How does it come about that an English spinster lady, of no note whatsoever as was typical of most of her class at the time, donates a painting to Glasgow? The answer lies not with her father William Miller Coultate who was born in England but with her maternal great uncle James whose life, friendships and achievements were typical of the men who made the Industrial Revolution.
On the 13th November 1912 Miss Amy Esther Coultate of Colwyn Bay wrote to James Paton the Superintendent of Glasgow Corporation Art Galleries offering to Glasgow a portrait of the Scottish poet Thomas Campbell by the artist James Lonsdale.[1] In a second letter to James Paton Miss Coultate stated that she had always understood the portrait had been painted at the request of her maternal great uncle James Thomson who paid the artist 500 guineas, and had been done at Primrose House, Clitheroe, the home of her great uncle, where the poet sometime stayed.[2]
Miss Coultate was the middle child of three and was born in 1852 to William Miller Coultate and Eliza Jane Thomson, James Thomson’s niece, and was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Habergham Eaves, a suburb of Burnley in Lancashire.[3] Her elder sister Marion Elizabeth and younger brother Arthur William were born in 1850[4] and 1856 respectively.[5]
Her father, born in Clitheroe, Lancashire in 1813, was a surgeon and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in England. He had been in practice in Burnley since 1836 after completing his studies in Dublin. He was also vice president of the British Medical Association in Lancashire and Cheshire and had at one time been surgeon of the Fifth Royal Lancashire Militia.[6]
His wife Eliza Jane Thomson was born in 1821[7], the daughter of William Thomson, the brother of James, both of whom were calico printers. They married in 1849[8] and lived at 1 to 3 Yorke Street in Burnley for most of their married life and where William also had his practice.[9]
Amy’s mother died at a relatively young age in 1871.[10] As was typical for wives of the time perhaps she left very little, her ‘effects’ being valued at less than £20.
The family continued to live in Yorke Street and in the 1881 census, no occupation for any of the children is given despite them being well into their twenties.[11] In subsequent censuses the sisters are recorded as living on private means, and Arthur is described as a gentleman when he marries in 1883.[12]
Amy’s father died in 1882 from an apoplectic seizure. He left an estate valued at £4583 11s 11d, probate being granted to a fellow surgeon, Joseph Anningson, and Amy’s sister Marion Elizabeth.[13]
The two sisters, who never married, by 1901 were living together at Cae Gwyn,[14] Colwyn Bay. Marion died in 1902, leaving an estate valued at £3757 17s 2d, probate being granted to Amy.[15]
Both sisters clearly led very uneventful, unremarkable lives essentially living on their inheritances from their father. Amy’s one departure from the ordinary appears to have been a trip she made on the SS Hildebrand in 1920. Its departure port was Manaos, Brazil. Her port of embarkation was Lisbon, arriving in Liverpool on 25th March. At this time she was living in Southport.[16] She died on 29th October 1930 at the Barna Private Hotel, Hindhead, Surrey. She left an estate valued at £4155 0s 6d.[17]
If Amy’s life was that of a typical Victorian spinster, her great uncle James’s life was that of an educated, entrepreneurial, enlightened male of the Industrial Revolution. He was born in 1779 in Blackburn to John Thomson, (a “Scotch” gentleman), and his wife Elizabeth. His father was an iron-liquor merchant, a fixing chemical used in the calico dyeing industry.
In 1793 he attended Glasgow University befriending Gregory Watt, the son of James Watt and the poet Thomas Campbell. At the age of sixteen he joined the calico printing company of Joseph Peel & Co in London remaining there for six years developing his knowledge and understanding of the chemical technology involved in the industry through study and friendships with scientists including Sir Humphrey Davy and William Hyde Wollaston.
Joseph Peel was an uncle of Sir Robert Peel, 1st Baronet, and there is a suggestion, not proven, that James Thomson’s mother Elizabeth was a sister of Sir Robert. If true, that plus the fact of his father’s involvement in the calico industry would certainly have aided his employment with Joseph Peel.
He subsequently managed the company’s works near Accrington until 1810 at which time he set up his own calico printing company in partnership with John Chippendale of Blackburn, the new company eventually being established at Primrose near Clitheroe. He travelled extensively in Europe to further his business, his fundamental drive being to identify and implement scientific improvement to his printing processes. In 1821 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He supported schools of design and the extension of copyright periods for dress patterns as he believed this would establish and enhance standards for the industry as a whole. His skill as a chemist and his process improvements in design and printing led to him being referred to as the ‘Duke of Wellington’ of calico printing.[18]
He married Cecilia Starkie in 1806[19] and had four sons and three daughters[20], which raises the question of how the painting came into Miss Coultate’s possession. With so many children the expectation would have been that one of his offspring would inherit. Unfortunately, this research has not established how it came to her; via her mother seeming the most likely route.
James was mayor of Clitheroe in 1836-1837 and became a JP in 1840. He died at home on 17 September 1850 whilst preparing for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He is buried in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church, Clitheroe.[21]
The artist James Lonsdale was a friend of Thomson’s and was a frequent visitor to his home. He was a popular portrait painter of the day and painted many eminent individuals including British and foreign royalty. His portrait of Thomson is in the Salford Museum and Art Gallery.[22]
[1] Object Files at Glasgow Museum Resource Centre (GMRC), Nitshill.
[7] Baptisms (PR) England. Clitheroe, Lancashire. 8 August 1821. THOMSON, Eliza Jane. Register; Baptisms 1813-1829, Page 93, Entry 741. LDS Film 1278857. Lancashire Online Parish Clerk Project. http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Search/indexp.html
[8] Marriages (PR) England. Habergham Eaves, Burnley, Lancashire. 20 February 1849. COULTATE, William Miller and THOMSON, Eliza Jane. Collection: Lancashire, England Marriages and Banns 1754-1936. Reference Pr 3098/1/13. http://ancestry.co.uk:
[10] Testamentary records. England. 8 February 1872. COULTATE, Eliza Jane. Principal Probate Registry, Calendar of the Grants of Probate. p. 293. Collection: England and Wales National Probate Calendar 1858-1966. http://ancestry.co.uk
[12] Marriages (PR) England. Burnley, Lancashire. 6 January 1883. COULTATE, Arthur William and BRIDGES, Mary Jane. Lancashire, England Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1936http://ancestry.co.uk
[13] Testamentary records. England. 20 May 1882. COULTATE, William Miller. Principal Probate Registry, Calendar of the Grants of Probate. p. 338. Collection: England and Wales National Probate Calendar 1858-1966. http://ancestry.co.uk
[14] Census. 1901. Wales. Llandrillo yn Rhos, Colwyn Bay, Caernarvonshire. RG13, Piece:5290; Folio:10; Page:11. http://ancestry.co.uk:
[15] Testamentary records. England. 19 December 1902. COULTATE, Marian, Elizabeth. Principal Probate Registry, Calendar of the Grants of Probate. p. 169. Collection: England and Wales National Probate Calendar 1858-1966. http://ancestry.co.uk:
[16] Passenger List for S.S. Hildebrand arriving Liverpool. COULTATE, Amy Esther. 25 March 1920. Collection: UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1870-1960. http://ancestry.co.uk
[17] Testamentary records. England. 3 January 1931. COULTATE, Amy Esther. Principal Probate Registry, Calendar of the Grants of Probate. p.791. Collection: England and Wales National Probate Calendar 1858-1966. http://ancestry.co.uk:
[18] Aspin, Christopher. (2004) Thomson, James (1779-1850). In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com
[19] Marriages (PR) England. Blackburn, Lancashire. 18 March 1806. THOMSON, James and STARKIE, Cecilia. Register; Marriages 1801-1809, Page 357, Entry 1419. LDS Film 1278807. Lancashire Online Parish Clerk Project. http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Search/indexp.html
[21] Aspin, Christopher. (2004) Thomson, James (1779-1850). In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com
[22] Cust, L.H. (2008) Lonsdale, James (1778-1839) In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com
John Stewart became a partner in a grain merchants business and had lifelong interests in family history, boating and photography, but it is Lochranza on the island of Arran which provides a common thread which brings together all of these topics. In 1928 John gifted a painting to Glasgow Loch Ranza by Andrew Black to Glasgow, who often depicted west of Scotland coastal scenes incorporating fishing and leisure boats.
John Stewart was born at 15 Willowbank Street, Glasgow on 23rd March 1877 to Alexander Stewart, a seaman first mate, and Euphemia Hamilton Allen, a dressmaker (1). They married in 1875 at a time when Alexander senior was second mate aboard SS County of Sutherland, following his fathers’ maritime occupation as a ships carpenter (2). John lived with his mother and her sister, Margaret together with his grandmother Jane Allen. According to the census of 1881 his mother had been widowed by that date.
John and his mother went to live with his uncle, William McHarg and aunt Margaret at Hillbank Cottage in Milngavie (3). William was a grain merchant with a large store at 104-112 Cheapside Street, Glasgow. Around 1890 John was employed as a clerk in the business and in the early 1900s became a partner in the business when the name changed to McHarg and Stewart, by then described as grain merchant and general storekeepers (4).
Interestingly the Cheapside Street building was designed by architects Honeyman and Keppie in 1892, who employed the young Charles Rennie Mackintosh as a draughtsman from 1889. Mackintosh submitted some drawings for the premises but it is not known if any of his work was included in the plans for the building. The design was influenced by northern Italian palazzi, with massive arches and pilasters. The northern third was designed for William McHarg and remained in the McHarg family till the 1950s when Samuel McHarg and Company were the owners. It was then used as a bonded warehouse storing large quantities of whisky and other spirits (5).
McHarg & Stewart Grain Stores, Cheapside Street by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections.
On 28th March 1960 a devastating explosion destroyed the building, the resulting fire killing fourteen members of the Glasgow Fire Brigade and five members of the Glasgow Salvage Corps. The date is commemorated in Glasgow each year.
In 1901 John was living with the McHarg family at 294 St Vincent Street, moving to 9 Clifton Street, Kelvingrove by 1909 (6).
John never married, and throughout his life maintained an interest in boats. In his early years he would accompany his mother to Arran, often in a small rowing boat. They especially loved Lochranza. Photography became a passion for John and he published a series of his work, mainly of west of Scotland scenes. One of these is titled ‘Fair Lochranza in the Isle of Arran’ which is dedicated ‘to my mother and happy memories of Loch Ranza in Victorian Days’,and includes images of boats and hills aroundthe castle of Lochranza (7).
Fair Loch Ranza 1949, Geo Stewart & Co, Edinburgh – by permission of The Stewart SocietyPhotograph from Fair Loch Ranza by John A Stewart – by permission of The Stewart Society
Another is titled ‘Rosneath and Clynder Views’ which is introduced by Admiral Sir Angus Cunninghame Graham in 1958. The Cunninghame Grahams of Ardoch appear to have been family friends. He writes ’…the pleasing photographs reveal something of the generation which was concerned with the greatness of Glasgow and the Clyde.’(8)
When John retired, about 1940, he moved to a large house, ‘Bonaly’ in the village of Clynder on the Clyde and quickly became a well known member of the yachting fraternity and contributed articles on yacht design in Yachting Monthly, leading to speed improvements in racing yachts (9).His greatest passion however was family history. Again Lochranza is the starting point. In 1262 the castle belongedto Walter Stewart, third Steward of Scotland, gifted by the Earl of Menteith.
Walter and his wife were interred on the island of Inchmahome on Lake of Menteith and are represented by possibly the finest 14th century effigies in Scotland (10). Also interred on the island is Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham (1852-1936) who made his name in politics (he was the first president of the Scottish National Party), and spent time in Argentina as a rancher with the local gauchos.
John’s interest in the Stewart family led to him co-founding the Stewart Society in 1899 and he was an active member for nearly sixty years. He became known as John A Stewart of Inchmahome and is referred to as such in many of his publications. The Stewart connection with Inchmahome led to him purchasing the island in 1926, subsequently gifting it to The Stewart Society in 1948, and it is now administered by Historic Scotland on their behalf (10).
John also had an interest in heraldry and published ‘The Story of the Scottish Flag’ in 1925.
On his death John wished to be buried on the island and arranged for a small mausoleum to be built. He died on 28th February1962 and his funeral was held at Port of Monteith Church. Thereafter the funeral party crossed the icy lake to lay John to rest in his mausoleum (11).
Mausoleum on Island of Inchmahome, by permission of The Stewart Society
In May 1921, Mr James Howden Hume donated to Kelvingrove Museum a painting which is called “Roses” by Louisa Perman (Mrs. Torrance) and a copy of it is displayed below.
Our Donor, James Howden Hume was born in Glasgow in 1866. His father was William Hume, an iron merchant, and his mother was Ann Howden, sister of James Howden [1]. He was educated at The High School and the Royal Technical College, now Strathclyde University. He lived at 11, Whittingehame Drive, Govan, and Glasgow and spent the last eight years of his life in London [2]. His illustrious uncle, Mr James Howden [3,4], during the end of the nineteen century, took the industrial revolution one stage further by his inventions and modifications which were able to increase the efficiency and the applications of steam power machinery, mainly used in marine engines and boilers [5]. As our donor’s profession and business life were closely linked to his uncle, it is appropriate that at this point, some more information is given about his uncle, Mr James Howden.
