William McAlpine (1829 - 1873) and Jane Taylor (1838 - 1914) – How my Scottish Great-Grandparents arrived in Luss, Dunbartonshire

Introduction

Like many other Britons, my ancestry contains recent contributions from more than one of the countries of the British Isles.  My paternal grandmother was a McAlpine, a surname with an impeccable origin in the Highlands of Scotland and I have spent some years trying to understand the events and processes which preceded her removal to England.  It has revealed a story which was played out against the big events of the 18^th and 19^th centuries in Scotland, particularly the depopulation of the Highlands and the explosive pace of industrialisation in the Central Lowlands.  Further, it was punctuated by personal tragedy, probably caused by epidemic disease and even murder.  Both William McAlpine and Jane Taylor were orphaned early in life, which led to them meeting in Luss, Dunbartonshire, a tranquil rural village on the shores of Loch Lomond, where they settled down to married life.  But that is the end of this story.  Now it is time for the beginning.

The Taylors

The name “Taylor” is one of the most common surnames in Britain, which is not surprising given that it is derived from the craft of making clothing, an occupation in which many people were engaged in the 13^th and 14^th centuries when surnames became fixed.  The name must have arisen independently many times, which perhaps accounts for its modern high frequency and wide distribution.  Both the Highlands and Lowlands contained many Taylors, though with slightly lower frequency in the north-west Highlands and the south west Lowlands of Scotland.

My Taylor relatives can be traced back to Donald Taylor who was born in Glassary (also known as Kilmichael Glassary), Argyll about 1776.  He married Ann Campbell, who hailed from Kilmartin, Argyll (about 4.5 miles north of Glassary).  The marriage took place in Glassary about 1783.  Donald and Ann appear to have lived all their married life at Craignish, Argyll, which is a small village on a remote peninsula in Argyllshire, opposite the north-eastern end of the island of Jura.  It is about 10 miles by road from Kilmartin to Craignish.  These villages are located in the central mainland part of Argyllshire which, in the late 18^th century – early 19^th century, was remote, primitive and underdeveloped.

Depopulation of the Highlands

The 18^th century was a time of great social change in the Highlands, which was not just caused by the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745.  Traditionally, most Highlanders practised essentially subsistence agriculture, growing enough for their own financial needs and many lived in traditional settlements, renting small areas of land.  Clan loyalty gave protection by the clan leaders and guaranteed access to land and thus to the Highland way of life.  However, especially in the second half of the century, market forces generated by demand from the burgeoning towns of the Central Lowlands wrought changes in Highland agricultural practice in the direction of greater efficiency in the use of land and optimisation of the income from it.  Small landholdings were progressively amalgamated under single tenants, new agricultural practices, such as land fertilisation, were introduced and sheep numbers were vastly increased, often occupying very large land holdings. 

One consequence of these changes was a reduction in demand for agricultural labour and, as a consequence, displaced workers increasingly sought seasonal employment getting in the harvest in the Lowlands, or even moved to the Lowlands permanently, many to work in industry.  From about 1730 there was a trickle of emigration, mostly to North America, for those displaced Highlanders who could afford the £2 passage across the Atlantic.  By 1760 emigration had increased substantially.  Most population movement in the Highlands was brought about as a by-product of these economic changes, though there was, especially in the 19^th century, forced movement of populations from inland to alternative land at the coast, or even ejection from the land altogether – the Highland clearances.  Highland leaders thus abrogated their traditional role as protectors of the people and instead became economically-driven landlords.  They also, increasingly, spent their time in Edinburgh and London, joining the ranks of the wealthy and influential.

Craignish

My direct relatives, Donald Taylor and his wife Ann, had a family of nine, possibly ten, children, between 1804 and 1829.  At least nine of these children were born at Craignish.  The penultimate child to be born was Duncan and his exact place of birth, in 1821, was known to be Achanarnich, which was an isolated farm about 0.7 miles inland from Craignish Castle.  However, in 1841 and 1851 Donald and his wife were found at another isolated farm, Gartcharran, which lay about 0.5 miles east of Craignish Castle.  In 1841 Donald was described as a labourer, though the death registration of his son, Donald, described him as a stonemason.

Craignish Castle and its attached estate were originally in the ownership of the Campbells of Craignish.  However, this landed family fell on hard times and all of the estate was sold by 1830.  Craignish Castle and 5,591 acres of land were acquired by Frederick Charles Tench-Gascoigne, who rebuilt the castle about 1832.  The Tench-Gascoignes were a land-owning family, which had inherited estates in both England and Ireland.  The Castle lies on a peninsula and the tides between it and the island of Jura are very strong.  The well-known Corrievracken whirlpool is located nearby. In 1801 the population of the parish of Craignish was 901.

