Historical Paisley | Historical Paisley

Paisley Town Hall

In 1873 George A.Clark, a member of the famous thread family, left £20,000 in his will to build a Town Hall in his native Paisley. A site was found next to the Abbey which was suitable under the terms of the will; the hall was to be in the New Town, east of the Cart, where George Clark had been born and where his family’s thread mills were. The George A. Clark Town Hall was officially opened in January 1882 among great celebrations. A...

Paisley Museum

Paisley Museum opened in 1871. The building was designed by the well-known Glasgow architect John Honeyman and was paid for by Sir Peter Coats of the famous Coats thread manufacturing family. This late 19th century museum and art gallery houses the world famous collection of Paisley shawls. Displays trace the history of the Paisley pattern, the development of weaving techniques and the social aspects of what was a tight-knit weaving community....

Tannahill Cottage

Tannahill Cottage in Queen Street Paisley was the Tannahills’ family home. Robert Tannahill lived in the cottage till he died in 1810. In 1775, James Tannahill acquired Bailie Slater’s steading in Queen Street, and erected upon it a one-storey thatched cottage, with a passage through the centre, the north side being occupied as a dwelling-house and the south side as a four-loom weaving shop. James Tannahill was a very accurate individual, and...

Coats Memorial

Thomas Coats was a devout member of the Baptist Church and a successful industrialist whose working life almost mirrored the reign of Queen Victoria. Within the family firm, J & P Coats (his two elder brothers) he was a key figure in the expansion of the company not just in Paisley where it had been founded in 1828 but also in Europe and in North and South America. By 1910 around 10,000 people worked in the thread mills in Paisley which required 400...