RUTHERGLEN (locally pronounced Rŭglen), a royal municipal and police burgh of Lanarkshire, Scotland. Pop. of royal burgh (1901) 18,279. It is situated on the left bank of the Clyde, 212 m. by the Caledonian railway S.E. of Glasgow, with the E. of which it is connected by a bridge. The parish church stands near the spire of the ancient church where, according to tradition, the treaty was made in 1297 with Edward I., by which Sir John Menteith undertook to betray Wallace to the English. The principal public building is the town hall, dating from 1861. The industries include collieries, chemical works, dye-works, cotton- and paper-mills, chair-making, tube-making, pottery, rope- and twine-works and some shipbuilding. It forms one of the Kilmarnock group of parliamentary burghs, with Dumbarton, Port-Glasgow, Renfrew and Kilmarnock.
Rutherglen was erected into a royal burgh by David I. in 1126. It then included a portion of Glasgow, but in 1226 the boundaries were rectified so as to exclude the whole of the city. In early times it had a castle, which was taken by Robert Bruce from the English in 1313. It was kept in good repair till after the battle of Langside (1568), when it was burnt by order of the regent Moray. In 1679 the Covenanters published their “Declaration and Testimony” at Rutherglen prior to the battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Brig (1679).