The north side of Queen Square was built by Daniel McNicol to the same design as his terraces in Regent Park Square, and first occupied in 1866. Originally numbered 18, it was renumbered to 38 around 1929.

Matthew Waddell

Matthew Waddell was the first occupant in 1866. He was a hosier, glover and shirt maker at 122 Argyle Street, but also had several restaurants, such as at 126 Union Street. The 1861 census described one of his restaurants on Gordon Street as a “Temperance Dining Room and Coffee Shop, employing 8 girls”. He appears to have been present in Strathbungo for a year or less and later lived in Crosshill.

The Crarae Quarry Incident

On 25 September 1886 Matthew joined up to 1000 tourists on the paddle steamer Lord of the Isles to Inveraray. The trip was especially popular as the owners had promised to stop at Crarae Quarry on Loch Fyne to witness the last of the season’s big gunpowder blasts. The quarry was leased by Faill & Co to provide setts for Glasgow’s roads, and Faill’s had invited a party from the Glasgow Corporation on the trip too. With the steamer stationary off the quarry, it gave a blast on its whistle, and the quarrymen triggered the explosion, bringing down some 70,000 tons of rock in a tremendous display.

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This house was previously known as 24 Princes Square, and is the end house in Robert Weir’s terrace built in 1877-8. You can read Robert Weir’s story elsewhere, though I warn you it’s a sad one.

The subsequent residents were mostly typical Glaswegian middle-class businessmen, selling calico, timber, boilers, fish, ice and gas. Here are their stories.

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52 Marywood Square sits on the corner of Moray Place, and for the first 50 years or so was known as 25 Moray Place, being a part of the third Victorian terrace, 18-25 Moray Place. It only “moved” to Marywood Square when the streets were renumbered around 1929.

John Watson

The first occupant, from 1875, was John Watson, of John Watson & Co, wholesale wine merchants, who moved from Garnethill. He had been born in Lanark, and married Henretta Rogers in Thirsk, Yorkshire in 1866. He had a warehouse at 14 Queen Street (the site was recently Next, now Deichmann, on Argyle & Queen Streets) and he was a regular importer of Geneva (Gin), red and white wine according to the Clyde Bill of Entry and Shipping List.

He suffered from ill health and in February 1877 took a trip to Rothesay with some friends in the hope it would help. He went missing, and his body was later recovered from the sea by a passing yacht. His illness was presumably depression, and his death suicide, though in classic Victorian style, no mention is made of this anywhere .

Account of John’s death, Glasgow Herald 20 Feb 1877. Source: BNA

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