THERE is a grand house in Tollcross Park, which has a fascinating history.
Long before it became luxury apartments, it was a children’s museum, but even further back in time, it was the country house of one of Glasgow’s most famous families.
For 300 years, the Dunlop family were linked inextricably with the fortunes of Glasgow. They helped the city rise to become an industrial powerhouse.
The family’s connection to Glasgow began with John Dunlop, a younger son of James Dunlop of Dunlop, in Ayrshire.
He became a Glasgow merchant and burgess in 1631. He was the first of his family to settle in Glasgow and take up commerce.
He traded with Holland and "accumulated a very considerable fortune". He married a wealthy widow and in 1634 invested much of her money in purchasing the Garnkirk estate in Lanarkshire.
In 1782 Garnkirk was inherited by James Dunlop (b 1742), the MP. It was he who rebuilt the facade of the old house.
For most of the early Dunlop family, maintaining an estate was more in keeping with their normal way of life than engaging in business.
They were landed gentlemen whose younger sons became academics or advocates. Several were judges and one was Principal of Glasgow University from 1786 to 1803. They also had their share of poets and authors within their midst.
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This changed with Colin Dunlop (1716-1777) who made his reputation as a Glasgow merchant, earning his fortune in the tobacco trade though chattel slavery, in one of the darkest periods of the city’s history.
He was Provost of the city during the last two years of his life. Dunlop Street. is named after him.
His mansion in Argyle Street was among the finest in the city, with an estate extending to St Enoch Square and reaching to the river. There is an 1890s image of the building, which was by then a shop.
He died without knowing how much of his colonial property would be requisitioned with little compensation. By then he had taken his two sons James and John into partnership, and the future of the company, Colin Dunlop, and Sons, was in their hands.
James Dunlop bought Garnkirk from his uncle, also James Dunlop. When the American War put an end to the Glasgow tobacco trade, James Dunlop "sank great sums" into acquiring various estates which he reckoned would have coal reserves.
Coal had been mined on Clydeside for several hundred years, but the commercial possibilities only became appreciated when James Dunlop took an interest. He began to work the coal in his estates, and about the year 1786 started the Clyde Ironworks with two blast furnaces.
They may have been searching for coal in Gorbals as early as 1767. It is strange that they did not find it, because this is where William Dixon discovered a vast field, running from Govanhill to Polmadie, containing not only coal but ironstone.
The outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars led to the financial crisis of 1793, when James Dunlop went bankrupt. Glasgow was stunned. He had been thought "one of the most opulent and cautious men of business in the West".
But his and the company's money was tied up in land and most of his estates had to be sold off by his creditors.
A remark often made in Glasgow in the early Victorian age was that, but for the bank crash in 1793, the Dunlop family would have become by far the wealthiest family in Scotland.
John and his brother Colin tried to retrieve something from all that seemed lost. John followed in his father's footsteps by becoming Lord Provost during the difficult years of 1794-1795.
James Dunlop (1742-1816), the eldest son of Colin Dunlop of Carmyle, acquired the Tollcross estate c 1810. It was passed to his son Colin (1775-1837) and then to Colin's nephew James. It was James who had Tollcross mansion built on the site of an older house.
The architect David Bryce (1803-1876) built it in the Scots Baronial style, with Jacobean touches. It became the home of the Dunlop family.
Tollcross estate was purchased by Glasgow Corporation in 1896. Tollcross Park was opened there the following year, and the magnificent house was passed between various uses, before falling into disrepair.
It was restored in the early 21st century and remains in the park today.
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