Harley, William, 1767-1830

William Harley was born in 1767 in Glen Devon, Scotland. His parents died while he was young and he was raised by his paternal grandmother. In 1800, he moved to Glasgow and became a manufacturer and entrepreneur. Since the water supply in Glasgow was scarce at the time, Harley had pipes put in that led from the springs on his property at Willowbank to another property at the intersection of Bath Street and West Nile Street. There he built a public bath and had fresh water sent out in specially made tanks on carts where he sold it for “a half-penny a stoup,” or flagon, which was an approximately two-liter jar. He also built Harvey’s Byres and set the standard for the principals of hygiene on dairy farms around the world. William Harvey died in 1830 in London, just as he’d begun a trip to Russia at the request of Tsar Nicholas I. He is buried at London’s Spa Fields graveyard.