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Glasgow’s smallpox outbreak started in April 1950. An Indian seaman, Mussa Ali, had left his ship, the SS Chitral, at Tilbury and travelled to Glasgow. There he fell ill and was admitted to hospital with what turned out to be smallpox, endemic in his country of origin.

The end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the growing industrialisation of the spinning and weaving trades resulted in high unemployment, particularly in Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire. The government saw emigration as the solution, and offered assisted passages to Canada in 1820-1821. Emigration Societies were set up, and the first group arrived in 1820.