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If a stranger were to inquire what are the two most noteworthy things to be seen about our good town, he would probably be directed to Tennant's "big stalk" at St. Rollox, and the statue of King William at the Cross; the first a monument to commemorate the commercial energy and enterprise of the son of a substantial Ayrshire farmer, the other a memorial of a great national deliverance, and gifted to the town by the son of an Ayrshire washerwoman.
However different may be the sentiments and actions which the two monuments serve to perpetuate, they are nevertheless curiously connected, as the following true story will show.
A long time ago, when Charles the Second was King, there lived in a little cottage, near the old town of Ayr, a decent washer-woman, whose name was widow Macrae, or, as she was more commonly called, Bell Gardner. Bell had one son, Jamie, to whom she was tenderly attached, a healthy, obliging little fellow, free to run errands for herself and neighbours, in short, a general assistant to all around. In course of time Jamie grew up a strapping lad, and found little difficulty in procuring a berth in one of those coasting vessels that traded at the Ayrshire ports; and as he was found faithful and capable, he rose rapidly in his profession, till his mother with pleasure and pride, was able to call him Captain Macrae For a time his visits to his mother were dutiful and regular, but he left her to enter a ship bound for India, and the poor woman saw her wandering son no more.
As the infirmities of age gathered around the widow, sorely did she pine for her missing son, and for the much needed shelter in her declining years, which she had hoped to find in his filial affection. But year after year passed and brought no tidings from Jamie, and as she felt her strength gradually decay, her heart failed at the dreary prospect before her.
Fortunately for her, however, her namesake and niece, Bell Gardner, had married a country joiner, Hugh M'Guire, and the pair were comparatively comfortable; for Hugh, besides being a good and steady tradesman, was also an excellent musician, and no merrymaking in the district was thought complete without the presence of Hugh and his fiddle, and thus many an extra shilling found its way into the family exchequer. Now that poor old aunty Bell was so ill qualified for her usual task over the washing tub, and had apparently been forgotten by her undutiful son, if still alive, the worthy pair resolved that she should never be thrown upon the cold sympathy of the stranger, but should henceforth, at their own canny fireside, take her bite and sup among the bairns; and so the evening of life fell quietly and gently on widow Macrae, till the end came, embittered by few regrets, except the loss or the apparent neglect of her beloved son.
Forty long years had come and gone since Jamie left Ayrshire, when his friends were startled by the intelligence that on the 18th day of January, 1725, the Honourable James Macrae of Ayrshire had taken his seat as Governor of the Madras Presidency in India.
Madras at this time was one of the most important of the East India Company's possessions, but the duties which the Governor was then called to discharge were very different from those which devolve upon him who now aspires to administer law and order to so many millions of the Queen's subjects. The whole of the Company's dominions could be included within a radius of a few miles, for which a rent was paid to some native potentate; and the Governor's duties had simply reference to the regulation of trade, and consisted chiefly in a vigilant guardianship over the monopoly which the Company claimed, in terms of their exclusive Charter, dating back to the time of Queen Elizabeth. The clerks and inferior officers in the Company's employ were miserably paid, and hardly dealt with, and enjoyed but sorry prospects generally of bettering their circumstances. Such of them, however, as were afforded these rare opportunities in the race for advancement, had splendid facilities for acquiring wealth, and the chiefs of the various departments in the employ generally managed in a short time to amass an ample fortune. Governor Macrae was one of those. At the termination of six years he gave up his office and came back to his early Ayrshire home, laden with wealth and honours, never to leave Scotland more.
We have no means now of accounting for the protracted silence of the prosperous Indian Nabob, especially to his poor mother. It is true that the Indian voyage in those days occupied the greater part of twelve months, and often longer, and we know not the struggles which the penniless lad might have to pass through before he reached that point of comfort and independence to which he had arisen, and his wilfulness or his pride might hinder him from communicating these struggles to his friends till he had attained the object of his ambition. Greatly to his honour, however, it is recorded that his first duty, on reaching home, was to find out his poor relatives, especially his cousin Bell, by whom his mother had been cherished in her old age, and to heap upon her and her family every comfort and luxury that wealth could procure. The four daughters who constituted her family were educated, and polished and petted, and brought out; and as it was known that the old Governor had store of wealth, they soon became objects of great attraction to the local gentry around.
It is stated, however, that old Hugh the fiddler remained intractable. What cared he either for conventional privileges or conventional restraints? He had long enjoyed the greater privilege of being esteemed the leader and chief in all life-giving Ayrshire splores, and he would not, and could not, lay down all at once the proud pre-eminence his own talent had won for him, nor the jollity and mirth with which it was associated; and so he stipulated with his grand relative for liberty to contribute, as formerly, his share in the popular merry-makings, to all of which he felt sure of the cordial invitation and the kindly welcome.
