CLELAND,
a surname belonging to an old family on Lanarkshire, and derived from
the lands of that name in the parish of Dalzeil. The Clelands of that
ilk were hereditary foresters to the old earls of Douglas, and had for
arms a hare saliant, argent, with a hunting horn, proper, about its
neck; crest, a falcon standing on a left hand glove, proper. At other
times, for supporters they had two greyhounds. James Cleland of
Cleland, was one of the patriots who joined Sir William Wallace, and
fought, under his command, against the English. He also remained
faithful to King Robert Bruce; and for his services received from that
monarch several lands lying within the barony of Calder in West
Lothian. From him was descended William Cleland of that ilk, who, in
the reign of King James the Third, married Jean, daughter of William
Lord Somerville. From them branched Cleland of Faskine, Cleland of
Monkland, and Cleland of Cartness. About the beginning of the
seventeenth century, Sir James Cleland purchased the barony of
Monkland from Sir Thomas Hamilton of Binning, first earl of Haddington,
but his son and heir, Ludovick Cleland, sold it to James, marquis of
Hamilton. On 6th September 1615, this Sir James Cleland of
Monkland was, with two others, indicted for trial, for treasonably
resetting Jesuits, hearing of mass, &c., offences very seriously
punished in those days, but the diet was deserted against them. The
Cartness family terminated in an heiress, previous to the middle of
the eighteenth century, married to Sir William Vere of Blackwood in
the same county.
Alexander
Cleland of that ilk, with his cousin, William Cleland of Faskine, were
both killed at Flodden in 1513. James Cleland of that ilk, an eminent
man in the time of King James the Fifth, whom he frequently attended
while hunting, married a daughter of Hepburn of Bonnytoun, descended
from the earl of Bothwell, by whom he had a son, Alexander Cleland of
that il, who was a faithful adherent of Queen Mary. He married
Margaret, a daughter of Hamilton of Haggs, by whom he had William his
successor, who married the sister of Walter Stewart, first lord
Blantyre. Their eldest son, Alexander, married the sister of John
Hamilton, first Lord Bargeny, and their son and heir sold the lands of
Cleland to a cousin of his own name.
Major
William Cleland, the great-grandson of the last mentioned Alexander
Cleland of that ilk, was one of the Commissioners of the Customs in
Scotland, about the middle of the last century.
The name was
formerly Kneilland, with the K pronounced. In 1603 Mr. Andrew
Kneilland was justice depute; and there are several instances of
Cleland of Cleland being called Kneilland of that ilk, thus, among the
persons who were ‘delated’ for being art and part in the murder of
King Henry Darnley were William Kneland of that ilk, and Arthur
Kneland of Knowhobbilhill, afterwards softened into Connoblehill, in
the parish of Shotts. (See KNELAND, surname of.]
CLELAND, WILLIAM,
a brave and accomplished soldier and poet, was born about 1661. Of his
family or lineage nothing is recorded. At the conflict of Drumclog,
when he was scarcely eighteen years of age, he acted as an officer of
foot in the Covenanters’ army; and at Bothwell Bridge he held the rank
of captain. After the latter affair, he and his brother were, among
other leaders of the insurgents, denounced by proclamation, being
described as
“James and William
Clelands, brethren-in-law to John Haddoway, merchant in Douglas.” It
is likely that, on the defeat at Bothwell, he made his escape to
Holland, as we find that he published ‘Disputatio Juridica de
Probationibus,’ at Utrecht, in 1684. He was in Scotland, however, in
1685, “being then under hiding,” among the wilds of Lanarkshire and
Ayrshire. After the Revolution he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of
the earl of Angus’ regiment, called the Cameronian regiment, from its
being chiefly raised from the extreme presbyterian party.
On the 21st
August 1689, before he was twenty-eight years of age. Colonel Cleland
was killed at the head of his corps, while manfully and successfully
defending the churchyard of Dunkeld against a superior force of
Highlanders, the remains of the army of Dundee, which had been
victorious at Killiecrankie in the preceding month.
His poetical
pieces were published in a small duodecimo volume in 1697. The first
in the book, ‘Hollo, my Fancie, whither wilt thou go?’ was written by
him the last year he was at college, and before he was eighteen years
of age. This poem, which displays considerable imagination, will be
found in Watson’s Collection of Scottish Poems. His principal piece,
entitled ‘A Mock Poem on the Expedition of the Highland Host, who came
to destroy the Western Shires in Winter 1678,’ is in the Hudibrastic
vein, and conceived in a style of bitter sarcasm. Colonel Cleland was
the father of William Cleland, Esq., one of the commissioners of the
customs in Scotland, and author of the Prefatory Letter to the Dunciad.
