Port Glasgow, United Kingdom

Trade prospered quickly, and by 1710 Newport Glasgow had the principal Clyde custom house, initially in Customhouse Lane, then after 1754 in a new building constructed on the west quay of the harbour. Through that century the town became known simply as Port Glasgow. Ships, mostly owned by Glasgow merchants, imported tobacco, sugar, rum, cotton and mahogany from the Americas, as well as timber, iron and hemp from the Baltic. These goods were then taken by road to Glasgow, as was market garden produce from farms around Port Glasgow. A change began in 1773 when the Lang Dyke was constructed to deepen the upper river, and ships increasingly went upriver straight to Glasgow. In 1830, the custom house collected £243,349 3s 1d in revenue, but after that income from the port declined, while by then Greenock had its own customs house.

In the 1690s, the grid-iron street layout, which still forms much of the town centre today, was laid out.

In 1780, Thomas McGill set up one of the first shipyards in the area, located near Newark castle.

By the 19th century, Port Glasgow had become a centre of shipbuilding. The Comet was built in the town in 1812 and was the first commercial steam vessel in Europe. A replica of the Comet was built in 1962 to mark the 150th anniversary. It, and a plaque commemorating the actual site of construction, were situated in Port Glasgow town centre in 1973.

The Town Buildings were completed in 1815 and Port Glasgow became a parliamentary burgh in 1832, but around this time, the River Clyde up to Glasgow was deepened and new road and rail links meant that the town was no longer needed much as a port. The shipbuilding industry then took over as the main source of employment and prosperity. Port Glasgow has been responsible for about a quarter of the total tonnage of ships launched on the Clyde, and also dealt in scrapping old ships, most notably the French liner L'Atlantique, the burnt out wreck of which was broken up in the yard of Smith & Houston. However, as with most of Inverclyde's industry, the shipbuilding industry has all but gone and only Ferguson Marine, which was nationalised in 2019, remains in the town today.

The Annual Reports of the Fishery Board for Scotland provide an insight into the state of fishing from Port Glasgow in the years before the First World War.

The former Gourock Ropeworks building, built as a sugar refinery in 1866, was redeveloped as luxury flats in 2006, and a retail park has been laid out adjacent to the town centre.