About this time William the thirteenth Earl of Glencairn was the chief of the local aristocracy. The Glencairn estates were said to be somewhat encumbered; the fiddler's eldest daughter Leezie - who no doubt he had seen skelping barefooted to school many a time - was now a young lady, fair, accomplished, and, better than all, had "great expectations." What could the Earl, therefore, do better than to mend his somewhat cracked fortunes by a portion of the old Indian's rupees? So Leezie became the Countess of Glencairn, with Governor Macrae's "consent and bounty;" for, on the day of her marriage, she received, by way of "tocher guid," the whole Barony of Ochiltree, which cost £25,000, as well as diamonds to the value of £45,000 - altogether a very sumptuous "down-sitting."
Moreover, in the poor fiddler's daughter the Earl obtained a real "help-meet," for her life-long labour of loving duty shed a lustre over her station, which mere wealth or rank could never confer. A correspondence is still preserved which passed between the Countess and the parish minister of Ochiltree, that gives a very lovable view of her character. It details her little schemes for helping and improving the district, and especially those young women who occupied a similar station to that which she herself had filled before the change in her fortunes. One of these schemes was the establishment of a "spinning school," the whole expenses of which - such as rent, furniture, teacher's wages, &c. - she proposed to defray, out of her own private means. Her description is most characteristic. "The profits," she explains, "should be devoted to the benefit of the scholars, and layed up as a fund for marriage, - such as buying clothes or furniture, - or any misfortune or inability, as every stage of the human existence is liable to miserable accidents. We must have also some person of generous humanity, who will volunteer himself as our treasurer and actor in disposing of our yarn and buying our lint; for if he is not very moderate in his demands, he may encroach on funds, charity, and good-will to our fellow-creatures, which we must look on as sacred." Another extract further reveals her character and work:- "I beg the continuance of your prayers for me and mine. I was sorry to see my name in the newspaper for any little donations to a people who have so just a claim on my attention as your parish. They are my support. I have had for several weeks six dozen Shetland stockings for their use, but no opportunity has occurred to convey them to you. If you hear of any, I beg you would let me know, as I am really anxious they, in so severe a season, should have the use of them."
Notwithstanding the benevolence of her work, and the amiability of her character, the life of the Countess was on the whole a sad and unhappy one. Her eldest son, Lord Kilmaurs, died in 1768, in his twentieth year. His amiable and accomplished brother James, who succeeded to the Earldom in 1775, died unmarried in 1791. He was the patron and friend of Burns, and his death drew from the poet that touching lament so replete with genuine pathos:-
"The bridegroom may forget the bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen,
The monarch may forget the crown
That on his head an hour hath been:
The mother may forget the child
That smiles sae sweetly on her knee,
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And a' that thou hast done for me !"
John became fifteenth Earl of Glencairn on his brother's death. He married a daughter of the Earl of Buchan, and died childless in 1796. It was while the Countess was residing with John's widow at Coates, near Edinburgh, that the correspondence from which we have quoted took place. Her daughter Harriet married Sir Alexander Don of Newton Don. The match was an unfortunate one, for their son turned out a profligate, who squandered the estate by selling it, piecemeal, here and there for whatever it might bring; and the last of the race was a strolling player, Sir William Don, who carried about only the poor shadow of his aristocratic connection, and who, with his wife, had some pretention to theatrical talent. Sir William died recently on his way from Australia - a sad termination to a worthy and honourable line, which, so far as can be ascertained, is now extinct.
Governor Macrae, in the year 1734, presented to the city of Glasgow the equestrian statue of King William, which has for so many long years occupied a prominent position among the sights of the town. It is not difficult, we think, to define the motives which prompted the old Governor to offer this gift. He had lived in the days when Ayrshire was the chief hunting-ground for Claverhouse and his men. No doubt he had, with his own eyes, seen the cruel excesses practised against quiet, God-fearing neighbours among the scattered farm steadings and the sandy downs of Ochiltree, and the contrast between those dreary "killing times" and the peace and liberty inaugurated by a beneficent Government, he reckoned worthy of this form of permanent remembrance.
It is curious to observe how this sentiment of loyalty to king and country filled the mind of Governor Macrae. He purchased an estate in the ancient parish of Monkton, in Ayrshire, which he named Orangefield, a name which it bears to the present day; and the last recorded act of his life was to grant a loan of £5000 to Glasgow to meet part of the losses to which it was subjected during the memorable raid of the Highland host in 1745. At Orangefield the Governor lived quietly for fifteen years, and there he died in 1746, and was buried in the old Prestwick kirk-yard.
We should like now to notice a curious link of connection between old Governor Macrae and another remarkable individual who has given to Glasgow a monument more conspicuous still, and marking an event even more beneficial to the city than any inaugurated by the bare-legged king who has so long bestridden his steed at the Cross of Glasgow.