Young James, after completing his education at the Royal Technical College, served his apprenticeship as an engineer in the firm founded by his uncle, James Howden (1832-1913), who was born in Prestonpans, East Lothian in 1832 and was educated at the local parish school. His parents were James Howden and Catherine Adams. At this point, as there are too many similar names in this family, to ease the confusion a clarification must be made. The name of our donor is James Howden Hume. His uncle was James Howden whose father was also James Howden.
Mr. James Howden, the uncle, served as an apprentice from 1847 with James Gray & Co., an engineering firm in Glasgow, a firm with an established reputation for stationary engines. It was noticed that his talents for technical drawing were considerable and, even before his formal apprenticeship was concluded, he was promoted to the position of the chief draughtsman.
Figure 2. James Howden Hume Snr. Chairman 1913–1938 by kind permission of Mr Nick McLean, Website & Digital Marketing Manager of Howden.
Mr James Howden, having finished his apprenticeship, started work first with Bell and Miller, the civil engineers, then with Robert Griffiths, who designed marine screw propellers. In 1854 at the age of 22, he set up in business in Glasgow as a consulting engineer and designer. Before long he registered a vast number of patents in many fields of engineering [6].
Mr James Howden’s first major invention was the rivet-making machine. The selling of the patent rights to a company in Birmingham for this invention secured him financially and James Howden & Co. was established as a manufacturer of marine equipment. In 1857, James Howden began work on the design and supply of boilers and steam engines for the marine industry. His first contract was to supply the Anchor Liner’s ship Ailsa Craig [7] with a compound steam engine and water boilers, using steam at 100 lb pressure. Using this sort of pressure was a considerable advance on existing technology. That same year, together with Alexander Morton of Glasgow, he was awarded a patent for the “invention of improvements in obtaining motive power.” On 28 February 1859, he applied for a patent for the “improvements in machinery, or apparatus for cutting, shaping, punching, and compressing metals.” In 1860, he patented a method of preheating combustion air; his patent was granted for the invention of “improvements in steam engines and boilers, and in the apparatus connected therewith”. In 1862 he decided to construct main boilers and engines to his own design and started manufacturing in his first factory in Scotland Street in Glasgow’s Tradeston district [8]. A breakthrough came in 1863 when he introduced a furnace mechanical draught system which used a steam turbine driven axial flow fan.
James Howden’s best-known work was the “Forced Draught System”, introduced in the 1880s, which used waste gases to heat the air in boiler’s combustion chamber and which was adopted by shipbuilders all around the world. This system dramatically reduced the amount of coal used in ships’ boilers. Howden patented this device in 1882 as the ‘Howden System of Forced Draught’. During the 1880s, more than 1000 boilers were converted to this specification or constructed according to Howden’s patent. The first vessel to use the system was the ship the New York City, built in 1885. Amongst the liners to use the Howden system in their boilers were the Lusitania and Mauretania, the fastest liners in the world when they were built [9].
Now, we come to our donor, James Howden Hume. He started his career as an apprentice in his uncle’s firm James Howden & Co. Ltd in the 1880’s [10]. Then, he became a director in 1890. Together with his uncle, he managed the firm until his uncle’s demise in 1913, when young James became the Chairman of the company and remained in this position until his own death in 1938.
Below are the pictures of some of the machinery that were manufactured by Howden and Co. Ltd., the cover of Howden’s Quarterly depicting an artist’s impression of the factory and the main offices of James Howden & Co. Ltd. at 195 Scotland Street, Glasgow, as well as the cover of Howden’s Quarterly Centenary Edition No 20, October, 1954.
Figure 3. Howden engines at Shieldhall Sewage Works of Glasgow Corporation, installed in 1908.Figure 4. A triple expansion high-speed Howden engine of 2,700 H.P for Woolwich Arsenal, London, installed in 1914 the largest of that design in the country at the timeFigure 5. Artist’s impression of the factory and the main offices of James Howden & Co. Ltd. at 195 Scotland Street, GlasgowFigure 6. On the cover of Howden’s Quarterly Centenary Edition No 20, October, 1954. Clockwise from the top: A Victorian era paddle steamer: Howden Patent boiler front: triple expansion reciprocating steam engine: double inlet forced draught fan: auxiliary steam engine circa 1880s: steam turbine fan drive: rotors of a Lysholm screw compressor: vortex dust collector: double inlet fan impeller and shaft: Variable pitch axial fan impeller.
(Figures 3,4,5, and 6 by kind permission of Mr Nick McLean, Website & Digital Marketing Manager of Howden.)
James Howden was fortunate that his nephew turned out to be an engineer of much the same skill and stature as he was. James Howden Hume had joined the firm just when the “forced draught system” was on the point of being widely used in the 1880s. It was not long before he became Chief Draughtsman and his uncle brought him in as a Partner in the firm. Around the mid-1890s, such was the success of the two gifted engineers, uncle and nephew, that James Howden had hoped to be able to retire from manufacturing and continue working as a consultant. However, he could not find anyone reliable enough to make the fans and other machinery needed to work his forced draught system properly. So, once again, he had to take on manufacturing his inventions himself and leave the management of the firm to his nephew. At that time, his existing factory had been designed to build main engines and boilers and was unsuitable for the much smaller auxiliary machinery needed for the new system. So he constructed another factory at 195 Scotland Street. This remained the main headquarters of the Company for nearly a hundred years. The next advance was when the firm became a private limited Company in 1907, with James Howden as Chairman of the Board and James Howden Hume as Managing Director and James Howden’s son, William Howden, as a Director [11]. On the death of Mr James Howden on 21 November 1913, our donor, Mr. James Howden Hume became the Chairman of James Howden and Company.
In 1914, at the break of the First World War, the first challenge that our donor Mr. James Howden Hume, as the Chairman of the Company, was to cope with the cancellation of orders from German ship owners amounting to about a third of the firm’s marine work. However, new ships needing Howden equipment were being placed by British ship owners, as the German submarines sank large numbers of British merchant fleet, with appalling loss of life. It was then an extraordinary story emerged of a British ship that had escaped from an attack by a German submarine by making full use of its Howden equipment, increasing its speed far beyond the normal by forcing its boilers to the maximum. When the Ministry of Shipping heard of this, they immediately ordered that all ships, replacing those sunk, should be fitted with the Howden forced draught system. In the time gap while these new ships were being built, J.B.MacGillivray, who joined Howden in the 1880s and worked with three generations of the Howden family, using his Howden international contacts, managed to find twelve Japanese built ships, amounting to a total of over 115,000 tons, which were duly delivered to the Ministry of Shipping, making the British government the owners of merchant ships for the first time in their history [12]!
In addition to the war effort shown by Howden Company, in 1914, a 15MW turbo-generator, the largest in the United Kingdom, was supplied to Manchester Corporation and came into operation after a year of the death of Mr James Howden, the uncle of our donor. It is believed that the replacement was not only for the increased demand for electric power but also for the old and very noisy turbine in situ [13].
Later, when the United States had joined the war, they also needed Howden equipment. However, the Glasgow Scotland Street factory was hard pressed to fulfil all its orders, so our donor, James Howden Hume, had decided that manufacturing directly in the USA had become an urgent need. Therefore, in 1918 a factory was acquired in Wellsville, New York. His eldest son, Crawford William Hume, who had joined the firm in 1913, was sent out to set up and run this factory [14]. This action gave the Howden Company an international status.
At the end of the Great War, the Howden order books were very full. However, this did not last long as the worsening economic situation forced the cancellation of contracts by the early 1920s. Keeping the Works going at full capacity had become a problem. This problem, however, was solved after our donor’s two sons met Frederick Ljungstrom, an engineer of the Swedish firm, AB Ljungstrom Angturbin, quite by chance in Brussels. In their conversation, Frederick Ljungstrom, having realised that all of them were in the same business, showed them a design of a new mechanical air pre-heater that his firm had developed. When they returned to Glasgow and showed the design to their father they all realised that it was the answer to the problem of pre-heating air for the much larger boilers that were by then being used in the Howden land business. The principle of the modification was that the heat is retained within the system rather than lost up the chimney and the boilers become much more efficient, with a dramatic saving of fuel. Howden obtained the license [15] from Ljungstrom for ‘exclusive rights for manufacturing and sales for land use within the British Empire’ and this turned out to be of great importance to both Companies and has being used in power stations, oil refinery distillation and methanol, ammonia, copper & steel furnaces and many other applications, including ships. In his presidential address to the Institution of Engineers & Shipbuilders, our donor, Mr James Howden Hume described it as [16]:
The latest development in hot air forced draught is a somewhat radical departure from the standard arrangement, involving an entirely novel method of heating air by mechanical means, instead of the original stationary tubular heater.
It was during those precise weeks that a new contract came through for Howden equipment for the boilers of the new Battersea power station in London [17], so the situation was saved from disaster in the nick of time. Looking back, the building of that huge and distinctive red-brick power station with its four giant chimneys became something of an iconic symbol of the recovering economy of the whole nation. Alas, today in 2018, the Battersea Power Station is no more, as it was recently converted to luxury flats.
After the both World Wars, Howden Company continued collaborating with the Swedish partners. In fact, one of the Swedish engineers later became a Technical Director in the Howden Company.
In The Bailie [18] a summary of his life is given. It is mentioned that, in his lifetime, our donor, James Howden Hume, had a wide number of interests in the affairs of Glasgow and was a Deacon of the Incorporation of Hammerman 1924-1925 (http://www.hammermenofglasgow.org/index.htm) as well as being a Freeman of the City of London and Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights (https://www.shipwrights.co.uk). The Bailie also mentions that from 1923 to 1925 he was the President of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland (IESIS) (http//www.iesis.org/about/presidents.aspx). About his early age, it is mentioned that James Howden Hume took a keen interest in art, particularly in the works of Guthrie, Lavery, and Henry of the Glasgow School of Art between 1919 and 24, he was President of Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts (https://theroyalglasgowinstituteofthefinearts.co.uk/). He was also a keen collector. He possessed several very notable paintings by McTaggart and many of his pictures being in constant demand by various exhibitions throughout the country. He was a keen yachtsman and sailed on the Clyde and he loved yacht racing and cruising [19]. In addition to that, as a young man, he also had the skill and spunk to play for Queen’s Park Football Club, Scotland’s oldest amateur soccer team founded in 1867. He spent his last days in London where he died in 1938. He was survived by his wife Agnes, two sons and a daughter [20].
In summary, our donor, James Howden Hume, was working with his uncle in the 1880’s. Subsequently becoming Chief Draughtsman, then General Manager, he became a director of the firm James Howden & Co. Ltd in 1900. On the death of his uncle in 1913, he became the Chairman of the company and remained in this position and continued with the progress of the company until his own death in 1938. In the Obituaries column of the Glasgow Herald of Thursday, May 26, 1938, an article appeared for NOTED GLASGOW ENGINEER, James Howden Hume [21].
After his death, the Howden Hume family continued to run the firm. The business was to grow and became the world’s leading fan makers. They were involved with most of the important engineering jobs of the 20th century. A few examples [22] of these are the following great engineering feats of Howden Company:
In 1947 they supplied the main blowers for two nuclear reactors at Windscale.
In November 1982, the CEGB (Central Electricity Generating Board) awarded a contract to Howden for the first-ever wind turbine generator in the UK; this was commissioned with an output of 200kW.
In 1988, two Channel Tunnel drilling machines had been built at James Howden & Co. 195 Scotland Street, Glasgow.
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank Mr Nick McLean, Website & Digital Marketing Manager of Howden for his kind permission to use some of the pictures of early Howden machinery as well as some archive material taken from the book “Douglas Hume a personal story” by David H. Hume whom I owe my thanks for making the Industrial Revolution Era and his family’s contribution to that era a very interesting read.
References:
[1] Douglas Hume a personal story by David H. Hume,Published in aid of the June and Douglas Hume Memorial Fund administered by Foundation Scotland, ISBN 978-1-905989-88-1, Printed by Nicholson & Bass Ltd., Belfast.
On 3rd September 1943 an oil painting with the title Landscape by R. Macaulay Stevenson was bequeathed by Mr Samuel M. Mavor. The painting has an acquisition number 2339.
The minutes of Glasgow Corporation for the 17th August 1943 contain the following: “There was submitted a letter from Mclay, Murray and Spens, Solicitors, intimating that the late Mr Mavor of Cleghorn House by Lanark had bequeathed to the Corporation, subject to the life-rent enjoyment of his sister, a landscape by Macaulay Stevenson and that Mr Mavor`s sister had given authority for the picture to be delivered to the Corporation now. The Committee, after hearing a report from the director, agreed that the bequest be accepted, and that delivery of the picture be taken now.”
