History
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Name[edit]
Place-name scholar William J. Watson wrote that "Greenock is well known in Gaelic as Grianáig, dative of grianág, 'a sunny knoll'". The Scottish Gaelic place-name Grianaig is relatively common, with another Greenock near Callander in Menteith (formerly in Perthshire) and yet another at Muirkirk in Kyle, now in East Ayrshire. R. M. Smith in (1921) described the alternative derivation from Common Brittonic *Graenag, 'gravelly or sandy place', as more appropriate, accurately describing the original foreshore. Johnston (1934) notes that "some Gaels call the seaport Ghónait, and that a possible derivation may be greannach, meaning 'rough, gravelly'.
The name of the town has had various spellings over time. It was printed in early Acts of Parliament as Grinok, Greenhok, Grinock, Greenhoke, Greinnock, and later as Greinok. Old Presbyterial records used Grenok, a common spelling until it was changed to Greenock around 1700. Grenock was also used in the 19th century, e.g. in Lloyd's List publications.
The spelling Greenoak was found in two factory accounts dating back to 1717, and a legend developed of a green oak tree at the edge of the Clyde at William Street being used by fishermen to tie up their boats. No reliable source has been found referencing green oaks, however, and so this has been generally dismissed as imaginative Anglophone folk etymology. Nonetheless the image has frequently been used as an emblem or logo, carved on public buildings, used on banners and badges, and was once emblazoned on the local Co-operative Society emblem. It reappeared in 1992 as the new shopping centre's name, the Oak Mall, which uses a green tree as its logo. The name is also recalled in a local song ("The Green Oak Tree"). Significantly, no green oak appears on the former burgh coat of arms, which features the three chalices of the Shaw Stewarts, a sailing ship in full sail, and two herring above the motto "God Speed Greenock".
Early history[edit]
The Old West Kirk of 1591, much altered over the years, was moved in 1928 to a new location, again close to the Firth of Clyde.
Hugh de Grenock was created a Scottish Baron in 1296, and the seat of the feudal barony of Greenock was apparently[weasel words] what became Easter Greenock Castle. Around 1400 his successor Malcolm Galbraith died with no sons, and his estate was divided between his two daughters to become two baronies: the eldest inherited Easter Greenock and married a Crawfurd, while Wester Greenock went to the younger daughter who married Schaw of Sauchie. Around 1540 the adjoining barony of Finnart was passed to the Schaw family, extending their holdings westward to the boundary of Gourock, and in 1542 Sir John Schaw founded Wester Greenock castle.
The Scottish Reformation of 1560 closed the chapels in the parish, and as the parish church was some 6 miles (10 kilometres) distant at Inverkip over a difficult route which was impassable in winter, in 1589 John Schaw obtained a charter from King James VI to build a kirk for the "poor people upon his lands who were all fishers and of a reasonable number". Later known as the Old Kirk or the Old West Kirk, it was constructed on the west bank of the West Burn estuary and is reputed to have been the first Protestant church built in Scotland after the Reformation.
The Schaw, later Shaw and Shaw-Stewart, family retained a leading role in Greenock over the following centuries. In 1670, Sir John Shaw obtained a charter from King Charles II, combining the lands of Finnart and the barony of Wester Greenock, to create the barony of Greenock.
Fishing villages, harbours and shipbuilding[edit]
Waterfront, roads outside the harbour, c. 1838
The coast of Greenock formed a broad bay with three smaller indentations: the Bay of Quick was known as a safe anchorage as far back as 1164. To its east, a sandy bay ran eastwards from the Old Kirk and the West Burn as far as Wester Greenock castle. The fishing village of Greenock developed along this bay, and around 1635 Sir John Schaw had a jetty built into the bay which became known as Sir John's Bay. In that year he obtained a charter raising Greenock to a Burgh of Barony with rights to a weekly market. Further east, Saint Laurence Bay curved round past the Crawfurd Barony of Easter Greenock to Garvel (or Gravel) Point. When a pier (or dyke) was built making the bay an important harbour, the fishing village of Cartsdyke gained the alternative name of Craufurdsdyke. In 1642 it was made into the Burgh of Barony of Crawfurdsdyke, and part of the ill-fated Darien Scheme set out from this pier in 1697. Its town was named Cartsburn.
The fishing trade grew prosperous, with barrels of salted herring exported widely, and shipping trade developed. As seagoing ships could not go further up the River Clyde, the Glasgow merchants including the Tobacco Lords wanted harbour access but were in disputes with Greenock over harbour dues and warehouses. They tried to buy the Garvel estate for a harbour when Easter Greenock lands were put up for sale to meet debts, but were outbid by Sir John Schaw who then got a Crown Charter of 1670 uniting Easter and Wester Greenock into the Burgh Barony of Greenock. A separate Barony of Cartsburn was created, the first baron being Thomas Craufurd. In 1668 the City of Glasgow got the lease of 13 acres (5 hectares) of land upriver close to Newark Castle, and construction promptly started on Newport Glasgow harbour which by 1710 had the principal Clyde custom house.