The Old Statistical Account for Scotland (1793) emphasises the wetness of the climate and the difficult lives of the poor people of Craignish, who lived almost wholly on potatoes, not eating bread for much of the year, never eating beef and only rarely eating mutton.  The local economy was essentially a subsistence economy with virtually no trade or manufacturing activity. There were five big farms and 48 small farms in the parish. Mr Campbell of Craignish was practising some improvement in that he had some land under clover and ryegrass but for the most part the system of agriculture was primitive and the people had neither the skill nor the encouragement to make any material change to agricultural practice.  Fields were neither properly formed nor enclosed.  Some farms were held on short, or even no, leases and the tenants were subject to servitudes.  Only lightweight ploughs were in use and it was difficult to use carts because of the poor state of the roads in the parish. The only crops were oats, barley and potatoes and the local agricultural production of oats and barley was insufficient for parish needs.  Craignish was very isolated both by the lack of roads and by the need to travel around the Mull of Kintyre, if travelling by sea to the Lowlands.  Gaelic was the language of the people, though they could speak a little English and there was a public school.  Peat was the only fuel available but it was of poor quality.  Craignish was indeed a primitive, isolated and impoverished part of the Scotland at the start of the 19^th century.

It is likely that the two farms at which Donald Taylor lived, Achanarnich and Gartcharran, were part of the estate of Craignish Castle.  Therefore it is likely that he was either a tenant or an employee of the Campbells of Craignish, who occupied the castle until about 1830.  Donald may have been a tenant of a small holding of land, who supplemented his income by day labour or by employing his skills as a stonemason.  In the early years of the 19^th century land enclosure by stone dykes was underway and was likely to have provided employment opportunities for Donald Taylor.  In 1851 Donald and his wife were living at Gartcharran and he was described as an annuitant, which income may have been derived from an inheritance.  Thus, while we are ignorant of his precise social status, it appears that Donald and his family did not occupy the lowest rung of the social hierarchy of Craignish.

Employment and Exodus

With poor prospects for employment in Craignish, it is not surprising that some of Donald and Ann Taylor’s children should have sought advancement elsewhere, including joining the exodus to the Lowlands.  Donald Taylor junior (1806) spent his life on the island of Jura.  He was variously described as a dyke builder, mason and stone mason, the calling of his father, Donald senior. The New Statistical Account of Scotland (1843) reported for Jura that “Substantial stone dykes have been built since the Old Statistical Account was written.  On the mansion house of Jura a complete set of offices and coach-houses has recently been built as well as a mausoleum in the churchyard at Killearnadale.”  Clearly there was plenty of demand for the services of a stonemason on Jura in the early 19^th century.

Dugald was the third child of Donald and Ann Taylor, born in Craignish in 1808.  It appears that Dugald was particularly able at school because of the career that he subsequently followed of schoolmaster, inspector of the poor and registrar on the island of Jura.  This is testimony to the quality of Scottish education at the time, even in remote areas such as Craignish. 

Archibald Taylor was born in 1810.  He married a girl from Leith, the port of Edinburgh and they spent their lives there.  It is clear from the Census returns that Archibald, a lad from the West Highlands, found employment in the commercial activities associated with Leith docks.  In 1841 he was a porter, in 1851 he was a warehouse porter and in 1861 and 1871 he was a warehouseman.  Leith owed its commercial success to the status of its overbearing neighbour, Edinburgh.  It is difficult to over-emphasise the importance of Edinburgh in the life of the nation in the latter half of the 18^th century.  The city was at the centre of that great intellectual outpouring, the Scottish Enlightenment, which shaped the way educated people solve problems and analyse issues, even today.  The Enlightenment emphasised the importance of human reason and rejected any authority which did not pursue a rational approach to any issues affecting human activity.  Luminaries such as Adam Smith (Economics), David Hume (Philosophy) and James Hutton (Geology) were actively revolutionising their respective disciplines.  The difference in economic and social development between Edinburgh and Craignish or Jura was extreme and to members of the Taylor family, visiting Edinburgh must have been akin to visiting another planet.

John Taylor, the brother of Archibald, was born in 1819 in Craignish.  In 1841, at the age of 22, he was already married to Ann Grant, also born in 1819 at Nairn in the North-East of Scotland.  John was a spirit dealer living in North Leith.  How he raised the capital for this venture is at present unknown.  Speculation suggests that he made his way to Leith at the behest of his brother Archibald and there made the acquaintance of Ann Grant, whom he married.  The couple had five children at 2-year intervals from 1840 to 1848 and then child-bearing ceased abruptly.  In 1841 John and his wife were living at Hamburgh Place, which was located very close to the docks, an excellent location for selling spirits to thirsty sailors with money in their pockets!  At the next Census in 1851, John and his wife were still living at the same location.  In both 1841 and 1851 the Taylors had a servant, so the business was probably doing well.  John Taylor was not found at the next Census in 1861 but his wife, Ann was still living at 9 Hamburgh Place and was described as a grocer.  It seems likely that John died shortly after the 1851 Census, since no more children were conceived.  Ann Taylor continued to operate as a grocer at 9 Hamburg Place for the next two decades.  The shop must have been successful because two of her sons took up positions requiring a significant level of education, which would have been expensive.  In 1871 John jun. was a marine engineer and Donald was a student of divinity.

