Well Rena, Dumbarton was a Royal Burgh before Glasgow as Glasgow was a Burgh of Regality, being under the Archbishop. Glasgow's trade with the American colonies was hampered as the Clyde wasn't deep enough for the ships which Glasgow at first chartered from Whitehaven in Cumbria. The Toon Cooncil offered Dumbarton the chance of being Glasgow's port which they laughingly turned down.. "Oh how they laughed!"
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Plan B, was building our own port & Port Glasgow was the successful result. The volume of traffic became such that unloaded cargoes of tobacco onto barges bound for the Forth & Clyde canal caused such a traffic-jam that deepening the Clyde right up to the Broomielaw was finally accomplished.
Dumbarton, the Royal Burgh, languished into a kinda "Sleepy Hollow!" with The Lang Dyke constructed, by John Golborne an Englishman, down the middle of the Clyde off Dumbarton to deepen the channel where formerly cattle could cross at low tide and which then became deep enough for the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.
The Lang Dyke had a notice thereon ordering ships to "Dead Slow!" and Glesga folk on holiday "Doon the Watter!" laughingly thought that Dead Slow applied to the natives of Dunbarton, the toon that never made it! "Oh how they laughed!"
Anyhow I will continue to pay my council tax towards the upkeep of your Crum burial plots, fat chance of any crumbs from the ex-pats, as you folks call yoursels.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dshirres/4949816382Bests,
Skoosh.
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