Busby, a manufacturing town, partly in the Lanarkshire parish of East Kilbride, but chiefly in Mearns and Cathcart parishes, Renfrewshire, 5½ miles S of Glasgow by road, or 7¼ by a line (incorporated 1863) that diverges at Pollokshaws from the Barrhead railway, and has a length thence of 4¼ miles to Busby and 8¾ to East Kilbride. Standing on White Cart Water, and surrounded by charming scenery, it is a pleasant, well-built place, and has a post office with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, a print-field, and a cotton-mill (established 1780). There are a Free church, a U.P. church (1836; 400 sittings), and St Joseph's Roman Catholic church (1879; 400 sittings); and in February 1881 it was proposed to erect an Established church and to form the town into a quoad sacra parish. A public school, with accommodation for 540 children, had (1879) an average attendance of 269, and a grant of £250,13s. Pop. (1841) 902, (1861) 1778, (1871) 2147, (1881) 3089, of whom 657 belonged to Lanarkshire.—Ord. Sur., sh. 22,1865.
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