The book title for my most recent project is Harvie’s Dyke: The People’s Struggle for the Liberty of the Banks of the Clyde.
In the early 1820s, Thomas Harvie, a newly rich, pompous and arrogant Glasgow distiller, bought Westthorn estate on the eastern edge of the city close to the north bank of the River Clyde. To establish the bounds of his property and keep out intruders, he erected two walls, the larger of which (‘Harvie’s Dyke’) was massive, fortified and blocked a long-established riverside pathway.
Colliers and other workers from nearby villages (many of whom regularly used the walkway) were outraged. A large crowd gathered on midsummer’s evening in 1823 and set about demolishing the wall. After a cavalry charge put an end to the disturbance, dozens of the rioters were arrested and some imprisoned. But Harvie rebuilt his walls, and a six-year struggle with the people of Glasgow ensued, which resulted in a House of Lords ruling in 1828 in favour of those who had campaigned for ‘the liberties of the banks of the Clyde’. The protesters were represented in the courts in Edinburgh and London by some of the country’s leading legal figures. The episode gripped the city and was heralded in poems, song and newspapers for many decades. It also inspired later protests against landowners who attempted to obstruct public rights of way. Harvie was ruined, partly owing to his legal costs but also as many of Glasgow’s citizens boycotted his drinking shops as well as coal from his pits in his Westhorn grounds.
This book is testimony to a triumphant victory for ordinary Glaswegians over an uncompromising estate proprietor.
The five-year struggle and the victory achieved are now largely forgotten. But for many decades in the nineteenth century and even into the twentieth century the episode was remembered and celebrated and served as an inspiration for those involved in other rights of way disputes with powerful estate owners elsewhere in Scotland.
The episode is in one sense a moral tale – of pride preceding a fall. But it’s also part of the story of Scottish Radicalism. Well known is the so-called Radical War of April 1820, which ended in the crushing of an armed rising of radicals, many of whom were handloom weavers. But contrary to accounts of 1820 which assume that the conflict ended at this defeat, the struggle went on. Some of the key figures in 1820 were active in 1823 and beyond, fighting now not for constitutional change but for the right of ordinary people to breathe fresh air, appreciate nature, take exercise and fish and swim in their revered river.
The book is due to be published in June 2025, by John Donald (an imprint of Birlinn Ltd), at £14.99.
I’m hoping to give some talks on the subject in Glasgow and elsewhere mainly in the west of Scotland over the summer and autumn. Watch this space!
