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 1850s Clear ×
James George Frazer
1854 - 1941
William Ramsay
1852 - 1916
Thomas Neill Cream
1850 - 1892
William Mitchell Ramsay
1851 - 1939
Dugald Clerk
1854 - 1932
Andrew Forsyth
1858 - 1942
Alexander Mann
1853 - 1908
John Henry Muirhead
1855 - 1940
William Ayerst Ingram
1855 - 1913
James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
1857 - 1923
W. P. Ker
1855 - 1923
Margaret Todd (doctor)
1859 - 1918
Alexander Watson Hutton
1853 - 1936
Elias John Wilkinson Gibb
1857 - 1901
George Lennox Watson
1851 - 1904
Thomas Corsan Morton
1859 - 1928
Jim McCormick (pitcher)
1856 - 1918
James Ballantyne Hannay
1855 - 1931
E. Gertrude Thomson
1850 - 1929
Billy MacKinnon
1852 - 1942
Dugald Sutherland MacColl
1859 - 1948
William Sutherland (physicist)
1859 - 1911
George Ramsay
1855 - 1935
Robert Philp
1851 - 1922
James Nairn
1859 - 1904
Robert McGowan Coventry
1855 - 1914
John James Burnet
1857 - 1938
Charles Dickson, Lord Dickson
1850 - 1922
Edmund Noble
1853 - 1937
Frederick Stanley Arnot
1858 - 1914
John Stewart MacArthur
1857 - 1920
Samuel Chapman (British politician)
1859 - 1947
William Kennedy (painter)
1859 - 1918
John Bruce Glasier
1859 - 1920
Hector C. Macpherson
1851 - 1924
William Craig (Secret Service)
1855 - 1902
Robert William Philip
1857 - 1939
Alexander Sutherland (educator)
1852 - 1902
Robert Macaulay Stevenson
1854 - 1952
John Brownlie (hymnist)
1857 - 1925
Lawrence Maxwell Jr.
1853 - 1927
William de Bois Maclaren
1856 - 1921
George Brookman
1850 - 1927
David Cossgrove
1852 - 1920
John Macintyre
1857 - 1928
John Herkless
1855 - 1920
Daniel Macaulay Stevenson
1851 - 1944
William Kellock Brown
1856 - 1934
Felix McGlennon
1856 - 1943
Dorothea Gérard
1855 - 1915
John Wellwood
1853 - 1919
Angus MacKinnon
1850 - 1880
Thomas Lorimer Corbett
1854 - 1910
John Leck Bruce
1850 - 1921
Thomas Steel
1858 - 1925
Peter Seton Hay
1852 - 1907
David Ferguson (geologist)
1857 - 1936
Andrew Holm
Born 1859
Thomas Hyland Smeaton
1857 - 1927
Fergus Suter
1857 - 1916
Thomas Chalmers (rugby)
1850 - 1926
John Maguire (archbishop of Glasgow)
1851 - 1920
Ean Campbell
1856 - 1921
Edward Riley (Australian politician)
1859 - 1943
William Cross (rugby union)
1851 - 1890
George Buchanan McClure
1851 - 1888
William Davie Brown
1852 - 1876
James Walker (sportsman)
1859 - 1923
William Hamilton Kidston
1852 - 1929
John Kennedy Todd
1852 - 1925
Gilbert Heron
1854 - 1876
William P. Reid
1854 - 1932
Andrew Maitland Ramsay
1859 - 1946
Henry William Allan (rugby union)
1850 - 1926
James Stewart Carrick
1855 - 1923
James Richmond (footballer, born 1858)
1858 - 1898
David Watson (rugby union)
1854 - 1906
George Ewing (cricketer)
1851 - 1930
John Junor (rugby union)
1855 - 1920
George Watson (mayor)
1852 - 1923
Thomas King (astronomer)
1858 - 1916
Jennie Quigley
1850 - 1936
Isabella Bream Pearce
1859 - 1929
John Bartholomew (Australian politician)
1858 - 1928
James C. Potter
1855 - 1925
John Alexander Neilson
1858 - 1915
David Hunter (Queensland politician)
1858 - 1927
Henry Melville Napier
1854 - 1940
Jock Inglis
1859 - 1920
Robert Campbell MacKenzie
1856 - 1945
Matthew Walker Montgomery
1859 - 1933
William Andrew Walls
1859 - 1936
John Gow (footballer, born 1859)
Born 1859
John Blair Brown
1856 - 1904
Stewart Henry Smith
1855 - 1896