Renton

Renton, a manufacturing town of Dumbartonshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 5067. It is situated on the Leven, 2 m. N.N.W. of Dumbarton by the North British and Caledonian railways. The leading industry is Turkey red dyeing, and calico-printing and bleaching are also carried on. A parish church stands on the site of Dalquhurn House, the birthplace of Tobias Smollett the novelist, to whose memory a Tuscan column was erected in 1774, the inscription for which was revised by Dr Johnson when he visited Bonhill in that year with Boswell. The town was founded in 1782 by Mrs Smollett - previously Mrs Telferof Bonhill (sister of Tobias Smollett), who resumed her maiden name when she succeeded to the Smollett estates; it was named after Cecilia Renton, daughter of John Renton of Blackadder, who had married Mrs Smollett's son, Alexander Telfer.