A granddaughter's memoir, annotated (Part 3)
Of Alexander Thomson's siblings
The memoir of Jane Nicholson Thomson, one of ‘Greek’ Thomson’s granddaughters and usually referred to as Mrs WL Stewart from her marriage, lists 20 children as follows:
From the first marriage: John, Christian, Janet ('Jessie'), Elizabeth, Margaret, James, Michael, Helen.
From the second marriage: Adam, Adam, William, Robert, Ebenezer, Andrew, Jane, Amelia, Alexander, Michael, George, Elizabeth.
Based on baptismal records, however, only 19 children are found, and the order should read:
From the first marriage: John, Michael, Janet ('Jessie'), Christian, Elizabeth, Margaret, James, Helen.
From the second marriage: George, William Cooper, Jean, Adam, Robert, Andrew, Ebenezer, Amelia, Alexander, George, Elizabeth.
These births are confirmed by entries in the Larbert and Balfron parish registers. As before, details about individual family members can be found in the ‘Combination Tree’ on ancestry.com.
John Enebezer Honeyman Thomson1 , ‘Greek’ Thomson’s nephew, mentions 20 children in his biography of George Thomson, ‘Greek’ Thomson’s younger brother, but without mentioning them all. Mrs Stewart’s information may possibly come from the family bible presented by Ebenezer to Alexander on the occasion of the latter’s marriage in September 1847 (Ebenezer died the following month), or other sources. If there were 20 children, one - possibly the first son named ‘Adam’ mentioned in Mrs Stewart’s document - does not appear in surviving baptismal records and may have been stillborn or died shortly after. JEH Thomson notes of the children simply that ‘others had died in infancy’.
The children of John Thomson III and his second wife, Elizabeth Cooper
The names that follow are based on the order of births from baptismal records. It is likely that all the children born in Balfron were born in Endrick Cottage.
George (1802-ca 1807)
Although not mentioned by Mrs Stewart, George was born on 4 December 1802 and baptised on 14 December. Based on comments by JEH Thomson about Thomson's children dying in infancy, he probably had died by 1807.
William Cooper (1804-1843)
William Thomson was a brilliant student and a good ‘all-round’ man. He had a brilliant career at Glasgow University, where he studied Latin and Greek, French and Italian, Hebrew and Chaldee, Syriac and Arabic. He acted during one session for the Professor of Humanity in Glasgow University. During his vacation, he worked on his father’s farm, and even in this, he was said to have excelled. Languages interested him so much that he taught French to a Highlander in Balfron in return for being taught Gaelic by him.
He was very anxious to go into the Church, but he married [8 November 1825] “earlier than worldly prudence would have dictated,” and so he had to take up teaching for which, of course, he was well qualified. He settled in Balfron, but after his mother's death, he came to Glasgow to make a home for his young brothers and sisters.
While in Glasgow, he added to his other studies an interest in mechanics, and the papers he left indicate that he had anticipated the discovery of the screw propeller. He was also interested in gunnery and invented a gun, which he called the Govanade. His thoughts were, however, always with ‘the Church’, and in 1834, he moved to London in the hope of taking up missionary work. In 1837, the Church Missionary Society accepted his services, and he was sent out to Sierra Leone, where someone with his gift for languages was required to translate the Bible into various native tongues.
In the year 1841, the Colonial Government requested his services from the Missionary Society as they wanted someone with his knowledge of Arabic to conduct negotiations with chiefs in the interior. William was willing to go, provided he was allowed to attend to the work of the Missionary Society as well. He was so confident of the friendly attitude of the natives that he took his son William, aged about 13, with him on the journey.
All went well till he reached Timbo, the capital of Foolajallah, where, after long delays, he got the Fullah chiefs to sign a treaty. On that night, however, he died. It was supposed that he was poisoned. A French mulatto named Louis Monaquais, who had been his body servant, helped the young William to bury his father and then escaped with the boy to Sierra Leone. In the same year, 1843, Mrs William Thomson died. She had returned to Scotland with the younger son and daughter, and arrangements were made for young William to be sent from Freetown to join his brother and sister in Scotland.
Much of this comes from William Ewing’s biography of JEH Thomson2.
None of the paperwork surrounding William Cooper Thomson’s possible inventions appears to have survived. The invention of the ‘Govanade’ might have been spurred by the family’s earlier connections with the Carron Company, which had invented and successfully manufactured the Carronade, a naval mortar.
A longer article on William Cooper Thomson follows.
Jean Thomson (1805-1830)
Listed as ‘Jane’. No record.
Jean was born on 19 June 1805 in Balfron and baptised on 30 June. JEH Thomson records ‘George’s ‘eldest sister’ is reported to have died around this time [1830]. Jean was George’s eldest full sister, and the reference cannot be to step-sisters since Margaret and Helen were both living at this point.
