Early history , Paisley, Scotland, ca. 1890–1900. Formerly and variously known as
Paislay,
Passelet,
Passeleth, and
Passelay the burgh's name is of uncertain origin; some sources favour the name of the town as having its roots in the
Gaelic word
Baisleac, which is, like the Cumbric
basaleg, derived from
basilika. As Paisley was part of the Cumbric speaking
Kingdom of Strathclyde, before being absorbed into the Gaelic speaking
Kingdom of Alba in the 11th century, and with Cumbric being considered extinct by the 12th century, it is uncertain whether the name of Paisley is of Cumbric or Gaelic origin, due to the linguistic shift that occurred around this time. The Roman name for Paisley was Vanduara. Paisley has monastic origins. A chapel is said to have been established by the 6th / 7th-century Irish monk,
Saint Mirin, at a site near a waterfall on the White Cart Water known as the Hammils. Though Paisley lacks contemporary documentation it may have been, along with
Glasgow and
Govan, a major religious centre of the
Kingdom of Strathclyde. A priory was established in 1163 from the
Cluniac priory at
Wenlock in Shropshire, England at the behest of
Walter fitz Alan, Steward of Scotland (died 1177). In 1245 this was raised to the status of an abbey. The restored
Abbey and adjacent 'Place' (palace), constructed out of part of the medieval claustral buildings, survive as a
Church of Scotland parish church. One of Scotland's major religious houses,
Paisley Abbey was much favoured by the
Bruce and
Stewart royal families. King
Robert III (1390–1406) was buried in the Abbey. His tomb has not survived, but that of Princess
Marjorie Bruce (1296–1316), ancestor of the Stewarts, is one of
Scotland's few royal monuments to survive the
Reformation. Paisley coalesced under
James II's wish that the lands should become a single regality and, as a result, markets, trading and commerce began to flourish. In 1488 the town's status was raised by
James IV to
Burgh of barony. Many trades sprang up and the first school was established in 1577 by the Town Council.
Witch Trials The
Paisley witches, also known as the Bargarran witches or the Renfrewshire witches, were tried in Paisley in 1697. Seven were convicted and five were hanged and then burnt on the Gallow Green. Their remains were buried at Maxwelton Cross in the west end of the town. This was the last mass execution for witchcraft in western Europe. A horse shoe was placed on top of the site to lock in the evil. A horse shoe is still visible in the middle of this busy road junction today—though not the original. The modern shoe is made of bronze and bears the inscription, "Pain Inflicted, Suffering Endured, Injustice Done".
18th and 19th centuries Industrial Revolution The
Industrial Revolution, based on the textile industry, turned Paisley from a small market town to an important industrial town in the late 18th century. Initially beginning with small scale weaving (as took place at the Sma’ Shot cottages located in Shuttle Street), Paisley's location and workforce attracted English mill owners; migrants from
Ayrshire and the Highlands poured into a town that offered jobs to women and children until silk fell out of fashion in 1790. The mills switched to the imitation Kashmir (cashmere)
shawls called "Paisley". Under the leadership of
Thomas Coats (1809–1893), Paisley became the world centre for thread making. Mills and textile factories grew from the late 18th century, coming to dominate the town in the late
Victorian era. These include the Anchor and Seedhill mills, as well as the adjacent Atlantic, Pacific and Mile End mills. Another example was Underwood Mill, a
cotton mill founded in the 1780s which was later rebuilt as a thread mill in the 1860s (it fell into disuse in the 1970s). Other thread mills include Oakshaw thread works (later used by
Arrol-Johnston car manufacturers) and the Burnside thread works.
