Dumbarton

"DUMBARTON, town, castle and parish in Dumbartonshire. ... The parish excludes the town's suburbs, measures about 7½ by 3½ miles, and comprises 8291 acres. ... Pop. 10,898. The land for some distance from the town and castle is low and flat, but about the middle rises steeply into the Lennox Hills, and in the farther end is bleakly moorish. No school is in the landward part, and 1 of the schools in the town for 350 scholars is new." ...

"... The town stands on low flat ground, bisected by the river Leven, ¾ mile from the Clyde, and 15½ miles north-west-by-west of Glasgow; covers the site of the Roman naval station Theodosia, and the site of a Culdee cell; shared in the history of Dumbarton Castle as the royal seat of the kingdom of Cumbria or Strathclyde; is now a seaport, a royal and parliamentary burgh, and they political capital of Dumbartonshire; unites with Port Glasgow, Renfrew, Rutherglen, and Kilmarnock in sending a member to Parliament; comprises a main body on the left bank of the Leven, and two suburbs, old and new, on the right bank; was designed in 1876 to undergo extensive improvements in its streets and harbour, and in 1881 to acquire an eastern suburb with house accommodation for about 2000 families; was long distinguished for glass manufacture, and is much more distinguished now for shipbuilding; publishes 2 weekly newspapers; and has a head post office with money order and telegraph departments, a railway station, 3 banking offices, 2 hotels, a fine town hall of 1865, a long costly pier of 1874-75, a steepled Established church of 1810, a handsome Free church of 1878, another Free church, 2 United Presbyterian churches, an elegant Episcopalian church of 1873. Evangelical Union, Baptist, Wesleyan, and Roman Catholic churches, a Mechanics' Institute, and 7 public schools with accommodation for 1961 scholars. Real property in 188-81, £43,842. Pop. 13,786."

[From The Gazetteer of Scotland, by Rev. John Wilson, 1882.]