Place:Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland

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Glasgow (Glaschu in Gaelic; or Glesca/Glesga in Scots) is the largest city in Scotland. The City of Glasgow is the most populous unitary authority area. It is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands. People from Glasgow are known as Glaswegians; Glaswegian is also the name of the local dialect popularly referred to as the "Glasgow Patter".

Glasgow grew from the medieval Bishopric of Glasgow and the later establishment of the University of Glasgow, which contributed to the Scottish Enlightenment. From the 18th century the city had become a hub of transatlantic trade with the Americas. With the Industrial Revolution, the city and surrounding region grew to become one of the world's pre-eminent centres of heavy engineering and shipbuilding, constructing many revolutionary and famous vessels. Glasgow was known as the "Second City of the British Empire" in the Victorian era. Today Glasgow is the U.K's second largest and most economically important commerce and retail centre. It is Europe's sixteenth largest financial centre, is the world's 124th most significant city, and is home to many of Scotland's leading businesses.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Glasgow grew to a population of over one million, and was the third city in Europe to exceed this number of inhabitants, after London and Paris. In the 1960s large-scale relocation to new towns in the outskirts of the city, followed by successive boundary changes have reduced the current population of the City of Glasgow to 578,790 although 1,749,154 live in the urban area surrounding the city, based on the 2001 census. Around 2,300,000 people live in the Greater Glasgow conurbation, defined as the City of Glasgow and the surrounding region.

History

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Although the area of Glasgow has long been used for settlement due to the River Clyde providing a natural area for fishing, the origins of Glasgow as an important city derive ultimately from its role as the centre for medieval Scotland's second largest bishopric. Glasgow became important in the 12th century as the site of this bishopric, reorganized by King David I of Scotland and John, Bishop of Glasgow. There had been an earlier religious site the exact age of which is unknown. According to doubtful hagiographical tradition, this ecclesiastical site had been established by Saint Kentigern. The bishopric became one of the largest and wealthiest in the Kingdom of Scotland, bringing wealth and status to the town. Somewhere between 1175 and 1178 this position was strengthened even further when Bishop Jocelin obtained for the episcopal settlement the status of burgh from King William the Lion, allowing the settlement to expand with the benefits of trading monopolies and other legal guarantees. Sometime between 1189 and 1195 this status was supplemented by an annual fair, which survives to this day as the Glasgow Fair.

Glasgow grew over the following centuries, and the founding of the University of Glasgow in 1451 and elevation of the bishopric to an archbishopric in 1492 increasing the town's religious and educational status. In the 16th century Glasgow became prominent in international commerce as a hub of trade to the Americas, especially in the movement of tobacco, cotton and sugar.

Daniel Defoe visited the city in the early 18th century and famously opined that that Glasgow was "the cleanest and beautifullest and best built City in Britain, London excepted". At that time, the city's population numbered approximately 12,000, and its structures largely consisted of compact wooden buildings, none of which remain today. Glasgow streets, including Glassford Street and Buchanan Street, are named after local tobacco barons who grew rich from good produced by slave labour in the West Indies. [1]

In its subsequent industrial era, Glasgow produced textiles, engineered goods and steel, which were exported. Shipbuilding became a major industry on the Clyde, building many famous ships including the Cunard liners RMS Lusitania, RMS Aquitania, RMS Queen Mary, RMS Queen Elizabeth, RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, and the Royal Yacht Britannia. By the end of the 19th century the city was known as the "Second City of the Empire" and was producing most of the ships and locomotives in the world. During this period, the construction of many of the city's greatest architectural masterpieces and most ambitious civic projects were being funded by its wealth.

The 20th century showed a great decline in the city's fortunes, especially with the effects of two World Wars and the Great Depression. The city's industries became uncompetitive, leading to high unemployment, urban decay and poor health for the city's inhabitants. At the end of the Second World War there were active attempts at regeneration of the city, when the Glasgow Corporation published its Bruce Report which set out a comprehensive series of initiatives aimed at turning round the decline of the city.

By the end of the century there had been a significant resurgence in Glasgow's economic fortunes, finding a new role as a European centre for business and finance, as well as an increase in tourism. The latter is due to the legacy of the city's status as European City of Culture in 1990, and the product of its thriving artistic community. The ongoing regeneration of inner-city areas has led to people moving back to live in the centre of Glasgow.

Etymology

It is common to derive the name Glasgow from the older Brythonic glas cau or a Middle Gaelic cognate, which would have meant green hollow. The settlement probably had an earlier Cumbric name, Cathures; the modern name appears for the first time in the Gaelic period (1116), as Glasgu. However, it is also recorded that the King of Strathclyde, Rhydderch Hael, welcomed Saint Mungo (also known as Saint Kentigern), and procured his consecration as bishop about 540. For some thirteen years Kentigern laboured in the region, building his church at the Molendinar Burn, and making many converts. A large community developed around him and became known as Glasgu (meaning the dear family). The confusion between the terms is not wholly resolved (Dear Family vs. Dear Green Place vs. Green Hollow).

Heraldry

The coat of arms of the City of Glasgow, as granted to the royal burgh by the Lord Lyon on October 25, 1866. It incorporates a number of symbols and emblems associated with the life of Glasgow's patron saint, Kentigern (often known by his nickname, Mungo) which had been used on official seals prior to that date. The emblems represent miracles supposed to have been performed by Mungo and are listed in the traditional rhyme:

Here's the bird that never flew

Here's the tree that never grew

Here's the bell that never rang

Here's the fish that never swam

Kentigern is also said to have preached a sermon containing the words Lord, Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the word and the praising of thy name. This was abbreviated to "Let Glasgow Flourish" and adopted as the city's motto. The motto was more recently commemorated in a song called "Mother Glasgow", popularised by Hue and Cry.

In 1450, John Stewart, the first Lord Provost of Glasgow, left an endowment so that a "St Mungo's Bell" could be made and tolled throughout the city so that the citizens would pray for his soul. A new bell was purchased by the magistrates in 1641 and that bell is still on display in the People's Palace Museum, near Glasgow Green.

The supporters are two salmon bearing rings, and the crest is a half length figure of Saint Mungo. He wears a bishop's mitre and liturgical vestments and has his hand raised in "the act of benediction". The original 1866 grant placed the crest atop a helm, but this was removed in subsequent grants. The current version (1996) has a gold mural crown between the shield and the crest. This form of coronet, resembling an embattled city wall, was allowed to the four area councils with city status.

The arms were rematriculated by the City of Glasgow District Council on February 6, 1975, and by the present area council on March 25, 1996. The only change made on each occasion was in the type of coronet over the arms.

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