Glasgow

Famous Glaswegians

more than a year ago
Beyond the almost cult-like celebrity of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, you'll be surprised how many big names in the world of music and entertainment, politics, science and education have their roots in Glasgow. Here a quick list of in our humble opinion the most significant... many more can be found here

Musicians and Bands include Simple Minds, Donovan, Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) Franz Ferdinand, Texas, Deacon Blue, Lulu, Clare Grogan and Altered Images, The Communards' Jimmy Somerville, Angus Young (AC/DC), The Fratellis, Primal Scream, and more recently Amy McDonald and Lewis Capaldi.

From the Arts you’ve got film actors Bill Paterson, Robbie Coltrane, Robert Carlyle, James McAvoy, Gerard Butler and of course the city's funniest export, Billy Connolly.
     
Sporting greats include football legend and manager Sir Alex Ferguson and Benny Lynch, Scotland's first boxing champion.

In the world of politics we have the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Former First Minister of Scotland Donald Dewar and Canada's first Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald.

Famous Glasgow Inventors
Charles MacIntosh (1766-1843) invented the raincoat by sandwiching a layer of rubber between two layers of cloth, making it waterproof. It was first used for an 1824 Arctic expedition and, to this day, we Scots with our lousy weather say 'thank you' to the man who invented the Mac.

James Young (1811-1883) discovered Paraffin Oil. The father of the oil industry invented a way of extracting paraffin from oil-rich shale and coal and established world's first oil-works in Bathgate. Made his fortune selling paraffin oil, wax and even fertilisers.
Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) Though born in Belfast, N. Ireland, ‘Mr Thermodynamics' went to Glasgow University when aged just ten. Developed the science of thermodynamics and formulated the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature, supervised laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable and improved ship's compass.
George Bennie (1892-1957) died in obscurity, after inventing rail-plane, a high-level monorail system. The prototype, at Milngavie on the outskirts of Glasgow, was sold for scrap in 1956. Today, Las Vegas, Tokyo, Moscow and Seattle all have monorails.

Sir Thomas Lipton (1848 - 1931) as in Lipton Tea wraps up our list

Feel free to add your own suggestions...

 

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