Dumbarton

Dumbarton, or DUNBARTON, the county town of Dumbartonshire, lies mainly on the left bank of the Leven, a little above its influx to the Clyde, and 15 miles WNW. of Glasgow. Its High Street curves for five furlongs parallel to the Leven; and its chief public building is the Burgh Hall and Academy, a French-Gothic pile of 1866, restored since the fire of 1883. There are gas-works (1832), water-works (1859), a pier on the Clyde (1875), and a public park of 32 acres (1885), gifted to the town at a cost of £20,000. In 1658 the magistrates of Glasgow are said to have wished to make Dumbarton their harbour, but the offer was declined on the ground that 'the influx of mariners would tend to raise the price of butter and eggs to the inhabitants;' and in 1700 the right of levying dues on all vessels navigating the Clyde was sold to Glasgow for £260. Dumbarton now ranks merely as a sub-port; but its shipbuilding, with the subsidiary industries, has attained important dimensions since the opening of the great shipyards of Messrs M'Millan (1834) and Messrs Denny (1844). Between the town and the Clyde rises the Rock of Dumbarton (280 feet), a double-peaked, basaltic eminence, which is crowned by the picturesque castle, a building of no great strength now or architectural merit, but one of the four Scottish fortresses that must be maintained in terms of the Treaty of Union. Dumbarton was made a free royal burgh in 1222, and unites with the other four Kilmarnock burghs to return one member to parliament. Pop. (1851) 5445; (1881) 13,782; (1891) 17,626. The capital of the Britons of Strathclyde, and termed by them Alcluith ('height on the Clyde'), by the Gaels Dunbreatan ('fort of the Britons'), Dumbarton has also been identified, more doubtfully, with the Roman Theodosia. Anyhow, the history of its Rock extends over more than a thousand years, from its capture by Picts and Northumbrians (756), by Vikings (870), to Wallace's captivity here (1305), the child Queen Mary's residence (1548), and its daring surprise by Craufurd of Jordanhill (1571). A younger son of the Marquis of Douglas was made Earl of Dumbarton in 1675, and he is referred to in the well-known song, 'Dumbarton's drums beat bonny, O!'