Origins of Paisley Shawls By the mid-19th century weaving had become the town's principal industry. The Paisley weavers' most famous products were the shawls, which bore the
Paisley Pattern made fashionable after being worn by a young
Queen Victoria. Despite being of a
Kashmiri design and manufactured in other parts of Europe, the teardrop-like pattern soon became known by Paisley's name across the western world. Although the shawls dropped out of fashion in the 1870s, the Paisley pattern remains an important symbol of the town: the Paisley Museum maintains a significant collection of the original shawls in this design, and it has been used, for example, in the modern logo of
Renfrewshire Council, the local authority. flowerbed display in Dunn Square According to Monique Lévi-Strauss, information on the history of Kashmir shawls' weaving techniques had been described in books, but in a very unintelligible language. John Irwin published a book named Shawls, a Study in Indo-European Influences, in 1955, in which he relates the Kashmir shawl's history and how these shawls spread on the European market during the 19th century. The book showed images of shawls woven in India and also fifteen images of shawls woven in United Kingdom, amongst which is one assigned to a Paisley manufacture, circa 1850. But according to Monique Lévi-Strauss, it resembles by many details a shawl designed by a French designer named Antony Berrus, who was born in 1815 at Nîmes-France and died in 1883. Berrus studied at the drawing School of Nîmes, before settling in Paris and opening in the French capital his own successful design studio, which employed 200 designers. His textile drawings were sold to Lyon in France, in Scotland, in England, in Austria and also in Kashmir. The fact that shawl patterns drawings were made in Europe, sold there and also to India, made the research work extremely difficult, in order to give a precise location of manufacture. Therefore, in 1973, John Irwin published an update of his book, named as The Kashmir Shawl, in which he removed all the images of the shawls related to a European manufacturing. Monique Lévi-Strauss states that her research led her to focus on the shawls creative industries in France in the 19th century, for the reason that the shawl industries in the United Kingdom (Paisley), Austria (Vienna), Germany (Elberfeld) were inspired by France (Paris) and never the opposite. The author then invited textile specialists from these countries to conduct research on their own field. Monique Lévi-Strauss notes the large influence that Kashmir had on the French shawl creative industries, narrowly linking the French history of Kashmir shawls to the Indian ones. The weavers of Paisley were certainly active in the 'Radical War'. The perceived radical nature of the inhabitants prompted the Tory Prime Minister
Benjamin Disraeli to comment "Keep your eye on Paisley". The poet
Robert Tannahill lived in this setting, working as a weaver. Paisley's annual Sma' Shot Day celebrations held on the first Saturday of July were initiated in 1856 to commemorate a 19th-century dispute between weavers and employers over payment for "sma' shot" – a small cotton thread which, although unseen, was necessary in holding garments together. A permanent military presence was established in the town with the completion of
Paisley Barracks in 1822.
Economic change The economic crisis of 1841–43 hit Paisley hard as most of the mills shut down. Among the mill owners, 67 of 112 went bankrupt. A quarter of the population was on poor relief. The Prime Minister, Sir
Robert Peel decided to act. He secured additional funds for relief and sent his own representative to the town to supervise its distribution. He convinced Queen Victoria to wear Paisley products in order to popularise the products and stimulate demand. Overproduction, the collapse of the shawl market and a general depression in the textile industry led to technical changes that reduced the importance of weavers. Politically the mill owners remained in control of the town. However, other industrial development continued in and around Paisley outside of textiles, including the development of
ironstone and
oil shale extraction at
Inkerman. The town also had numerous other industries, examples include numerous engineering works, as well as a distillery, ironwork, dye works and tanneries. The
American Civil War of 1861–1865
cut off cotton supplies to the
textile mills of Paisley. The mills in 1861 had a stock of cotton in reserve, but by 1862 there were large-scale shortages and shutdowns. There were no alternative jobs for the workers, and local authorities refused to provide relief. Voluntary relief efforts were inadequate, and the unemployed workers refused to go to workhouses. Workers blamed not the United States, but rather the officials in London for their hardship and did not support the idea of war with the United States. Many of the cotton mills either closed or were converted to thread manufacture which became the main focus of the textile industry in Paisley until the 20th century.
20th century First World War Paisley suffered heavy losses in the
First World War.
Paisley War Memorial was designed by Sir
Robert Lorimer (other sources say
Harold Tarbolton) in 1922 and depicts
Robert the Bruce going into battle on horseback escorted by footsoldiers dressed as
First World War infantry soldiers. It was sculpted by
Alice Meredith Williams.
Bottled snail incident Paisley was also the site of an incident that gave rise to a major legal precedent. In a Paisley cafe in 1928, a woman claimed to find a dead snail in a bottle of ginger beer, and became ill. She sued the manufacturer for negligence. At the time a manufacturer was considered liable only if there was a contract in place with the harmed party. After
Donoghue v Stevenson, a precedent was established that manufacturers (and other "neighbours" or fellow citizens) owe a duty not to do foreseeable harm to others by negligence, regardless of contractual obligations, which paved the way for modern
tort law. The case is often called the "Paisley snail".
