r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	dodgerofsoap
Comment	Interesting to see the early Gorbals settlement. Considering the amount of buildings laid out in the pattern that seems quite dense, this might have been after the land was fued out for development. I am really unsure of that though, as some villiages could be quite large in the later eighteenth century - especially those surrounding cities. By the 1790s, Laurieston and Hutchesontown had also been fued out and built on. What's interesting is that the three, despite industry having been present in the Gorbals villiage for decades, were originally envisioned as middle-class suburbs for the bourgeois and artisans who were leaving the now crowded Blackfriar's district in the city centre (what is now the 'Merchant City'). Ironically, the Gorbals would come to surpass the Blackfriar's in notoriety as Glasgow's worst 'slum'. Middle class and working class people were mixed in the Gorbals in the early nineteenth century, though physically segregated into 'better' and 'lower' streets or closes. Of course, by the mid-nineteenth century with the availability of middle-class houses in Blythswood and the growing West End, the Gorbals was almost exclusively working class. Like in Blackfriar's before it, the homes left vacant by middle-class people were subdivided and rented out as one or two roomed houses to working-class people with less money and often irregular employment (and a desperate need to find new homes).
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/khjdca/glasgow_in_1773/ggm7jt5/
Created	Mon 21st Dec 2020 7:47pm
Status	normal ()

Interesting to see the early Gorbals settlement. Considering the amount of buildings laid out in the pattern that seems quite dense, this might have been after the land was fued out for development. I am really unsure of that though, as some villiages could be quite large in the later eighteenth century - especially those surrounding cities.

By the 1790s, Laurieston and Hutchesontown had also been fued out and built on. What's interesting is that the three, despite industry having been present in the Gorbals villiage for decades, were originally envisioned as middle-class suburbs for the bourgeois and artisans who were leaving the now crowded Blackfriar's district in the city centre (what is now the 'Merchant City').

Ironically, the Gorbals would come to surpass the Blackfriar's in notoriety as Glasgow's worst 'slum'. Middle class and working class people were mixed in the Gorbals in the early nineteenth century, though physically segregated into 'better' and 'lower' streets or closes. Of course, by the mid-nineteenth century with the availability of middle-class houses in Blythswood and the growing West End, the Gorbals was almost exclusively working class. Like in Blackfriar's before it, the homes left vacant by middle-class people were subdivided and rented out as one or two roomed houses to working-class people with less money and often irregular employment (and a desperate need to find new homes).