THE estate of Drumpellier is in the parish of Old Monkland, about eight miles from Glasgow and was purchased in 1735 by Andrew Buchanan, merchant there, He was one of the celebrated Virginia Dons, and Provost of Glasgow in 1740. He was also one of the original partners of the Ship Bank in 1750; and it was through his instrumentality that the well-known Mr. Robert Carrick was admitted a junior clerk into that monetary establishment, in which he rose gradually to be one of the chief partners. Mr. Buchanan opened, through his grounds, Virginia Street, which he named after the then British-American province, wherein his extensive plantations were situated. He and his three brothers, George, Neil, and Archibald, were founders of the Buchanan Society in 1725, the oldest charitable institution in Glasgow except Hutchesons' Hospital. They belonged to the Leny branch of the Clan Buchanan, in whose ancient territory Ben Lomond towers in all its grandeur. Provost Andrew Buchanan built the oldest portion of Drumpellier House in 1736, but additions were made to it in 1840 and 1850. He died 20th December 1759. His portrait is preserved at Drumpellier. The provost left two sons, James of Drumpellier, and George of Mount Vernon. Drumpellier was sold in 1777 to their cousin, Andrew Stirling, of the famous Glasgow firm of William Stirling & Sons. It was bought back in 1808 by David, eldest son of George Buchanan, the younger son of the Provost. The Stirlings, however, retained the superiority and title of Drumpellier. Mr. David Buchanan took the additional surname of Carrick on succeeding to Mr. Robert Carrick, the banker. The present proprietor is Colonel David Carrick Robert Carrick-Buchanan, great-great-grandson of Provost Andrew Buchanan, and the largest proprietor in the parish of Old Monkland. (1)
[1878.]
The Stirlings deserve a fuller notice, if only as a living proof how ancient a seat of trade this is. In the long roll of Glasgow merchants three distinct sets of Stirlings appear - Keir Stirlings (see Cadder), Kippendavie Stirlings (see Kenmure), and Drumpellier, or rather Glasgow Stirlings. These last claim to represent the Stirlings of that Ilk, one of the oldest untitled families in Europe. They seem to have made out a good case, and the Lord Lyon has formally awarded them arms and supporters accordingly. (2) But their claim has been disputed, and they need scarce care to press it.
For they can show a descent which is even rarer. Their family is, beyond dispute, the oldest in Glasgow; indeed, except the High Kirk, it is the oldest thing in Glasgow. They found this a little country town, and they have remained to see it grown by the help of them and of others like them, a hundredfold. (3) Through near three centuries, through eight generations from father to son, they have been merchants here of good standing, and gentlemen. With such a pedigree, unequalled in, or perhaps out of Scotland, (4) and with a hereditary character for straightforwardness and honour, the Stirlings of Glasgow can afford to be content.
I. ROBERT STIRLING of Lettyr or Lettyr Stirling, near Duntreath, fell in a feud with the Campbells of Auchenhowie in 1537. By his wife, Marion Fleming, widow of Alan Heriot of "Ramishorne and Medoflat" (a great estate if the Heriots had it now), he left a son John, born in 1533.
II. JOHN STIRLING, 2nd of Lettyr, married Beatrix Elphinstone of Blythswood, and died in 1585, having had eight sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Robert Stirling, 3rd of Lettyr, sold the family property, but his brothers rebuilt the family fortunes on a new foundation. Helped, no doubt, by the powerful Blythswood interest, George, the second son, became a notary, and William, the 3rd, (5) and Walter, the 6th, became merchants in Glasgow, where there have been merchants of them ever since.
