City in Scotland
Dundee
Dundee turned jute, jam and journalism into a fortune, built the ship that took Scott to Antarctica, and gave the world Desperate Dan and Grand Theft Auto.
Key information
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- About 148,000 (2022 estimate)
- Known for
- RRS Discovery, V&A Dundee, jute, marmalade, comics and video games
- What locals are called
- Dundonians
- Famous people
- Brian Cox, Mary Slessor, William McGonagall, Jim McLean
- Football clubs
- Dundee FC (Dens Park) and Dundee United (Tannadice Park)
About Dundee
The city where Desperate Dan lives
Walk down the High Street and you'll meet a bronze Desperate Dan, jaw as wide as a coal scuttle, standing guard. He's there because Dundee is the home of DC Thomson, the publisher that launched The Dandy in 1937 and The Beano in 1938. The city has since filled its streets with statues of Minnie the Minx, Oor Wullie and the Bash Street Kids. DC Thomson also publishes The Courier and the Sunday Post, which gave Scotland The Broons and Oor Wullie. The comics are one third of what the city's old boast calls the three Js: jute, jam and journalism.
Juteopolis: the town that ran on women and whale oil
In the 19th century Dundee became the world's great centre for turning raw jute from India into sacking, carpet backing and sailcloth. Its mills made so much that the city was nicknamed Juteopolis. Oddly, the work was done mostly by women, because mill owners found they could pay them less than men. Many husbands stayed home to mind the children, and Dundee earned a reputation as a city of strong-willed women. Mary Slessor, who later became a famous missionary in Calabar, Nigeria, started out as a child worker at Baxter Brothers' linen works in Dundee, which processed flax. Dundee's existing whaling fleet supplied whale oil that was used to soften jute fibres for processing. In 1883 a humpback whale swam up the Tay and drew crowds. William McGonagall, the city's most famous bad poet, wrote a poem about it. The Verdant Works, a former jute mill, now tells the story.
The ship that went to the bottom of the world
RRS Discovery was built in Dundee and launched in 1901. It was designed for Captain Robert Falcon Scott's first Antarctic expedition, which ran from 1901 to 1904, and it was the first ship built in Britain specifically for scientific research. Dundee's whaling shipbuilders knew how to make a hull that could take the ice. Discovery returned home in 1986 and now sits at Discovery Point on the waterfront. A few minutes away is the frigate Unicorn, launched in 1824, which is among the oldest British-built warships still afloat. It's a neat pairing, and it explains the nickname City of Discovery.
Marmalade, cake and a very Scottish sweet tooth
Dundee's food fame begins with orange peel. The story goes that Janet Keiller turned a cargo of Seville oranges into thick-cut marmalade in the 1790s, and the Keiller family was making it commercially in Dundee by 1797. Dundee marmalade went on to be shipped around the world. The city also gives its name to Dundee cake, a rich fruit cake with a neat ring of blanched almonds on top. Keiller's marmalade is often linked to it, though plenty of bakers have claimed the recipe since. For a savoury bite, locals buy a Forfar bridie from the baker. That's a pastry pocket of minced beef and onion, from just up the road.
Two clubs, one street
Dundee FC and Dundee United have their grounds, Dens Park and Tannadice Park, only a couple of hundred yards apart on the same street. It's among the closest pairs of professional grounds anywhere in Britain. Both clubs have had golden eras. Dundee won the Scottish league title in 1961-62 under Bob Shankly and reached the European Cup semi-finals the following season. Dundee United, under Jim McLean, won the league for the first time in 1982-83, reached the European Cup semi-finals in 1984, and played in the UEFA Cup final in 1987. Dundee is also the setting for plenty of big derby days, when the two sets of fans share a short walk.
From Tay Bridge to the Tay waterfront
On 28 December 1879 the first Tay Rail Bridge collapsed in a storm while a train was crossing it. Everyone on board was lost. McGonagall wrote about it too, and the poem is celebrated for how unintentionally funny it is. The replacement bridge still carries trains across the water today, and the Tay Road Bridge opened in 1966. The modern city is reinventing itself on the same river. V&A Dundee, designed by Kengo Kuma and opened in September 2018, is Scotland's first design museum. Its walls are meant to recall the cliffs of the Scottish coast, and inside it houses Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Oak Room. Dundee has also become a games capital. DMA Design, the studio behind Lemmings and the first Grand Theft Auto, started here, and Abertay University launched one of the world's first computer games degrees in 1997. Timex's Dundee factory once built Sinclair's ZX Spectrum home computers too. For the best view, climb the Law, a hill formed from a volcanic sill, whose tough igneous rock was left standing as the softer rocks around it wore away.