SHETTLESTON — HISTORICAL ANECDOTES
The previous book “Shettleston from Old and New Photographs” included a short historical sketch of Shettleston.
In this collection of Shettleston photographs, as the text included in the various sections, tell something of the story of Shettleston over the past two centuries, there appeared no need for a similar type of historical sketch of Shettleston. However, the derivation of the name Shettleston has engendered considerable interest and comment, so the stories concerning the origin of the name are re-told once again. To these have been added some little-known anecdotes of Shettleston discovered during research, which seem worthwhile bringing to the notice and interest of a wider public.
A papal Bull dated 1179 addressed to the Bishop of Glasgow refers to “villam fillie Sedin” — the residence of Sedin’s son or daughter, and a later record refers to a “Schedinestun”, a place name which throughout the Middle Ages appears in the rental book of the diocese of Glasgow spelt in 48 different ways.
A charter granted by Alexander II in 1226 to the Bishop of Glasgow, prohibited the provost, baillies and officers of Rutherglen taking toll or custom in Glasgow, but permitted legal dues to be collected at “the cross of Schedenstun”.
Most authorities seem to agree that the “Schedenstun in such old records is the place now known as Shettleston, although the site of the “cross of Schedenstun” may not be the location of what in modern times has become known as Shettleston Cross.
It has also been said that being an old weaving village, the name was derived from “Shuttles-town”, and there are records with this spelling of the name. In Ross’s map of Lanarkshire of 1773 it is spelt “Shuttiston”, and the parish church has in its possession five pewter communion vessels each inscribed “Shuttlestoun Kirk — 1783”.
Both derivations of the name seem acceptable, the ancient form of “Schedenstun” has become over the years the modem Shettleston, whilst “Shuttleston” was more probably the colloquial pronunciation of the name in the local dialect at the end of the 19th century, and is not too unlike the way it is pronounced by some older residents to this day.
Shettleston was originally part of the Barony Parish of Glasgow, but in the middle of the 18th century, due to the distance from Shettleston to the Barony Church — about four miles — Glasgow Presbytery decided to build a preaching station at Shettleston and a subscription list was opened. A site for the church on the north side of the road eastward out of the village was given by James and George Reston, the proprietors of Budhill, with the stipulation that they be granted a pew in the church and a lair in the churchyard.
The Bogle family, prominent Glasgow merchants of the period and landowners in the Shettleston area, were among the chief subscribers. As a mark of gratitude for their financial support, the crest of the Bogles, a three-masted ship in full rig, was duly displayed on the spire of the new church as a weather-vane. A replica of the same design, a three-masted ship in full sail, is to this day displayed as a weather-vane on the roof of the church hall in Killin Street.
2) Section of Ross's Map of 1773 with Shettleston spelt "Shuttlston"
As far as is known, the church opened in 1752 and continued as a preaching station until 1788 when it became a Chapel-of-Ease with its first ordained minister. It was not disjoined from the Barony into the separate parish of Shettleston until 1847. The area which the new preaching station had to serve was quite a large one with the original bounds commencing at the junction of the Calder Water and the River Clyde, westwards along the north bank of the Clyde to Dalbeth, northward along the Dalbeth Mill Lade to the public road then westward to Janefield, then northward west of Parkhead between Haghill and Carntyne to the Cumbernauld Road, eastwards to include Millerston and Cardowan to the Bishop Loch, then southward along the eastern boundary of the Easterhouse estate and south to the junction of the Calder Water with the River Clyde.
When the church was being built in 1752, the Corporation of Glasgow gifted a bell to the new church which has an interesting history. In 1662 the Magistrates of Glasgow ordered a peal for the Bnggate steeple. When the bells arrived in Glasgow in 1665 they were hung on the Tolbooth Steeple at Glasgow Cross. At a later date, this peal of bells were removed from the Tolbooth, and the Corporation of Glasgow gifted three of the belis to Shettleston Kirk, Calton Kirk and the Grammar School of Glasgow.
3) Bread platen, one of a group of five pewter communion vessels each inscribed “E. Wylie — Shuttlestoun Kirk 1783"
The Calton Bell is now in the People’s Palace, Glasgow Green, and a fragment of the Grammar School Bell is in the Art Gallery Museum.
When the old Shettleston Parish Church was demolished about 1905, the bell was hung in the vestibule of the new church in Killin Street, where it still hangs to this day.
4) Bell from the Old Shettleston Parish Church, cast in Amsterdam in 1663.
The bell was cast in Amsterdam in 1663 and measures l’7” across the mouth, 10” across the shoulder, and weighs 200 lb. It bears around the shoulder the inscription: “Gerard Koster Me Facit Arnstelodami Anno 1663”, and on one side the arms of Glasgow encircled by the motto of Glasgow: “Floreat Glasgow Praedicatione Evangelli”.
Strathclyde Regional Archives contain a series of written records of the parish church commencing in 1779. The Seat Rent Accounts for the year 1779 and subsequent years contain a list of some 130 odd names who in each year from 1779 to 1853 made an annual payment for one or more of the 906 sittings in the old church.
These lists of names of members of the church and inhabitants in Shettleston as far back as the latter half of the 18th century may well be of interest to family historians, as the earliest of these records precede by more than 50 years the first named Census, which did not take place in Scotland until 1841.
The list for 1779 contains some well-known Shettleston names including James Dunlop of Tollcross who, along with several others a few years later in 1786, established the Clyde Iron Works and who were thus responsible for the industrial development of the district towards the end of the 18th century. Another name on the list was John Pettigrew, the owner of a mansion house known as the Green and whose family name is perpetuated in the Pettigrew Street of present day Shettleston.
James McNair of Greenfield, a member of the family who over many years and several generations developed and worked coalpits on the Greenfield estate, is also recorded in the 1779 list.
This James McNair, Laird of Greenfield, matriculated at the University of Glasgow in 1765 and had two sons and seven daughters. His eldest son, also named James, was born at Greenfield on 24 September 1787 and became a distinguished soldier.
At the age of 18 he became an Ensign in the 52nd Regiment of Foot and was promoted to be Lieutenant without purchase in June 1805. All his subsequent promotions to Captain in 1812, Major in April 1822, Lt.-Colonel on the 73rd Regiment of Foot in August, were obtained without purchase, which was rather remarkable for that time and period, when most elevation in Army rank was made by purchase and not necessarily by merit. James McNair took part in most of the well-known battles of the Peninsular War. He volunteered for the storming party for the attack on the fortress of Badajoz and in the attack on 6 April 1812 was severely wounded in the head. For his prowess on that day he was granted one year’s pay as a Lieutenant and on 11 May 1812 was promoted to Captain. He later took part in the battle of Waterloo and later in his service served in Canada where he married the daughter of the Lord Bishop of Nova Scotia. He in turn became the Laird of Greenfield, and died in 1836 from the wounds sustained at Badajoz in 1812. His descendants still owned Greenfield and parts of Shettleston in the early years of this century.
McNair Street in Shettleston is named after this family.