This person, said by Sir Walter Scott, in the Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border, to have been also a Colonel Cleland, is mentioned by
some of the annotators on Pope as the original of Will. Honeycomb in
the Spectator. He died in 1741, leaving a son, John Cleland, who was
educated at Westminster, and acquired an unenviable reputation from
being the author of an infamous novel, entitled ‘Memoirs of a Woman of
Pleasure,’ published in 1750; for which Ralph Griffiths, a bookseller,
gave him twenty guineas, and the profits of which are said to have
exceeded ten thousand pounds. Want of money and want of principle were
alike the cause of this prostitution of his talents. To rescue him
from such pursuits, Earl Granville allowed him a hundred pounds
a-year. He afterwards wrote two novels of a more innocent description,
and not destitute of merit, entitled ‘Memoirs of a Coxcomb,’ and ‘The
Man of Honour,’ He published, besides, an etymological work, entitled
‘The Way to Things by Words, and to Words by Things,’ 1765, 8vo; and a
‘Specimen of an Etymological Vocabulary; or Essay, by means of the
Analytic Method, to Retrieve the Ancient Celtic,’ 1768. He died in
1789, aged 82. – Chalmer’s Biog. Dict., Art. John Cleland. –
Brown’s History of the Highlands.
CLELAND, JAMES,
LL.D.,
a distinguished statistical writer, was born at Glasgow in the month
of January 1770. His parents, though highly respectable, were in a
humble station of life; his father’s trade being that of a
cabinet-maker, to which his son was likewise brought up. Although he
himself had received but a scanty education, Mr. Cleland, senior, who
possessed great shrewdness of character, had the good sense to be
aware of the advantages of a good one, and, accordingly, James was
early initiated in English grammar and the rudiments of the Latin
language, and made considerable progress in arithmetic. In the
workshop of his father he continued till 1789, when, in order to
render himself perfect in his business, he went to London; in which
city he remained for two years. On his return, he entered into
partnership with his father, and from his peculiar tact and
straightforward mode of conducting business, he, in a short period,
rendered the trade in which he was concerned one of the most
flourishing in Glasgow. It was while thus engaged that he first
exhibited his inclination to figures; the foremost of his printed
productions being ‘Tables for showing the Price of Packing-Boxes of
sundry Dimensions and Thicknesses,’ an opuscule which was highly
thought of at the time, and which is still in common use amongst
tradesmen.
In 1814, the
office of superintendent of public works at Glasgow having become
vacant, Dr. Cleland was unanimously elected to it by the Town Council,
and in this situation he continued until 1834, when, owing to some
alteration in the distribution of offices – consequent on the
operation of the Municipal Reform Bill, he deemed it expedient to
resign. Many of his fellow-citizens, however, considering that some
compensation should be afforded him, called a public meeting on 7th
August of that year, at which it was unanimously resolved, that a
subscription should immediately be set on foot, in order to present
Dr. Cleland with some tangible mark of the esteem in which he was held
by them. This was accordingly done, and in the course of a very few
weeks, when the subscription list was closed, the sum collected
amounted to no less than £4,600, – which it was agreed upon by a
committee should be expended on the erection of a productive building,
to be placed in a suitable part of the city, and to bear the name of
the “Cleland Testimonial.” that this very superb present, however, was
not totally undeserved, will be apparent even from the following
isolated trifling fact: – Previously to Dr. Cleland’s election to the
office of superintendent of public works in 1814, the caravans of
performers, who were accustomed to meet at Glasgow during the fair
week in July, had been allowed to be pitched on ground belonging to
the town, without paying anything for such a privilege. But when Dr.
Cleland entered on his duties, he imitated the example of the
corporation of London with regard to Bartholomew Fair, and by charging
a small sum for each steading of ground, he was enabled, during the
period between 1815 and 1834, to pay into the hands of the city
chamberlain, from this source alone, no less than £2,500.
In 1821 Dr.