III. WALTER STIRLING, merchant in Glasgow (his father's heir through failure of the five elder brothers) rose to be Bailie, Dean of Guild, and Commissioner both to Parliament and to the General Assembly, and died, full of years and honours, in 1655. By his wife, a daughter of Mr. David Weems, parson of Glasgow, and widow of the famous chirurgeon, Mr. Peter Low, (6) he had (with other children) a son,
IV. JOHN STIRLING, merchant in Glasgow, born 1615, died 1648, leaving by his wife Janet Neilson of Balgray, a son,
V. JOHN STIRLING, merchant in Glasgow, born 1640, died 1709. By his wife, Janet Campbell of Ballochoyll, he had three sons, John, William, and Walter. Of John hereafter. William Stirling, the second son, was a surgeon in Glasgow But he came of a mercantile stock, and he joined John Gordon, another surgeon, James Loudon, merchant and David Loudon, weaver, in setting up at Graham's Hall "an improven manufactory (as M'Ure calls it) "for weaving all sorts of Hollan-cloth, wonderful fine; performed by fine masters expert in the curious art of weaving, as fine and as well done as at Harlem in Holland." "This Hollan-cloth" (M'Ure adds) "is wonderfully whiten'd at Dalwhern's bleaching field." (7) This venture of Surgeon Williams no doubt introduced the family to the trade in which they have now been so long engaged, and to "Dalwhern's Bleaching Field." By his wife, Elizabeth Murdoch, daughter of [blank] Murdoch, Surgeon William left a son Walter Stirling, merchant in Glasgow, known from a deformity as "Humphy Watty," the founder of Stirling's Library. (8) Walter Stirling of Sherva, the third son of John Stirling and Janet Campbell, was father of Sir Walter Stirling of Faskine, a distinguished naval officer, whose grandson is the present Sir Walter George Stirling of Faskine, Bart. To return to the eldest son of John Stirling and Janet Campbell,
VI. JOHN STIRLING, merchant in Glasgow, born 1677, died 1736. He is named by M'Ure along with his brother Walter Stirling, as in the "great company that arose under-taking the trade to Virginea, Carriby Islands, Barbadoes, New England, St. Christophers, Monserat, and other colonies in America." He was Bailie in 1725, and Provost in 1728. The famous Shawfield Riot was in his Bailieship, and he and the other Magistrates, the Dean of Guild, and the Deacon Convener, were, under warrant of Lord Advocate Duncan Forbes, arrested and conveyed under a guard of dragoons to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. There, however, they were promptly released on bail, and they were met on their way home by 200 of their fellow-citizens on horseback, and escorted into the town amid ringing of bells and general rejoicing. By his wife, Isabella Hunter of Forrester-Saltcoats, "honest and kind Provost John" left (besides "Mess James" minister of the Outer High Church, Isabella, married to Provost Andrew Aiton, an early Virginian, and Janet, married to Robert Luke, goldsmith and brewer, of the old Lukes of Claythorn) a son,
VII. WILLIAM STIRLING, merchant in Glasgow, born 1717, died 1777. William Stirling ranks with the four young Virginians as one of the founders of the mercantile greatness of Glasgow. What they did for its foreign trade, he, as much as any one, did for its native industry. (9) Beginning as a printer in a small way and at second hand, he rapidly extended his business, first at Dawsholm on the Kelvin, and afterwards at "Dalwhern's field" on the Leven. There, after 125 years, the business still flourishes, and the founder's name still lives in the old firm of "William Stirling and Sons." (10) By his wife, Mary Buchanan of Drumpellier, William Stirling had (with other children) three sons, Andrew, John, and James, merchants in Glasgow, and two daughters, Elizabeth (the wife of William Hamilton, Professor of Astronomy in the University of Glasgow, and the mother of Sir William Hamilton of Edinburgh, and of Captain Thomas Hamilton, author of "Cyril Thornton") and Agnes (the wife of Dugald Bannatyne, merchant in Glasgow, and the mother of the well-known writers, Andrew and Dugald John Bannatyne).
Andrew, John, and James Stirling were the "Sons" of William Stirling and Sons. From their father they inherited a fine fortune and a fine business, and no small share of his talent and energy, but not his prudence and thrift, and they suffered for the want of these. James owned the estate of Stair in Ayrshire. From Andrew and John sprung the two main branches of this old stem.
Andrew Stirling was born 1751, and died 1823. In 1792 he retired from William Stirling and Sons, and formed Stirling Hunter and Co., of London, the first commission house established there for the sale of Scotch goods. In 1777 he had bought Drumpellier from his uncle, James Buchanan, who had been a partner in Buchanan Hastie and Co., one of the great Virginia houses ruined by the American War. But Stirling Hunter and Co. ended like Buchanan Hastie and Co., and in 1808 Drumpellier was bought back by the Buchanans, whose fortunes meantime had revived. Andrew Stirling, however, retained the superiority and the title, and was the "Drumpellier" who, in 1818, prosecuted the Lettyr claim to the Cadder representation, and received the arms and supporters. By his cousin, Anna Stirling, daughter of Sir Walter Stirling of Faskine, he had seven sons and four daughters. None of these nor of their descendants are in Glasgow, and the representative now of Andrew Stirling of Drumpellier, of Robert Stirling of Lettyr, and probably of Sir Alexander de Striueling who owned Cadder 700 years ago, is Thomas Stirling, son of John Stirling of Eldershaw, third son, and married to Anna, daughter of Charles Stirling of Muiravonside, fourth son, of Andrew and Anna Stirling of Drumpellier. Meantime the Glasgow connection has been kept up by the second son of William Stirling and Mary Buchanan.
