MARY HILL and THE BIRTH OF MARYHILL
It’s sometimes dismissed as a myth that the beloved area of Maryhill was named after a real person. Yet Mary Hill was indeed real, although much of her story remains entwined with local legend. This page compiles most (but not all!) the information available about the woman whose name continues to define this part of Glasgow.
Early Life of Mary Hill
Mary Hill was born on 8 June 1730 in Greenock to Hew Hill, a merchant born in the 1690s, and Janet Hill. On her father’s side, she was part of the established Hill family of Jordanhill, with her grandfather Ninian Hill and grandmother Mary Craufurd, and her great-grandparents Ninian Hill and Jean Caldwell. On her mother’s side, she descended from Greenock merchant John Hill and his wife Helen Taylor.
Tragedy struck early: Mary lost her mother at age one and her father at age eight. With her grandparents also deceased, she was likely raised by aunts or uncles. Historical documents from 1753, held by the Royal Faculty of Procurators in Glasgow, indicate that Mary was assisted by her paternal uncle, Reverend Laurence Hill, in legally inheriting the Gairbraid Estate as his watermark is still visible on the receipt of payments of some related clerical fees. Although he served in Kilmarnock as minister at a second charge, Laurence appears to have had at least oversight of Mary’s inheritance. According to local historian William B. Black, Mary spent much of her youth in Greenock, which could suggest guardianship by another sibling in the family.
The Gairbraid Estate in the 18th Century
Situated on the east bank of the River Kelvin, about 4.5 miles northwest of Glasgow, Gairbraid was an independent estate with a history dating as early as November 1515. On Timothy Pont’s 1590s map, it appears at the top of the map as Garrbred not far from Caddar. Later, in the 1630s, it is drawn alongside Posil, Garscubb and Garroch.
George Hutcheson, co-founder of Hutchesons’ Hospital, owned Gairbraid in the late 16th century. However, dying with no heirs, the estate passed to his three sisters. One of them married into the Hill family, connecting the estate firmly to Mary’s lineage. These were Helen Hutcheson and Ninian Hill and it was their son Ninian who became the first Hill entering the estate. This was Mary’s great-grandfather.
Roy’s 1747–55 map provides an 18th-century snapshot: cultivated fields to the south and west, with grazing land to the north, crossed by Garscube Road.
William Roy, Military Survey of Scotland, 1747-55, NLS Maps
Mary Hill of Gairbraid: Trials and Transformation
Mary married unusually late for the time, in her early thirties, around 1761. Her husband was Robert Graham of Dawsholm and Kilmannan, the youngest son of John Graham of Kilmardinny. According to one source, their union was met with political and religious opposition from both families: the Grahams were Tory and Episcopalian, while the Hills were Whig and Presbyterian. To escape this conflict, the couple is suggested to have eloped.
Robert Graham’s early life was adventurous. Orphaned young, Robert ran away to join the Royal Navy first and the merchant service later, rising to the rank of captain. It is often recounted that Robert was captured by Algerian pirates during one of his voyages and it was these stories which allegedly made Mary fall for the Captain. While no records confirm the piracy tale, such Mediterranean raids were historically common between the late 16th and mid-18th centuries, making the legend theoretically plausible.
Despite owning extensive land, the couple faced early financial challenges. Robert’s investments in coal mining on the damp estate proved risky and mostly unsuccessful. His persistent, even reckless efforts earned local jokes that ‘if he didn’t get coal, he would get cinders.’ It is believed Robert Graham spent around £60,000, placing the estate in a precarious situation. Fortunately, their neighbour, Sir Ilay Campbell of Succoth, tired of the disruptive quarries, offered to purchase some of their lands in exchange for an annuity, bringing the essential family relief.
The Canal’s Arrival and the Birth of Maryhill
The couple’s fortunes improved significantly with Parliament’s approval of the Forth and Clyde Canal. Construction began in 1768, reached Stockingfield by 1775, and was completed by 1790 after a number of delays. Selling parts of the Gairbraid Estate to the canal project brought much-needed funds, but more importantly, it laid the groundwork for industrial development in the area. In the years that followed, the Grahams were able to sell off additional plots for building, securing new streams of income and setting in motion the transformation of their land into a growing settlement.