Not all children of Donald and Ann Taylor made their escape from the West Highlands.  Daughter Ann jun., born in 1812 at Craignish, married Alexander Campbell a local lad from Craignish, in 1833.  Alexander followed a life on the land never moving far from his place of birth.  He was described as an agricultural labourer and as a ploughman in the census returns.  Similarly, Mary Taylor, born in 1814 in Craignish, married Duncan McCallum, another local loon who worked as an agricultural labourer.  The remaining daughters of Donald and Ann Taylor were Jean and Jessie, about whom we know almost nothing.  Duncan Taylor, who was born at Craignish in 1821, also failed to escape the limitations of a life as an agricultural labourer in the West Highlands.  He fathered one child out of wedlock and conceived a second before marriage to Catherine McFarlane, a local girl born in Lochgilphead, in 1851.  Catherine was illiterate, which was unusual, even for this underdeveloped part of Scotland.  Duncan was an agricultural labourer and moved around from job to job before his early death, at the age of 45, in 1866.

Angus Taylor and Lochwinnoch

The eldest son of Donald and Ann Taylor was Angus, who was born in 1804.  He migrated to the growing industrial town of Lochwinnoch in Renfrewshire, which lies about 9 miles south west of Paisley.  Angus worked as a carter. In 1791, Lochwinnoch had 148 farmers, 380 people employed in the cotton mills and 135 weavers.  Cotton was imported mainly from the USA through the nearby ports of Greenock and Port Glasgow.  There was a good supply of water to the town, which was essential for powering the cotton mills. By the time of the publication of the New Statistical Account of Scotland in 1843 much further progress was evident.  A new village (the new town) had been created at Lochwinnoch for the accommodation of mill workers, with the streets built on a grid pattern.  The population had risen further to 4,515 in 1831 with the expansion of employment opportunities.  From about 1820 steam power was introduced to power the looms. Work in the cotton mills was hard and the hours long but the pay was good.  The young men and women employed in the cotton mills could afford both to live and dress well.  All children in the parish were in education and there were only about 50 people on the parish poor roll.  Travel to nearby towns was relatively easy due to good roads.  It is not surprising that Lochwinnoch should have attracted a major influx of people from the backward and impoverished Highlands, though the immigrants were capable of causing trouble.  The Caledonian Mercury of 23 May 1840 reported serious rioting around Lochwinnoch between gangs of Irishmen, who were railway labourers and groups of Highlanders who were being lodged on farms and were possibly seasonal agricultural labourers.  In 1848 an article in the Glasgow Herald described Lochwinnoch as a “prosperous village”.

Angus Taylor married Mary McFarlan in 1843 at Lochwinnoch.  We do not know where Mary was born, though the surname McFarlan was very common in parts of Argyllshire.  She too was likely to have been a Highlander attracted to Lochwinnoch by the prospect of well remunerated employment. The first child of Angus and Mary Taylor, Mary, was born on 21 July 1834, slightly less than 7 months after the wedding of her parents.  Further children followed at intervals of about 2 years.  Agnes was born in March, 1836, Jane in July, 1838 and Robert in July, 1841.   After her 4^th child, Mary Taylor quickly became pregnant again, about the middle of November 1841.  At the time Angus Taylor and his wife were living at Red Row near the village of Bowfield, which lies about 3 miles north east of Lochwinnoch and was the location of a bleachfield, where cloth is laid out to be bleached by the action of the sun.  Angus was employed by a Mr Carter of Bowfield.

Two suspicious deaths

About the end of July 1842 an elderly neighbour of the Taylors, Elizabeth Young or Campbell, died suddenly.  This death was followed by Angus Taylor’s death about 9 October 1842.  Angus apparently became very ill before he died.  Rumours began to circulate in the village that Angus had not died of natural causes.  When this information came to the notice of the authorities, the body of Angus was exhumed about 25 October 1842 and his stomach contents subjected to chemical analysis.  It was concluded that he had died of arsenic poisoning.  This outcome raised curiosity about the cause of death of Elizabeth Young or Campbell and her body too was exhumed and analysed.  Her stomach contained enough poison to kill two or three people.  Suspicion fell on Mary Taylor or McFarlan, presumably because she had opportunity to commit both acts of poisoning, though no convincing motive for such actions was adduced.

Mary Taylor charged with murder

Mary Taylor or McFarlan was detained and subsequently charged as follows.  1.That on 2 July 1842 in a house at Red Row, near Bowfield, she gave arsenic mixed with food to Angus Taylor.  2. That on 27 July 1842 in a house at Red Row, near Bowfield, she gave arsenic in a glass of whisky to Elizabeth Young or Campbell.  3. That on 28 September 1842 she gave arsenic to Angus Taylor in porridge and that Angus then died.  In the middle of these alleged events, Mary’s fifth child was born, about 18th August 1842.  Mary was held in Paisley Gaol while the preparations for her trial went ahead.  It appears that the new child was with her in prison. The case was due to be heard at the end of April 1843 at the Glasgow Spring Circuit.  However, the counsel for the defence, Alexander M’Neill questioned whether the case should go ahead because it had been scheduled to be heard a day later than the time laid down by Act of Parliament for sittings of the Court of Justiciary.  This objection had not been pressed in other cases but, because this one was so serious the judge, Lord Meadowbank, felt it necessary to consult other judges before the case could proceed.  Mary was then returned to Paisley Gaol, while the judges completed their consultations and perhaps also their summer holidays.

