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.

Through the Decades

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 football3.8× the global rate.

Glasgow under-produces writer — only 0.6× the global rate.

  1. Football1,378
  2. Politician239
  3. Actor203
  4. Player95
  5. Singer72
  6. Painter68
  7. Writer63
  8. Music48
  1. Football1,3783.8×
  1. Writer630.6×
  2. Politician2390.6×

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.

160016501700175018001850190019502000
  • Sports
  • Politics & Law
  • Film & TV
  • Writing
  • Science
  • Music
  • Other
All3,305
Sort By

Showing 21 of 3,305 notable people

0049 CHEMIST

Thomas Graham (chemist)

1805 - 1869

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0111 ENGINEER

John Scott Russell

1808 - 1882

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0142 POLITICIAN

Robert Dale Owen

1801 - 1877

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0373 AUTHOR

John Stuart Blackie

1809 - 1895

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0380 CHEMIST

John Stenhouse

1809 - 1880

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0522 PAINTER

Horatio McCulloch

1805 - 1867

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0592 PAINTER

William Leighton Leitch

1804 - 1883

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0657 MISSIONARY

Robert Reid Kalley

1809 - 1888

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0836 FARMER

Elizabeth Sinclair

1800 - 1892

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0872 NATURALIST

David Robertson (naturalist)

1806 - 1896

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0875 HYMNWRITER

John Lyon (poet)

1803 - 1889

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0900 NATURALIST

John Scouler

1804 - 1871

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0907 CRIMINAL

Daniel M'Naghten

1803 - 1865

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0992 ARCHITECT

Jonathan Anderson Bell

1809 - 1865

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1051 PAINTER

John Crawford Brown

1805 - 1867

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1333 SURGEON

Robert Macnish

1802 - 1837

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1376 LAWYER

Henry Glassford Bell

1803 - 1874

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1555 POLITICIAN

William Atherton (politician)

1806 - 1864

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2158 MERCHANT

Colin Campbell Ferrie

1808 - 1856

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2274 POLITICIAN

Alexander Murray (manufacturer)

1803 - 1880

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2626 ACTIVIST

Jane Wigham

1801 - 1888

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