BOWLING HARBOUR : CUSTOMS HOUSE, Lower canal basin.
ACCESS : You can view this building from various points, but it is privately occupied.
Listed B.
Also see the other features around Bowling Harbour.
Imagine this basin buzzing with harbour activities. It sits at the western end of the Forth and Clyde Canal; the end of a journey across the central Scotland isthmus; the point at which goods are transferred to sea-going vessels. From there - up or down the western coast, to the isles, to perhaps England or Ireland. And so this point needed a customs point. It was from this building that such control was applied.
It is one of those almost classical buildings of the 1800s. A simple reactangular cube with a gabled pitched roof. White harled walls with contrasting stone edging and banding.
It housed the canal customs office and accommodation for the officials, all overlooking the basin. And it is across this basin that it is best appreciated as it is reflected in the calm water.
This Customs House has an interesting association with the emancipation of slaves. John Murray (1787–1849) was an abolitionist and social activist who served as Corresponding Secretary of the Glasgow Emancipation Society. While an inspector of works for the Company in 1828, Murray recommended the navigational trials which ultimately led to the Canal being used by steam vessels, thereby overcoming the generally prevailing prejudice against such use and resulting in the Canal becoming the principal conduit for Glasgow-manufactured goods to the ports on the Firth of Forth. He was subsequently made Collector for the company. This appointment brought with it the house at Bowling Bay which was visited by many transatlantic abolitionists.[Wiki].
He had been very active before this appointment in campaigning for the abolition of of slavery.
While in the West Indies, Murray became committed to what historian Duncan Rice has called ‘organizational radicalism’. He was convinced that slaveholding and patronage ‘were forms of property ownership distorted to a point that made them the symbolic antithesis of vital Christianity’.
Returning to Scotland, he quickly identified himself with the abolitionist and other reform movements and became a member of the Glasgow Anti-Slavery Society on its formation in 1822. When that Society ceased to meet, following the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, he called for the establishment of a new association to work for the suppression of slavery worldwide. [Wiki].
So when visiting this modest building at Bowling consider this very significant association with not just local, but national social history.
Florence Boyle has been researching this and posted the following on Instagram. John Murray, the Customs man at Bowling Harbour, was the quiet man of the anti-slavery movement in Glasgow. Behind the scenes Murray lobbied, networked, wrote letters and maintained the struggle. His contribution was significant, and this was attested to after his death by such figures as Frederick Douglass and James McCune Smith.
James McCune Smith was the first Black American to qualify as a doctor., graduating from the University of Glasgow in 1837 and from there went to France to complete his hospital training. He returned to Glasgow to tie up loose ends and get passage home, he was denied because of his colour. The ship’s captain anxious about the reaction of his other American passengers.
Unprompted Murray interceded on behalf of his friend. It’s a letter worth reading in its entirety, but the opening paragraph is enough to capture its sense.
“The people of this country, in thousands and tens of thousands, are remonstrating with your countrymen against their national sin of Slaveholding, Slave-trading, and kidnapping, and their anti-Christian prejudice against Coloured persons on account of the complexion God has been pleased to give them. Regarding the last of these, Sir, I feel myself called upon to remonstrate with you, and that publicly, because the offence with which you are chargeable is a public offence, and because the people of this country should know that the illiberal, cruel, and sinful prejudice against which they are contending, is by you and such as you brought home to our doors ; and that your countrymen may be made aware that they may expect to be remonstrated with and publicly exposed, if they attempt to import such anti-Christian maxims and practices into this country”.
McCune Smith secured his passage and returned home. He later named one of his sons after Murray.
Reflections in 2023.
By the summer of 2024 the Customs House had become an air B&B.
The entrance steps pass under the viaduct of what had been the railway line route.
BRITISH LISTED BUILDINGS with map: https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/200347745-customs-house-bowling-harbour-forth-and-clyde-canal-old-kilpatrick#.X9pbdnpxdPY (wrong photo on this website)
BOYLE, FLORENCE : Inastagram > lost_local_history. 16 October 2023.
CANMORE : https://canmore.org.uk/site/43326/forth-and-clyde-canal-bowling-harbour-customs-house
WEST DUNBARTONSHIRE HERITAGE TRAIL : OLD KILPATRICK, BOWLING AND MILTON : https://www.west-dunbarton.gov.uk/media/2619074/ok_booklet.pdf
WIKIPEDIA : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Murray_(abolitionist)
