Tobacco, sugar, and cotton were grown in North America and the West Indies using slave labour. These commodities made immense profits for the Scottish merchants who shipped them first to Glasgow and then on to Atlantic and European consumers.
One of the main ‘Tobacco Lords’, as they were known in Glasgow, was William Cunninghame, whose family roots lay in Caprington, Ayrshire. He was the protégé of Andrew Cochrane, the owner of the King Street Sugarhouse in Glasgow, himself the son of an Ayr merchant.
Cunninghame made vast profits from speculating on the price of tobacco during the American Wars of Independence, and was one of the few Glasgow merchants to survive the colonies’ revolt without being financially ruined. In 1778 he bought the estate of Lainshaw in Ayrshire, and also built a mansion (at the immense cost of £10 000) on the present site of the Gallery of Modern Art on Queen Street in Glasgow.
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Glasgow sugar houses invoice for sugar from Jamaica Click on the image for enlarged view. [DC17/3] |