Dear Jeanette,

which I will call you as I expect I am a good deal older than you, 82 this last birthday. I was + am most interested in your letter. Each time I fondly think I have finished concocting family history, more turns up, the last two on my mother’s side.

I found no difficulty in locating your great-great-grandfather brother of Margaret Ellis Dunlop (1819-80) who married Ebenezer Waugh Fernie (1815-69) in 1844. (It is easier to write down dates as one goes along.) I also had a note that he emigrated to NZ after his marriage to Sarah Cole dau. of Henry Cole and Cecilia Fraser and had 12 children, I have their names and marriages but no dates, and know that Janette Mary Dunlop m. Thos. Portland-Smith, but no dates. There is a note “James D must have sown his wild oats pretty freely – It is said that he was had up before his uncle the Provost for some misdemeanour – His family sent him to NZ, the sovereign remedy in those days” – His father, James junior, as you say m. Margaret Tennant, in 1818 – Her father, Charles Tennant was a good friend of the Dunlops, Charles was apprenticed to a hand-loom “webster” in same parish in which Dunlops were living, Kilbarchan, Charles left to study bleaching methods, started up his own bleachfield near Barrhead 1788, and having patented his chlorine-lime bleaching process in 1799 set up the St Rollox works in Glasgow.

One of his partners was an Alexander Dunlop, but no relation of ours. James Senior’s youngest son was Alexander, born in 1811, a twin of Margaret and so far too young to be Charles’ accountant. Charles Tennant Dunlop (1821-57) did marry Janet Mary Fernie (1823-72) in 1845; they had 6 sons* and 2 dau.; and Margaret Ellis D. (1819-80) did in 1844 marry Ebenezer Waugh Fernie (1815-69). They had a dau, Katherine Fernie (1848-1917) who m. Frederick John Bruce (1854-1917) in 1879, so various Bruce children, including a Lewis.

* The eldest son was Charles James Tennant D. (1846-99), then a William, a David, Lewis Gordon, and the two you mention Henry Cleland (1855-1928) and Ian Stewart Edmunstone (1857-99).

James Dunlop senior (1762-1826) married Bruce Ellis (1769-1855) in 1793 and they had 12 children, James junior (1794-1824); Robert (1796-1825) went off to America in 1821; Cleland, female (b 1797 d ?); Henry the provost (1799-1867); Helen quite unknown as to dates; Charles of Carlibar (1802-1851) my great-grandfather; William of Redheugh (1803-62); John (1805-1875); Colin (1807-27), Bruce female (1808-47) and then the twins Margaret (1811-51) she married a WS in 1838, but Alexander I know nothing about, probably died in infancy =

It was James senior who converted the family grain-mill into a cotton spinning mill and founded one of the earliest cotton-mills if not the earliest in Scotland in 1780. The ancestors of our Dunlops were “of Doucothall Mill”, which had made it possible for the family to be traced back to James who married Margaret Allason [illegible] she died in 1677, and her husband recorded her Testament 3rd Dec 1677 “in Doucathall Mylne, Neilsoun”, the mill was situated on the left bank of the Water of Levern, in Renfrewshire. There would have been some very small hamlets, later engulphed by the modern Barrhead =    I cannot give you the dates for the next generation but there is an entry in the recording of the 1695 Poll Tax for Neilston parish, John Dunlop in Ducatmilne and his spouse Helen Miller. Next their son James Dunlop (1694-1768), Doucote Miln, died aged 74, wife not known – William, brother, natural son (1697-1767) ? of John, John (b. 1703); Robert of Neilstonside Miln (b. 1706); Margaret (b. 1708) _______

Next generation James’ (son of John) eldest son James (1736-1812) in Dovecothall, his brothers Robert (b 1738), William (b 1741), Henry (1747-1835). This James married Helen Witherspoon (1735-85) in 1761 and they had eldest son James (1762-1826) as already mentioned – he had two brothers, the parents were very keen to have a son John but both died 1764-5 and 1767-70 ___

So will now cease. But your cousin is quite off the mark in bringing in a Mrs Frances Dunlop = Actually the Burke’s Landed Gentry also went quite bats and gave us entirely erroneous ancestry in the Dunlops of Househill , (they are also entered in Poll Tax of 1695 but different parish and they sold their family home in 1734).

