GLASSFORD, JAMES (d. 1845), legal writer and traveller, was son of John Glassford of Dougalston [q. v.] by his third wife, Lady Margaret Mackenzie, sixth daughter of the third Earl of Cromarty. Glassford was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates in 1793, and became sheriff-depute of Dumbartonshire. He succeeded to Dougalston on the death of his elder brother Henry in 1819. He was one of the commissioners of inquiry into the state of education in Ireland, and in that capacity visited Ulster, Leinster, and Munster in 1824, and Connaught in 1826. He also acted as one of the commissioners for inquiring into the duties and emoluments of the clerks and other officers of the courts of justice in Scotland. He died at Edinburgh on 28 July 1845. His published works are as follows:
- ‘Remarks on the Constitution and Procedure of the Scottish Courts of Law,’ Edinburgh, 1812, 8vo.
- ‘An Essay on the Principles of Evidence, and their application to subjects of Judicial Enquiry,’ Edinburgh, 1812, 8vo.
- ‘Exemplum Tractatus de fontibus Juris, and other Latin Pieces of Lord Bacon. Translated by James Glassford, Esq., Advocate,’ Edinburgh, 1823, 8vo.
- ‘Frondes Caducæ,’ Chiswick, 1824, 16mo.
- ‘Letter to the Right Hon. Sir John Newport, Bart., M.P., on the subject of the Fees payable in the Courts of Justice and the Stamp Duties on Law Proceedings,’ London, 1824, 8vo.
- ‘Letter to the Right Hon. the Earl of Roden on the present state of Popular Education in Ireland,’ London, 1829, 8vo.
- ‘Lyrical Compositions selected from the Italian Poets,’ with translations, Edinburgh, 1834, 8vo (favourably noticed in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ January 1835). A second edition was published in 1846 after the author's death, greatly enlarged. Several of these translations were republished in London in 1886 in a volume of the ‘Canterbury Poets,’ entitled ‘Sonnets of Europe,’ edited by Mr. Samuel Waddington.
- ‘Notes of Three Tours in Ireland in 1824 and 1826,’ Bristol, 1838, 8vo. This work was printed for private distribution in 1831. It was republished, however, during the following year, and is identical with the former edition, except for the insertion of a new title-page
- ‘Letter by the Chancellor D'Aguesseau to a Friend on the subject of the Christian Mysteries, by James Glassford, Esq., and extracted by permission from the Scottish “Christian Herald.”’ This letter is published among a number of treatises entitled ‘Unitarianism tried by Scripture and Experience, … with a General Introduction by a Layman,’ London, 1840, 8vo.
- ‘Miscellanea,’ Edinburgh, 4to, pp. 83. This volume, printed at Edinburgh for private circulation, contains translations of Addison's ‘Machinæ Gesticulantes,’ Froude's ‘Cursus Glaciales,’ &c. Glassford also published ‘Elegiæ,’ without place or date, pp. 31; another edition, pp. 39.
[Martin's Privately Printed Books, pp. 244, 426; Edinb. Review, lx. 1835; Sonnets of Europe (Canterbury Poets Series).]
GLASSFORD, JOHN (1715–1783), merchant of Glasgow, born in 1715, was a tobacco merchant on a large scale. He was one of the original members of the Glasgow chamber of commerce, and took a prominent part with Larnshaw, Ritchie of Busbie, and Spiers of Elderslie, in developing the trade of Glasgow. The firm of Spiers & Glassford, of which he was a member, imported in 1774 more than one-fourth of the entire 40,500 hogsheads of tobacco received by the forty-six firms then existing in Glasgow. Glassford was also the most extensive shipowner of his time in Scotland. He possessed twenty-four fine vessels regularly trading between the Clyde and America, and the West Indies. Glassford, who was made bailie of Glasgow in 1751, resided in the old Shawfield Mansion, on the north side of Trongate, facing Stockwell Street, which was built in 1712 by David Campbell, M.P. for Glasgow, and was subsequently razed to make way for the present Glassford Street. Glassford purchased the extensive lands of Dougalston, Dumbartonshire, in 1767, and greatly improved the estate by planting and building. He was three times married. By his second wife, Anne, daughter of Sir John Nisbet of Dean, he was father of Henry Glassford, M.P. for Dumbartonshire from 1806 to 1810, who died 14 May 1819; his third wife, whom he married 21 March 1769, was Lady Margaret Mackenzie, daughter of the third Earl of Cromarty, and by her he was father of James Glassford [q. v.]. She died at Glasgow 29 March 1773. Glassford died at Dougalston on 27 Aug. 1783.
[Irving's Book of Scotsmen; Pagan's Sketches of Glasgow; Glasgow Past and Present; articles in the Glasgow Herald; Douglas and Wood's Peerage of Scotland, i. 400; Foster's M.P.'s of Scotland.]
GLAZEBROOK, JAMES (1744–1803), divine, son of William Glazebrook, was born at Madeley, Shropshire, on 11 Oct. 1744. When he was a young man of twenty-three, working as a collier and getter of ironstone, he was brought under the influence of the Rev. John Fletcher of Madeley [q. v.] and he determined to become a clergyman. With this view he was educated at Lady Huntingdon's