The outcome in Mary McFarlan’s case was that she was released from gaol about 21 September 1843 by order of the Lord Advocate, who had concluded that, in the circumstances, the case could not go ahead.  Administrative bungling had prevented the evidence against Mary being heard in open court. Lord Meadowbank had served as Solicitor General for Scotland from 1813 and as Lord Advocate from 1816 to 1819.  He was a Member of Parliament from 1817 to 1819.  His Parliamentary debut was made during a period of unrest in both Scotland and England and he marked it by announcing the existence of a seditious conspiracy of weavers in the suburbs of Glasgow. The ensuing prosecutions were spectacularly unsuccessful, causing considerable embarrassment to both the government and to Lord Meadowbank who, as Lord Advocate, was directly responsible for them. 

After her release Mary, with her new baby, was reported to have caught an omnibus in the direction of Barrhead or Neilston, both of which lie about 4 miles south of Paisley.  She then disappeared from view.  The birth of the child does not seem to have been registered in any surviving parish record and Mary has not been discovered in the 1851 Census returns.  Because so little is known about her origins, tracing her would, in any case, be difficult.  Was Mary responsible for the deaths of her husband and her elderly neighbour, or was she charged solely on the basis of circumstantial evidence?  If she had deliberately poisoned both her husband and her elderly neighbour, was her fifth pregnancy of significance?  Psychotic conditions may arise during pregnancy and especially immediately after birth.

The Taylor grandparents step in to help

It is easy to speculate that after escaping trial for murder, Mary Taylor would have been convicted of the offence in the eyes of Angus’ relatives and that all contact with her would have been cut off.  So, who cared for the children of the late Angus and Mary Taylor, Mary (1834), Agnes (1836), Jane (1838) and Robert (1841), other than the baby born in August 1842, who seems to have stayed with her mother?  At the 1851 Census, Donald and Ann Taylor, the parents of Angus, were still living in Craignish.  Amongst the persons present in the house were grandchildren Mary, Jane and Robert Taylor.  Agnes was not present but she later reappeared as a witness at her sister Jane’s wedding to William McAlpine.  Mary, the widow of Angus Taylor, has not been found in the 1851 Census, though she may still have been alive, because in 1858, when her daughter, Jane, married William McAlpine, both of William’s parents and Jane’s father, Angus, were stated to be deceased when the marriage was registered, but Mary was not so described.  Thus it seems that the parents of Angus were looking after 4 of his children 9 years after his poisoning.  It seems likely that Donald and Ann continued to fulfil this guardianship role until all of the children had moved into employment or marriage.

The McAlpines

My earliest, known McAlpine relative was Daniel McAlpine, who was born in 1769, though his place of birth has not been established.  About this time the McAlpine surname was found with highest frequency in Bute and Argyll, though having been deprived of clan lands, the McAlpins had become rather dispersed before the 18^th century, so it is a reasonable assumption that Daniel’s origins were in the Highlands.  Daniel appears to have moved to Greenock in the Central Lowlands, presumably drawn by employment opportunities, by 1792, because about that year he married another immigrant, Janet Shannan.  The Shannan surname was highly localised to Dumfries in the far south west of the Lowlands, an area which also saw an exodus of agricultural workers similar to that from the Highlands.  The first event definitely connecting Daniel McAlpine and his wife Janet to Greenock was the birth of their first daughter.  Flora was baptised at the Old or West Parish Church in early July, 1797.  

The birth of Flora McAlpine in Greenock in or before 1797 was rapidly followed by Archibald in 1799 and Christian in 1800.  The other three known children of the marriage, Donald (1802), Jane (1805) and Daniel (1809) were born in Paisley, 18 miles to the east.  Paisley was another, formerly insignificant, town then undergoing rapid industrial expansion, but based on textiles.  We know that Daniel McAlpine, husband of Janet Shannan, was a cotton spinner during his sojourn in Greenock and we may guess that his move with his family to Paisley was in connection with the textile industries. Paisley became a boom town during the latter part of the 18^th century, due to the rapid development of the textile industry. Linen and cotton weaving were significant as was the manufacture of sewing thread.  Paisley was one of the most important manufacturing towns in Scotland at that time and had the largest population of any Scottish town, after Edinburgh and Glasgow.

There is strong circumstantial evidence that the McAlpines would have been Gaelic speakers from the simple fact that the massive influx of population to Greenock between 1750 and 1800 was largely from the near Highlands and resulted in Gaelic being extensively spoken in the town at the time.  There is also supporting evidence for this supposition from the confusion between the given names “Donald” and “Daniel” used by the McAlpines, in parish records.  It is likely that church clerks in Greenock and Paisley  would have been English speakers and, when recording the details of christenings and marriages, would have been rendering Gaelic versions of these names, spoken by a Gaelic speaker, into written English.

