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Billy Connolly
William "Billy" Connolly, Jr., CBE
(Born Glasgow, 24 November 1942)Born in 1942, Billy Connolly began working life as a welder on the Clyde shipywards in his native Glasgow. Towards the end of the 1960s he left the trade in pursuit of more artistic endeavours, embracing the city's lively pop/folk scene as a singer. Developing his on-stage comedic persona, he embarked on the vocation with which he is now familiar to millions across the globe - a comedian. Billy had also acted in many films, including Indecent Proposal (1993), Mrs. Brown (1997), The Boondock Saints (1999), The Man Who Sued God (2001), The Last Samurai (2003), Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006), and The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008). He was BAFTA-nominated for his role in Mrs. Brown.
“Whenever I go to the west coast of Scotland, up to the Isle of Mull, I get a wee tingling. It might be imaginary, but I get a little tingling in my heart that I'm where I belong”.
Billy's ancestry
We traced Billy's Scottish roots for the first of our 'Famous Scots' exhibitions. Billy has long felt deep connections with all the places that have shaped his ancestry: his native Glasgow, the Isle of Mull on the west coast of Scotland, and also Ireland, from where many of his family came. Both the Highland and Irish sides of his family were explored in the exhibition.
Most of Billy Connolly's ancestors settled near the River Clyde and many of the men worked in the shipbuilding and other industries. Their lives formed part of Glasgow's vibrant story, and in turn Glasgow and the Clyde have profoundly shaped his own and his family's history. Glasgow and shipbuilding was a major feature of the exhibition (the photograph on the
right is the launch of the Lusitania into the River Clyde 1906).
scotlandsimages.com / Crown Copyright 2009 The National Archives of Scotland AAA00551
The photograph on the left is of Billy's grandparents, Jack Connolly and Jane McClusky.
Reproduced from Pamela Stephenson's 'Billy', courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers
1841 census
Tracing further back through the generations, we uncovered this entry from the 1841 Census (above, click to enlarge). This lists Billy's great-great-great grandparents, Francis and Rose McClusky. They were living in Clyde Street, Anderston.General Register Office for Scotland, Census 1841, 622/00 030/00 005. Courtesy of GROS
Images of Billy's exhibition
Billy paid a visit to the Famous Scots Exhibition on 15 April 2009, meeting up with Sir James Black, the eminent Scottish scientist (featured in a separate exhibition). Billy's visit was captured in these photographs, reproduced with kind permission of the photographer, Rob McDougall.
A partnership between the National Records of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon© Crown copyright