‘Miss Thomson’ was buried in the Anderston burying ground on 15 July 1830. The given cause was ‘Decline’. This burying ground was adjacent to Anderston Church, in Heddle Place, off Argyle Street, near Anderston Cross (below), which had been designed by John Baird I ten years before. The area was cleared around 1963 in preparation for construction of the Kingston Bridge, with burial remains transferred to Sections 22 and 26 in Linn Cemetery, although almost none of the headstones were relocated. Elizabeth Cooper was buried in Anderston in 1828, and an unnamed male Thomson (probably either Adam or Andrew) in December 1829.
Adam (1807-ca 1829)
No record.
Mrs Stewart has two entries for ‘Adam’ and writes ‘No record’ against both. Adam was born on 18th March 1807 in Balfron and baptised on 25th March. It seems likely that he was alive at the time of his father’s death, and moved to Glasgow with the rest of the family in 1825, and probably died between 1828 and 1829.
Robert (1808-ca 1829)
No record.
Robert was baptised in Balfron, probably on 29 May 1808 (the month is unclear in the baptismal entry), and so had probably been born up to two weeks earlier.
He moved with the family to Glasgow, but in the will of his half-brother James, who died in July 1829, there is a reference to a payment due to the doctor who attended Robert’s ‘last illness’, suggesting he had died by then.
Curiously, although Robert Thomson is given as the proprietor of the lair at Anderston in which the family members were buried, probably purchased the year before when Elizabeth Cooper died, he does not appear to have been buried there. He may have been buried in North Street (the other local burying ground, cleared at the same time as Heddle Place and a local Catholic graveyard) or have died elsewhere.
Andrew (1811-ca 1829)
No record.
Andrew was born on 26th February 1811 in Balfron and baptised on 3rd March. Like Adam, he appears to have moved to Glasgow with the rest of the family in 1825 and probably died between 1828 and 1829.
Ebenezer (1814-1847)
Born about 1814.
We do not know much of the life of the family when they came to Glasgow in 1825 after the death of their father. After Mrs Thomson’s death in 1830, William moved to Glasgow to make a home for his younger brothers and sisters, the eldest of whom was Ebenezer, then a youth of about 16. He obtained the position of book-keeper in the firm of Wilson, James and Kay’s, and later he became a partner in the business. In later years, this business passed into the hands of Sir John Muir. On 28th July 1840, Ebenezer married Catherine Ferguson Honeyman, who was related to him.
The young couple went to live in Warwick Street, Glasgow southside, and there, on the 8th of August 1841, was born their only son, John Ebenezer Honeyman Thomson. About two years later, a daughter was born, but she died in early childhood. Ebenezer Thomson was a devout churchman and an elder. In the course of his duties as an elder, he called on one of the Church members who was suffering from typhus fever. He caught the infection and died on 20th of October 1847. Ebenezer has been described by Dr McLaren (a cousin of Mrs Thomson) as 'a fine figure of a man, of cultivated mind, and widely read but chiefly notable for the strength and beauty of his character'.
Mrs Thomson, having lost her husband and daughter, devoted her life to her son John. He was a brilliant student and in later life became a well-known Biblical scholar and an authority on the Samaritan Pentateuch. He compiled the Bible Dictionary in collaboration with Dr Ewing of Edinburgh. Details of his own work are given in JEH Thomson by William Ewing. His mother, as Aunt Catherine, had a great influence on her nephews and nieces, the children of Ebenezer’s younger brother Alexander, who regarded her with affection not unmingled with awe, from which I gather that she was a woman of strong character.
She was the owner of the parrot about which there so many amusing stories, and it was in her household that ‘Stirling Mary’ reigned over the kitchen for so many years. JEH Thomson (‘Cousin John’, pictured above) is one of the most vivid personalities of my early life. His frequent visits were always anticipated with a high degree of pleasure and excitement as he was such a human and stimulating personality, full of fun and a wonderful storyteller. As a small child, I was rather frightened by his habit of shouting ‘Hoo-roo’ and sweeping you up in his arms, but I soon regarded it as a lovely game, and we always called him ‘Hoo-roo’ in fun.
Although he was such a devout Churchman and Biblical scholar, there was nothing ‘goody-goody’ about him. He loved good music, good literature, good plays, and he was the most entertaining companion. If he went about with a copy of some very learned work in one pocket, you could be sure of finding in another a copy of the latest hair-raising detective story, as that was one of his great mental relaxations. He married late in life and his wife (Miss Margaret Gray, ‘Cousin Maggie’), was also a great favourite with the young people who were frequent visitors to the house in Edinburgh.
A separate article follows on Ebenezer, reflecting the intensity and degree to which he, Alexander, and George were involved in the Gordon Street congregation.
Originally a partnership called Wilson, James & Kay, yarn and goods merchants with an office in Glassford Street, they were deeply involved in the cotton trade in the first part of the 19th century. The firm became agents for Gladstone, Wylie & Co. of Calcutta, and of Frith, Sands & Co. of Bombay and, after 1852, agents for James Finlay & Co Ltd. James Finlay and the now renamed Wilson, Kay & Co. shared premises at 22 West Nile Street and in 1858 amalgamated as James Finlay & Co Ltd. Alexander Kay’s daughter, Margaret Morrison Kay, married John Muir (later Sir John Muir). John Muir joined James Finlay & Co. in 1849, became a junior partner in 1861 and sole partner from 1883, after buying out the other partners.