At about the same time that Daniel McAlpine and Janet Shannan were having children in Greenock and Paisley, there was another McAlpine family of a similar age, also in Greenock.  Donald McAlpine was married to Janet MacKinlay and they had eight known children between 1796 and 1820, most of whom were christened at Greenock Old/West Kirk.  There is no direct evidence that these two McAlpines were brothers but the proximity of their lives in time and space suggests that they may have been.  With Donald McAlpine, on the registration of the birth of his children on the parish register, in six out of eight cases the father’s name is given as “Donald” but in two instances the father’s name is given as “Daniel”.  In the case of Daniel, who had six known children, with five of the six the father’s name is recorded as “Daniel” but in the sixth case it is recorded as “Donald”.  In the case of Donald being misrepresented as Daniel, it is likely to be due to the Gaelic for Donald (Domnal) being rendered in English as Daniel, due to “Domnal” spoken by a Gael sounding like “Daniel” to an English speaker.  For “Daniel” being mistaken for “Donald”, it is likely that “Daniel” spoken by a Gael was misheard as “Domnal” and then rendered as the English equivalent, “Donald”, in writing.  The marriage of Donald McAlpine to Janet Mackinlay was recorded in the Parish records.  It is very instructive.  Donald's name is given as "Danil".  This must surely be a mis-transcription of "Domnal" by a registrar unfamiliar with the Gaelic, supporting the hypothesis that mistakes were made by church clerks.

Archibald McAlpine, son of Daniel McAlpine and a direct relative of mine, was born in Greenock in February 1799.  He married Mary Spurrier in June 1826 at the Greenock Old/West Kirk.  Interestingly, this was more than a year after the birth of their first child Mary in January 1825. "Spurrier" with that spelling, or a close variant, is not a Scottish surname.  Rather it occurs in small local concentrations in S Wales, the Severn Valley, N Devon, the South Coast of England, Kent and London.  All Scottish Spurriers trace back to William Spurrier who married Catherine McDonald in 1804 in Greenock.  So it seems possible that William Spurrier was an immigrant from England, as there is no credible record of him being born in Scotland.   William was a sailor for much of his life, though he appears also to have worked as a ship rigger, suggesting that his sea-going experience was on sailing ships.  At the time of marriage Catherine McDonald was only 18.  It is therefore likely that William was also a young man.  Searching for William Spurrier births between 1786 and 1776, candidates were found who were born in Maryland (USA), Southwark, Birmingham and rural Hampshire in England.  The most likely, in terms of becoming a sailor and fetching up in Greenock, was possibly the Southwark birth.  That William Spurrier was christened at St Olave's church, which was within spitting distance of London Bridge at a time (1779) when that part of the Thames was thick with wharfs.  So it is possible, but not proven, that William Spurrier was born in Southwark.

More sudden deaths

After the birth of Mary McAlpine, daughter of Archibald McAlpine and Mary Spurrier in 1825, three other children were born with a regular two-year periodicity, Donald in 1827, William in 1829 and Janet in 1831.  Then the production of children appeared to cease suddenly.  It is likely that there were no more children since in a family heirloom, the book "The Life of Jesus Christ with a History of the first propagation of the Christian Religion and the lives of the Most Eminent persons mentioned in the New Testament" by Rev E Blomfield Bungay, which at one time belonged to Archibald McAlpine (1799) and then his son William 1829) the birth details of Archibald’s and William’s families are recorded.  The information on Archibald’s family is confined to four children, Mary, Donald, William and Janet.  Had there been more children they would surely have been recorded there.  Neither Archibald nor Mary can be found in the 1841 Census and it is known that William was definitely dead by 1858 when son William was married to Jane Taylor.  It is likely that both parents died between 1831 and 1841 but most likely, given the regular birth of children, from 1832 to 1833.

A brief history of Greenock 

An examination of the history of Greenock is instructive both in understanding why it was an attractive destination for internal migrants but also because it reveals the likely cause  of Archibald and Mary McAlpine’s deaths about 1832.

The foundation stone of the Old or West Kirk in Greenock was laid in 1591 and this event probably marked a time soon after first settlement. Initially Greenock probably consisted of only a single row of thatched houses, stretching along the bay between the Delling Burn and the West Burn.  About 1635 the first landing jetty, of unmortared masonry, was built.  By 1670 the town had a substantial fishing fleet and in that year Greenock gained the right to trade with foreign ports.  The town’s first substantial harbour was completed in 1710.  Greenock was ideally placed for development as a port, since it had a deep channel just off the shore.  Until 1774, when the Clyde began to be deepened, larger vessels could not reach Glasgow.  The growth of Greenock as a port stimulated other developments, such as ship-owning, ship and boat-building and associated industrial activities, including sugar refining, rope and sailcloth manufacture.  The first sugarhouse was built in 1765 in Sugarhouse Lane.  By 1832 there were 10 sugar houses in Greenock.

