History of Glasgow association which opposed anti-slavery laws

It was formed to represent the interests of Glasgow’s West India merchants and it was said to be the most powerful West India society outside London.

At the helm of the association for many years was Colin Dunlop (1777-1859).

His father, Thomas Donald of Geilston, was a Virginia Merchant, or tobacco lord; and his mother was Janet, daughter of Provost Colin Dunlop, of Carmyle.

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Donald attended Glasgow Grammar School before being legally trained in Edinburgh. He returned to Glasgow where he switched from law to calico printing.

Described as the “Tory of Tories”  he refused to accept the coming of gas and his office was lit by candles throughout his life.

Many of the Glasgow West India Association founders were linked to the Campbell family, who traded under the name of John Campbell and Son, with offices at 4 Buchanan Street.

John Campbell Senior's house stood at 65 Buchanan Street. Like others in the Association the Campbells had their trading origins in tobacco in Virginia, and after the collapse of tobacco they moved their trade to the Caribbean and to the sugar and rum trade there.

John Campbell of Possil (Image: Glasgow City Archives) One of the sons of John Senior was Alexander Campbell of Possil and another was Colin Campbell of Cograin. These two and another son, along with John Senior, were founding members of the Glasgow West India Association.

Other founder members were Robert Dennistoun, partner in the firm of George & Robert Dennistoun, Caribbean traders and one of the prime movers behind the formation of the association.

He married Anne Penelope, the daughter of Archibald Campbell of Jura and they had eight sons and six daughters.

The family, who owned Craigpark House, and for whom Dennistoun is named, owned land and enslaved people in Trinidad and St Kitts.

(Image: Glasgow City Archives)

Alexander Gordon of Aikenhead, after whose family Gordon Street was named,  and the firm of Stirling Gordon and Co, who gifted the Stirling Library to Glasgow, James Ewing of James Ewing and Co. and the Bogle family, were also involved.

The association was primarily concerned with trade, harbour facilities  and customs and excise.

However, its records, which are held here in Glasgow City Archives, also show a high level of political activity,  usually  related to commercial matters.

They sent memorials to the House of Lords, the House of Commons , the First Lord of the Treasury, and often to the Admiralty. They would usually follow the memorials with trips to London, travelling on the Glasgow to London Mail Horse Coach which did the 400-mile journey in 42 hours (about nine and a half miles an hour.)

Until the passing of the Anti-Slavery Act in 1833, much of their energies were expended on opposing the abolition of slavery.

They even tried to make the case that the "planters were paternalistic in their treatment of their enslaved worker force" whose conditions they described as those of “comfort and happiness.”  

The minutes tell another story, however. Their chief concern was the extent to which the value of the enslaved people and the profitability of the trade itself would, by abolition,  be “placed in dire jeopardy.”

The Glasgow West India Association spent much time extensively lobbying against the Anti-Slavery Act of 1833  in Parliament.

As a result, what were originally to be granted as loans to planters were converted into £20,000,00 compensation.

With the compensation came an entitlement by a secured creditor to a preferential  share.

Later minutes of the association record that, as a result of valuations, the Government's total liability was an enormous £16,600,000.