On 3rd September 1943, a note in the minutes indicates that a “Landscape by R. Macaulay Stevenson had been received”. 1
Samuel Miller Mavor was born on 3rd June 1863 at 25, Kelvinhaugh Street, Anderston.2 He was the fifth of seven boys born to James Mavor, a schoolmaster and Free Church minister, and his wife Mary Ann Taylor Bridie. His parents married on 22nd August 1851 in Barony. Samuel also had three sisters, 3 one of whom, Jessie, was also to become a donor to Glasgow (see Acquisition Number 2559). At the time of the 1871 Census the family was at Middleton Cottage, Dunoon with Samuel aged seven and a “scholar”. His father`s occupation was “schoolmaster” born in Aberdeen; his mother was born in Forfar. 4
Samuel`s father graduated M.A. from the University of Glasgow in 1871 as a Licentiate of the Free Church. Thereafter he was the Principal of a Private Academy in Pollokshields till his death in 1879.5 It was at this Academy that Samuel received his early education before moving to the Glasgow Royal Technical College.6 He then began serving his time as an apprentice engine fitter with Robert Harvey and Co. at Parkgrove Ironworks 7 and in the 1881 census, he is aged 17 and an “engine fitter”, living with his mother, seven siblings and two servants at “Devon Bank Villa”, Kinning Park.8 Later that year he enrolled at Glasgow University to study Natural Philosophy.9
Matriculation Album, 1881. University of Glasgow Archives
However, his time at university seems to have been short or non-existent as he went to work for his brother Henry, the agent in Scotland for the firm of Crompton and Co., who were pioneers in setting up electric lighting systems in Britain and Ireland.10 His first “lighting” task was to illuminate the square in front of Holyrood Palace while Queen Victoria was in residence in 1881. Earlier he had been on parade as a volunteer in the 105th Glasgow Highlanders and from his own account, had to do a quick change to prepare for the demonstration.11
One of the Mavors` achievements was to install, in 1884, electricity to light the General Post Office in George Square, Glasgow. This was the first public building in Glasgow to have electric lighting installed. This was followed by other establishments in Glasgow i.e. the Royal Exchange and Messrs. Arthur & Co., Ltd. (In 1890, Glasgow Corporation purchased the generating plant, and this became the nucleus of the public electricity supply in Glasgow).12
Samuel undertook the first of many foreign travels in 1886 when he sailed from the Tyne aboard a Japanese warship to serve as a junior engineer in the Japanese Navy.13 On his return he joined his brother`s firm of Muir and Mavor, electrical engineers.14 Later, when the firm became Mavor & Coulson, Samuel became a partner.15
He had been involved in the erection of electric lighting plant during the construction of the Forth Rail Bridge and had become friends with Sir William Arrol. After his return from the Far East, Sir William had offered him the post of Chief Electrical Engineer at the bridge which, because of his commitment to his firm, he felt obliged to refuse. Later he introduced Arrol to the collector and connoisseur T.G. Arthur when they met at Ayr Racecourse. 16
In the 1891 census, Samuel was living with his mother, three sisters and two servants at 4 Elmbank Crescent, Glasgow He was now an electrical engineer aged 27.17
The Mavors had a long connection with Russia. His mother had spent a winter in St. Petersburg and Moscow and his grandfather, Captain Bridie “in 1839 left Dundee on the brig Europe” bound for St. Petersburg. But in the Gulf of Finland the ship was chased by pirates and ran ashore. (Using the insurance money, the captain later managed to have the ship refloated but on its return voyage it was wrecked in a storm off the Mull of Kintyre and was not insured). 18 The Thornton Woollen Mills Company owned a giant mill near St. Petersburg and in 1896 an order was placed with Mavor and Coulson for the electric lighting of the mill. Samuel travelled out to see the completion of the first stage of the enterprise. As well as St. Petersburg he visited Moscow and other cities in Russia. Two years later, in 1898 he undertook a voyage across Russia as the guest of a large Russian transport company which had ordered electrical plant from Mavor and Coulson. 19 In 1899 and 1900 he addressed the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow about his travels in Russia. 20
By 1901 he had moved to 37 Burnbank Gardens, Maryhill with his sister Isabella. He continued to work for Mavor & Coulson who advertised themselves as;
“manufacturers of electric dynamos, motors and coal cutters; and contractors for the erection and equipment of electric power and lighting in Central Stations, public works, factories, coal mines, and public and private buildings”.21
In 1897 the company had started to build electric coal-cutting machines. They were the first to manufacture a completely enclosed electric coal-cutter and the first to incorporate an ironclad motor in one of these machines.22 Samuel specialized in this part of the business. He was a pioneer “notably in the providing of the machinery for mechanical coal cutting” and was “recognised as one of the highest authorities in the country in that branch of his profession”. He wrote many papers on the subject and many of these were translated into French and German 23.
“It was Sam Mavor`s faith in the future of electric coal-cutters that kept the enterprise going, and when mining machinery became a permanent part of the company`s interests, it was he who organised the nucleus of mining engineers who supervised the commissioning of machines. Sam Mavor was active in other countries as well – by 1914 continental coal- producing countries were buying 90 percent of their long-wall requirements from Mavor and Co.”24
In 1908 he was one of a group invited by the Canadian Mining Institute to tour Canada`s mining and smelting industries. The tour began in Nova Scotia and extended to Vancouver Island. On his return journey while staying at the Banff Springs Hotel, he met an acquaintance whom he had known in Scotland:
“My friend was Edmund Morris, a Canadian artist whom I had known some years earlier when he spent a summer painting on the coast of Fife. He was now working on a commission for the Canadian Government – the painting of portraits of the Chiefs of the various Indian tribes; these now hang in the National Gallery at Ottawa. ……I asked him to paint for me the portrait of a representative chief; some time after my return home it arrived – a very striking portrait of Tcillah (Bullhead) the Head Chief of the Sarsee Indians, titled “The Mourner” for his only son had just died”. 25
Samuel continued to travel; in 1910 he was in Germany and was one of the passengers in the maiden voyage of the airship, Düsseldorf; he was in America in 1911 and in Provence in 1912 and also found time to travel in Scotland 26 His address was still 37, Burnbank Gardens where he was now living with two of his sisters and two servants. 27
By 1913, the output of coal cutting machinery reached its peak and was exported world-wide. In this year, 25 percent of Scottish coal was cut by machinery and Mavor and Coulson were at the forefront of production. When his brother Henry died in 1915 Samuel took over the management of the company.
During WW1, Samuel Mavor was a director of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and served on various government committees including the Industrial Welfare Committee of the Ministry of Munitions. 28
(from “The Bailie” – Mitchell Library)
Throughout his life Samuel Mavor made friends with people from many different backgrounds. He befriended; revolutionaries – Prince Peter Kropotkin, academics – George Forbes – Professor of Natural Philosophy at Anderson`s College, Glasgow and for many years the deliverer of the David Elder Lectures on Astronomy at the Royal Technical College; John Scott Haldane whom he met at meetings of the Council of the Institution of Mining Engineers (Professor Haldane carried out research into the composition of the atmosphere in mines); authors – R.B. Cunninghame Graham whom he last met in 1935 at the unveiling of a memorial to Neil Munro near Inveraray, (Mavor and Coulson had previously installed equipment for the lighting of Inveraray Castle); shipbuilders – Sir Archibald Denny whom he met when Peter Denny placed an order with M&C for a power station to provide electric light in his shipyards. The two also met at meetings of the British Standard Institution. He met Auguste Rodin in 1900 with a group of admirers of Balzac. He later wrote that “Our Kelvingrove Galleries contain casts of Rodin`s St. John the Baptist, Head of Victor Hugo and a figure from the group The Burgesses of Calais”. 29
He was also a well-respected employer. Thanks in large part to his initiatives, Mavor and Coulson adopted enlightened methods for works organisation and were praised for their scheme for education and welfare among their apprentices. They produced the “Mavor and Coulson Apprentices Magazine”, the first of its kind in Scotland. A bonus system of wages was introduced – payment by results which enabled the employees to earn high wages – while a suggestion scheme provided workpeople with awards for initiative. When Mavor and Coulson celebrated its jubilee in 1931, Samuel was presented with his portrait in oils from the employees. 30
The following year he left Glasgow for New York aboard the “Cameronia” and arrived there on the 9th of February 1932. He was then 68.32 He retired from the position of managing director of the firm in 1934 but retained the chairmanship. He was succeeded by his nephews, Mr J. B. Mavor and Mr. E. I. Mavor, sons of the founder of the firm. In the same year, to recuperate from a severe illness he spent three and a half months of the winter in Jamaica. This included a two-week voyage through the Azores and a stop in Bermuda. He visited South Africa in 1935 and flew from Johannesburg to Capetown a distance of 820 miles in a time of 8 hours. In 1939 at the age of 76 he left Liverpool 33 bound for South America visiting Chile and the Falkland Islands and voyaging around the tip of the continent to visit Juan Fernandez (Robinson Crusoe`s island).
In 1940 he published a volume of reminiscences, “an informal record of 50 years of engineering and the friendships it yielded”.34
Portrait from frontispiece of his “Memories”)
In this book he also records another donation which he made to Glasgow – King Theebaw`s Bed. Theebaw was the last king of Burmah deposed by the British. Samuel first came across the bed at the house of a retired Rangoon merchant. When this merchant died his goods were dispersed and sometime later Samuel came across it again in an antique furniture shop in Edinburgh. He bought it and so this “gaudy relic of fallen royalty” now resides in the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre looking rather the worse for wear.35
Roger Quinn was a Border`s Poet author of “The Borderlands”. His death in 1925 seems to have prompted the donation of the bust. One of his poems describes a scene in George Square, Glasgow;
NOCTURNE George Square, Glasgow, 2 A.M.
The City’s clamour now has ebb’d away,
And silence settles o’er the dusky Square,
Save for a cough, sepulchral, here and there,
From shivering forms, that wait the coming day;
Hunger and Houselessness, without one ray
Of hope to chase the shadow of Despair,
Keep weary vigil in the wintry air,
Each heart to dread Despondency a prey.
Proudly the Civic Palace, over all,
Looms through the night, and, with a sculptur’d frown,
Meets the dull gaze of Want’s lack-lustre eye:
Till slowly, like some vast funereal pall,
The chill, dense curtain of the mist creeps down,
Shrouding the splendour, and – the Misery!
Roger Quin 1850-192537
The following is a list of the many posts Samuel Mavor at one time or another held
“Chairman of Mavor and Coulson Ltd; Member of the Scottish Committee on Art and Industry; Governor, Glasgow Western Infirmary; Glasgow Royal Technical College; Glasgow School of Art; Director on Board, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce; President, Mining Institute of Scotland, 1936-38; past Chairman, Scottish Section of Institution of Electrical Engineers; Member of Council, Institution of Mining Engineers; Director on Board, Glasgow Eye Infirmary; past Chairman, N.W. Engineering Employers Assoc.; Member of Council, The Royal Scottish Geographical Society.” He was also the author of many papers on Geographical, Engineering and Mining subjects. 38
Samuel Miller Mavor died, unmarried, on 11th June 1943 aged 80 at Cleghorn House, Lanark.39 His death was announced in the Glasgow Herald of 12th and an obituary, was published on page 4 of the same issue.
Although Samuel Mavor had no children, his nephew was Dr. O. H. Mavor aka James Bridie the playwright.
References
Minutes of Glasgow Corporation, Committee on Art Galleries and Museums, Vol. Apr. – Nov. 1943, p 1300 (Mitchell Library)
Scotland`s People, Birth Certificate
Family Search, Scotland, births
Scotland`s People, 1871 Census
Addison, W. Innes, “Roll of Graduates of the University of Glasgow, 1727 – 1897”, Glasgow, James MacLehose and Sons, 1898
Scottish Biographies, 1938. London: E. J. Thurston, Glasgow: Jackson, Son & Co., 1938
Glasgow Herald, 12th June 1943, p4 (Obituary)
Scotland’s People, 1881 Census
Matriculation Album, University of Glasgow Archives
Glasgow Herald, 12th June 1943, p4 (Obituary)
Mavor, Sam, “Memories of People and Places”. London: William Hodge and Co., 1940, p11
In May1914, Miss Catherine S. Howden and her brother gave A SpringRoundelay by E.A. Hornel to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. The painting now hangs in the City Chambers in the Satinwood Room.
Catherine Spence Howden was born in 1875in Helensburgh, (1) though her birth certificate cannot be sourced. She was the daughter of James Howden and his first wife, Helen Burgess Adams (2). She had two younger brothers James and William born to his second wife, Allison Hay. In the 1891 census the family were living at 66 Berkeley Street in Glasgow.
