Captain Archibald Paton (or Patoun), on his way to the coffee room in the Tontine Building on Trongate. This wood-cut is taken from an engraving of 1826 and was acknowledged to be a very accurate representation of Paton's appearance.
Archibald was the son of Dr David Paton, a local physician, and inherited his father's tenement known as Paton's Land, opposite the Tontine Buildings. Paton had served as an officer in the War of the Austrian Succession and, it was said, in a Scottish mercenary force recruited by the Dutch. He was renowned as an excellent fencer and as a man prone to brag about his military exploits when enjoying "a bowl of his favourite cold punch made with limes from his estate in Trinidad and with water newly drawn from the West Port Well."
Reference: Mitchell Library, GC 941.435 GOR
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning
Keywords:
army officers, coffee houses, fencing, Paton's Land, plantation owners, reading rooms, rum punch, soldiers, Tontine Building, Tontine Coffee Room, Tontine Piazza, Tontine Reading Room, War of the Austrian Succession, West Port Well
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