This burgeoning commercial activity acted as a magnet for fellow Scots in difficult economic circumstances to both north and south.  By 1741 the growing population of Greenock led to the establishment of a new parish, with its associated church, the Middle Parish.  From about 1740 emigration to North America started from the Highlands, accompanied by other movements of people looking for work nearer to home.  During the second half of the 18^th century these population flows accelerated and Greenock was one of the principal destinations for Highlanders seeking a new life.  The population of the town was about 2,000 in 1700 but had increased to about 3,800 by 1755 and about 15,000 by 1791.  A 1792 census showed that there were 3,387 families in the two Greenock parishes and of these 1,433 were born in Argyll.  By 1850 about 10,000 Highlanders were resident in Greenock.  The Old Statistical Account of 1793 reported for Greenock, “There is a vast number of people from the Highlands who do not well understand the English language… One may at times walk from one end of the town to the other, passing many people, and many people passing him, without hearing a word of any language but Gaelic”

The conditions of the poor in Greenock

The rapid and uncontrolled growth of the Greenock population, starting about 1750, resulted in gross overcrowding and appalling sanitary conditions for the poorer residents. The haphazard nature of the early feuing and building in the old town was at the root of the problem.  Subsequently living conditions were aggravated by the growth of the port, which concentrated factories, stores and dwellings close to the quay fronts.  The Chadwick Report, published in 1842, included a dramatic account by Dr Lawrie of the horrifying circumstances of the poor in Greenock.  For example, he noted many cases of fever originating in Market Street which “become quickly typhoid”.  This street contained a dunghill, which he categorised as follows.  “I do not mistake its size when I say it contains 100 cubic yards of impure filth, collected from all parts of the town.  It is never removed, it is the stock in trade of a person who deals in dung; he retails it by cartfuls: to please his customers he always keeps a nucleus, as the older the filth is the higher is the price.  The proprietor has an extensive privy attached to the concern.  This collection is fronting the public street; it is enclosed in front by a wall; the height of the wall is about 12 feet and the dung overtops it; the malarious moisture oozes through the wall and runs over the pavement.  The effluvium all round about this place in summer is horrible there is a land of houses adjoining, four stories in height; and in the summer each house swarms with myriads of flies, every article of food and drink must be covered, otherwise, if left exposed for a minute, the flies immediately attack it, and it is rendered unfit for use from the strong taste of the dunghill left by the flies”.  There were many other streets in Greenock with similar conditions.

My McAlpine relatives lived, at least between 1827 and 1841, in Tobago Street near the West Harbour.  Several of them were carters (carmen).  The Old Statistical Account of Scotland reported that for the Parish of Greenock , “The earnings of the carmen, who ply the quays, are very considerable.  The sober amongst them grow rich; the dissipated drink whisky, neglect their families, and starve their horses,-with nothing on its bones but skin, (and, from horrid usage, not the whole of that),-to drag, on a low-wheeled ponderous car, to any store-house in Greenock, 15cwts of sugar or tobacco”.  Given the appalling housing conditions and the propensity of Highlanders imbibe alcohol anyway, it is not surprising that many immigrants turned to drink when they had money in their pockets.  There had been a brewery in Greenock since before 1707 but the town did not get distilleries until the 19^th century, the largest being erected in Tobago Street in 1824. In 1845 there were 31 inns and 275 houses for retailing ale and spirituous liquor, one outlet for every 25 of the population! Sadly, intemperance often led to the pawnshop and the denudation of houses of virtually all their furniture.  Petty violence was rife.

The poor conditions of the Highland immigrants were not confined to housing. At the beginning of 1835 the Highlanders’ Church and School Association found, as the result of a census, that there were from 300 to 500 children of Highland parents not attending school and from 700 to 1000 Highlanders not attending any church.  There was criticism that the town fathers had not put much resource into education, but the Greenock authorities did not prioritise solving the education, housing and sanitation problems of the town over their focus on commercial success.  For example, slaughterhouse waste washed into the sea and caused great offence.  In spite of public agitation and an acknowledgement by the Provost that inadequate street cleaning and lack of sewers were probably the main cause of infectious disease in the town, nothing much was done to remedy the problem until the period 1852 – 1856 when £14,300 was spent on 7 ½ miles of streets.  Up to this time sewage had drained into the harbour.  The Harbour Board then spent £3,000 on sewers along the quays taking the sewage to discharge in the river.  They also cleared the harbour of accumulated filth. 

Poor housing conditions persisted for decades.  A committee which examined the housing of the working classes in 1864 found that a half of the dwellings they examined consisted of a single room with an average of 6 occupants, typically several of whom were lodgers. .  Overcrowding was extreme.  In the middle parish 9,414 people lived on 20 acres, which is a rate of 300,000 per square mile.  There were hundreds of lodging houses but only 15 were registered.  The rest were in a deplorable state of dirt and overcrowding. The poorest people still lived in the most insanitary conditions often sharing their accommodation with pigs and their excrement.  Engineers and shipbuilders could not get men due to lack of houses but proposals for these employers to construct workers’ housing came to nothing, as the schemes were judged to be economically inviable.  Workers’ societies had some modest success in building houses from 1877 onwards, but far short of the demand for such accommodation.