In 1892, she matriculated at the Queen Margaret College in Glasgow (3) in the Faculty of Arts where she studied for three years. Then in 1895, she enrolled in the Medical School there. In Glasgow University Archives there are records of her enrolment in classes until 1900 and she progressed through the years to her final year. There is no record that she graduated. Since the archives do not keep records of class tickets there is no reason given for this. In July 1899(5), her stepmother died of a cerebral tumour, having been ill for ten months, leaving two sons who were teenagers. Her family commitments may have meant she had to change her plans. In 1901(6), she is living with her father and two teenage brothers at 2 Princes Terrace, Dowanhill, Glasgow. It is possible to keep track of her through the census and valuation rolls. Her brother James died on 16th January 1908 in Montreux, Switzerland (7). Her father died in 1913 (8), leaving her a substantial legacy (9) so that she could live on private means. In 1915, she was living as proprietor (10) at 15 Mirrilees Drive and was proprietor of Lodge Cottage in Cove.
An Article in the Glasgow Herald after her death states that “During her lifetime, Miss Howden was a generous patron of art and music in Glasgow”.
The City Council minutes(11) of 1914 acknowledge the gift of A Spring Roundelay by E A Hornel presented by Miss C S Howden, 2 Princes Terrace, Dowanhill, on behalf of her brother and herself. In the City Council minutes of February 1919(12), Miss Howden’s donation of 17 etchings and prints by Whistler, Legres, Beuer, Gordon Craig, Zorn, Haddon, Maryon and Muirhead Bone to the recently established Print Room in Kelvingrove is acknowledged. It has not been possible to trace her membership of societies in Glasgow related to Art or Music.
She died on the3rd May 1925 (13) and her death certificate is signed by Dr Marion Gilchrist, the first female graduate in Medicine from Glasgow University, who was her contemporary. Soon after her death, articles appeared in the Glasgow Herald (14) because of a further bequest to the City of Glasgow. “In all Miss Howden’s bequest consists of 117 etchings and prints, a portfolio of 21 etchings by Charles Keene-one of a set of 150-and Muirhead Bone’s 50 lithographs of Glasgow, with notes on Glasgow by A.H. Charteris, published in 1911 in a limited edition of 900 copies by Messrs James Macclehose and Sons. The collection contains such valuables as an etching by Van Dyck, one by Van Oestede, one by Durer and four by the master etcher, Rembrandt.” These were seen as a valuable addition to the print room of the Art Galleries which was then in the early stages of development. Full details of the bequest are detailed in the Council minute of June 19th, 1925(15). In her will (16) she left £5,000 to endow a scholarship at Edinburgh University in the name of her nephew Dr Andrew Adams Rutherford and a painting by Stuart Park to an aunt and uncle.
James Howden (1832-1913)
James Howden (17)(18) was an engineer and business man who displayed great talent for innovation and an enterprising business flair. He was born in East Lothian and moved to Glasgow in 1847. His apprenticeship was with engine builders James Gray and Company. He set up his own business as a consulting engineer in 1854. In 1862, he established the firm of James Howden and Company to manufacture engines and boilers specialising especially in boilers for ships. The invention for which he is remembered is the Forced Draught Engine. This enabled ships to go twice as fast on half the amount of coal and greatly contributed to trade around the world.
He married twice. He was married to Helen Burgess Adams and they had a daughter, Catherine. His second marriage, in 1872, was to Alison Moffat Hay (19) and there were 2 sons. His son James, who studied engineering at Glasgow University, predeceased him in 1908 and William was a director of the company but died childless in 1943 (20). In 1882, a nephew, James Howden Hume, joined the company and a limited company was established in 1907. Howden Hume succeeded as company chairman on his uncle’s death. Howden (21) is still based in Renfrewshire providing air and gas handling products in over 20 countries world wide.
In his will (22), James Howden left £388,251, leaving his daughter well provided.
Thomas Francis Donald came from an established Glasgow family. His great grandfather and his grandfather were among the chief importers of tobacco in the city of Glasgow.(1)
Thomas Francis Donald was a Chartered Accountant and Stockbroker. His father, Thomas Donald, was the County Clerk of Lanarkshire. His mother was Frances Maxwell. (2)
“There are few families now in existence in Glasgow who are more connected with the Glasgow of olden days than the Donalds” (3)
Mr Donald worked in 104 West George Street (a building which also housed Leslie Hunter, the artist). He lived in 14 Huntly Gardens (4) and in later life moved to Dargavel House, Bishopton , the seat of the Maxwell Family. He lived here until his death. Dargavel House is now a B listed building, which became part of the Royal Ordnance Factory and is now owned by BAE Systems. (5)
Thomas Francis Donald achieved great success in his chosen career. He was noted for his thoroughness, and was widely respected. He was a member of the Glasgow Stock Exchange, twice holding the position of chairman. It was noted that he never gave any client thinking of having a “flutter” any too rosy a picture of his prospects. “His honesty was merciless” He was a keen sportsman, a member of the Royal Northern Yacht Club, where he held the position of secretary and treasurer from 1887 until 1896. He was also a member of the Mudhook Yacht Club. He was a golfer, taking up the game in 1864. He would therefore have been in the forefront of the expansion of golf in Scotland which occurred in the second half of the nineteenth century. This expansion was due to two events – the discovery of the gutta percha ball and the expansion of the railways. This made golf more accessible and led to the formation of golf clubs in Scotland. One of these clubs was Prestwick, created by Old Tom Morris in 1851.(6) In 1920, Thomas Donald became the Captain of Prestwick golf club. (7)
Thomas Donald was an active member of Glasgow society and was secretary to the Knot of Bachelors. He was a member of, and treasurer to, the Western Club. (His great great grandfather had been a founding member.) He was chairman of the Western Club from 1924/25 and wrote a brief history of the club to mark the club’s centenary. He occupied the chair at the Club’s centenary celebrations. (8)
He was a member of the Hodge Podge Dining Club, many of whose members came from the Western Club. This club was established in 1750, originally as a discussion group, but members quickly decided to abandon discussion in favour of Whist, which was played between 5 p.m. and supper at 9 p.m. The club exists to the present day, meeting in the Western Club every six months. (9)
The Baillie summed him up thus:
“Mr Donald is a Glasgow citizen of credit and renown…. He comes of excellent stock…. and the traditions of this stock are excellently maintained in his person. Success on the local bourse has left him abundant time and opportunity to cultivate the higher graces of life… His offices speak volumes for his savoir faire, and for the high esteem in which he is held by the circles of which he is a member. Mr Donald’s reading is extensive and peculiar. It ranges from volumes on the abstruser sciences down to the latest cookery book. Consequently, among his intimates his conversation is uncommonly bright and interesting. Even his censure is accepted with as good a grace as is the approval of another.” (10)
Thomas Francis Donald
The Baillie July 8th 1886
His obituary in the Glasgow Herald summed up Thomas Donald : ” He warmed, if ever a man did, both hands before the fire of life….He had a good knowledge of literature and was well versed in family history. He contributed frequently to the columns of the Glasgow Herald. He also wrote a good deal otherwise, chiefly on antiquarian subjects. His love of music was very real and he was a member of Glasgow Amateur Dramatic Club. He had a most happy knack of light verse. He was a connoisseur in cuisine and no one could arrange a dinner or ball to better effect. It is a matter of regret that he was not painted by Raeburn, for he was one well fitted for that master’s brush. His strong features and ruddy, clean shaven face would ….have gone well with a white stock and a canary waistcoat. With him there passes an intimate knowledge of nineteenth century Glasgow.” (11)
In all that has been written about Thomas Donald there is no mention of particular interest in art, or of art collection. It is possible to surmise that his yachting experiences on the Clyde led to his interest in the particular painting which he donated. It is also notable that the timing of his donation coincides with his move from Glasgow to Bishopton. He is buried in the Necropolis. (12)
References
(1) The Baillie July 8th 1896
(2) Scotland’s People Census 1861
(3) Old Country Houses of the Old Glasgow Gentry: Glasgow James Maclehose, 1878
Artist : Harding was an American portrait painter. He was born in Massachusets of humble origins. He was largely self-taught but became very successful. He spent time in Europe between 1823 and 1826 and was very popular. Even members of the royal family commissioned him. This portrait was probably painted around 1825 as another portrait by Harding of Thomas Grahame, Robert’s son, has a date of 1825. Our portrait was exhibited in Glasgow in 1868 in an Exhibition of Portraits held at ‘The New Galleries of Art’,Sauchiehall Street (McLellan Galleries). It was loaned by Thomas Grahame of Leamington Spa – son of Robert Grahame(1) .
Donor
The portrait was presented to Glasgow Museums on 26th November 1947 by Felicia Pepys Cockerell (FPC) of Brook House Aldermasten, Berkshire2. The first question one must ask is how a lady living in Berkshire in 1947 came to possess a portrait of a former Lord Provost of Glasgow? In fact FPC was the great-great granddaughter of Robert Grahame and the portrait was probably handed down through the generations of the family. The diagram below shows the link between FPC and Robert Grahame.
Grahame Family Tree
Fig. 2. Jackie Macaulay
Robert Grahame (1759-1851)
Robert Grahame was born on 28th December 1759 in Stockwell Street, the son of Thomas Grahame, Writer to the Signet, (Solicitor) and from 1751 a member of the Faculty of Procurators in Glasgow. Robert followed his father into the legal profession and went into partnership with his father as the firm of “Thomas and Robert Grahame”. He joined the Faculty of Procurators in 1792. On the death of Thomas Grahame in 1791 Robert carried on the practice alone until 1802 when he went into partnership with Andrew Mitchell and the practice became “Grahame and Mitchell”. ‘No firm ever stood higher in Glasgow’.
Robert married Helen Geddes(1751-1824) of Cupar, Fife, in 1786.They had four surviving children (see above diagram),one of whom was James Grahame, our donor’s great grandfather.
In 1797 Robert bought Whitehill House and Estate in what is now the east end of Glasgow in the suburb of Denniston. The original house(the centre part) was built by John Glassford , one of the Glasgow Tobacco Lords. Glassford sold the estate in 1759 to John Wallace of Neilstonside who in turn sold it to a retired London merchant, Nathaniel Gordon. Robert Grahame bought it from John Gordon, son of Nathaniel. The house remained in the Grahame family until the 1840s. It was eventually sold to the Denniston family3.
Fig. 3. Whitehill House from The old country houses of the old Glasgow gentry. John Guthrie Smith and John Oswald Mitchell, 1878. Glasgow: James Maclehose & Sons. http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/smihou/smihou098.htm
Robert was one of the most respected men of his time in Glasgow. He was well-known for his liberal and democratic views . He was an ardent supporter of the emancipation of slaves, a friend and correspondent of William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson. He was against oppression throughout the world. He was President of the Glasgow Emancipation Society for many years. He was known to support the American War of Independence and be not entirely unsympathetic to the aims of the French Revolution. In 1793 the British Government was in something of a panic regarding the holding of liberal views and feared that the ideals of the French revolution might spread to Britain. As a result of this Robert was watched by the government. The Lord Provost of Glasgow received instructions from the Lord Advocate to activate an arrest warrant drawn up for Robert Grahame. The Lord Provost wrote to the Lord Advocate saying that such was the esteem in which Robert Grahame was held in the town that he could not guarantee civic order if Robert Grahame were to be arrested. As the Lord Provost was Grahame’s political opponent it says a lot for the reputation and standing of Robert Grahame at the time. He was not bothered again.
This fracas did not prevent Grahame from acting as an agent in the defence of Thomas Muir and the political martyrs of 1793 or in trying to get a reprieve in 1819-20 for Hardy and Baird and James Wilson for their part in the Radical Insurrection of that year.
Grahame campaigned long and hard for Parliamentary Reform and was the first Lord Provost of Glasgow (1833-4) to be elected after the passing of the Reform Act. However by 1834 his health and his age was beginning to take its toll and he only served a year as Lord Provost. He left Glasgow for warmer climes and went to live on the south coast of England. The 1841 Census finds him living with his daughter, Ann Donald, in Clifton, near Bristol. In 1851 he was staying with his son Thomas in Chorley Wood near Watford in Hertfordshire. He died on December 28th 1851 at Hatton Hall Northamptonshire, aged 91. Whether or not this was his home is not known at this time4.
James Grahame (1790-1842)
The next name in the story is Robert Grahame’s eldest son James who was born in Glasgow on 21st December 1790. James was educated at the Grammar School of Glasgow in George Street. This became the High School of Glasgow in 1834. He then attended classes at Glasgow University where he heard lectures from Professor Playfair. Around 1810 he became a student at St John’s College Cambridge, it is thought to study literature as he had literary ambitions. Even though James’s time at Cambridge was short, while there he became great friends with a fellow student, John Herschel, who is to play a pivotal role in our story . John Herschel, later Sir John Herschel, became known as an astronomer and chemist.
During one university vacation James met and fell in love with a woman called Matilda Robley. As he wanted to marry Matilda James went back to Scotland to study for the Scottish Bar in Edinburgh, presumably to be able to support a wife. He was called to the Scottish Bar as an advocate in June1812 and married Matilda in Stoke Newington in October 1813.
