THE TOBACCO LORDS OF TOLLCROSS

The Tobacco Lords are well-known figures in the history of Glasgow. Their fortunes were largely founded upon the trade in tobacco which they conducted with the American colonies. From the 1740s to the close of that century they were the commercial aristocracy of the town.

The most well-known, Cunninghame, Speirs and Glassford, made huge fortunes. Others were very successful in the trade, but to a lesser degree. It is with some of these latter families that Tollcross had connection, and who had their own significant impact upon the district; Dunlop, Corbett, Hopkirk, Wardrop, McCall and Smellie - the Tobacco Lords of Tollcross! Indeed, at one stage, practically all of the district covered by this history was in the possession of Tobacco Lords.

To mark themselves apart from "lesser mortals", the Tobacco Lords adopted their own style of dress; a scarlet cloak over breeches and coat, silvered wig, tricorn hat and silver-topped ebony cane. They are most popularly described as strutting along the Trongate plainstanes, the first fully paved street in Glasgow, to which they seem to have claimed sole use.

Many Glasgow traders had taken opportunities to purchase estates or extend those already owned around Glasgow. The Tobacco Lords built spectacular town houses but they also had country houses built on the newly acquired estates. There was a spate of such construction to the east of the city in the mid-1700s; the more ancient abodes of the previous owners no longer sufficiently grand for the new merchant princes.

Towards the end of the century, a new attitude also developed with the increasing pace of industrialisation. Glasgow's commerce, industry and population expanded rapidly. Consequently, land was in greater demand for industrial development and housing. The city's boundaries encroached upon the once rural surroundings.

Into the 19th century many estates in the east end of Glasgow were lost beneath a deluge of factories and houses with perhaps only a street name remaining to tell where once there had been open country.

The owners of estates no longer viewed them entirely in the sense of being family seats or for their amenity and social benefits. They did not hesitate to acquire portions of land purely to utilize their mineral or rental potential. For example James Dunlop made his purchases after 1783 largely with a view to such exploitation. They diversified into a whole array of nascent industries and enterprises such as iron works, mining, brewing, sugar processing; industries which would later transform Glasgow from a commercial centre into an industrial giant.

It is commonly assumed that the fortunes of the Tobacco Lords crashed with the American War of Independence (1777-1783), but this was not the norm. In fact they swiftly regained many of their customers after the war and achieved a resumption of their trade. It was not that the Tobacco Lords vanished from the scene because of business failure; their influence and subsequent notability declined as competition, commerce, industry and population grew.