You will see that the family we come from are of Doucothall, with the Milne added, the hall does not mean a grand mansion at all – the Water of Levern had mills of all sorts on its bank – because of its good flow of water –

I have written up Dunlop family and Dunlop business separately, but am just writing to you as it comes into my head – James Senior had the Gateside mill on Water of Levern, then he built another with workers’ lodgings etc on the Blackcart, the Linwood Mill, Kilbarchan parish, this was destroyed by fire in 1802 – He then entered into partnership with 4 other men and built the Barrhead mill in eastern purlieus of Glasgow, which he sold in 1816, having meantime bought some land roughly in same area, and built the Calton or Broomsward mill = In 1818 he brought his sons James, Robert and Henry into copartnership – Robert went off to America in 1821, James died in 1824 and he himself died 1826, leaving it to his sons to carry on the business or sell it = After which there was a series of copartnerships between Henry, Colin (died 1827), Charles, William fell ill and retired in 1838. Henry carried on with Charles as partner. John was a partner and had money in the business but refused to take any part in the active running of the firm = Charles died of ill-health in 1851 – John retired in 1845 – Henry continued till his death in 1867, and either before his death, or after, the Broomsward works was sold to a jute co.

So maybe this is enough for the time being for you to think about. I would be glad to have the information in the links between you and James the migrator also to learn about your marriage to a French man? and from what part of France he came from. I and my younger sister were both born in Paris and lived in France apart from years of 1st war and my parents went back to France in 1920 till the 2nd war __

yours

    Kitty M. Richardson

undated

The information I have about your grt.grandfather I was sent by Commander M.B.F. Ranken, great-grandson of Charles Tennant Dunlop. Ranken’s aunt, Janet Margaret Fernie Tresiger nee Ranken, collected a lot of information and Ranken sent me photostats of some pages he thought would interest me. He has portrait of James Dunlop junior (1794-1824) who married Margaret Tennant in 1818. Also that of James Senior (1762-1826) of Doucot Mill which is hanging in the hallway of lawyer’s office here, Ranken & Reid, and is very dirty, such a pity, it is on the large side; also portrait of Mary Witherington Dunlop (1848-1901) who married Robert Burt Ranken WS – and gold snuff box. I have tried getting dates out of Commander Ranken that he must know, but he is pretty busy and has never answered my letters – also sent me Dunlop family tree by JMFT but this is quite wrong in origins of Dunlops muddling them up with Dunlops of Horsehill [looks like, though in other documents Househill -RG] – and she could be wrong about the Coles Christian name.

JMFT writes “Her father James (Ellen who m. Donner (?)) must have sown his wild oats pretty freely. It is said he was had up before his uncle the Provost [ie Henry] for some misdemeanour. His family sent him to NZ, the sovereign remedy in those days.”

I am writing this rather higgledy-piggledy, as your questions turn up. My name is Katherine Margaret; Katherine after a sister of my father’s of whom they were fond, but she died in childbirth, Margaret is after my mother. She was M.M.S.W., Margaret Marion Seton Wilson, and I was annoyed that I was not called by her second name, also with the Seton, as there was always talk of “the Seton aunts” none of whom survived in my day __

Yes, your grandmother would be called after her aunt – Margaret Tennant and James had the daughter Margaret Ellis who married Ebenezer Fernie and the son Charles Tennant Dunlop who married Janet Mary Fernie_

Baillie James Dunlop and his 3 sisters and mother are listed in Poll Tax Roll of 1695 under heading “The lands of Househill, Paisley Parish, James Dunlop of Househill, Heritor”. This is the wrong family, ours are listed in Neilston Parish “John DUNLOAP! in Doucat Milne and his spouse Helen Miller – I have no dates, other than their being in the 1695 Roll, but he fits in well enough between James in Doucatmylne who pr[ov?]ed his wife’s testament, d. 1677, and his sons, the James who died aged 74, a natural son William 1697-1767, a son John b. 1703 “in Duckathall”, Robert b. 1706 who m. Isobel Stenson and his sister Margaret b. 1708.