Second World War Owing to its industrial roots, Paisley, like many industrial towns in
Renfrewshire, became a target for German
Luftwaffe bombers during
World War II. Although it was not bombed as heavily as nearby
Glasgow (see
Clydebank Blitz), air raids still occurred periodically during the early years of the war, killing nearly a hundred people in several separate incidents; on 6 May 1941, a parachute mine was dropped in the early hours of the morning claiming 92 victims; this is billed the worst disaster in Paisley's history. The
Gleniffer Braes, on the southern outskirts of Paisley, are home to a number of "decoy ponds" (mock airfields) used by the RAF after the
Battle of Britain as part of a project code-named "Starfish Decoy" designed to confuse German spies.
Industrial decline Paisley, as with other areas in Renfrewshire, was at one time famous for its
weaving and
textile industries. As a consequence, the
Paisley pattern has long symbolic associations with the town. Until the
Jacquard loom was introduced in the 1820s, weaving was a
cottage industry. This innovation led to the industrialisation of the process and many larger mills were created in the town. Also as a consequence of greater mechanisation, many weavers lost their livelihoods and left for Canada and Australia. Paisley was for many years a centre for the manufacture of cotton sewing
thread. At the heyday of Paisley thread manufacture in the 1930s, there were 28,000 people employed in the huge Anchor and Ferguslie mills of
J & P Coats Ltd, said to be the largest of their kind in the world at that time. In the 1950s, the mills diversified into the production of synthetic threads but production diminished rapidly as a result of less expensive imports from overseas and the establishment of mills in
India and
Brazil by J & P Coats. By the end of the 1993, there was no thread being produced in Paisley. The town also supported a number of engineering works some of which relied on the textile industry, others on
shipbuilding. Paisley once had five shipyards including John Fullerton and Company (1866–1928),
Bow, McLachlan and Company (1872–1932) and
Fleming and Ferguson (1877–1969). A number of food manufacture companies existed in Paisley. The preserve manufacturer
Robertsons began in Paisley as a grocer whose wife started making
marmalade from oranges in 1860. This product was successful and a factory was opened in Storie Street, Paisley, to produce it in 1866 and additional factories were later opened in Manchester, London and Bristol. The company was taken over by
Rank Hovis McDougall who closed its Stevenson Street factory and transferred production to England in the 1970s. Brown and Polson was formed in Paisley in 1840 and two years later started producing
starch for the weaving trades, by 1860 it was making food products including its patent
cornflour. It later became CPC Foods Ltd, a subsidiary of
Unilever, which produced
Hellmann's mayonnaise,
Gerber baby foods and
Knorr soups. The company ceased production in Paisley in 2002. The Piazza shopping centre was opened by
Sean Connery in 1970 and has since been modernised several times. In 1981
Peugeot Talbot, formerly
Chrysler and before that
Rootes, announced that its
Linwood factory just outside Paisley would cease production. This led to the loss of almost 5,000 jobs. At one time
M&Co. (Mackays) had its head office in Caledonia House in Paisley. Paisley had several
cinemas in the town, all of which have since closed, including the Palladium (closed 1960s), the Regal, the La Scala Picture House (the B listed art deco 1912 facade of the cinema is now the entrance to the Paisley Centre) and the Kelburne.
21st century Regeneration In 2015, the town launched its bid to become UK City of Culture in 2021. On 15 July 2017 Paisley was announced as one of five shortlisted candidates, On 7 December 2017 it lost to
Coventry. Following the announcement, Renfrewshire Council and the Paisley 2021 Board stated that Paisley's "journey will continue" and that the bid process was "just the beginning" for regeneration processes in the town. Funding acquired during the City of Culture bid has led to multi-million pound regenerations for many of the town's key attractions. This includes a £22million refurbishment to the Town Hall which reopened in October 2023, a new £7million Central Library and Learning Hub on the High Street which opened November 2023, and a £45million transformation of Paisley Museum due to be completed in late 2024. Renfrewshire Council also maintains its Townscape Heritage Initiative and Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme to provide grants to property owners in Paisley and the surrounding areas to carry out historic building repair and traditional shopfront reinstatement. ==Governance and public services==