VIII. JOHN STIRLING, merchant in Glasgow, born 1751, died 1811, was a conspicuous figure in Glasgow. Of handsome presence and fine manners, and a good man of business, he was too ambitious both in his undertakings and in his way of living. Before Andrew retired, the firm had been large holders in the Monkland Canal. They kept on buying till they ended by holding the entire stock, and they formed along with the Forth and Clyde Canal Co. the "Cut of Junction" between the two canals. These operations were eventually very profitable, but they absorbed capital that might later on have saved William Stirling and Sons. And John Stirling was a man of large expense as well. He occupied successively the two most conspicuous houses that have been in Glasgow, the Shawfield Mansion and the Lainshaw Mansion : (11) for his country house he built himself the fine castle of Tillichewan, near his works at "Dalwhern's field" : and nothing was spared in town nor in country.
By his wife, Janet Bogle, daughter of George Bogle, merchant in Glasgow, he left (besides other children, of whom Mary married, first, Andrew Bogle, second, Hon. and Rev. Henry Stanhope; Isabella married James Scott, merchant; and Marion married C. D. Donald, writer) two sons whom many will still remember as fine-looking old men, William Stirling of Dalquhurn, and George Stirling of Cordale. (12) The crash came in their days, in the crisis of 1816. But they battled up the hill, and lived to see the old business, in the hands of a younger generation, equal and surpass its old prosperity. (13) George Stirling the younger of the two brothers, was born in 1783, and died in 1864, the type of a gentleman of the old school, and almost the last survivor of his set. By his cousin Anna, daughter of James Stirling of Stair, he left one child, Margaret, who is married to Colonel Rothe. The elder brother,
IX. WILLIAM STIRLING, merchant in Glasgow, born 1780, and died 1847, was one of the staunchest of those old Scotch Whigs whom it is the fashion nowadays to sneer at. He married Margaret Hamilton, daughter of the old Virginia don, James Ritchie of Craigton and Busbie, and had by her sixteen children. Ten of these are dead, of whom John, a gallant young officer killed in action in India, is commemorated by a tablet in the nave of the High Church, and Mary married her cousin, John Stirling Donald. Six survive - 1, James, 2, William, 3, Charles (all three now or lately partners in the old firm); 4, Richard, married Jane M'Intyre and has issue; 5, Margaret Hamilton, married James William Alston of Stockbriggs; 6, Charlotte Lilias. The eldest of the sixteen,
X. JAMES STIRLING, merchant in Glasgow, is the worthy representative here of the Stirlings of Glasgow, and is the eighth merchant from father to son from Walter Stirling, grandson of Robert Stirling of Lettyr, who fell in a feud with the Campbells of Auchenhowie in 1537. (14)
(1) Some further account of this old Glasgow family will be found under "Mount Vernon."
(2) Their claim rests on the identity of their undoubted ancestor, Robert Stirling of Lettyr, with the Umquhile Robert Striveling, whose bairns were in 1541 declared next in the Cadder succession to Janet Stirling, the last of the old line of Stirling of Cadder. The matter is gone into at great length in Riddell's Statement of the Case, and again in his Critique on Fraser's "Stirlings of Keir." This Critique is a curious and furious specimen of the odium genealogicum. Through 260 quarto pages Riddell keeps up a white heat against "the Keir performance," and against William Fraser and all his works. He makes out a strong case for his Drumpellier clients, but he is much too hot to be clear.
(3) In 1610, when the Stirlings had been for at least twenty years settled here in business, the population was 7644. It had only been 4500 in 1560, when John Stirling of Lettyr had probably already married Blythswood's daughter, and not improbably had settled in Glasgow.