Infectious disease in Greenock

Greenock was one of the most unhealthy towns in Scotland during the early 19^th century, much of the ill-health being caused by what we now know was infectious disease and there was a general association of this with badly constructed houses, overcrowding, poor sanitation and lack of sewage and waste disposal. The larger Scottish towns were largely free of epidemic fevers in the period 1790 to 1815 but these diseases, mainly typhus, then reappeared at recurrent intervals in 1817 – 1820, 1826 – 1827, and 1836 – 1837.  Although an inoculation against smallpox was available, poor people tended not to avail themselves of the opportunity, partly through suspicion.  There were also outbreaks of scarlet fever.  An outbreak of typhoid fever in 1806 in Greenock led to the raising of subscriptions to fund a hospital.  It was completed in 1809 and could accommodate 32 people. However, the accommodation soon proved to be insufficient.  Typhoid fever was so prevalent in 1829 amongst the poor that the hospital could not cope.  There were 437 cases of fever that year whereas the highest number in any previous year had been 260.  A temporary fever hospital was fitted up and then money was raised for an extension to the hospital.  At the end of this phase 100 patients could be accommodated. 

The 1832 cholera epidemic

But the disease which engendered the greatest alarm and even panic amongst the population was cholera.  This disease is caused by a bacterium, Vibrio cholera, which is usually acquired from food or drink contaminated with human faeces.  It infects the small intestine and its symptoms can vary from none to very severe.  One of its main characteristics is the production of large quantities of watery faeces leading rapidly to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.  If untreated, cholera can lead to death in a few hours.  The mortality rate in untreated populations can be as high as 50%.  At a time when the microbial nature of infectious disease was completely unknown, it is not surprising that it could produce such consternation amongst the general population.

Britain had been free of cholera for about 200 years at the start of the 19^th century.  But the disease was well known from other, mostly distant parts of the world and cholera epidemics were frequent in India.  In 1826 such an epidemic was raging in Calcutta.  It spread progressively along trade routes to Russia, via Tehran, Baku and Astrakhan.  The disease reached Moscow in September 1830 and by the summer of 1831 it had spread to the Baltic port of Riga, where several hundred ships were in process of loading the season’s flax crop for export to Britain.  In Britain it was obvious that cholera was approaching and that action needed to be taken to delay or prevent its arrival.  In June 1831 an Order in Council was promulgated, requiring all vessels from Russia and the Baltic to undergo a period of quarantine before landing.  Cromarty Bay was designated as the quarantine station for Scotland.

The first British cases occurred in Sunderland in November 1831, cholera then spreading progressively up the east coast to the Edinburgh area and then across to Glasgow and the densely-populated industrial towns of the western Lowlands.  Glasgow, Greenock and Paisley were all badly affected, the disease reaching them in February 1832.  A desperate attempt was made to keep travellers, especially vagrants, out of Port Glasgow and Greenock by stationing men on the eastern outskirts, but this was ineffective. The first Greenock death, a 14 year old boy called McMillan, occurred at the end of the month.  The boy was described in the press as being “of loose habits”.  He had fallen into the harbour on a Friday evening and in his filthy, wet state, his father refused to allow him home.  He apparently slept in one of the quay sheds in his wet clothing and the following day went drinking.  On Sunday he was taken ill with cholera, eventually hospitalised and died on the following Tuesday.

A post mortem examination was carried out by the hospital doctors, including Dr Kirk.  While this was going on a mob gathered outside the hospital due to suspicion of the doctors’ motives and when Kirk emerged he was threatened and pelted by the mob.  Dr Kirk was in bad odour with the poor and uneducated of the town because he had accused them in a lecture of having filthy habits.  The febrile atmosphere which existed encouraged the propagation of title-tattle and rumour of the most bizarre kind and it was variously believed that the boy had been deliberately killed by the medicines administered, because the doctors just wanted a body on which to experiment, and that he was to be buried after dark on one of the surrounding hills.  There were many other examples of mob action engendered by the cholera outbreak,, both in Scotland and in the rest of Britain. The death of the boy, McMillan, was quickly followed by that of his step-mother.

The infection spread progressively in Greenock.  The death rate was close to 50% of those infected and the epidemic appeared to proceed in two waves.  Eventually, the infection rate declined to a low level by December of 1832.  At that time, officially there had been at least 741 cases of cholera in Greenock and 376 deaths.  A further estimate of cases of cholera and deaths in Greenock gave much higher figures of 1165 cases and 602 deaths.  In 1832, before the impact of the cholera epidemic had been felt, the burial ground of the Old Kirk had become full and a new ground opened in Duncan Street.  It was reported that over 1,000 cholera burials took place that year, well above the Government estimate.  So dense was the burial activity that it took a long time for the earth to settle down and even then it was 4ft above its original level.  In Scotland as a whole there had been almost 10,000 deaths and the equivalent figure for England was over 29,500.