Unfortunately he found the practising of law not to his taste. He wrote to a friend, (possibly John Herschel), ”Until now I have been my own master and I now resign my independence for a service I dislike”. However he does seem to have carried on a satisfactory practice, no doubt spurred on by his love for his wife, as he further wrote, “Love and ambition unite to incite my industry.”
Who was this woman who captured James’s heart? According to one of her teachers, a Mrs Barbauld, she was “…young, beautiful, amiable and accomplished…. with a fine fortune”5. Ironically much of Matilda’s fine fortune came from the profits of plantations owned by her uncle , Joseph Robley, in Tobago. Sugar and cotton were the crops grown on the plantations. Joseph owned several plantations and thousands of slaves. Matilda’s father, John Robley, managed the business from the London end. The Robleys lived at Fleetwood House, Stoke Newington6. How this all sat with James who had been brought up by a father who abhorred slavery in all its forms can only be guessed at. According to Eleanor M Harris, James was,” so moved at the privilege of gaining her that it brought about a religious conversion which lasted the rest of his life.” It must have been a case of love conquering all!
James and Matilda had three children: Anne(b1814), Robert (b. 1816) and Matilda (b.1817). Tragically daughter Anne died in 1817,followed by much loved wife Matilda in 1818. James was said to never really recover from these events.” He was left with his religion, his children, and the wealth”. After Matilda’s death the children, Robert and Matilda were left with a ninth share of the Tobago estate with James inheriting a life rent of it. In 1827 wrote that,”My conscience was quite laid to sleep.Like many others, Idi not do what I could, because I could not do what I wished. For years past something more than a fifth part of my income has been derived from the labour of slaves. God forgive me for having tainted my store!…Never more shall the price of blood enter my pocket!…Till we can legally divest ourselves of every share, every shilling…is to be devoted to the use of some part of the unhappy race from whose suffering it is derived”. When his children were of age they gave up their shares.7
James Grahame was not of robust health. The death of Anne in 1817 and then of his wife the following year brought on illness which threatened his life (though it is not known what the illness was). However he slowly began to take up his literary pursuits again. He had previously written pamphlets on various subjects such as ‘Inquiry into the Principle of Population’ in 1816 and in 1817 a spirited defence of Scottish Presbyterianism in opposition to Walter Scott’s ‘ The Tales of my Landlord ‘ which Grahame said subjected them to contempt. In 1823 he went to the Low Countries for his health. Also in that year he was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. About the same time,influenced by his father , he began to think about what was to prove the main work of his life, writing a history of the United States of America. One of his chief interests was American history. Washington and Franklin were his great heroes.
In 1825 his mother, Helen Geddes, died at Whitehill. In London in 1825 and early 1826 James was again suffering illness and depression. He was still working at his law practice in Edinburgh when his doctors prescribed moving to a warmer climate. In March 1826 he wrote,”I am now preparing to strike my tent…I quit my profession without regret, having little liked it and greatly neglected it.”
In 1827 the first two volumes of his history of the United States was published– ‘The History of the Rise and progress of the United States of North America ‘till the British Revolution in 1688’. During 1827 and 1828 he spent time in Madeira, Paris and Nantes, travelling for his health. He stayed in Nantes until May 1828. By December 1829 the 3rd and 4th Volumes of his history of the USA had been published-‘ The History of the United States of North America from thePlantation of the Colonies ‘Till their Revolt and Declaration of Independence’. It has to be said that the works did not arouse much interest on either side of the Atlantic.
James suffered another bout of ill health and returned to Nantes where he spent much of his time, especially the winters, until his death. In 1830 he married Jane A. Wilson, daughter of the Reverend Mr Wilson ,Protestant pastor in Nantes. Apparently this was a very happy marriage. Matilda, James’s daughter by his first marriage, lived with them in Nantes. She was of fragile health also and the new Mrs Grahame looked after them both very well. The family stayed at the Chateau L’Eperonniere. They took a central role in Nantes society and became warmly attached to the French people of Nantes.
About this time James began revising the four volumes of his history of the USA. Perhaps this was because in 1831 a favourable review of the first two volumes appeared in the North American Review. He was urged by writer Washington Irving himself to write a history of the Revolutionary Wars.The first real evidence of public respect for his works in the United States came in August 1839 when he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Harvard University. This was in recognition of his writings after the four volumes were republished in 1837 and in 1839 an American edition was published in Philadelphia.
Although James himself was backwards and forwards between London and Nantes, having to oversee his publications, his family remained mostly in Nantes. This was mainly because his daughter Matilda had several life-threatening periods of illness during the early 1830s. Much to everyone’s surprise she made a full recovery and went on to marry the next player in our story, John Stewart (1814-1887). They married in Nantes in 1839. (See below- Fig 4 Stewart Family).
James Grahame spent much of the remainder of his life in Nantes along with his wife and his daughter and son-in law who split their time between London and Nantes. His final publication was, ‘ Who is to Blame? Or a Cursory View of the American Apology for American Accession to Negro Slavery’ which was published in 1841/42. There is some evidence that James intended to return to live in Britain. He died in London on 3rd July 18428.
The Stewart Family
As we have seen, Matilda Grahame became Matilda Stewart on 2nd October 1839. Who was John Stewart and what was his family background?
Alexander Stewart (1764-1821)
From the family tree below9, John Stewart was the son of Alexander Stewart, a Scottish Presbyterian minister. At the time of John’s birth his father was parish minister in Dingwall, Ross-shire . Alexander Stewart was of the Evangelical wing of the Church of Scotland, having undergone a ‘conversion ‘ about 1796. He supported the abolition of slavery and the non-consumption of sugar, rum and tobacco as part of that support. His work ‘Elements of Gaelic Grammar’ first published in 1801 , went into 12 editions between 1807 and 1823.
John Stewart’s mother was Alexander’s second wife, Emilia Calder, eldest daughter of Charles Calder, Minister of Urquart, Ross-shire. She and Alexander had eight children. John, born in 1814, was the youngest. His sister, Margaret Brodie, born in 1810, plays an important part in our story. Alexander’s first wife was Louisa who died around 1799, having had two children, Alexander, who went on to be one of the Disruption Worthies of the 1843 Disruption of the Church of Scotland , and Catherine who married a local minister in Ross-shire.
Alexander had been plagued with ill health for several years, an unspecified internal complaint which caused him much pain. He decided, on the advice of his doctors, to take his family to Edinburgh where better medical facilities were available. Around 1819 the Stewart family moved to Edinburgh, living at some point, according to the Edinburgh Post Office Directory,at 5,Hermitage Place. Alexander’s health improved somewhat and when the minister in charge of Canongate Parish died suddenly, Alexander was given the post, thanks to the influence of one of his wife’s family. Unfortunately the illness returned with a vengeance in the winter of 1820 and although he valiantly carried out his duties as parish minister, he died on May 27th 182110. John was only about seven years old when his father died. The family appeared to have stayed in Edinburgh until about 1830 when they moved to London.
Why the family moved to London is unclear. John’s father’s financial position is not known,though he is referred to as a landowner in one source. John Stewart’s financial position as the youngest son when he started out is not known either. On 3rd March 1829 Margaret Brodie Stewart married John later Sir John Herschel, in Marylebone , London , a prestigious address. Herschel was the only son of William Herschel , the distinguished astronomer who discovered the planet Uranus. His son John also became a distinguished astronomer , mathematician and photographic pioneer. He appears to have become friends with his young brother -in – law. In the summer of 1829, while in the Pyrenees, John Herschel drawing with a’ camera lucida’ wrote in a letter to his mother,” Johnny and I are running a race which shall sketch most-he draws very nicely …).They went on to develop a close relationship11.
In London John Stewart entered the printing business with his brothers. Between 1838 and 1841 he was in partnership with Alexander Elder Murray as Stewart and Murray printers , London. John Stewart’s brother Patrick (b.1808) was a partner in the publishing firm of Smith, Elder and Co. , so perhaps the world of publishing and printing became known to John through him. The printers did a great deal of work for Smith and Elder in which John Herschel had invested. Smith and Elder took over the printing company in 1855.
As we have seen, in 1839 John Stewart married Matilda Grahame, who was said to be ‘an old childhood friend’. As the Stewart family lived in Edinburgh from about 1819 to 1830 and we know that Matilda’s father, James Grahame, was an advocate in Edinburgh from c 1813 to 1826, one presumes they became known to one another in Edinburgh. Also John Herschel and James Grahame had been friends since they were at Cambridge together which may also have brought John and Matilda together. John Herschel certainly went to Nantes to attend the wedding12 . The newly- weds set up home in Nantes. This was possibly to be near her father who had moved there for his health or perhaps because the climate was good for her health too. As we have seen she suffered several periods of ill-health.
About 1846 they moved to Pau in the Pyrenees, South-West France13. Perhaps after the death of her father there was nothing to keep them in Nantes. John’s financial situation at this time is not known. Whether he had financial resources of his own or he made use of his wife’s money is not known either. There was presumably some financial settlement on the marriage. Even before her father’s death Matilda was a wealthy woman, having inherited wealth from her mother. On her father’s death, after her step-mother had been taken care of financially, she and her brother inherited half each of her father’s wealth also14. Whatever the source John Stewart went on to become very successful financially as we shall see.
The couple had two children. Matilda Jane was born in 1841 and James Grahame, our donor’s father, was born in 1842 while they were still living in Nantes.
Pau was already an important British ‘colony’ when John and Matilda moved there. The city had first been discovered by the British when it was occupied in February 1814 by Wellington’s troops during the Napoleonic Peninsular Wars. The troops found the flat terrain perfect for training, for horse-racing, even fox- hunting and golf. Twenty years later more and more British travellers went to Pau, attracted by its mild climate and the beauty of the scenery. When Dr Alexander Taylor went to Pau in 1833 to recover from typhus and dysentery and recovered in a very few weeks he decided to set up a medical practice in Pau. Whether as a clever piece of advertising or genuine belief Taylor wrote his book,’ On the Curative Influence of the Climate of Pau’ which was published in 1842. Immediately it became a best seller amongst British Society. Perhaps that was what attracted the Stewarts there. Certainly there was a large influx of the British aristocracy who went to Pau with their families and friends. The British ‘invasion’ would start in mid-September each year. John and Matilda Stewart and their children spent every winter in Pau from about 1850, the rest of the time in London
The British influx led to an economic boom in Pau in construction, housing and in the demand for valets, domestic servants, gardeners etc. Living was cheaper than in London and many other British cities. Magnificent villas were built with beautiful gardens. Pau changed from the 1850s and became a modern, for the times, city with an up-to date theatre, a Winter Palace and many parks and gardens. The ‘Boulevard des Pyrenees’ gave wonderful views of the snow-covered Pyrenees. In 1842 the race course was opened and this became the main sports activity in Pau and remains so today15.
One of the main sources of information about John Stewart is ‘Pau Golf Club Who’s Who 1856-1966‘16.
According to the Who’s Who John Stewart was a man of many parts. He was a banker and a diplomat though there is no more information given about his diplomatic life. For forty years he and his family lived a large part of their lives in Pau and played a large part in the life of the community. In 1847 John Stewart was awarded the Legion d’Honneur’ by the French Government for activities in French Indo China connected with the wrecking of a French Naval ship. Again here is tantalisingly little information available about this incident.
Possibly as a result of his friendship with John Herschel, John Stewart took up photography. Exactly when is not known. He joined a group of artists in Pau who became known as ‘L’Ecole de Pau’. Among these were well-known early photographers such as Henri-Victoire Regnault, Jean -Jacques Heilman and Maxwell Lyte. They established a studio and printing establishment. Stewart specialised in landscape photographs of the Pyrenees. In 1853 his photographs were published in an album, ‘ Souvenirs des Pyrenees‘ by top photographic editor Blanquart- Evard. John Stewart exhibited in the London Exhibitions of the Society of Arts in 1852, the Photographic Institution in 1854 and The Photographic Society in 1855. In that year also he became a member of the Societe Francaise Photographique. His portrait of Sir John Herschel was exhibited at the 1857 Manchester ‘ Art Treasures ‘ exhibition.
In 1856 , in London , the newly established Photographic Club produced an album of fifty photographs of views around Britain. Fifty copies were produced to be distributed among the fifty photographers plus two more, one of which was presented to Queen Victoria and the other to the British Museum. To mark his contribution to photography, Stewart’s portrait of Sir John Herschel was included in the work.
