The Calton weavers' strike of 1787 was the earliest major industrial dispute in Scottish history, when troops fired on demonstrators, killing six.
[2] The Calton Weavers massacre of 1787 is commemorated in a panel by Scottish artist Ken Currie in the People's Palace, Glasgow, commissioned on the 200th anniversary of the event.
[4] In the summer of 1787, the journeymen weavers of Calton marched in organized processions through the streets of Glasgow to protest a 25 percent wage cut and lockout.
[5] The dispute grew bitter, with the strikers cutting the webs from the looms of weavers who continued to work, and making bonfires in the street from the contents of warehouses.
He was found guilty of "forming illegal combinations" and was sentenced to be publicly whipped through the streets of the city at the hands of the Common Executioner, and then to banish himself from Scotland for seven years.