Letters between McLarty family members are held by the University of Glasgow and tell a fascinating tale of the life of young men seeking their fortune and adventure. Much information is held by the University of Aberdeen concerning William Shand and his adventures. When William Shand married Eliza Rankin he presented her father with an engraved snuff box which sold recently for £2750.

Henry of Craigton

There was tragedy for Henry of Craigton. When she was 22 his first wife Anne and her sister died in Torquay. Later his older brothers James (28) and Robert (27) and his father died within two years of each other  His daughter Margaret died aged 10 and his daughter Alexina died aged 6.

By the time that he himself died (1867) three of his sons were abroad: Henry and Robert Bruce in Canada and Charles in Singapore. His two youngest sons were at school in Edinburgh (Heriot's predecessor in Stockbridge). His wife and the three older children still living at home moved to Edinburgh's West End. 

A year later Henry's son Colin died (aged 27). His widow, Mina with their four young children moved to the West End as well. 

Charles had married and sent his young wife with their son back to live with his aging mother and siblings. 

Henry's widow, Alexina died in 1872 and Elizabeth Bruce (Aunt Bu) took over the house at 43 Manor Place. 

Robert Bruce had married in Canada and died in Jamaica in 1877. His wife and three children returned to also live in Edinburgh. 

Henry's youngest daughter, Helen married Edward MacDougal, the owner of Esk Mills paper mill in Penicuik. They lived in Glencorse House for a while and then moved to Ormiston Hall.  His company built workers cottages in Penicuik and named them Dunlop Terrace.  

His youngest son Alexander Johnstone had also married and by 1878 eleven of the surviving Craigton grandchildren were living in Edinburgh (the other four were in Canada).

Further tragedy for Isabella, widow of Robert Bruce Dunlop, followed: Henrietta (13) died of schistosomiasis in 1882; tuberculosis took George (13) 1888 and Mary (22) 1890. They are buried along with grandfather and grandmother in the Dean Cemetery adjacent  to Stewart's Melville College. Isabella died at the age of 74 in 1922.

Shand

Meanwhile, the husband of another Rankin granddaughter - Lieutenant Colonel John SHAND - died in  1870. Eliza Jane (SPALDING) SHAND took her children to a house in Largs with her three girls; together with her husband's brother's son Hinton, and three of  her sister's offspring. Nearby lived the SCOTTs whose daughter was married to her brother. The young Hinton MYERS went on to marry a younger SCOTT daughter.

Eliza Jane SHAND with three of those staying with her in Largs were later living together in Ealing (1891): Lilian SHAND, Grace SHAND (who would later marry Henry Johnson DUNLOP), Constance (Myers) DUNLOP and her daughter Alexina DUNLOP.

AJ Dunlop

Alexander Johnstone Dunlop bought Crescent Lodge in Largs for his return from India in 1912, 90 m from where he  grew up.

His son Henry Johnston Dunlop remembers Mina (whom he referred to as "Ula") living at 26 Alva Street. In a letter to his daughter (presumably mid 20th century) he said that she "stayed at Crescent Lodge several times and also as a companion to my mother during her convalescence after her operation and was very kind to her." He also remembered the two servants: "cook (Isabella MacKinnon) and Tablemaid (May Cruikshank), who both spoke Gaelic and English".
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