PAISLEY, burgh of barony and parish of Renfrewshire, Scotland, on the White Cart, 3 m. from its junction with the Clyde, 7 m. W. by S. of Glasgow by the L.M.S. railway. It is connected with Glasgow, Renfrew and elsewhere by tramways. Pop. (1931) 86,441. In '791 the river, which bisects the town, and is crossed by several bridges, was made navigable for vessels of 5o tons. Later it was further deepened, and is now navigable for vessels drawing 15 feet. The old town contains most of the prin cipal warehouses and mills ; the new town, begun towards the end of the 18th century, occupies much of the ground that once formed the domains of the abbey. To the munificence of its citizens the town owes many of its finest public buildings, among them the town hall, the free library and museum, the observatory, the John Neilson Endowed Institute, and the fine Thomas Coats memorial church. Of parks and open spaces there are Brodie Park; Fountain Gardens; St. James Park, with a racecourse; Dunn Square and the old quarry grounds converted and adorned; and Moss Plan tation. The burgh returns one member to Parliament and is governed by a council. In the abbey precincts are statues to the poet Robert Tannahi11 (I and Alexander Wilson (1766— 1813), the American ornithologist, both of whom were born in Paisley. John Wilson ("Christopher North") was born here.
The village originally grew up around the abbey of Paisley, and the town Paisley has been an important manufacturing centre since the beginning of the 18th century, but the earlier linen, lawn and silk-gauze industries have become extinct, and the famous Paisley shawls (imitation cashmere), are little woven. The manufacture of linen thread gave way in 1812 to that of cotton thread, and Paisley is now one of the chief world centres of thread manufac ture. The large mills of J. and P. Coats and Clark and company employ many hands. Other industries include bleaching, dyeing, calico-printing, weaving, engineering, tanning, iron and brass founding, timber yards, and the making of starch, cornflour, soap, machinery and chemicals, besides some shipbuilding.
The abbey was founded in 1163 as a Cluniac monastery by Walter Fitzalan, first high steward of Scotland, the ancestor of the Scottish royal family of Stuart, and dedicated to the Virgin, St. James, St. Milburga of Much Wenlock in Shropshire (whence came the first monks) and St. Mirinus (St. Mirren), the patron saint of Paisley, who is supposed to have been a contemporary of St. Columba. The monastery became an abbey in 1219, was destroyed by the English under Aymer de Valence, earl of Pem broke, in 1307, and rebuilt in the latter half of the 14th century, the Stuart kings endowing it lavishly. In 1553 Lord Claud Hamilton, then a boy of ten, was made abbot, and the abbacy and monastery were erected into a temporal lordship in his. favour in 1587. The abbey lands, after passing from his son the earl of Abercorn to the earl of Angus and then to Lord Dundonald, were purchased in 1764 by the 8th earl of Abercorn, who let the ground for building purposes. The abbey church originally consisted of a nave, choir without aisles, and transepts. The nave and tower have been restored, and careful work has been done on the choir. The nave is used as the parish church. Robert III. was interred before the high altar of the choir in 1406. Over his grave a monu ment to the memory of the Royal House of Stuart was placed here by Queen Victoria (1888). In the south transept is St. Mirren's chapel (founded in 1499), with the tombs of abbot John Hamilton and of the children of the 1st lord Paisley, and the recumbent effigy of Marjory, daughter of Robert Bruce, who married Walter, the Steward, and was killed while hunting at Knock Hill between Renfrew and Paisley (1316).
About 3 m. S. of Paisley are the braes of Gleniffer, and 2 m. S.E. stand the ruins of Crookston castle, which is at least as old as the 12th century.
The Romans settled in Paisley in A.D. 84, and built a fort called Vanduara to the west of the White Cart.