(4) We venture to think it is unique. There is certainly no such descent in this country. Child's bank is only two hundred years old, and is not now in the Childs' hands. The Smiths (of Smith, Payne & Smith) go back no farther, and have changed both their occupation and their locale. The old Bristol banks are much more recent. In New England there are families that have been trading ever since they crossed the Atlantic, but this is too short a week. If the Stirling pedigree can be matched, it must be in some of the old trading houses in Germany or the Low Countries. There are, no doubt, Jewish families that have been merchants for three centuries and more, but we should scarcely expect to find any of the "tribe of the wandering foot" who had been trading for so long in the one place.
(5) This William Stirling was merchant burgess and custumar of Glasgow, having, with John Ross, burgess of Glasgow, been "equale portioner and half tacksman of the inward customes within the water of Clyde," and was in or before 1591 "orderlie denuncit rebelle, and put to the horn for not finding of law souirtie to Walter Dennystoun and ors."
Another "custumar" of a later date laid the foundation of the great fortune of the Hoziers.
(6) Mr. David Weymis, Mr. John Bell, also minister, and Walter Stirling's uncle, the unfortunate Sir George Elphinston of Blythswood, then Provost of the town and at the height of his fortunes, sign the Letter of Guildry of 1605, as oversmen. Mr. Peter Low and Mr. Robert Hamilton (who was joined with Peter in the original foundation of the Faculty of Physicians and Chirurgeons) sign among the Commissioners for the Crafts, no doubt as representing the Barbers, but having their signatures distinguished from the others by the "Mr." The notary who signs for the "scribere nescientes" is Archibald Heygate, Town Clerk, who married Margaret Stirling, sister to William and Walter.
(7) "The masters" (he adds) "of this improven manufactory are now united to such perfection that noblemen, barons, gentlemen, and citizens and their laidies buys of them, and wears their linen, and binds their sons to be apprentices for the space of several years, till the indenture betwixt them be faithfully performed and fulfilled." M'Ure, p. 257.
(8) Leighton's Library at Dunblane was left for the benefit of the clergy of the diocese. Was there any free public library in Scotland when Walter Stirling, in 1791, bequeathed to Glasgow the 804 volumes which have now grown to 50,000?
(9) Here is what Brown's History says of him (vol. II., p. 214):- "In the meantime the celebrated William Stirling formed a copartnership with a few of those whom he found best informed and likely to prosecute this plan with success. They erected a work for this purpose on the banks of the Kelvin at Dalsholm. They began with the printing of handkerchiefs, and with success. They proceeded to the printing of cloth for garments and furniture. About the year 1771 they found the price of labour at Dalsholm unsuitable for their purpose. They left it, and erected a large work on the Leven. The branches that have sprung from it and grown up in the neighbourhood have been the means of diffusing a circulation of cash in that country to a great amount. The effects of this cause are wonderful. The young women were taken from their spinning wheels, and employed in pencilling the colours in the prints on the calicoes. The boys and girls were taken from idleness to the service of the printers. The wages of industry, diffused among a primitive people in this valley, uncorrupted in their manners, produced an immediate change in their dress as well as of their mode of living for the better. The population about the works on the west side of the Leven his increased so much (1795) that they have erected a place of worship at a new-reared village called Renton."
(10) He began in a small way, buying India cottons and getting them printed in London for the Glasgow market. Here is his advertisement in the Glasgow Journal of 10th May 1756:- "At the warehouse of Mr. Stirling, above the Cross, there is to be exposed to sale for a few days, A neat Parcel of printed Cottons, of the newest patterns, lately imported from London, at and below first cost."
Eight years later, with partners and a work of his own, here was all the length he had got (Glasgow Journal, 15th March 1764):- "At Dalsholme Printfield, near Glasgow, there is printed, all sorts of work upon linen and cotton cloth for gowns and furniture, by William Stirling & Co., merchants in Glasgow, who have engaged a man of character in the printing business lately in London; from which place he has this season brought a great variety of the newest and most fashionable prints; the patterns of which, and the prices of each may be seen, in a book kept at the shop of Jean M'Neil, Greenock; William Morison, Port-Glasgow; Wm. Wilson, Kilmarnock; Zachary Gemmil, Irvine; David Farrie, Ayr; James Paterson, Hamilton; David Nevary, Edinburgh; John Wilson, Falkirk; James Bredie, Perth; Michael Erskine, Paisley; and at the warehouse, Glasgow who receive the cloth from our customers; and they may depend upon having it well printed, and returned in due time. Let the owners' name be sewed with linen thread, at full length, and the place of their abode, at one end, and the number of the print they chuse at the other end of the piece. No Green cloth taken in without charging threepence the yard bleaching, or twopence if the warp is made of bleached yarn, beside the price of printing."