Stewart’s photographs were much admired by his contemporaries. In a paper on photography’s relation to art, Sir William Newton in the Journal of the Photographic Society in 1853 commented that photographs should not only be chemically but also artistically beautiful, “The nearest approach in this respect…were the excellent Photographs exhibited by Mr Stewart.”17
John Stewart was a friend of George Smith, of Smith, Elder and Co., Charlotte Bronte’s publisher. Sometime during 1856-7 Smith arranged for Stewart to visit Haworth Parsonage to photograph the portrait of Charlotte Bronte by George Richmond to be used as the basis of an engraving for the frontispiece of Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of Charlotte Bronte. This enabled the public to see Charlotte Bronte for the first time. He appears to have visited Haworth three times, also taking photographs of the parsonage. In a letter to George Smith in November 1856, Mrs Gaskell wrote that “Mr Stewart is an excellent amateur photographer gone out to Iceland by the Danish government’s request to take photographs of the boiling springs and those sort of things … and has had to go and show his photographs to the Queen as the ‘crackest ‘things of the kind in the Kingdom”.18
Apart from photography as a hobby, John Stewart was a keen golfer. In 1856 he was one of the five founder members of Pau Golf Club, the oldest golf club on Continental Europe. He was President in 1885 and 1886. He was also keen on fox-hunting and a great supporter of the Pau Hunt. When the Hunt was going through bad times around 1879, Stewart is credited with engaging the help of the Mayor, Aristide de Montpera, to save fox-hunting in Pau. According to Who’s Who,it was down to Stewart that fox-hunting was legally recognised .
Apparently his business dealings towards the end of the 1850s led to the lessening of his photographic activities. There is not a lot of information available on John Stewart’s business life. Again we must depend on Who’s Who . In 1857 Stewart bought land on which to build a house which was called ,”Villa Stewart” later known as “ West Cottage “ in what is now Avenue Dufau in Pau. In 1862 , along with Pastor Brown of the “Scottish Church”, John Stewart was instrumental in establishing the Holy Trinity Church in Pau which today is the “Cinema D’Arte et D’Essais” showing art films. Before the building of the Holy Trinity Church Scottish Presbyterians in Pau would hold services at the Stewart’s first home in Pau,La Maison Labetoure.
In 1866 John Stewart, along with Dr Alexander Taylor, Musgrove-Clay, director of the English Bank in Pau, and Henry Alcock, a banker from Skipton North Yorkshire, founded ‘La Societe des Anglais ‘. The aim of the English Society was to buy farmland on which to build an estate of apartments. These apartments were rented out during ‘the season’ which was from about mid-September to the end of March when British visitors would flock to Pau to escape the winter at home. This became known as ‘Quartier des Anglais’.
Who’s Who also reported that John Stewart was one of the founder members, then a director, of the Ottoman Bank. This bank was founded by Sultan Abulaziz to mitigate the economic crisis within the Ottoman Empire. There were French, English as well as Ottoman Government shareholders. In 1875 the bank became the State Bank of the Ottoman Empire. Its main function was to negotiate international loans for the Ottoman Government. In the 1870s, the time of the Franco- Prussian War, it is claimed that John Stewart secured loans for the French Government for the defence of France.
John Stewart certainly died a wealthy man. At his death on 29th July 1887 his personal wealth stood at £295,000. Today this sum would have a purchasing power of around £36millon19. He died in London at 5 Cleveland Row, his London home20. Before his death he had put his wealth into a trust for his wife and children. Matilda lived on in Pau until her death there in January 1893. Her funeral as held at the Holy Trinity Church in Pau attended by a large crowd of both British and French inhabitants. According to Le Journal des Etranges of 22nd January 1893 (a local newspaper for the British Colony in Pau )Matilda was an ”esprit agreeable et cultive, quel coeur bon et charitable”21.
James Grahame Stewart (1842-1913)
As we know,our donor’s father, James Grahame Stewart was born in Nantes in North West France but the family moved to Pau in South West France and by 1850 was spending every winter there while maintaining a house in London. James received most of his education in Pau at Le Lycee de Pau where he was a brilliant honours student. There is no indication that he went to university. He appears to have followed his parents’ habit of spending much of his time in Pau where he played a full part in the life of the community. He was a member of Pau Golf Club and was its President in 1901 and 1904. He also helped to found the ‘Societe de Jeu des Paumes de Pau’ ( Pau Real Tennis Club). In May 1901 he made a speech on behalf of the British Colony in Pau on the occasion of the visit of the President of France, Monsieur Carnot, in the presence of the delegation led by the UK Vice Consul of Pau Foster-Barnham.22
There is some evidence that he had similar business interests to his father. For example he was elected a Director of the Bank of Egypt in May 187823. There are reports of his presentation at Royal Levees in London in May 1880 and 188524.
James was 43 when he married Helen Louisa Georgina Ellis at the Holy Trinity Church in Pau on 16th April 1885. Helena was 20 years younger than her husband. She was the daughter of Major Charles David Cunynghame Ellis, late of the 60th Rifles, and granddaughter of the 1st Baron Seaford of Seaford. According to the Morning Post of 20th April 1885 Helen was also the niece of Colonel Arthur E Ellis, Equerry to the Prince of Wales and of the Honourable Mrs A Harding, Lady in Waiting to the Princess of Wales, thus the bride was very well connected. The best man was Prince Clermant Tonnerre and one of the six bridesmaids was also French, which shows how integrated the Stewarts were with the French population of Pau. The honeymoon was spent in Paris25.
James and Helen appear to have spent much of their life in Pau along with their children, Felicia who was born in 1890 and John Cecil who was born in 1897 as they are nowhere to be found in the UK Census of 1891 and 1901. Only in the 1911 Census does the family appear to have given up spending winters in Pau and were now living at Stonewall Park, near Edenbridge, Kent. Stonewall Park was a 140 acre estate about 26 miles from London. They lived in a beautiful Georgian House there but also spent time in London for “The Season”.
According to the 1911 Census James was “of independent means”. This probably meant he was living off the trust fund set up by his father26. As we have seen he also had business interests of his own. In 1907 he also inherited the estate of his uncle, Robert Grahame, who was his mother Matilda’s only sibling. He was Uncle Robert’s sole heir, inheriting £46,530 of personal wealth. This would have the purchasing power of roughly £5millon today. Robert Grahame was living in Brighton at the time of his death27.
James Grahame Stewart appears to have been well thought of while living at Stonewall Park. When reporting his death in September 1913 The Kent andSussex Courier stated,” There will be no doubt that his cheery presence will be missed in many a village function. He was a model employer and much respected by all who knew him here”28.
Our Donor. Felicia Pepys Cockerell (1890-1900)
Felicia was born in London on 4th October 1890 at 19 Carlton House Terrace in London29. She had one brother, John Cecil, born in 1897.
We know that there was no trace of the family in either the 1891 or the 1901 census and that this is possibly because, like her father’s parents, John and Matilda Stewart, Felicia’s mother and father spent a good part of each year living in Pau until about 1911,though still keeping a house in London.
From the 1911 Census we know that Felicia’s home at that time was Stonewall Park, near Eden Bridge in Kent some 26 miles from London. The Stewarts also had the house in London and as we are aware were obviously wealthy. Felicia’s father died in 1913 leaving a personal estate of £260,000-worth £26m of purchasing power today. On her father’s death, by which time Felicia was 23, she had inherited a trust fund of £35,000 -over three and a half million pounds of purchasing power today – which provided her with a very comfortable income. She was a very rich woman30.
Fig. 6 Stonewall Park copyright Matt Clayton for Locations >info@stonewallpark.co.uk
Like most girls of her ‘class’ Felicia did the London Season. In fact she did five Seasons-1908-1913, attending on average four balls a week31. She was presented at court on 15th May 190832. She also appeared to be interested in amateur dramatics. There is an account in the Tatler for Dec 8th and Dec 15th 1909 which shows a photograph of her among a group of other ‘debs ‘ taking part in “St Ursula’s Pilgrimage” a play put on at the Court Theatre in London by the Hon Mrs Edith Lyttleton – a well-known member of London Society who supported all sorts of women’s and worker’s causes , for example women’s suffrage. This production was in aid of The Industrial Law Indemnity Fund. In 1911 Felicia attended the Shakespeare Memorial Ball at the Albert Hall dressed as Juliet (one of about 40 Juliets! ). Perhaps she wore the same costume she wore the previous year when she played the part of Juliet in, “The Masque of Shakespeare” a theatrical event organised again by Mrs Lyttleton in aid of The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Fund33. In 1913 she and her mother attended the wedding of Vita Sackville West to Harold Nicholson34. Weddings seemed to feature greatly in her life.
After her father’s death in 1913 Felicia, her mother and brother moved to The Grove, Exton ,Hampshire. They were living there by 1914.
At the outbreak of WW1 now aged 23 Felicia was still single – maybe she was a bit choosy-she could afford to be!
By 1915 Felicia was doing her bit for the war by working at the Bere Hill VAD hospital near Whitchurch in Hampshire, leaving her mother at home at The Grove. Her mother had written on the 1915 National Registration Form for Females that she had no skills, could not work in munitions and was very busy at home!35
John Cecil, Felicia’s brother had gone to Eton and aged only 17 joined the army on 15th August 1914 -5th Battalion Kings Royal Rifle Corps. He was promoted lieutenant on 14th August 1915 and sent to France. He survived for just a month. He was killed at the Battle of Loos on 25th September 1915.Thus Felicia would inherit everything after her mother’s death36.
There was a notice in The Times on July 23rd 1918 of Felicia’s engagement to Major Walter Headforte Brooke of the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. But the print was hardly dry when an announcement appeared in the same newspaper the following month saying that the marriage would not take place-not usual in those days37. Had Walter been killed in action like so many young men? That was not the case. He went on to marry someone else in 1920 and it is not known what went wrong between him and Felicia.
Fig 7 Felicia in 1918, age 28.T From ‘The Sketch’ 7th August 1918 . Copyright Mary Evans Picture Library
There is little information about Felicia during the years after her engagement was broken off. We know she drove a car as she managed to come up against the law in January 1918 by contravening the Gas Restriction Order of February of that year which forbade the use of gas for a private car. She managed to get off on a technicality and only had to pay two shillings costs. One can only presume that Felicia’s life carried on during the years after the war as it had done before, attending weddings and balls. Her home during this period was 25 Edwardes Square, Kensington.38
At the age of 32 on St Valentine’s Day 1922 she married Frederick Pepys Cockerel MC OBE – he was 14 years older than she was. They married at St Margaret’s Westminster. There is no information as to how they met. The wedding was reported in The Times the following day. ”Miss Stewart made a lovely Valentine’s Day bride in a crystal and georgette gown with a long silver tissue train”. The bride was given away by her cousin Sir Guy Campbell and the best man was Guy Ridley,a barrister friend of the groom. Among the many guests The Times listed many titled people. The couple began their honeymoon at Greenwood Gate, Ashdown Forest, the home of The Earl and Countess of Norbury and then went on to the Riviera and Greece. After the honeymoon they lived in Palace Gate Kensington39.
Frederick was a barrister at the time of the marriage. He was a descendent of Samuel Pepys, the diarist, through Pepys’s sister Pauline. His father, also Frederick Pepys Cockerell, was a noted architect as was his grandfather . Frederick had attended Winchester School and then New College, Oxford but left in 1896 to go out to South Africa where he served in the war against the Boers. He had been a distinguished soldier during the Boer War, after which he spent a couple of years in the Colonial service in South Rhodesia. He was called to the Bar (Lincolns Inn) in 190940. He stood twice, unsuccessfully, for Parliament in 1910 and 1912 as Unionist Candidate for Mansfield in Nottinghamshire41.
Frederick was one of the Old Contemptibles, entering WW1 at the beginning as a lieutenant. He was captured after the battle of Loos, escaped, found his way back to the British lines and was arrested by a Colonel who did not know him and thought he was a German spy. He was a talented linguist and spoke several European Languages as well as several African dialects and served a large part of the war in the Intelligence Unit, ending up as Lt Colonel in the Middle East in charge of the policing of the largest oil depot in the world at that time at Baku. General Dunsterville said of him,”My chief of military police ,the then Captain Cockerell reaches the last degree of unsurpassed skills.” He continued to serve after the war, serving on the Upper Silesia Plebiscite Commission in 192142.
Frederick and Felicia had two children. John Lawrence, born in 1924 and Mary Georgina in 1926. The marriage did not last, however, and in 1928 there appeared a report in The Times of the granting of a decree nisi between Felicia and Frederick on the grounds of his adultery at Palace Gate and the Park Lane Hotel. Felicia was given custody of the children44.
What does one do to cheer oneself up after a divorce? You buy yourself a castle! Holt Castle in Worcestershire to be exact. Felicia and the children, John Lawrence and Mary lived there from 1928 until 1947. In 1939 Felicia was living there with Mary and eight domestic servants45. It is not known how much contact the children had with their father.
Fig 8 Holt Castle Worcestershire. ‘Country Life’ 20th July 1940. Copyright Country Life Picture Library
There was a notice in a local paper in 1937 saying that Holt Castle Gardens would be open to the public for a couple of afternoons to raise money for Birmingham hospital, so Felicia was obviously involved in local charities46. She also appears to have kept exotic pets as in 1939 she put a notice in The Times advertising a kookaburra for £5, cage included!47
Fig. 9 The Hall, Holt Castle. ‘Country Life’ 27th July 1940. Copyright Country Life Picture Library
From 1940 to 1945 Holt was leased to Southover Manor School, a private Girls School which had been evacuated from Lewes, Sussex and at which Mary was a pupil48. Felicia also kept a house in London which in 1940 was 8 Westbourne Park Road W2. There is no information to date as to how Felicia spent the war49.
