Helensburgh Heritage
Helensburgh Heritage Trust
HELENSBURGH and whisky go back a long way.
The news in March 2009 that a blended Scotch whisky was being specially bottled for the Helensburgh Homecoming celebrations by new town firm Clyde Whiskies reminded local historian Pat Drayton that the burgh used to have its own distillery.
A LEADING Clyde shipbuilder who lived for many years in Shandon — as did shipbuilding pioneer Robert Napier over a century earlier — died peacefully of cancer at home on October 10 2008 at the age of 85.
Sir Robert Easton, CEng, FIMechE, FIMarE, FRINA, chairman of Yarrow Shipbuilders and pioneer of naval design, lived with his wife Jean at Stuckenduff, and was best known for steering the Clyde operation through the 1970s and 1980s — its most turbulent period.
A HELENSBURGH-born businesswoman who is one of the key figures in the world of British fashion is highly positive about the future . . . after three years running her own business.
The second of four children of a Welsh mum and an English dad, brought up near Portsmouth – where her father was based with the Royal Navy — she was born in the burgh on March 11 1959.
A SHANDON engineer who built the mansion which became Shandon Hydro is still considered by many to be the “father of Clyde shipbuilding”.
Robert Napier was born in Dumbarton in 1791, the second son of a local blacksmith.
HELENSBURGH’S famous Clyde family had two branches — the actors and the shopkeepers.
The acting branch included Andy, David and Jean Clyde, three of the six children of touring theatre company boss John Clyde, who was born in Rattray, Blairgowrie, on November 20 1860 and died in Helensburgh on November 1 1920.
A HELENSBURGH man was the owner of a sailing ship trading from India to Scotland.
Glasgow businessman James Boyd, of Queensmount, Queen Street, had the four-masted steel barque Madagascar built for him by Russell & Co. of Port Glasgow, and the vessel was launched in May 1888.
DELIVERING newspapers and selling clothes were the humble beginnings from which a young Helensburgh man rose to become one of the most successful businessmen in the United States.
Millionaire Richard Tait, 42 year-old founder of the American board games company Cranium which he sold early in January 2008 to toy company Hasbro for £39 million, spent most of his childhood in the town before going to the States at the age of 21.