William Stirling & Co. began at Dalsholm about 1750. William Stirling & Sons feued Cordale as a printfield in 1770 from John Campbell of Stonefield, then owner of Levenside (Strathleven.) And in 1791 the firm (then consisting of the three "Sons" Andrew, John, and James) acquired "Dalwhern," which had been feued in 1728 from William Cochrane of Kilmaronock for Walter Stirling and Archibald Buchanan as Trustees for the Dalquhurn Bleaching Co. Dalquhurn remained a bleaching field for exactly a hundred years. But in 1828 the Stirlings began Turkey Red dyeing there, and have carried this on extensively ever since. Of the many bleaching and printing works which the Loch Lomond water has attracted to the Vale of Leven, "Dalwhern" is the first, having now been in use for exactly 150 years.
The "Warehouse above the Cross" was on the west side of High Street, nearly opposite the Blackfriars Church. A dwelling house adjoined. The firm owned nearly an acre of ground back from this, with another entry from Grammar School Wynd. This ground was afterwards laid out in Stirling Square and Stirling Street. Stirling Square, a queer out of the way little rhomboid, a sort of aneurism on South Albion Street, has been ripped open by the Improvement operations, and the name has disappeared; but Stirling Street still reminds of William Stirling & Sons. So does Stirling Road, which was formed as an approach to their Canal.
(11) John Stirling was the last occupant of both of these famous mansions. He rented Shawfield's of Henry Glassford for the last years of its life. The still finer house of William Cunninghame, which now forms the front part of the Exchange, was bought in 1789 by William Stirling & Sons, then consisting of the original "Sons," Andrew, John, and James. One wing was used as the office of the firm. The mansion itself was occupied by John Stirling till his death in 1811. It was then divided into two houses for his sons William and George. And finally in 1817 it was bought by the Royal Bank, who in 1827 resold it to the Exchange, who built the portico in front, and the news room on part of the great garden that stretched behind. Swan gives a view of this famous old mansion, but disfigured by a great stair the Bank had built to lead direct to their office on the drawing-room floor. And Stuart gives another view, but with the wings gone. As the house originally was, it was the finest town residence that Scotland had seen, and perhaps there is no finer yet. The existing Underwriters' room was the gallery or ball-room, and is very much to-day as William Cunninghame and John Stirling left it.
(12) In the interesting Loan Portraits Exhibition in 1868 there were portraits of old Provost John, of John of Tillichewan, and of William and George. William Stirling's, a very fine Raeburn, showed him as a handsome young man, with the lusty build and marked features of the family.
(13) Except "John and Robert Tennent," "William Stirling and Sons" is the only firm to be found both in the first Glasgow Directory and in this year's. In the thin 12mo of 1783, the Domesday Book of Glasgow, the Tennents appear as "Brewers and Malt-men, Drygate," i.e., on that same five acre "Well Park," on the Wester Craigs, where they have been brewing ever since. William Stirling and Sons (who, by a misprint, are styled William Stirling and Co.) are called "wholesale linen printers and merchants, High Street." Austin and M'Auslan appear as "M'Auslan and Austin" (perhaps another misprint). James Ewing and Co. appear as "Walter Ewing and Co." P. and R. Fleming and Co. as "David Fleming, junior, and Co." And some others come very near the existing firms. There seems to be a special tenacity in paper. "Edward and Richard Collins, paper-makers and bleachers, Dalmuir;" "William M'Arthur, paper-maker, Dawsholm;" "John Smith, junior, bookseller and circulating library, Trongate;" and "James Lumisden, engraver, Trongate," will be readily recognized.
(14) Mr. James Stirling inherits his father's political principles, and contested Dumbartonshire in 1865 with Mr. P. B. Smollett, losing after a memorable contest by one vote. He has written "Letters from the Slave States," and one or two pamphlets, just enough to make us wish he had written more.
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