Did Archibald and Mary McAlpine die of cholera in 1832?  There is no direct evidence that they did so, but circumstantially that looks to be the most probable cause.  They were relatively young but both died about the same time, which appeared to coincide with the epidemic of cholera.  They lived in Greenock, which was badly affected by the outbreak, in accommodation which was probably insanitary.  Archibald McAlpine was a carter, which occupation would have taken him to many locations within Greenock, but especially to the dock area, where offal and human waste were known to be casually discharged.  Their 4 children did not “disappear” with their parents, which might have suggested that they had emigrated. Two of them were located at the 1841 Census in Luss on the other side of the Clyde in circumstances which suggested that they were orphans.  Without doubt, the most probable explanation for this disappearance is that Archibald and Mary were victims of cholera and were interred with little ceremony and no records in the new Greenock burial ground in Duncan Street.

William and Donald McAlpine sent to Luss

If Archibald and Mary McAlpine died in 1832, what happened to their 4 orphans?  Daughter Janet was not recorded again after her christening in 1831 and may have died with her parents in the 1832 cholera outbreak.  Daughter Mary was found in the 1841 Census, living in Tobago Street, Greenock with Catherine Spurrier (nee McDonald) her grandmother and Agnes Spurrier, her aunt.  It looks as though relatives stepped in to look after Mary.

The two boys, William and Donald had a quite different path to adulthood.  In 1841 they were found living in the house of Jean McFarlan(e) at Torr on the road to Glen Luss, in the village of Luss, Dunbartonshire.  Luss lies on the shore of Loch Lomond and in the 19^th century was a quiet, rural place within the fiefdom of the Colquhoun family.  It could hardly have been more different from the stinking closes of Greenock.  Jean McFarlan(e) was a spinster aged 45 who had been born in Luss and apparently lived there all her days.  She was described as a retired servant but appeared to be running a boarding house for young people between the ages of 6 and 16, though she occasionally accommodated adults who had been born locally, such as a pauper and a hawker.  This was a long term occupation for Jean Mc Farlan(e) as she was present in all census returns between 1841 and 1881.  Most of the young boarders had been born in Greenock and, in 3 instances, pairs of them appeared to be siblings.  We know that the McAlpine brothers were orphans.  Was it also the case that all the other young people were orphans too, or at least could not be cared for by parents or relatives? Did Jean McFarlan(e) have some kind of agreement with charitable bodies or local authorities on the other side of the Clyde to provide care and accommodation for orphans?

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 did not apply to Scotland until 1845, so it is likely that the McAlpine brothers were dealt with under arrangements that preceded that legislation.  Before 1812 care of the poor had been financed by church door collections in Greenock but as the numbers of poor people increased, the town changed to a system of assessments.  There was a disproportionate increase in the number of orphans in Greenock in the 1820s and 1830s.  If the increase had been in proportion to the population growth there would have been about 30 orphans in 1837 but the actual number was 148.  Of these 50 had been deserted by their parents but the cause was not recorded for the remaining 98.  It would not be surprising if the cholera epidemic of 1832 played a significant role.  Luss must have been a satisfactory location for Greenock to place its orphans, being a place which had a much lower incidence of disease.  It is likely that it was also a cheaper option.  

After he passed out of the phase of care, my direct relative, William McAlpine, gained employment in Luss and settled there for the rest of his life.  In 1851 William was a 19 year old, unmarried shepherd working for the Turner family at Auchangavin House, Luss.  The head of the Turner household was Peter Turner a 50 year old grazier and farmer of 100 acres with 3 labourers.  He was accompanied by his wife, Christian S Turner and his sister, Jean Turner.  Auchengavin was a farm belonging to the Colquhouns of Luss, which was on occasion offered for let through advertisements in the Glasgow Herald.  Peter Turner was a tenant of Sir James Colquhoun 4^th Bt.  Auchengavin was located about ¾ of a mile up Luss Glen on a tributary of the Luss, not far, as the crow flies, from Torr, where William McAlpine had been cared for by Jean McFarlan(e).  Auchengavin consisted of about 8 enclosed fields and had access to the upland to the west of Luss.  In 1875 it was described as being capable of keeping 900 sheep and 25 cattle and it had a dwelling house and a steading on the farm.  Since one shepherd was capable of looking after about 600 sheep, William may have been the only shepherd at Auchengavin at the time.

William McAlpine marries Jane Taylor

William McAlpin married Jane Taylor on 24 November 1858 when William was 29 and Jane was 20.  The couple were married at 29 Salisbury Street, Glasgow, by David McRae, Minister in the United Presbyterian Church, Gorbals.  At present it is not known why the couple travelled to Glasgow to marry.  Farm servants were generally hired for a year at a time.  They were usually accommodated on the farm, whether they were single or married and received food as part of their remuneration.  This may account for both William and Jane giving their accommodation address as Craigton, Luss, ie they were both servants there at the time of their marriage.  William was a ploughman and Jane was a servant. In 1851 Jane had been living with her grandparents in Craignish and it is possible that when she was old enough to leave the care of the Taylors she obtained a position as a servant at Craigton and that is how the pair met.  But that is speculation backed only by circumstantial evidence. 

William McAlpine and his new wife Jane went on to have a large family and eventful lives – but that is another story!

Don Fox

20160331

donaldpfox@gmail.com