In 1696 and 1700 Schaw and residents of the town made unsuccessful bids to the Scottish Parliament for grants for a Greenock harbour, then when the Act of Union 1707 opened up involvement in colonial trade, they raised their own funds. The work was completed in 1710, with quays extended out into Sir John's Bay to enclose the harbour. In 1711 the shipbuilding industry was founded when Scotts leased ground between the harbour and the West Burn to build fishing boats. Greenock rapidly became a major port and shipbuilding centre, and though tobacco imported from the colonies was taken to Glasgow by pack horse, the more bulky imports of sugar were processed locally. From 1774 the dredging of the River Clyde increasingly allowed ships to take merchandise directly to Glasgow, but merchants continued to use Greenock harbour.
The American Revolutionary War temporarily interrupted trade, and the gun battery of Fort Beauclerc near the West Burn was extended to guard against the threat of privateers, but the emphasis shifted to wider markets including imports of rum and sugar from the Caribbean, wines from Spain, and fish from North America. A whaling business operated for about 40 years. Greenock "was mainly a trading port for goods such as sugar and cotton, but also dispatched ships to West Africa to take people to be enslaved" in Britain's American colonies. In 1868, in what became a cause celebre, seven young Greenock males stowed away on a cargo ship bound for Quebec. Treated with what was, even for the times, exceptional brutality, they were forcibly disembarked in Newfoundland; by the time they were returned to Scotland, three of them had died. The captain and mate of the cargo ship were tried in a blaze of publicity at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh and served short prison terms.
Custom House and steamboats[edit]
The Custom House, viewed from Custom House Quay.
In 1714 Greenock became a custom house port as a branch of Port Glasgow, and for a period this operated from rooms leased in Greenock. Receipts rose rapidly with the expansion of colonial trade, and in 1778 the custom house moved to newly-built premises at the West Quay of the harbour.
By 1791 a new pier was constructed at the East Quay. In 1812 Europe's first steamboat service was introduced by PS Comet with frequent sailings between Glasgow, Greenock and Helensburgh, and as trade built up the pier became known as Steamboat Quay.
The custom house needed larger premises and in May 1817 the foundation stone was laid at Steamboat Quay for a Custom House building designed by William Burn, which was completed in 1818. Its gracious neoclassical architecture features a Grecian Doric portico looking out over the quay, which would eventually be renamed Custom House Quay. In 1828 the Custom House was praised as "a grand National Structure" in "the highest style of elegance". By then there were scheduled steamboat sailings to Belfast, Derry, Liverpool, Inverness, Campbeltown, the Hebrides and "all the principal places in the Highlands".
The Custom House underwent extensive refurbishment which was completed in 1989 and, until closure of the building in 2010, housed a customs and excise museum which was open to the public. In June 2008 HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) announced that the building would close in 2011 as part of a rationalisation project with any jobs being transferred to offices in Glasgow, and despite a campaign to oppose these plans, the building closed in August 2010.
Riverside Inverclyde arranged further refurbishment works, and in 2013 announced that space had already been let to companies including PG Paper Company Ltd and Toshiba which had planning permission to form meeting rooms and an executive office in the building. Greenock Telegraph estimated that £4.1 million has been spent over five-year period for the renovation works.
Industry and railways[edit]
The Cut – aqueduct
View from above Cathcart Street over Cathcart Square to Greenock Municipal Buildings, with the Victoria Tower to the right of "Cowan's Corner", and the Mid Kirk spire of 1781 to the left.
Greenock became a centre of industry, with water power being used to process imported goods. In 1827 Loch Thom was constructed as a reservoir with The Cut aqueduct, bringing water to two lines of falls for water mills to power a paper mill, cotton and woollen mills, sugar refineries and shipbuilding
Greenock Central railway station at Cathcart Street opened in 1841, for the first time providing a fast route from Glasgow to the coast linking up with Clyde steamer services. The provision of this new line meant there was no need to take the steamer all the way down river from Glasgow. In 1869 the Caledonian Railway was bypassed by the rival Greenock and Ayrshire Railway which opened a station on the waterfront at its Albert Harbour station (later renamed Princes Pier), served by a tunnel under Greenock's west end. To regain custom, the Caledonian Railway extended (what is now known as the Inverclyde Line) the Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway west to Gourock; this line was built to run inland through deep cuttings and tunnels, with a tunnel under the whole length of Newton Street crossing under the other railway tunnel to emerge near Fort Matilda railway station. Spoil from the cuttings and tunnels was used to build an embankment out from the shore to a long timber wharf at Gourock railway station, providing space for railway sidings. The railway bought Wester Greenock castle and its extension, the Mansion House, and demolished them before constructing the tunnel immediately west of Greenock Central station, running under the castle grounds which now form Well Park.
