Lesmahagow

Etymology

Religion

Twin towns

Highland Games

Development Trust

Notable residents

• Billy Boyd, actor, famous for his role as the hobbit Pippin in The Lord of the Rings
• Rev Thomas Burns, founder of the Thomas Burns Blind School in Edinburgh, born there.
• Alexander Cairncross Sir Alexander Kirkland "Alec" Cairncross KCMG FBA FRSE, born in Lesmahagow in 1911. Leading British economist. Professor of Applied Economics at Glasgow University, Economic Adviser to HM Government, Head of Government Economic Service, Master of St Peter's College, Oxford, Chancellor of Glasgow University.
• John Cairncross born in Lesmahagow in 1913 and brother of Alexander Cairncross. Civil servant, intelligence officer and spy in World War II. In 1951, he admitted spying for the Soviet Union. The "fifth man" in the Cambridge Five. His autobiography, The Enigma Spy, was published in 1997.
• David Finnie, Chartered Accountant in Finnie & Co., London, later through mergers became BDO Stoy Hayward
• Edward Glover, MD & psychoanalyst, born there.
• John Greenshields a short-lived but talented Scottish sculptor responsible for works such as Sir Walter Scott in Parliament House, Edinburgh
• Jim Holton, Scottish football centre-half, was born there. He died, aged 42, after suffering a heart attack at the wheel of his car.
• Rev. Dr Thomas Martin Lindsay DD FRSE, theologian
• Jackie Lockhart née Steele, World ladies curling champion skip, and later BBC sports commentator
• Alexander Muir, composer of Canadian patriotic song "The Maple Leaf Forever", was born in Lesmahagow in 1830 before emigrating to Canada as a child.