But what happened to Frederick, Felicia’s ex-husband? He married to Grace A. Corbett in 192850. He then attempted to go into show business putting on performances of Russian singers at various theatres52, then opened a book shop in London. He was apparently an expert on old coins and books. He seems then to have got into financial difficulties after buying an old Tudor house , Ramsden Bellhouse Hall near Wickford, spending a lot of money trying to get it back to its Tudor glory and throwing many parties. Sadly he committed suicide in April 1932. He was found by police in a garden in Wimbledon with a bottle of poison by his side. According to the inquest he committed suicide while temporarily mentally disturbed. His obituary in The Times described him as, “ a man of great ability and much personal charm”52. After this time Felicia always referred to herself as a widow.
Felicia’s mother died in 1934 and the contents of The Grove were sold53. We can guess that this was probably the time that Felicia inherited our portrait. There was an article in Country Life Magazine in July 1940 about Holt Castle ( see above figs 8 and 9) which has photographs of the interior showing many paintings on the walls and which refers in the text to family portraits of Pepys ancestors54. Perhaps we can guess that our portrait may also have been on a wall in Holt Castle and when Felicia downsized in 1947 to go and live in Brooke House in Aldermaston she had no room for this portrait and gave it to Glasgow Art Galleries.
There is little more information available about Felicia after this. Her son John Lawrence had joined the Colonial Service. Felicia sailed from Liverpool on June 19th1952 on MV Apapa, heading for South Africa. She returned on August 11th aboard MV Areol. We may presume she had visited her son55. Her daughter Mary became an architect, following her grandfather and great grandfather Pepys Cockerell56. There is a reference in the local Aldermaston paper in the 1960s which refers to the local annual fete and lists the various cups and awards which have been presented over the years, one of which was the Pepys Cockerell Cup-so Felicia must have supported events in the local community57.
Felicia died at Brooke House on 10th June 1970 aged 80. The death certificate described her as the widow of Frederick Pepys Cockerell , bookshop proprietor58. Perhaps she never really forgot him.
References
https://www.nga.gov Chester Harding; ‘Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition of Portraits on loan in the New Galleries of Art,Corporation Buildings,,Sauchiehall St.’(McLellan Galleries) https://babel.hathi.trust.org
4. Robert Grahame of Whitehill .Obituary Glasgow Herald 12/11/1852
Quincey,Josiah “Memoir of James Grahame LLD. ”Charles C Little &James Brown Boston 1845(.Originally) written for the Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
James Henry Roger is best known as a successful wine merchant, whose enthusiasm for amateur rowing led to the formation of Clydesdale Amateur Rowing Club. He donated a very large painting in 1899 ‘Glasgow Green with the proposed Straitening of the Clyde’ by William Glover.
James was born in 1839 in Kirkintilloch to the north of Glasgow to John, a clothier who had a business in Buchanan Street, Glasgow and Marion (nee McLaren), also from Kirkintilloch (1). The family moved to Glasgow when he was six he lived in 37 North Frederick Street in 1851 with his brother John and sister Agnes (2). James showed a keen interest in rowing from an early age and in 1857 became secretary to the newly formed Clydesdale Rowing Club which was based on the river Clyde at Glasgow Green (3). In the early days members would relax after racing by kicking a ball around the Green, and it was this activity which developed into the formation of Rangers Football Club in 1873 (4). A mural at Ibrox Stadium commemorates the origins of Rangers with Clydesdale rowers at Glasgow Green.
James Henry Roger – The Baillie, Mitchell Library, Glasgow
In 1859 Queen Victoria visited Glasgow to open the Loch Katrine waterworks in the Trossachs. James took part as a volunteer guard at the event, which was accompanied by constant heavy rain. He may already have been involved in the drinks industry as he is said to have organised the installation ofcontainers for whisky in the gun cartridge cases, no doubt to warm up the cold wet volunteers (5).
In 1863 James married Margaret McLeod, a Glasgow girl and they had three children, John, James and Margaret (6). Margaret died in 1870 at Rutland Place in Govan (7). James is described as a clothier at this time and may have worked at his father’s business.
James remarried in 1880 to Kate Stirling at her hometown of Comrie, Perthshire (8). They had two children, Kate and Bertie and according to the 1891 census they were all living at 23 Radnor Street, Glasgow.
In the 1870s the Bodega Spanish Wine Cellar in Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow was in decline and in 1879 James took over the business and turned it around. Business boomed and he opened further branches in Glasgow and then in Edinburgh, Greenock and Dundee which were stockedfrom bonded warehouses in Glasgow where special whiskies were blended, and wines and ports stored (9).
The Bodega in Royal Exchange Square later changed its name to ‘Rogano’, a name familiar to many Glaswegians as a fine restaurant with (later) art deco styling. The name is said to come from the first half of Roger’s surname, and ‘ano’ from ‘another’ which refers to a Mr McCulloch, a silent partner in the business.
The Glasgow International Exhibition of 1888 in Kelvingrove park, which promoted industry, science and art to the world as the second city of the empire, provided an opportunity for many local businesses to promote their wares. The Bodega opened a temporary branch in the park despite the protestations of an active temperance movement in the city. Contemporary accounts reveal the popularity of the venue which employed 175 and had had difficulty in coping with the queues (10).
Glasgow International Exhibition 1888 – The Bodega. ‘by permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections’
The painting ‘Glasgow Green with the proposed Straitening of the Clyde’ has great significance for James Roger’s interest in rowing. In the late nineteenth century the Clyde at Glasgow Green was used by several rowing clubs. Weirs had been constructed to control tidal waters in the city centre and the level waters were ideal for rowing. However, in 1899, the weir had been removed and James, being an ambassador for rowing, proposed the straitening of the river to enhance rowing facilities. The painting was commissioned to illustrate the proposed plans which Glasgow Corporation would hopefully carry out. However the plan did not materialise and when James died in 1913 at his home Venard in Pollokshields, he incorporated a clause in his Will stating that if the improvements were carried out within five years of his death the residue of his estate would contribute towards the funding, failing which the funds would be used for youth facilities in Kirkintilloch, his town of birth.
In 1905 a new boathouse was constructed on the north side of the Clyde to replace the southside building. This was shared with another club. James provided funding and this was conditional on Clydesdale Rowing Club having choice of the preferred eastern part, otherwise the offer would be withdrawn. The building is still used by two rowing clubs and is currently being upgraded, and is included in the Glasgow annual Open Doors event.
West Boat House, Glasgow Green. Creative Commons Licence – Thomas Nugent
William Glover completed the painting in 1898 or 1899. Although it could be described as a sketch, it provides a snapshot of Glasgow Green at the close of the nineteenth century and includes the newly opened Peoples Palace. Glover made his name as a theatre manager and scene painter and was an accomplished artist. An image of the painting is currently on view at the Peoples Palace.
Her address was given as 186 Woodville Street, Govan, Glasgow. This was the address of the Scottish Machine Tool Corporation at the time of the donation. That, plus the lack of a residential address and first names for the lady meant that initial research focused on the history of the company. As my researches progressed it became clear that Mrs. Clements husband was the originator of the donation (he gave seven paintings in total between 1940 and 1945) which he chose to make in his wife’s name. For that reason, whilst I have biographies of them both, Mr. Clements is more detailed and extensive.
The late Mrs. Jane Pelosi (granddaughter) provided me with a good deal of information about her grandfather and allowed me to take photographs of the several family items which illustrate this article.
Albion Works at 186 Woodville Street was the place of business of G. and A. Harvey who were engineers and machine tool makers. The company was founded in 1857 (Woodville Street being its original place of business) and remained independent until 1937 when along with four other Scottish engineering and machine tool makers (James Allan Senior & Sons, Loudon Bros., James Bennie & Sons, Craig & Donald) it became part of the Scottish Machine Tool Corporation.[1] The new company prospectus dated 18 March 1937 identified Alexander Blair Clements as joint managing director of Harvey’s.[2]
His wife Margaret was the ostensible donor of the George Leslie Hunter paintings.
Figure 3 Alexander Blair Clements.
Alexander Blair Clements was born in Shanghai China on 3rd March 1884.[3] His father Ebenezer Wyse Clements (1850 – 1928)[4] worked as a ship’s engineer with Alan C. Gow and Company (known informally as the Glen Line at that time), sailing on the company’s Far East routes. At the time of Ebenezer’s marriage in 1877 to Jeanie Ramsey Blair (1848 – 1919)[5] he was an engineer on board the SS Glenroy sailing to Penang, Singapore and China.[6] His first son (also Ebenezer Wyse Clements) was born in Glasgow on 10th June 1878[7] and the 1881 census shows that Jeanie and her son were staying with her mother in Glasgow.[8] It’s safe to assume therefore that sometime between 1881 and Alexander’s birth the family moved to Shanghai where Ebenezer presumably pursued an on-shore engineering career possibly with the Shanghai Dock and Engineering Company. Alexander’s younger brother Edward Joshua Wyse Clements (1886 – 1958) was also born in Shanghai.[9]
Alexander’s schooling was initially in China where he attended the Shanghai Public school. His secondary education was completed back in Glasgow where he was a pupil at Allan Glen’s Grammar school.
Figure 4 Biographical notes written by Alexander Blair Clements
On his return to China he served an engineering apprenticeship with the Shanghai Dock and Engineering Company. During his apprenticeship he attended evening classes and in 1905 distinguished himself by winning the prize for ‘Best Paper Submitted by a Student at the Evening Classes’ presented by the Shanghai Society of Engineers and Architects.
Figure 5 Shanghai Prize
The prize consisted of three technical publications: ‘The Construction of Locomotives’, ‘Marine Propellers’, and ‘Petrol Motors and Motor Cars’. He also subsequently gained an Extra First-Class Board of Trade certificate. He was subsequently employed as a third, then a second engineer with the China Merchants Shipping Company from 1906 to 1908.[10]
What he did in the years immediately after 1908 is not particularly clear however he and other members of his family travelled to the USA and Australia, New South Wales. In 1908 Alexander sailed from Yokohama to Seattle on the SS Minnesota arriving on 13th May. The passenger list details his destination as London and his next of kin as his father at Nayside Road, Shanghai.[11] What he did there and when he returned to China has not been established. In 1910 his brother Edward and his father and mother travelled from Sydney, Australia to St. Albans, Vermont via Canada on the SS Manuka. The passenger list indicates that both men had no employment and that Alexander had remained in Shanghai.[12] Alexander was again travelling in May 1911 when he sailed from Kobe to Sydney on the SS Empire.[13] He subsequently ended up in New Zealand but returned to New South Wales that year on board the SS Maheno sailing from Auckland to Sydney arriving on 4th August.[14] It could be concluded perhaps that the family were looking to leave China maybe to improve their situation or simply to seek employment. Another consideration perhaps was the fact that China was in turmoil at the time which resulted in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, headed by Sun Yet Sen.
What Alexander did in New South Wales is not known but in due course he met his wife to be Margaret Fraser Harvey of Blackburn, Yass.
Figure 6 Record of Margaret Harvey’s birth in family Bible
Margaret was the daughter of Robert Harvey (1853 – 1921)[15] and Margaret Adair (1852 – 1931)[16] both originally born in Scotland and married there in 1884.[17] Margaret was born in Shelby Springs, Birmingham, Alabama on the 2nd August 1890.[18] She may have been born there due to her grandfather Thomas Harvey being a ship’s master. It’s possible that her parents sailed with Robert’s father hence her birth place.
She was the third of four children, one (a son) was stillborn in Cumberland in 1885,[19] the second (a girl) also born in Alabama died at one year in 1889[20].
Figure 7 Record of death of Thomas Harvey in Palestine 1917 in family Bible.
The youngest, Thomas, (born 1893 in Alabama)[21] reached adulthood only to be killed in action in Gaza, Palestine in 1917. At some point the family ended up in Yass, New South Wales where Robert became a sheep farmer.
The family had a connection with Yass through Margaret Adair’s mother Jane Kirkland Blair (1830[22] – 1914[23]) who married George Weir[24] (1833 – 1909)[25] after her first husband George Frederick Adolphus Augustus Adair died in Calcutta in 1856.[26] Sometime after 1895 the Weirs moved to Yass where they lived until their deaths.
