The chilling protest sent to Glasgow merchant

However, this was a man whose profits were a direct result of the products of slavery.

He was also on the receiving end of one of the most chilling forms of protest used in Glasgow in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when his effigy was burned in front of his Queen Street home.

Kirkman Finlay statue in Glasgow (Image: Newsquest)

Kirkman Finlay (1773-1842), born in the Gallowgate, was the second son of East India merchant James Finlay and Abigail Whirry, of Whitehaven, Cumbria.

In 1750 his father founded James Finlay and Company. Kirkman was educated at Glasgow Grammar School and briefly attended Glasgow University. His father died in 1790 leaving him in sole charge of the business, at just 18 years of age.

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Under Kirkman’s stewardship, James Finlay and Co became a major business as the young man grasped the opportunities created by the cotton industry.

He was one of the first in Scotland to engage in spinning and manufacturing. He built a thriving cotton spinning business, which became the largest textile business in Scotland and he was the first British merchant to trade directly with India.

Castle Toward (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

Kirkman bought his city mansion in Queen Street from James Ritchie of Busby, a tobacco merchant, and a partner in the Thistle Bank.

Kirkman was the first merchant to import tea directly from Calcutta to Glasgow - the 600-ton Buckinghamshire sailed in 1833 following the end of the East India Company's monopoly.

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But he was unpopular. He was against voting reform and allegations he had paid informants to infiltrate radical movements in the city did not go down well.

Effigies of him were burned around the city. His mansion in Queen Street was the only house to be stoned by the mob and it was only saved from destruction by cavalry riding in from Hamilton Barracks.

Kirkman's Queen Street home (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

An article on the Glasgow Life website, written by Dr Martin Bellamy, Research and Curatorial Manager, explains that the cotton Finlay imported from New Orleans was “very much the product of slave labour in the plantations of Southern America.”

He adds: “His vast profits were therefore made directly from the products of slavery.

“Finlay professed an ‘utter detestation of everything that savours of slavery’ but was an extremely reluctant abolitionist.

“He was one of the leading businessmen calling on the government to pay compensation for the loss of profit from the abolition of slavery, a man more concerned with money than morals.”

Kirkman remained a driving force behind the scenes in Glasgow politics, where documents in the City Archives describe him as “a high spirited and disinterested public man, cheerful, daring, energetic and ingenuous”.

He uniquely served as president of the Chamber of Commerce on four occasions earning the accolade as “perhaps the greatest of all Chamber Presidents.”

He became a magistrate in Glasgow in 1804, Lord Provost in 1812 and again in 1818. He was an MP for the Clyde Burghs from 1812 to 1818 and was erected Rector at Glasgow University in 1819.

Later he acquired the Castle Toward estate on the Cowal Peninsula from the Campbells.

He employed the Glasgow architect David Hamilton to design a new mansion, a marine villa called Castle Toward, to be designed in the castellated picturesque Gothic style that was fashionable at the time.  He died there in 1842.

After his death, a marble statue of him was placed on the staircase at the Merchants' House on Hutcheson Street.

After the war Castle Toward was sold to Glasgow Corporation for use as a convalescent school and then outdoor centre.