N is for Names

Names, above all other kinds of words, have always had their own special magic. The long lists of club, team, gig and prize-winning vessels are inspired by humour ('Win if I Can', 1885; 'Hard Egg', 1880), fate (Avenger, 1850), speed (Gazelle, Thunderbolt, 1841), politics and literature. Placenames too, can tell us much about the history of an area - freezing lost languages, former residents and past uses in time. 

A few examples from the imaginative 1850s illustrate this. 'Clutha', the ancient British name for the River Clyde, was applied to various gigs from 1845 onwards, and to the boathouse which opened in 1854. The novels of Walter Scott prompted both 'Waverley Station', and boats' 'Jeanie Deans' and 'Rob Roy'; 'The Corsican Brothers' by Alexander Dumas appeared as a play in 1852, and as a jolly-boat in 1853! Technology motivated the 'Telegraph' – rowed by Glasgow Humane Society's James Geddes - as attempts to lay the first trans-Atlantic cables began in 1854. Aquatics itself created its own heroes and icons – the skiff 'Clasper' (1857) the 'Tyne' celebrate the legendary Newcastle rowing champions. Local pride was upheld by the 'Lennox Lass' (1857) and 'Maid of St Rollox', of 1851.  

From 1829 until 1853, the competitors pulled between the Wooden Bridge (rebuilt as 'Hutchesons' in the 1830s), at Glasgow Green, upstream to Rutherglen Bridge, and back. Buoys and the commodore's barge were moored to mark turning points, and any temporary variations. The military band of 1831 occupied a 'floating ark' at Dominie's Hole, an old bathing spot preserving the traditional Scots word for 'schoolteacher', and easily accessible for swimming. Flesher's Haugh (riverside meadow) once belonged to the butchers' guild or Incorporation of Fleshers, and provided them with rental income. The racing course was altered in 1854, so that it was better visible from the new Regatta Club (later 'Clutha') boathouse opposite Flesher's Haugh.

The 'Peat Bog' turn appears to have indicated the first bend above Hutcheson's Bridge, though the exact location isn’t clear, and competitors went upstream to Rutherglen Bridge and back, maintaining the event's 'traditional' distance of 2 miles.

Various local landmarks are used as informal starting points and markers, such as Allan's Pen(d), a private, partly-underground tunnel. A public path to the river was illegally roofed-over in the 1790s, but the landowner was halted by court order in 1801. Another starting line was Nelson's Monument, a good example of adapting a grandiose statue for leisure purposes! In 1847, the course 'extended to Jenny's Burn, at the [diving] spring board near the head of the Green'. In 1866, a different route ran from 'opposite Rankine's boatbuilding yard to Jenny's Burn, and back'. The identity of the eponymous 'Jenny' is debated (if she ever even existed!), but this stream is also known as the Polmadie Burn, a relic placename from over 1000 years ago when people living in the area still spoke Gaelic. Dalmarnock is also amongst the oldest placenames along the river - the 'Dal' part derived from the Gaelic for 'meadow lands', (haugh in Scots) and the second part of the name is a dedication to St Marnock, one of the first Christian missionaries in Scotland.

Veteran pullers recalled that 'The Old Tree at the foot of South Wellington St was the starting post …long ago', but they don't give any date. However, the street, now under Ballater Place, Gorbals, ended on the bank slightly west of Nelson's Monument, so that breadth of water obviously invited lineups of eager sweepers and scullers. The existence of the single, solitary 'Old Tree' shows that industry was encroaching 'above the bridges', including the 'Nursery Mill', and Higginbotham's two textile factories, the Springfield and the Adelphi works. 

Names and markers shift and change with each generation. 'The Spaceman' grafitti, which once acted as the 3km start mark has long since worn away, Cowan's Bend (commemorating the confectionary works) and 'the outflow' (a patch of warm water emitted from the long-demolished Dalmarnock Power Station, survive in name only. 

The name of the Clyde itself is the oldest of all. The earliest known reference to the river appeared in AD 150 on Greek geographer Ptolemy’s map of Scotland. It is shown as ‘Clota’ - the Latin version of the ancient Celtic ‘Clut’, meaning ‘she who washes’ or 'the noisy one'. The river is traditionally associated with the Celtic river goddess ‘Clota’, and from this the name evolved into ‘Clutha’ and finally morphed into our modern name for the river - ‘Clyde’.