Renfrewshire

Contents

Cathcart

"CATHCART, parish, chiefly in Renfrewshire, but partly in Lanarkshire, and including parts of the southern suburbs of Glasgow. It has a post office of its own name, under Glasgow, and contains the Queen's Park, the town of Crosshill, the villages of New Cathcart, Old Cathcart, Crossmyloof, Langside, Camphill, Prospect Hill, Florida, Clarkston Toll, Hangingshaw, Millbridge, Netherlee, and part of the town of Busby. Its length is 4 miles; its greatest breadth about 2 miles; its area, in Renfrewshire, 2667 acres; in Lanarkshire, 1397 acres. Pop., quoad civilia, 12,023 and 188; quoad sacra, 7242 and 73. The northern section is a charming expanse of rolling landscape, very rich in both natural beauty and artificial embellishment; but the southern section is somewhat hilly and comparatively bleak and barren. A tract of much interest is the battlefield of Langside; and an object of much note is Cathcart Castle, a place of conflict in the times of Wallace and Bruce, and long the seat of the distinguished family of its own name, but now a diminished ivy-clad ruin. The Cathcart family acquired the title of baron in the peerage of Scotland about 1447, and the titles of viscount and earl in the peerage of the United Kingdom in respectively 1807 and 1814. Their hereditary estates were alienated in 1546, but partly repurchased within the present century. Their present seat in the parish is Cathcart House. Other seats are Aikenhead, Langside, Netherlee, Camphill, and numerous villas. ..... There are 10 schools for 1686 scholars, and 2 of them for 700 are new."
[From The Gazetteer of Scotland, by Rev. John Wilson, 1882.]

Towns and Villages

Church Records

"The churches are 3 Established, 4 Free, and 4 United Presbyterian.."
From The Gazetteer of Scotland, by Rev. John Wilson, 1882.

The parish church records are held in the General Register Office for Scotland in Edinburgh, and copies on microfilm may be consulted in local libraries and in LDS Family History Centres around the world.

Records in the old parish registers (OPRs) for Cathcart parish span the following years:

Births or Baptisms ~ 1701-1854
Marriages or Banns ~ 1690-1854
Deaths or Burials ~ 1746-1854

Civil Registration

Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths began in Scotland on 1st January 1855. For details of these and other records held at the General Register Office in Edinburgh, see the GRO tutorial.

History

For an excellent history of Cathcart, I can highly recommend "Villages of Glasgow", Volume 2 by Aileen Smart, pp. 23-47. The book was published in 1996 by John Donald Publishers Ltd., 138 St Stephen Street, Edinburgh EH3 5AA (ISBN 0 85976 391 9). Included with the history is a map of Cathcart.