I do not know why James was sent abroad, apart from sowing wild oats, but he did get married before he left. It is fine you being able to provide his date of marriage, birth, and the dates of birth of all his children even if just c.!

David (no.8) married Kate O’Donnell

will see if I can get birthplace of Sarah Cole,

if queries Kircudbright, my sister’s shopping centre!

There are numerous ways of spelling the name of the Dunlop mill, in different generations, Duckat, Dukat, Doucat, Dovecote, Dovcoat and Mylne, Mill or Hall (not Hill). People did have large dovecots, an important source of food (as rabbits were and the Lord of the Manor would have a coney mound).

I enclose a rough family tree of the 12 sons [sic, though in fact 12 children; I didn’t receive this family tree, but one drawn by NZ cousin Jeanette instead] of James Dunlop and Bruce Ellis – Her father, the Rev. James is spelt either Ellis or Alice (1732-1798), he was one of the seceders’ sects, who broke away from the Established Church of Scotland, one of them was Ebenezer Erskine, their main cause or one anyway, was they wished that the people of the parish should choose the minister, not the “heritors” (ie the local squire and land owners) – and there were a lot of rows, whole villages marching out of the Established Church – Dr Chalmers was another leading seceder – The main body called themselves the Free Kirk of Scotland. The Dunlops of the generation of James, Henry, Charles (my grt. grandfather) were all Free Kirk, as were Charles’ in-laws, and they had to pay for the Free Kirk schools and the masters who taught in them = Ebenezer Fernie who married Margaret Ellis Dunlop, lived in England (they came from Yorkshire) and he wote a long rigmarole to his sister Janet Mary after her husband had died – from which one concludes that he was opinionated and gullible, he was looking on the Free Kirk as some people might think of Baptists or Methodists, or any non-conformists “dissent is in England invariable descent” ....... Janette has “a limited income and six children not of the strongest constitution” and the Free Kirk is “costly and fanatical” + he urges her “as a lady .... to have nothing more to do with them” – etc etc!

My great-grandfather was Charles, brother of James junior, as you will see – He was v. much immersed [?] in his wife’s family, the Murdochs of Ayr – His father-in-law was procurator fiscal for Ayrshire, as was his son (also WS) and grandson – His mother-in-law had 14 children and her eldest daughter took care of Charles’ children after the early death of his wife, and indeed of himself in 1851. Charles’eldest daughter Agnes, married my grandfather David Richardson. The latter was out in Mauritius in connection with our grt-grandfather’s sugar business and married the daughter of the deputy governor of the island. She had one daughter who died and one that survived MaryJane, and then his wife died – in 1846. – After he had returned to Scotland plus the child, he met and in 1855 married Agnes Dunlop – and had 6 children – They all got on well with their step-sister MaryJane and I have the diary she kept in 1885 when she and my grandparents sailed in the Mediterranean on a yacht of his with 3 of their children.

Charles you will have noticed was uncle to your James.

Water of LEVERN, Renfrewshire, runs into the Clyde. LOCHLEVEN, on which stands the castle in which Mary Queen of Scots was lodged, is in Fife, and from which she escaped. She had signed the deed of abdication in 1567 and fled in 1568 =

Yes we do all speak French, not my elder brother Bruce, but my sister Nancy (she died in ’81), my brother Barney, he was killed in Malaya, and my younger sister. My father was originally in my great-grandfather’s sugar business but the firm was badly hit by the introduction of sugar beet + the firm James Richardson & Co closed at time of grandfather’s death in 1896.