An interesting aside is that George along with his brother James (1843 – 1920) formed in 1872 the engineering company G & J Weirs (Weirs of Cathcart). In 1887 or thereabouts Weir’s design for a horizontal boring mill was built by G and A Harvey. After the business became a limited company in 1895 James bought out his brother (he was apparently annoyed at George casting church bells in the company forge for free) who shortly afterwards moved to Australia with his wife.[27]
The Weir’s mother Jane Bishop (1811 – 1899) was a granddaughter of Robert Burns. Her mother was Elizabeth Burns (1785 – 1817) the illegitimate daughter of Burns and Elizabeth Paton (b.1760).[28]
Alexander married Margaret on the 4th June 1912 at St Andrews Church, Yass with both sets of parents present.[29] Shortly afterwards Alexander, Margaret, and his parents set sail for London on the T.S.S. Themistocles arriving there on the 15th August.[30] A small painting of the ship executed by Alexander during the voyage was autographed by several passengers and crew. One of the signatories was Robert Baden Powell.[31]
Figure 8 ‘Themistocles’ painted by Alexander Blair Clements. Baden Powell signature on left hand side just above the ‘Massey’ signature.
By 1913 Alexander and Margaret were living in Glasgow at 79 Fotheringay Road, with Alexander being employed by G and A Harvey, as was his father and his brother Edward who lived at 12 Kelbourne Street.[32] How this came about is not known; were Margaret’s family connected to G and A Harvey in some way? Did the Weir connection play a part? At any rate all three were to remain in employment there for some time.
In 1913[33] and 1918[34] respectively their daughter Margaret Jean and their son Eben Harvey were born in Glasgow. By this time, they were living at 6 Larch Road Dumbreck.[35] Around 1923 Ebenezer moved in with the family subsequently dying there in 1928.[36]
Alexander and Edward remained with Harvey’s until 1947[37] by which time it had become part of the Scottish Machine Tool Corporation. In the new company’s 1937 prospectus it was stated that Harvey’s held 50% of the new company equity. As joint managing director Alexander was clearly a senior employee and probably had shares in the new company.[38] Additionally, he jointly with the company in 1943 and 1944 was granted patents in the UK and Canada, relating to the manufacture of briquetting machines[39] and lathes respectively.[40] The new company traded from 1937 (having become an associate of a forge equipment manufacturer in the 1960s) until 1982 when it went into liquidation.[41]
For a period after 1947 Alexander was chairman of C. and A. Stewart Ltd, located at Spiersbridge Industrial Estate Glasgow.[42]
Figure 9 Glasgow Art Club Membership 1941.
Alexander had a number of interests and it has been established that he was a reasonably serious collector of paintings albeit with no obvious theme in mind. At some point he became friends with Tom Honeyman (prior to Honeyman’s appointment to Kelvingrove) and was proposed as a member of the Glasgow Art Club by him in 1941. He was seconded by the famous Glasgow photographer James Craig Annan. He remained a member of the club until resigning in October 1948.[43]
Amongst his collection were works by J. Pettie (‘The Step’), S.J. Peploe (‘Roses’), D.Y. Cameron (various), Leon L’Hermitte (‘Figures in Field’) and George Leslie Hunter. He donated a total of seven paintings to Kelvingrove from 1940 to 1945. This was confirmed in a letter to his son in 1990 from Anne Donald who was Keeper of the Fine Art Department of Kelvingrove at that time. As it happens one of these paintings (a Leslie Hunter) was gifted to the Brest Museum in France, the museum being destroyed during the war.[44] The letter is shown below – Figure 10.
It may be that his donations (and his purchases) were inspired by Tom Honeyman, which would certainly fit with Honeyman’s modus operandi of seeking to influence industrialists of the day towards purchasing paintings. Where and when he bought is generally not known however he did buy the Pettie in 1947 for £150 from W.B. Simpson of St. Vincent Street and gave it to his son Eben.[45]
Figure 11 Notes on the step by Eben Clements.
He was also something of an amateur artist, his favourite subject being ships. Some of these drawings are in a sketch book in the possession of his granddaughter Mrs. Jane Cossar Pelosi.[46]
Figure 12 Painting by Alexander Blair Clements
He had a keen interest in music and the theatre. He had an eclectic taste in music ranging from classical (Aida, La Boheme) through cinema (Dianna Durban, Paul Robeson) to music hall (Will Fyfe, Harry Lauder). His record collection was large and meticulously recorded in a notebook currently in Mrs. Pelosi’s possession. He was a life member of the Glasgow Citizens Theatre society – possibly another Honeymoon influence at work?[47]
Figure 13 Caledonian Philatelic Society President 1956.
He was also a keen stamp collector being President of the Caledonian Philatelic Society in 1920-21 and again in 1956, its golden jubilee year. Incidentally an exhibition of the society’s collections was held in Kelvingrove from the 27th February to the 11th March of that year to celebrate the occasion.[48]
Alexander and his wife Margaret lived at a number of addresses in Glasgow finally resident at 69 St. Andrews Drive where he died on the 20th April 1966 from cancer of the oesophagus.[49] His wife died on the 21st October 1980.[50]
Alexander’s collection of paintings in due course passed to his son Eben and daughter Margaret. Margaret married Douglas Alexander Wright in 1939[51] and had two sons who inherited their mothers share of the collection on her death in 1994. I understand these paintings remain in the family.[52]
Eben married Jane Brown Cossar of the Cossar publishing family in 1941[53]and had a daughter Jane (Mrs. Jane Cossar Pelosi). In 1969 he had his paintings assessed for insurance purposes by Tom Honeyman who valued them at £5615.[54]
Figure 14 Tom Honeyman Evaluation 1969
On his death in 1982 his paintings passed to his wife who subsequently bequeathed them to the National Trust for Scotland on her death in 2004.[55]
‘The Step’ by Pettie has recently been seen by the author on display in ‘Greek’ Thomson’s Holmwood House in Cathcart.
[1] Glasgow University Archives Services. Records of Scottish Machine Tool Corporation. GB 248 UGD 175/1 http://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk
[3] Birth Certificate in the possession of Mrs. Jane Pelosi. ‘Births within the District of the British Consulate General at Shanghai. Registration No. 335, dated 21 July 1884.’
[9] Deaths (CR) Scotland. Govan, Glasgow. 02 December 1958. CLEMENTS, Edward Joshua Wyse. 644/10 1312. http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk Place of birth confirmed by Mrs Jane Pelosi.
[11] Passenger List for S.S. Minnesota departing Yokohama. CLEMENTS, Alexander Blair. 1 May 1908. Collection: Washington, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1965. http://ancestry.co.uk
[12] Passenger List for S.S. Manuka departing Sydney. CLEMENTS, Ebenezer Wyse, wife Jeanie and son Edward Joshua. 9 May 1910. Collection: Washington, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1965. http://ancestry.co.uk
[13] Passenger List for S.S. Empire departing Kobe. CLEMENTS, Alexander Blair. 24 May 1911. Collection: New South Wales, Australia, Unassisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1826-1922.http://ancestry.co.uk
[14] Passenger List for S.S. Maheno departing Auckland. CLEMENTS, Alexander Blair. August 1911.
Collection: New South Wales, Australia, Unassisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1826-1922.http://ancestry.co.uk
[29] Marriages Australia. Yass, New South Wales. 4 June 1912. CLEMENTS, Alexander Blair and HARVEY, Margaret Fraser. Certificate of Marriage in the possession of Mrs. Jane Pelosi. Minister’s register number 31, registration number 55883.
[30] Passenger List for T.S.S. Themistocles departing Sydney. CLEMENTS, Alexander Blair.1912.
[39] Espacenet. Improvements in or relating to Briquetting Machines. No. GB55505. 25 August 1943. Scottish Machine Tool Corporation, Alexander Blair Clements.https://worldwide.espacenet.com
[51] Marriages. (CR) Scotland. Pollok, Glasgow. 1939. WRIGHT, Douglas Alexander and CLEMENTS, Margaret Jean. 644/18 0448.http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
Our donor, James Carfrae Alston, son of Thomas Scott Alston and Jessie Seaton Alston was born on 18th August 1835 in Glasgow. His father was a “Cloth Merchant”[1]. James Carfrae Alston was married to Bertine Amelia Wood and they both lived at 18 Oakfield Terrace , Glasgow[2] for a few years and then moved to 9 Lorraine Gardens, Partick, Glasgow,where his wife died in 1908 [3].
In 1909, he gifted to the Kelvingrove Gallery his art collection. Some of the paintings with their titles and the artists’ names are shown below within the text. The letter, offering his collection of paintings to the Corporation of Glasgow, which was sent from his club to the Lord Provost of the day by Mr Alston, is reproduced below:
Western Club
Glasgow,
7th July 1909.
Dear Ld. Provost,
I beg to offer for your acceptance, as the official head of my native city, the gift of small collection of pictures and of one bronze, to be the property of the Corp. of Glasgow and to be placed in their galleries.
The pictures are characteristic of the thirteen artists represented, and I may venture to say are of good quality.
It will be gratification to me should they be the means of affording pleasure to many as they to myself.
I am,
Yours faithfully,
J. Carfrae Alston.
Our donor, James, did not follow his father’s footsteps as a cloth merchant but decided to be a tobacco merchant. From the Valuation Roll [4], it is seen that he established his premises in 27, James Watt Street, Glasgow. From a very early age our donor showed a deep interest in civic affairs. So much so that, when he was a young man, he was one of ten men, who started the Scottish Volunteer Movement in Glasgow on 2nd May, 1859 [5,6]. He served with the group for 20 years and he left with the title of Major.
The well-known Boys Brigade, which was first formed by Mr W.A. Smith in 1883, had a lot in common with the Volunteer Movement. Therefore, it was not surprising that, in 1885 the Executive of the Boys Brigade appointed Mr. J. Carfrae Alston as Brigade President and Mr. W. A. Smith as Brigade Secretary as Mr Smith had declined to be the president and preferred to be the secretary.
Another important activity in our donor’s life was to continue with the good work of his grandfather, John Alston, at the blind Asylum. His grandfather did a great deal of work by helping to improve the system of reading for the blind by the means of raised Roman characters which later gained wide acceptance before the ascendancy of Braille. John Alston maintained that ‘blind children can be trained to do almost anything’ [7]. Boys who attended the asylum were aged 10 to 16 and, in addition to attending classes, they made nets for wall-trees and sewed sacks, while girls were educated along gendered lines and assisted in household work and knitted silk purses, stockings and caps [8].
At the National Archives [9], they hold two copies of what is thought to be the first ‘tactile’ map of Great Britain and Ireland made for the use of blind people. Produced at the Glasgow Asylum for the Blind in 1839, the maps are made of thick paper with the lines and other details embossed so that they can be ‘seen’ by the reader’s fingertips. Although Braille had already been invented, it did not come into common use in the United Kingdom until later in the nineteenth century, so the text is written with raised versions of ordinary letters.
The National Archives hold these two maps because John Alston, the Asylum’s director, sent them to London to draw the government’s attention to the work done by his organisation and to the difficulty and expense of producing books and similar materials for blind people. One copy is marked for the attention of Lord John Russell [10], Secretary of State for the Home Department, and the other for Fox Maule [11], the Under-Secretary. However, Treasury records [12] reveal that Mr Alston’s appeal to the government was successful. The Glasgow Asylum was awarded a grant of £400 towards printing bibles in raised type.
Our Donor continued the family’s interest in the needs of the blind and was one of the managers of the Blind Asylum. Furthermore, he was a director of the Glasgow Training Home for Nurses and of Glasgow Day Nurseries Association. He was also a member of the Juvenile Delinquency Board. On his business side, he was head of the firm of Alston Brothers of Tobacco Bonded Stores in James Watt Street, Glasgow. These stores were sold in 1903.
Apart from being a very active man in civic affairs, he was also interested in cultural affairs. He travelled widely with his wife, Bertine Amelia, to Europe, Egypt and India. He was an art collector and specialised in The Hague School, Whistler and the Glasgow Boys. He was a member of the Royal Glasgow Institute of Art and he often generously lent from his art collection to many exhibitions, including the 1901 Glasgow Exhibition. One of his collection Whistler’s “The Shell”, which was among his loan to the exhibition was considered to be sensuous. This particular work by Whistler was bought in 1892 from the Glaswegian art dealer Alexander Reid. More reference to “The Shell” may be found in [13].
Our donor, James Carfrae Alston, died on 20th November 1913, at Dowanhill, Glasgow [14]. The following obituary note appeared in the Glasgow Herald of 21st November 1913:
Obituary 21st November 1913 Glasgow Herald.
Alston- at 9 Lorraine Gardens Dowanhill, Glasgow on 20th November 1913 James C. Alston aged 78 eldest son of Thomas C. Alston- Funeral on Saturday 22nd November from Westbourne Church, Funeral service at 2.pm.
Officers who served in the 1st Lanarkshire Rifles volunteer corp., Officers of the Boys Brigade and those associated with Mr Alston in other departments of public work are invited to be present at the service.
No uniforms will be worn. Personnel who wish to attend, personal friends who desire to be present at the interment at the Western Necropolis will send their names to Messrs Wylie and Lockhead, 96 Union Street. Carriages from St. Georges Church till 3.30p.m. Nofollowers by special request.
[8] Alston, J. “Statements of the education, employments, and international arrangements, adopted at the Asylum for the Blind”, (1842, 1895 reprint), pub. Glasgow. London: Sampson. Low, Marston.
Glasgow Museums Art Donors Group 