55.8610° N, 4.2512° W
GLASGOW
Most Famous People Born in Glasgow, United Kingdom
- Notable people
- 3,305
- Peak decade
- 1950s
- Median birth year
- 1943
- Most distinctive
- Football 3.8×
A football city, almost unhealthily so. More than forty per cent of Glasgow's notables are footballers — Old Firm shaped a city's entire celebrity economy — and the next bench down is the actors and singers of a Scottish stage tradition that has produced James McAvoy, Robbie Coltrane, and Mark Knopfler. The 19th-century Clyde shipbuilding boom is the peak that most of the rest of the bench grew out of, and there is also an unusually deep comedy lineage from the working men's clubs that the strict statistical panel doesn't capture but that gave the world Billy Connolly.
One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Glasgow during each.
Notable Births by Decade
Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1950s with 337 notable births.
What Glasgow Is Known For
Click any row to filter the list of people below.
Football is Glasgow's biggest profession — 42% of all notables (1,378).
Glasgow over-indexes on football — 3.8× the global rate.
Glasgow under-produces writer — only 0.6× the global rate.
Profession Mix Over Time
Each band shows a profession family's share of Glasgow's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.
- Sports
- Politics & Law
- Film & TV
- Writing
- Science
- Music
- Other
- Filtered to 1800s Clear ×
Thomas Graham (chemist)
1805 - 1869
John Scott Russell
1808 - 1882
Robert Dale Owen
1801 - 1877
John Stuart Blackie
1809 - 1895
John Stenhouse
1809 - 1880
Horatio McCulloch
1805 - 1867
William Leighton Leitch
1804 - 1883
Robert Reid Kalley
1809 - 1888
Elizabeth Sinclair
1800 - 1892
David Robertson (naturalist)
1806 - 1896
John Lyon (poet)
1803 - 1889
John Scouler
1804 - 1871
Daniel M'Naghten
1803 - 1865
Jonathan Anderson Bell
1809 - 1865
John Crawford Brown
1805 - 1867
Robert Macnish
1802 - 1837
Henry Glassford Bell
1803 - 1874
William Atherton (politician)
1806 - 1864
Colin Campbell Ferrie
1808 - 1856
Alexander Murray (manufacturer)
1803 - 1880
Jane Wigham
1801 - 1888