Greenock's increasing importance and wealth was manifested in the construction of the Greenock Municipal Buildings, whose Victoria Tower, completed in 1886, stands 245 feet (75 metres) tall. The War of 1812 reawakened fears of American raids against Britain's ports. Earlier gun batteries had been dismantled and in 1813 ground was granted for a battery at Whitefarland Point. Fort Matilda was completed in 1818 and was sporadically modified over the century. The land to the west of this was common ground for inhabitants of the town, but in 1907 the Admiralty compulsorily purchased part of this land for a torpedo factory. The remaining space was handed over to Greenock Corporation in 1914 as a public park.
The Clyde Torpedo Factory opened in 1910, with 700 workers transferred from the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. The site was tasked with designing and testing of torpedoes, the testing taking place in Loch Long. During the Second World War the site switched entirely to manufacturing torpedoes. The original gun battery site was occupied by the Navy Buildings, the main offices, just to the east of the torpedo factory buildings.
Following WW2, in 1947, the site became fully committed to R&D as the Torpedo Experimental Establishment (TEE). TEE was closed in 1959, when all torpedo research, development and design were concentrated at the newly formed Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment (AUWE), Portland.
A church which became known as the Old West Kirk had been established in Greenock in 1591 under the patronage of John Schaw, the first built in Scotland since the Reformation. It was extended over the years, at an early stage the Schaw aisle provided pews for the Laird of the Barony, built as a gallery to the east of the nave of the church. Opposite it, above the front entrance, is the Crawfurdsburn or Choir Gallery. At the south end of the nave, the Sailor's Loft gallery was built in 1698 and features a 19th-century model frigate, which replaced earlier models. At the north end, the Farmer's Gallery is above the main seating area. A tower was added in the mid 19th century.
In 1926, to make way for expansion of the Harland & Wolff shipyard (the present-day location of Container Way), the Old West Kirk was relocated to a new site on the Esplanade where it still stands. The shipbuilders provided the Pirrie Hall to the south of the site: this was opened in February 1925, just after the old church closed for work to commence, and was used during the works to accommodate services, enabling the congregation to see progress on the rebuilt kirk. It then came into use as the church hall.
The church is notable for stained glass by artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Sir Edward Burne-Jones. The Church has a website.
Second World War[edit]
Main article: Greenock Blitz
Free French Memorial on Lyle Hill overlooking Gourock
Greenock suffered badly during the Second World War and its anchorage at the Tail of the Bank became the base for the Home Fleet as well as the main assembly point for Atlantic convoys. On 30 April 1940 the French Vauquelin class destroyer Maillé Brézé blew up off Greenock with heavy loss of life following an accident involving two of her own torpedoes. Although this disaster occurred before the Free French Naval Forces were established, many people tend to regard the Cross of Lorraine on Lyle Hill as a memorial to the loss of the Maillé Brézé as well as to the later losses of the Free French Naval Forces which sailed from the town. On the nights of 6 May and 7 May 1941 around 300 Luftwaffe aircraft attacked the town in the Greenock Blitz.
On 10 October 1940, RAF Greenock was created as a maintenance base for RAF flying boats. The base was hit on 7 May 1941 during the Greenock Blitz.
A large building housing a drapery business constructed on Cowan's property at the corner of the Municipal Buildings was badly damaged and was demolished, leaving the blank brick corner area still known as "Cowan's Corner". This was later landscaped and used as a garden. The neighbouring Municipal Buildings was also severely damaged during the bombings, which soon led to the loss of a Southern Tower, and two pediments situated on top of the South Façade of the buildings.
Post–war years[edit]
Panoramic view of Greenock in 1983 with numerous tower blocks visible
Greenock thrived in the post-war years but as the heavy industries declined in the 1970s and 1980s unemployment became a major problem, and it has only been in the last ten years with reinvestment and the redevelopment of large sections of the town that the local economy has started to revive. Tourism has appeared as an unexpected bonus with the development of the Clydeport container port as Ocean Terminal, a passenger terminal for cruise ships touring the Atlantic. Students who do not travel further afield for study often attend the Greenock campus of West College (formerly known as James Watt College of Further and Higher Education).
Greenock reached its population peak in 1921 (81,123) and was once the sixth largest town in Scotland.