Cleland was employed by government to draw up and classify the
enumeration of the inhabitants of Glasgow; and, from the following
high eulogium contained in the government enumeration volume, it will
be observed in what point of view his services were regarded at
headquarters; – “It would be unjust,” observes the writer, “not to
mention, in this place, that Mr. Cleland has transmitted documents
containing very numerous and very useful statistical details
concerning the city and suburbs of Glasgow, and that the example has
produced imitation in some other of the principal towns in Scotland,
though not to the same extent of minute observation by which Mr.
Cleland’s labours are distinguished.” In 1831 Dr. Cleland again drew
up the enumeration for government, and the very flattering mode in
which it was received, both at home and in several of the countries of
the European continent, attests its value.
From 1820
until 1834 the bills of mortality for Glasgow were drawn up by him,
and from the following panegyric on them by the highest authority on
the subject, we may judge of their accuracy and value: – “Of all the
statements derived from bills of mortality and enumerations of the
people,” observes Joshua Mylne, Esq. in the Encyclopedia Britannica,
“only those for Sweden and Finland, Dr. Heysham’s for Carlisle, and
Dr. Cleland’s for Glasgow, have been given in the proper form, and
with sufficient correctness to afford the information, which is the
most important object of them all, viz. that which is necessary for
determining the law of mortality.” In the year 1836 a number of
gentlemen having united themselves into a society for promoting the
advancement of statistical inquiry, Dr. Cleland was unanimously
elected president, and in the first part of their Transactions there
appeared a paper written by him on his favourite subject, the State of
the City.
From the
date of his resignation to his death, which took place after an
illness of nearly a year’s duration, on 14th October 1840,
Dr. Cleland never ceased to entertain a lively regard for the interest
and prosperity of his native city, and not a month before he expired,
he published a pamphlet, ‘On the Former and Present State of Glasgow.’
By the university of Glasgow he was honoured with the degree of doctor
of laws. He was a member of the Society of Civil Engineers of London;
a Fellow of the Statistical Societies of London, Manchester, and
Bristol; a corresponding member of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland; and a short period before his decease, he was elected an
honorary member of the Société François de Statistique Universelle.
The
following is a list of Dr. Cleland’s works:
Annals of
Glasgow. 1816, 2 vols. 8vo.
Abridgment
of the Annals of Glasgow. 1817, 8vo.
Rise and
Progress of the City of Glasgow. 1820, 8vo.
Exemplification of Weights and Measures of Glasgow. 1822, 8vo.
Statistical
Tables relative to Glasgow, 8vo; and Enumeration of Scotland. 1823,
8vo.
Specification for Rebuilding Ramshorn Church, 8vo; and Account of
Ceremonial at Laying Foundation-Stone of First House in London-street,
Glasgow. 1824, 8vo.
Historical
Account of the Steam Engine. 8vo.
Historical
Account of the Grammar School, Glasgow; and Account of Ceremonial at
Laying Foundation-Stone of John Knox’s Monument, Glasgow. 1825.
Specification for Rebuilding St. Enoch’s Church, 8vo, and Poor Rates
of Glasgow. 1827, 8vo.
Maintenance
of the Poor, 8vo.
Account of
Cattle Show at Glasgow, 8vo.
Statistical
and Population Tables relative to Glasgow, 8vo.
Enumeration
of the Inhabitants of Glasgow. 1828, 8vo.
Abridgment
of Annals, second edition. 1829, 8vo.
Enumeration
of Glasgow and Lanarkshire, folio, small, 1831; a second edition of
the same appeared in folio, large, in 1832.
Ceremonial
at Laying Foundation-Stone of Broomielaw Bridge. 1832, 8vo.
Historical
Account of Weights and Measures for Lanarkshire. 1833, 8vo.
Statistics
relative to Glasgow. 1834, 8vo. (Read before the British Association
at Edinburgh).
On Parochial
Registry of Scotland. 1834, 8vo.
Glasgow
Bridewell or House of Correction. 1835, 8vo. (Read before the British
Association at Dublin).
A Few
Statistical Facts relative to Glasgow. 1836, 8vo. (Read before the
British Association at Bristol).
The articles
Glasgow and Rutherglen for the New Statistical Account of Scotland,
1838; the article Glasgow in the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica.
On the
Former and Present State of Glasgow. 1840. (Read before the British
Association at Glasgow).
An
Historical Account of the Bills of Mortality and Probability of Human
Life in Glasgow, and other Large Towns. 1840, 8vo.
Dr.
Cleland also wrote the article Glasgow for Brewster’s Encyclopaedia,
and likewise a description of that city for the Edinburgh Gazetteer.