In surviving deeds, it can be seen that the couple added a very important clause in these sales, critical for the story of this land as we know it today. One example is as follows:
Excerpt from the Feu Contract between Mary Hill with consent of her husband, Robert Graham, of the first part, and Robert Craig, Grocer, Maryhill, of the second part, dated 21st July, 1793. The first party doth by these presents give and grant in feu form and heritage perpetually lot and demitt to and in favour of the said Robert Craig his heirs or assignees whomsoever heritably and irredeemably all and whole that piece of ground measuring 32 falls and 6 yards or thereby as now laid off and marked out, being a lot of that ground laid out for building a town upon, which is to extend from Glasgow to Garscube Bridge conform to a plan thereof and which it is hereby provided shall be in all times called the town of Maryhill.
However, it is important to note that the area did not become ‘Maryhill’ overnight. Instead, locals continued to refer to the area as ‘Kelvin Dock,’ ‘Gairbraid Dock,’ or simply ‘Dock.’ Only in the 1810s did the name ‘Maryhill’ become commonly used, with an early map from 1816 even calling it ‘Mary’s Town.’ It is considered that Mary’s daughter, Lilias, contributed to the circulation of the name during the first decades on the century. Interestingly, even by the 1850s, many of the older residents continued to refer to the area as ‘Kelvin Dock,’ much to the frustration of local authorities who had been working on developing the independent village of Maryhill.
The Graham-Hill Family Legacy
Mary Hill and Robert Graham had two daughters: Lilias (1762–1836) and Janet (1769–1795). Lilias remained unmarried and lived at Gairbraid House with her affectionate friend Elizabeth Janet Allan until her death, becoming a significant figure in the early development of Maryhill. She is widely credited as the founder of Maryhill Parish Church, donating the land for its construction and playing a key role in securing the first minister and establishing the initial congregation of the Chapel.
Portrait of Lilias Graham from ‘The Dunlops of Dunlop’, page 197.
Janet married Alexander Dunlop of Keppoch, a merchant from Greenock, and they had four children: John, Robert Graham, William, and Janet. Their eldest, John Dunlop (1789–1868), is recognised as a pioneer of the temperance movement in Britain. With support from his aunt Lilias, he helped establish the first temperance societies in both Maryhill and Greenock. Notably, the first temperance meeting in Scotland was held at Gairbraid House on 1st October 1829.
Robert Graham died in 1804, and Mary Hill passed away in 1809.
Gairbraid House: From Mansion to Memory
Grandfather Ninian was responsible for the construction of Gairbraid House around 1688, but, unfortunately, no surviving images or written descriptions of this first mansion are accessible today. However, Smart managed to see the Plan of Laigh Gairbraid Farm drawn by Charles Ross. ‘It shows how the estate looked in 1759. It includes a sketch of the farmhouse, built in 1688, a substantial dwelling on two floors, with offices, gardens, a Laigh Park, a Cow Park and an East Park. The farmhouse appears to be on the same site as the later mansion-house, that is, where the Kelvindale Laundry once stood to the west of Gairbraid Place’ (Smart, 1988, 80).
Gairbraid House in 1878. Photograph by Thomas Annan
Far more is known about the second Gairbraid House, built in 1789 after the Grahams started selling land to the Forth and Clyde Canal project. This newer mansion began as the family home of Mary, Robert, Lilias, and Janet, and remained in the family through the 19th century. Referred to as ‘a square house built by a square man’ by the locals, Gairbraid House had a simple, plain rectangular shape with minimal adornment following Georgian fashion. In 1856, Hugh McDonald describes it as a
‘handsome edifice situated on an elevated position on the north bank of the Kelvin, command[ing] an extensive prospect of the surrounding country. A fine lawn slopes smoothly down in front to the wateredge (sic), which is shaded by a belt of planting’. In the same year, Mary’s grandson, John Dunlop described the home as modest but ‘of rambling character’ with a garden in the back.