Ebenezer and Catherine’s only daughter, Janet Elizabeth, was born in November 1843 and died in April 1845 at the family home, 12 Pollok Street. She was buried with the other Thomson family members in Anderston.
The Smith Art Gallery in Stirling holds a portrait of JEH Thomson (below) in need of restoration.
Amelia
Amelia, or as she was known to the family, Emily, was born at Balfron in 1815 on the 14th day of May. After the eldest surviving brother, William, went to London in 1834, Ebenezer, Amelia, Alexander, and George set up a house together. She was very opposed to Alexander’s marriage; in fact, she was reputed to have said that she would rather see Alexander dead than married to that ‘English hussy’. She lived long enough to develop a real affection for the ‘English hussy’ and admit that she had made a most excellent wife and mother.
When William died in Africa, his children were sent to Aunt Emily, where they made their home for many years she lived in the Kelvingrove district of Glasgow and her house was regarded as a family centre by all her nephews and nieces. When her niece Elizabeth, eldest surviving daughter of Alexander Thomson, then in her 80th year published her book Cinderella & Co. Ltd, she dedicated it to the memory of ‘Our Dear Old Aunt, Amelia Thomson, who believed that if children knew about fairies they might one day know about angels’. Amelia died on 10th of March 1901 at the age of 86.
Amelia was baptised two weeks after her birth in Balfron.
Amelia lived at various addresses. In 1841, she was living at 28 Eglinton Street with Alexander and George and ten years later at 78 Abbotsford Place with George, Jessie (Janet, the late William Cooper Thomson’s only daughter), and a house servant. A decade later, George, Amelia, and Jessie were joined by the 19-year-old JEH Thomson and Catharine Ferguson (a house servant, no known relation), living at 165 Sauchiehall Street (now renumbered). In 1871, she was living at 171 Dumbarton Road (probably the now-demolished tenement on the western side of the junction with Benalder Street, currently occupied by the Bag O’ Nails public house). She later moved to Helensburgh, dying at Balmoral Villa in Henry Bell Street, still living with her niece Jessie.
Alexander
See following note.
This is Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, to be dealt with in a separate article.
Michael
Died in childhood.
George
George was born at Balfron on 26th May 1819. At the age of ten, he had to go to work, but we do not know what he did. He had a secret ambition to be an architect, and this was realised late when he joined his brother Alexander in the office of John Baird Senior. He was deeply interested in the missionary work of his brother William and Africa, and later, when William’s children returned to Scotland, his interest increased even more. William’s elder son eventually returned to Africa as a missionary, but tragedy overtook them, and his young wife died within a year, having fallen a victim to the climate. Many of the missionaries shared the same fate and eventually, George Thomson decided to join his nephew William in Africa and establish
1st: A refuge for missionaries whose health has been impaired; 2nd: an institution for native evangelists similar to what has been found so successful in Samoa; and 3rd: the gathering together of a native Christian community separated from the evil influences of heathenism.
The story of the building of the refuge for missionaries in the Cameroons is told in The Memoir of George Thomson by his nephew, Rev. JEH Thomson whom I have mentioned before. Late in life, on 1st of June 1876, he married Isabella Johnston, with whom he returned to Africa. On 14 December 1878, he died of a fever, but his work was continued, and many now bless the foresight of George Thomson and his generosity in making the refugee in the hills a reality. His nephew William died a short time before George, and thus was severed the family connection with West Africa.
An article on George Thomson’s life in Glasgow appeared in The Alexander Thomson Society Journal No. 7, in 2022, and an article on his work in Africa is due to appear in Journal No. 8 in 2024.
Isabella Oswald Johnston was the daughter of Andrew Rintoul Johnston (1810-1875), the second of six children. He was a somewhat contumacious United Presbyterian minister, serving in Duntocher and later in Forfarshire and Perthshire. Isabella and George married at 1 Moray Place. She was pregnant when George died, and their daughter, Ada Elizabeth, was born in May 1879 in Dennistoun but died in Bearsden from scarlet fever in January 1887. Before then, Isabella had remarried, to James Thomson (no relation), partner in Aird & Thomson, jewellers. He died in August 1898, and she died in 1922 at 28 Herriet Street, Pollokshields.
In 1840, Isabella’s aunt Jane married Hugh Goldie (1815-1895), a missionary in Jamaica and later in Old Calabar in Nigeria, who probably arrived in Old Calabar only a few years after William Cooper Thomson, George’s older brother, had died.
Elizabeth
Died in infancy.
Elizabeth was born on 7th January 1822 and baptised ten days later. She moved with the family to Glasgow but died there, of ‘Decline’, being buried in Anderston on 11 December 1838.
JEH Thomson, Memoir of George Thomson, Edinburgh, 1881
W Ewing, JEH thomson, DD, Scholar and Missionary in the Holy Land, London, 1925