Johnstone - Jordanhill

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Johnstone. A town, quoad sacra parish, and registration district in the extreme W of the Abbey parish of Paisley, and near the centre of the county of Renfrew. The parish was not erected till 1834, when there was a population of over 5000; but as early as 1792 a church had been built, and in 1794 (when the population was only about 1500) the building was ready for use, and bounds were perambulated and assigned, within which the minister of the Johnstone church had ecclesiastical charge. The town, which has now outgrown the limits of the original parish, stands on the E bank of the Black Cart, and a short distance W of the road from Glasgow to Ayr by Paisley. It is by rail 3 1/2 miles W by S of Paisley, 10 1/4 W by S of Glasgow, 14 SE by E of Greenock, and 25 1/2 N by E of Ayr. It has a station on the Glasgow and Ayr section of the Glasgow and South-Western railway system, close to the point where the branch turns off north-westward to Greenock, and here was also formerly the western terminus of the Glasgow, Paisley, and Johnstone Canal, an undertaking at first intended to be continued to Ardrossan. The canal subsequently coming into possession of the Glasgow and South-Western Railway Company, it was used for goods traffic only, and has now been converted into a railway. The town was founded in 1781, the site, at the E end of a bridge over the Cart known as `the Brig o' Johnstone,' having been previously occupied by a small hamlet of only ten houses. The first houses afforded accommodation to the hands employed at a large cotton mill erected close by, and since then the place has, in virtue of its position in the middle of a large mining district, become a considerable industrial centre. The mill was built, and the plan of the town laid out, by the proprietor of the estate of Johnstone, who was also superior of the ground on which it stands, and it is to his influence that the place owes its first start in prosperity and its rapid rise, for in the first ten years of its existence the population increased from about 50 to about 1500. The plan was a regular one, the main street (High Street) running almost E and W, and being crossed at right angles by numerous minor streets, while there are two spacious squares--one of which forms a market-place. The houses are substantial stone buildings, and the place has a remarkably airy appearance, due in part to the spaciousness of the streets, and in part to the number of pieces of open garden-ground attached to the houses. The Burgh buildings, in Collier Street, were erected in 1888 at a cost of £2000, and contain a full length portrait of the late Sir Wm. M. Napier, Bart., the spacious court-room being ornamented with the burgh coat of arms. A Cottage Hospital, with accommodation for 16 beds, was in 1893 presented to the town and neighbourhood by Mr. Charles Bine Renshaw, M.P., the cost of which, including a gift endowment fund of £3000, was about £10,000--the donor besides giving £100 annually for five years. Captain Speirs of Elderslie gave the site free, and the same year presented to the town a large field in the vicinity to be used for recreation purposes. In that year also a new Drill Hall was erected at an estimated cost of £1200, and a Good Templars' Hall built at a cost of about £1000. Hand-loom weaving, at one time extensively carried on, is now extinct. The principal industries in the burgh are extensive foundries and machine works, a boiler work, a paper mill, linen thread works, and cotton mills. The old premises of the Clippens Oil Co. (about 50 acres) were leased in 1894 by the Sun Foundry of Glasgow. Under the Burgh Police Act of 1892, it is governed by a provost, 2 bailies, and 6 commissioners. The police force consists of 9 men, and a police court is held on the first Monday of every month. The town is well supplied with water, and in 1881 the property and plant of the Gas Company were acquired by the town at a cost of £22,000. The works are at the N side of the burgh. The parish church, at the S end of Church Street, was built, as already noticed, between 1792 and 1794 as a chapel of ease at a cost of about £1400. The spire was added in 1823, and extensive repairs were made in 1877. Laigh Cartside chapel of ease was opened in 1885. The Free church in William Street was built soon after the Disruption. There are two United Presbyterian churches, the one built in 1791 at a cost of about £900, and the other in 1829 at a cost of about £1500. The Episcopal church, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, is a cruciform building with transepts and chancel. It was erected in 1874 and enlarged in 1878, and contains 400 sittings. The Roman Catholic church, dedicated to St. Margaret, was originally erected in 1852, but in 1882 underwent great alteration and reconstruction after designs by Messrs. Pugin & Pugin. Educational affairs are managed by a committee of the Abbey Parish School Board, and the schools are Johnstone, Nethercraigs, M`Dowall Street, Inkerman, and Cardonald public schools, with accommodation respectively for 850, 142, 181, 280, and 144 scholars, an average attendance of about 890, 110, 80, 145, and 100, and grants of nearly £920, £115, £80, £135, and £100. A school is also carried on in connection with St. Margaret's Roman Catholic church, which, with accommodation for 489 children, has an average attendance of about 390, and a grant of nearly £390. Johnstone has a post office, with money order, savings bank, insurance, and telegraph departments, branches of the National, Royal, and Union Banks, a branch of the National Security Savings Bank, and several inns. The newspapers are the Johnstone Advertiser and the Observer, both published on Saturday. There is a Public Hall and Working Men's Institute, with a news-room and a hall with accommodation for 1000, and containing a fine organ presented by Mr. Bousfield. There are also Assembly Rooms, a temperance hall, a Mechanics' Institute, a friendly society, a branch of the Bible society, a missionary society, a Young Men's Christian Association, a bowling-green, a fire brigade, a volunteer corps, and an Agricultural Society which holds a cattle show annually on the Friday of Glasgow Fair week. A horse fair is held on the first Friday of January, and a general fair on the Thursday after the second Monday of July. Johnstone Castle, an elegant modern mansion, stands within a large well-wooded park, 1 mile S by E of the town. Its owner is George Ludovic Houstoun, Esq. (b. 1846; sue. 1862). MILLIKEN House, a building in the Grecian style, is 1 1/4 mile to the W. The parish is in the presbytery of Paisley and the synod of Glasgow and Ayr; its minister's stipend is £382. Pop. of town (1811) 3647, (1831) 5617, (1861) 6404, (1871) 7538, (1881) 9267, (1891) 9668, of whom 4524 were males, and 5144 were females; of parish (1871) 8588, (1881) 9201, (1891) 9695. Houses in town (1891) inhabited 1980, vacant 150, building 9.--Ord. Sur., sh. 30, 1866. See Matthew Gemmill's Ecclesiastical Sketch of Johnstone.
Jordanhill. A village near the NE border of Renfrew parish, within 9 furlongs of the N bank of the Clyde, and 2 1/2 miles WSW of Maryhill. It has a post office and a station on the Glasgow, Yoker, and Clydebank section of the North British railway. The Jordanhill estate, extending into the Lanarkshire section of Govan parish, comprises only 293 acres, but has a value of over £4000.--Ord. Sur., sh. 30, 1866.

    


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