The English held the
castle for a time but it
was recaptured in 1309
where a sitting of
parliament was held
before it was again taken
by English forces. The
castle was retaken in
1313 by Edward, brother
of Robert the Bruce, who
became king of Ireland
three years later. By the
16th century the castle was in the hands of the Hamiltons, the lairds of
Shawfield but all that remained was the great tower. It wa s burned to the
ground by the Regent Murray in 1569, a year after the defeat of Mary,
Queen of Scots, at the Battle of Langside, the Hamiltons having supported
the wrong side. The last remnants of the castle disappeared in the middle of
the 18th century to make way for a vegetable garden close to what is now
the junction of Castle Street and King Street.
During the 19th century Rutherglen changed from a weaving and mining
village to a more industrialised area, with its own shipyard, established by
Thomas Bollen Seath in 1856. Seath built many of the paddle steamers and
the famous little Clutha ferry boats that transported commuters up and down
the Clyde.
The statistician William Gemmell Cochran was born in Rutherglen in 1909.
Educated at Glasgow and Cambridge universities, he worked initially in
agricultural statistics, before emigrating to America in 1939. There he carried
out research in medical statistics finally working at Harvard University where
he set up many courses in statistics in American universities. He died in
Orleans, Massachusetts in 1980.
Poet and playwright Tom McGrath was born in Rutherglen in 1940. His first
poems were published in 1962 and he was the founding editor of the 1960s
underground magazine International Times. His plays include Laurel and
Hardy and The Hardman, about the gangster and murderer Jimmy Boyle. He
was also musical director of The Great Northern Welly Boot Show which
starred comedian Billy Connolly.
Janet Brown was born in Rutherglen in 1924 and comedian and actor
Robbie Coltrane was born there in 1950.
In the 1900s, Arthur Stanley Jefferson (who would be known to the world
some years later as Stan Laurel) was a pupil at Rutherglen Academy (now
Stonelaw High) when his father was in charge of a local theatre.
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