I do not know anything much about the Tennants – I am delighted with all you had gleaned from “Granny” and “Aunt Amy”about young James – he would be at the university and on vacation when he went to stay on Sir Charles Tennant’s estate – We call an estate overseer a factor, his importance depending of course on the size of the estate (cf the factor of the Duke of Montrose in our time was of a very good family and kept pretty busy). My Wilson grandmother had a factor on the estate of Aucheneck, and we lived with her during the First War, she was a widow, our grandpapa being 25 years her senior, died in 1899 so I never saw him – My Richardson great-grandfather’s ancestors were tenant farmers as far back as we can trace them on two Bruce properties close to Bannockburn and our grt.grt.grandfather Thomas was born in 1745 when Prince Charles’ army occupied Stirling, and stored gunpowder in the parish church of St Ninian which blew up, but the tower is still standing = Thomas’ youngest son James, our grtgrandpa was apprenticed in Edinburgh to a grocer, as was a life long friend of his, Andrew Melrose, who started up in tea as his career and his son Willie was sent to Canton to represent his firm; Willie was a good friend of grandpa David – grtgrandpa removed to Glasgow, for the sugar trade, and ended up with a sugar refinery in Greenock on the Clyde, where the ships came in, by which time grandpa was sent to Mauritius to represent the firm of James Richardson and Co. Grtgrandpa put his money in land, he had a big estate, Ralston, near Paisley, and had acquired 3 other estates, our grandpa David took one, Hartfield, also on the Clyde – the firm did v. well till the importing and growth of the beet sugar began to upset the cane sugar market. My father was a partner, but realised how things were going and wanted to close down the business but grandpa would not. so father returned – in 1894 – He married my mother and they went to live on the island of Mull, but grandpa died in 1896 and the firm did then close – My mother had v. bad asthma + the doctors could only suggest a warmer climate, which was why we were living in France when 1st War broke out, and we returned to France in 1920 – My father then built a house near the Spanish frontier on the bay of Biscay. My eldest brother Bruce never did anything much after 1st War as his sight was bad, and he was rather deaf. My next brother went with the firm of my great-uncle John Anderson (my Wilson grannie’s brother) in Calcutta, general merchants, jute, tea, coffee, coal, etc. He was partner when the last war broke out and joined up in an Indian regiment, XVII Dogra Regt (he spoke Hindustani) and he was killed at the time of the Jap invasion – My elder sister married a friend of my brother and was in India till her husband was v. ill and had to retire from the firm he was in. My brother Barney had married and had two daughters, both of them married French men, and have 8 children between them, also married by now and with families. We stayed with my niece Caroline Fanch[eau??] last year, my younger sister and I. My sister Nonie (for Joan) is widowed + has a son David who is in the EEC + he his wife and children live in Brussels, but come to Scotland for their holidays – We have Richardson cousins, sons, grandsons and so on of my uncles Teddy (Edward) and Bill (Charles William). Uncle Bill had one son Jack who was in the army at tail end of first war, but went into the Cierva Autogiro Co. delivering the goods all over Europe – when the 2nd war broke out he was recalled to his regiment, 9th Lancers, but was serving in a series of air liaison appointments, then attached to No. 529 (Rota[?]) Squadron RAF 1943, then sent to USA to gain experience in flying helicopters, qualifying as pilot in 1944 – after war had other liaison appointments and retired in 1954 as Army Assistant to Director of Military Aircraft Research etc – he and my uncle Teddy were v. keen on skiing – he had 2 sons, Michael, recently returned from jobs to do with laying pipelines for oil in Iran (a hasty remove when the revolution broke out there), Colombia, Norway and elsewhere – His brother Nicholas is a don at Oxford in Classics; his eldest son Alexis to go next year to Oxford – Uncle Teddy had 1 son (musical) and two daughters. One could dribble on about family ad infinitum.

I would be glad to have dates

Birth of your grandpa Thos. William Portland Smith

Birth of your uncle Dunlop James Smith, and your father Frank Edward – is he still alive.

Also date of birth of your mother and of your husband.

These recent dates are quite difficult to get out of people, I do not know why, thus of Commander Michael Bruce Fernie Rankin, date of his marriage, births of his children = He h[?eir?]ed the gold snuff box given by the Master Cotton Spinners of Renfrewshire to James IV, whch had first been inherited by his son William. This William also a natural engineer, but he was not strong and his health broke down, he then retired from the firm of James Dunlop and Sons and farmed in a mild way near Edinburgh.

[end of copy I received]