5,000 people were dying per year [Glasgow 1830's]

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings from NZ

This mornings diggings, came up with the edited quote below, which I find very interesting, as a lot of us have been able to go back through the records for some 200 years, and then the information trail dries up. This clip goes part way to explaining one of the reasons.

QUOTE FROM:
http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/Residents/ ... story2.htm

Why the Necropolis was built

Edited Quote-
The early 1800’s saw Glasgow grow as a major industrialised city, with it came a new class of merchants and entrepreneurs who had made vast fortunes in tobacco, spices, coffee and cotton. By 1831 Glasgow’s population had trebled from 70,000 to more than 200,000. The city was flooded by immigrants, most notably Irish and Highlanders, many of whom arrived with little or nothing. The existing urban structure was inadequate and could not cope with such an influx. The working classes suffered considerable conditions of deprivation, exacerbated by inadequate housing, dire poverty, poor sanitation and contaminated water supplies.

This sudden dramatic increase in Glasgow’s population directly affected cemeteries since the aforementioned poverty and squalor resulted in fierce epidemics of cholera and typhus. In the 1830’s over 5,000 people were dying per year and were being buried in unhygienic urban churchyards. Previously burials in the 1800’s outside of a churchyard had been reserved for the unbaptised and lunatics. Buchan, in his guide to the Cathedral and Necropolis in 1843, puts this change of heart rather more forcefully, "A practice (burial within a churchyard) more revolting to human nature and more destructive to the health of the living could not possibly exist." Growing concerns with hygiene and sanitation led to the opinion that this policy of burial in urban churchyards was now to be avoided.
End of Quote, ....

.. but I recommend a visit to the site, for more info.

Alan SHARP.

[apanderson]

... and I highly recommend a visit to anyone living near enough to go or even on a flying visit to Glasgow.

Anne

[LesleyB]

Fascinating place. There used to be guided tours too - informative and interesting.

http://www.glasgownecropolis.org/
Ah, they still do them!

Best wishes
Lelsey

[SarahND]

Ah! I see they are now collecting stories about the people in unmarked graves as well.

http://www.glasgownecropolis.org/index.php?id=72

I'll have to put together a bio of my third great grandfather, who was buried there in 1840.


Sarah

[Hibee]

Interesting use of the word "immigrants", to describe Irish and highlanders, all of whom, presumably, were UK citizens.

Hibee

[Montrose Budie]

Interesting use of the word "immigrants", to describe Irish and highlanders, all of whom, presumably, were UK citizens.

Hibee

Correct as regards as citizenship of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was defined, but, as far as Glasgow was concerned the Irish were most certainly regarded as immigrants; with Highlanders not far behind !, despite the fact that the latter formed the largest part of the Glasgow City Police Force ........

mb

[johnniegarve]

We are a city of emigrants, who the original inhabitants were, God knows!

[Montrose Budie]

And then there were the Latvians, Lithuanians, Jews, Russians, Germans, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italians at various different eras (not just ice-a-da-cream and fish and chips!), Scandinavians, latterly all those from the Indian sub-continent, and mony mair.

A trawl thru the TNA BT26 Incoming Passenger Lists released not that long ago on-line is quite fascinating in terms of the origins of the passengers.

A significant proportion were aiming for N America, but either didn't have the money to travel onwards from Scotland, or actually believed that they had reached N America !

Scotland had extensive trading and other connections with N Europe from way back, probably the 1300s, and previously.

For example, more recently, Scots largely funded the industrial revolution in Sweden and Finland in the mid/late 1800s; never mind long-standing military connections, i.e. mercenary service, with Denmark and Sweden going back to at least the 1500s.

Never mind that the origin of the British regiment, the 1st of Foot, The Royal Scots, was a regiment originally raised with the permission of the Scottish king for service in France.

The Royal Scots were raised in 1633 as the Royal Regiment of Foot by Sir John Hepburn, under a royal warrant from Charles I, on the Scottish establishment, for service in France. The regiment was formed from a nucleus of Hepburn's previous regiment, formerly in Swedish service, which had been in existence since 1625. When in France it absorbed the remnants of a number of other Scottish mercenary units which had fought in Swedish service, and by 1635 had swelled to some 8,000 men.

While many Scots emigrated to N Europe, this inevitably also led to immigration to Scotland.


One of Scotland's biggest imports over the centuries?, - brides !

mb