the hands of the Clyde
Lighthouse Trust, who attend to the dredging and light-
ing as far as a line drawn due E and W across the Firth
of Clyde, at the southmost part of the Little Cum-
brae, from the coast of Ayr to the coast of Kintyre.
This body consists, under the act of 1890, of 20 members,
of whom 11 are elected from among ratepayers, as
defined by the act, in Glasgow (6), Greenock (3), and
Port-Glasgow (2); and five are appointed by the Mer-
chants' House, Glasgow, the Chamber of Commerce, Glas-
gow, and Chamber of Commerce, Greenock; while the
chairman of the Clyde Navigation Trust and of the
Trustees of Greenock and Port-Glasgow Harbours are
members ex officio along with Sir Michael Shaw Stewart
of Ardgowan and his heirs male in the estate of Greenock.
Besides dredging the lower channel the Lighthouse
Trust maintains the lighthouses and fog -signals at
Cloch, Toward, and Cumbrae, and the gas buoys at