Glasgow Merchants’ Investment in Purple

The profits from Scottish-owned plantations in the West Indies that used enslaved men, women and children were returned to Scotland and invested in industries here rather than helping to develop their local Caribbean communities. One such area that profited was Glasgow’s burgeoning dye industry.

Many purple dyes were traditionally made using lichen dyes which were much cheaper than the famous Tyrian or murex purple extracted from molluscs. One of the main lichen dyes used in Scotland was orchil. In 1758 George Gordon and his nephew, Cuthbert, patented cudbear, a purple dye extracted from orchil using ammonia that could dye silk or wool without the use of a mordant to fix the colour. Production was initially undertaken in Leith, but the dye works was closed due to bankruptcy.

John Glassford, a wealthy Glasgow-based Virginia merchant, along with George Bogle, James Gordon and John Robertson, provided the financial backing for George Macintosh to found a cudbear dye works at Dunchattan, Dennistoun, Glasgow, in 1777. Macintosh, who was originally from Ross-shire, recruited Gaelic-speaking Highlanders as his factory workers in an effort to maintain the trades’ secrets.