It is often mistakenly assumed that today’s Gairbraid Avenue follows the path of Gairbraid House’s original driveway. In truth, the House was located parallel to the Avenue. During Mary Hill’s lifetime and through to the 1820s, the grounds were heavily wooded with mature trees. Historical maps even show this remarkable vegetation: large horse-chestnuts once stood at the avenue’s entrance, sycamores lined the road, and a notable ash tree near the house had been planted by Mary herself as a child. However, according to John Dunlop, most of the trees were later cut down. A ‘deplorable mistake,’ for which Lilias was reportedly responsible.
Architecturally, the house had two main floors and lower ground level, below the beneath the attic, as well as an attic. wo now-lost portraits of Mary and Robert were once kept there. John Dunlop described that in his childhood, his aunt Lilias kept chickens in the basement, while the top floor stored timber. He also vividly remembered a room dedicated to ‘old chests filled with law papers’ and other heirlooms which were treated by Lilias ‘with the most cruel neglect’. The door was never locked, and Dunlop admits to playing with the documents as a child, crafting clothes and accessories with his siblings and the gardener’s daughter.
Following Lilias’ death in 1836, the House was passed to John and later to his sons Alexander Graham and William Carstares. A sign of the new industrial Maryhill, in 1870 the land had transformed: ‘The magnificent avenue of beach trees has been cut down, the woods on the banks of the Kelvin have been ruthlessly swept away, and the old house now stands naked and forlorn amidst a wilderness of coups, broken bottles and bricks, pools of dirty water, clothes lines fluttering with party-coloured rags, and all the abominations of a new suburb. Instead of the singing of the birds and the music of the soft flowing Kelvin, which of yore pleased and refreshed the passer-by, the air is now vocal with the discordant voices of rough men, scolding women and greeting bairns, and with the clang of machinery and the hiss of steam engines.’
While John Dunlop moved to London, his brothers emigrated to Canada and Janet was in Edinburgh, the House was rented out until its demolition in the 1920s, a quiet end to a home that had once been the heart of a family that helped shape the beginnings of Maryhill. Today, on its former grounds stands the much newer complex of Kelvindale Gardens. The ‘square house’ now long gone from the familiar, ever-changing landscape of Maryhill.
The Rise of Maryhill: Industry, Identity, and Independence
The Forth and Clyde Canal’s development on the old Gairbraid Estate played a key role in the creation and transformation of Maryhill, bringing foundries, mills and boatyards to the riverside. Communities moved to the area, attracted by prospects of growing commerce and employment. By the 1850s, the population already reached 4000 people, and the growth of Maryhill was further boosted by the construction of a railway line.
In 1856, the residents voted to establish Maryhill as an independent police burgh, with its own magistrates, police force and civic officials, responsible for street lighting, water supply, and healthcare. In addition, Maryhill got its own police force led by Captain George Anderson. The first police force was headquartered in Fingal Street before relocating to the iconic Maryhill Burgh Halls in 1878.
Coat of Arms of the Maryhill Burgh
A Legacy Carved in Stone and Story
The history of Maryhill cannot be simplified to a single event or name. Yet the enduring tale of Mary Hill, an orphan who inherited an estate, married a daring captain, and laid the legal groundwork for a town, illustrates how one life can alter the course of many.
Over 200 years later, Maryhill still bears her name proudly. Her vision launched an industrial neighbourhood. Her daughter Lilias nurtured faith and social life; her grandson John led moral reform. Their legacies endure in stone, in spirit, and in the lives shaped here since.
To truly know Maryhill, walk its streets, stand in the Burgh Halls, and trace the waterlines of the Kelvin and the canal. You’ll find that Mary Hill’s story is not just remembered, it is still unfolding.
This page brings together the most reliable research currently available on Mary Hill and her legacy. While we’ve explored a wide range of sources, there are still untapped archives and avenues of inquiry we hope to pursue. Maryhill’s history is rich and layered, and we’re only just beginning to tell it in full.
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