Clans of Glasgow
The Dear Green Place, second city of empire.
Tap a region of the map to see who held it.
Historic Places, Rebuilt · New
Explore Glasgow in 1840Enter →
The merchant city on the Clyde on the eve of mass emigration, the Cathedral, the Trongate, and the Broomielaw where the ships left.
Historic Places, Rebuilt · New
Explore Clydebank in 1934Enter →
John Brown's shipyard on launch day for the Queen Mary, the great hull on the ways, the cranes and the cloth-capped crowd.
Families seated in Glasgow
Historic ties to Glasgow
Families with historic but not core ground here.
Champions made here
Famous bearers whose lives or work root in Glasgow.
- Sir John A. MacdonaldThe Glasgow-born lawyer who held the disparate British colonies of North America together as one Dominion in 1867, then carried the country from sea to sea by railway and federal architecture.
- Lord KelvinThe Belfast-born child genius who held Glasgow's chair of natural philosophy for fifty-three years, named absolute zero, laid the first transatlantic cable, and stated the second law of thermodynamics.
- George MacLeodThe Argyll and Sutherland Highlander turned Govan parish minister who rebuilt Iona Abbey with the unemployed shipbuilders of the Clyde.
- Adam SmithThe Kirkcaldy customs officer's posthumous son who wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations and founded modern political economy.
- Thomas ReidThe Aberdeen-trained minister who answered David Hume's skepticism with the philosophy of Common Sense and founded the Scottish school that would shape American thought through the nineteenth century.
- Charles Rennie MackintoshThe Glasgow architect who put the city on the map of European modernism with the Glasgow School of Art, the Hill House and the Willow Tearooms.
- Sir Colin Campbell, 1st Baron ClydeThe Glasgow carpenter's son who entered the army at fifteen, commanded the 93rd Highlanders as the Thin Red Line at Balaclava in 1854, relieved Lucknow in 1857, and finished his career as Commander-in-Chief in India and a baron of the United Kingdom.
- Sir Alex FergusonThe Govan shipyard district's son who broke the Old Firm with Aberdeen and built the most decorated career in the history of British football, carrying the Ferguson name to the summit of the European game.
- Walter SmithThe dignified Lanarkshire man who won seven Scottish titles in a row with Rangers, took them to a European final, and carried the Smith name through the Scottish game with universal respect.
- Jock WallaceThe soldier-goalkeeper who became Rangers' great motivator, winning two domestic Trebles and breaking Celtic's grip, and carried the patriot name of Wallace with ferocious heart.
- David HayThe Paisley-born midfielder of Celtic's golden side who returned to win a Scottish title as manager, and lifted a major trophy with one of the country's smallest clubs.
- Sir John MooreThe Glasgow-born general who built the British light infantry, then saved his army by a brilliant winter retreat to Corunna and fell at the head of his men in the hour the battle was won.
- Deborah KerrThe Helensburgh-raised Glasgow-born actress whose performances in From Here to Eternity (1953), The King and I (1956), Tea and Sympathy (1956), An Affair to Remember (1957) and The Sundowners (1960) made her one of the central film actresses of the post-war Hollywood studio system, with six Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in nine years.
- Sir Andy MurrayThe Dunblane-raised Scottish tennis player whose three Grand Slam singles titles (US Open 2012, Wimbledon 2013, Wimbledon 2016), two Olympic singles gold medals (London 2012, Rio 2016) and 2015 Davis Cup victory made him the first British male singles Grand Slam champion since Fred Perry in 1936 and the first British Davis Cup-winning singles player since Bunny Austin in 1933.
- Sir Jackie StewartThe Milton-born Dumbartonshire racing driver whose three Formula One World Drivers' Championships in 1969, 1971 and 1973 and twenty-seven Grand Prix wins made him the dominant single F1 driver of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and whose post-career safety campaigning transformed Formula One from the most dangerous professional sport in the world to a fraction of that risk.
Stories told here
Legends set in Glasgow, from any family that carries them.