At the time when Bell Gardner was engaged in her humble vocation, there lived in "The Mains," Brigend of Doon, a farmer named William Tennant, between whom and the widow a friendly feeling had long existed - indeed they were near neighbours; and as his son John and her niece Leezie M'Guire, whose story we have already told, were about the same age, they became great friends We frankly make confession of a hankering desire to record a more sentimental bond of union existing between the pair than simply schoolfellow and playfellow; but on this subject history is silent. This we know, however, that when, through the good offices of her grand friend, she became Countess of Glencairn, she entrusted the management of her affairs to her old playfellow, John Tennant of Glenconner; and wisely and worthily did that "ace and wale of honest men," as he was called by Burns, discharge the duties with which he was entrusted. Mr. Tennant was twice married, and had a remarkable family. His eldest son, James, was the miller of Ochiltree - the friend, companion, and "fellow-sinner" of Burns, who, in his well-known letter to Mr. Tennant, mentions the members of the family in detail. "My auld schoolfellow, preacher Willie," (Rev. W. Tennant, LL.D.,) went to India, where he instituted a movement for the educational and moral improvement of the natives, that bears good fruit to the present day. "The manly tar my mason Billie" was a naval captain. During the French war he lost his hand. Knighthood was offered him for his services, which he declined; on his brother asking him the reason for refusing the honour, his reply was most characteristic - "To tell the truth, I juist considered the title little better than a nickname." "Singing Sannock," for whom Burns wished "hale breeks, saxpence, and a bannock," went to Cape Colony. One of his descendants, Sir Hercules Tennant, is now (1880), and has long been, speaker in the local Parliament there. The most remarkable of the whole brotherhood, however, was CHARLES, whom the poet thus notices:-
"And no forgettin' wabster Charlie,
I'm tauld he offers very fairly."
Had Burns lived till Mr. Charles Tennant had fully developed that tremendous latent energy of which the St. Rollox works were the outcome, and which even in his apprenticeship - for at the time this was written he was only in his seventeenth year - was open to the keen insight of the poet, he doubtless would have strengthened his somewhat half-hearted forecast regarding the strong-armed, strong-minded wabster laddie; for there are very few of that noble band of comparatively self-made men whom the old town has been proud to adopt, who have left upon her commerce more distinct traces of his individual force of character than Mr. Charles Tennant. Mr. Tennant, who was born at Glenconner in 1768, after serving his apprenticeship in Kilwinning, wrought for a short time at the loom, and in the latter part of the century we find him established as a bleacher at Darnley, in the parish of Eastwood, while yet a young man.
When the art of spinning by machinery was fairly established in Scotland, and almost every country village had become a weaving shop, it was found that the produce of the loom overtasked the capabilities of the country bleachers, in the preparation of the cloth for the market. Bleaching at the time was a tedious process, requiring long months' exposure to sun and wind. Indeed, the success of the dilatory process, like the progress of the crops, depended in a great measure on the favourable nature of the weather, and at the close of the season the cloth was generally stored in the bleacher's warehouse till the spring sun shone, and the spring showers fell when the tedious work was again renewed.
Previous to the close of the century, indeed, bleaching on anything like an extensive scale had not been attempted in Scotland. "Customer wark," as it was called - the home spun and home woven cloth for common wear - was subjected by the thrifty goodwife to the usual exposure to wind and weather on the small corner which invariably formed a portion of the kail yard, which even the town housewife at the time possessed.
The finer sorts of linen were generally sent to the "Broomielaw crafts," then unsoiled by steamboat or foundry smoke, where the goods enjoyed the privilege of being watered from the streams of the pellucid Clyde! Anything requiring a more elaborate treatment, however, was sent to Holland, where it underwent a complicated process, which usually required full twelve months to complete. It was steeped for weeks on weeks in soured milk, and subjected to repeated boilings in caustic ley, alternated with repeated exposure to the weather, so that, by the time it reached the hands of its owner, it had often suffered considerable deterioration by the ordeal through which it had passed.
Toward the end of the century, Mons. Berthollet, a distinguished French chemist, tried to expedite this tedious process, by the application of oxymuriatic gas (chlorine), which, it had been previously discovered, possessed a remarkable power of extracting colour from all vegetable fibre. The attempt, however, was a failure. He was unable to control, in any way, the volatile gas, which, from its diffusive as well as its noxious qualities, made the process intolerable to those who were charged with its application.
The great problem to be solved, therefore, was how to restrain this diffusive tendency, so that the powerful agent could be safely applied to bleaching purposes. This hidden secret Mr. Tennant set himself resolutely to discover. We are not informed that he ever received a systematic training in the mysteries of chemistry, but we doubt not that his habits of careful observation, and his practical knowledge of the substances necessary for the process of bleaching as it then existed, led him at last to the discovery that the common substance lime possessed a wonderful affinity for the noxious gas, and hence could imprison it, so to speak, till its useful qualities could be applied in the most efficient, economical, and harmless manner.
Now-a-days, when every substance has been rummaged, and poked into, and analysed, till nature has but few secrets to communicate, there is a likelihood that such a plain discovery as the use of the bleaching liquor or the bleaching powder may be undervalued; all great discoveries, when they become public property, appear very easy of solution. But, irrespective of the effect which this discovery has had on a great national industry, surely we cannot withhold our admiration from the shrewd practical young man as we picture him carrying about daily his precious project, and, in the condition of chemical knowledge at the time, blundering after its realisation almost in the darkness; nor can we fail to sympathise with him as difficulty after difficulty disappear before his keen scrutiny, and he finds the grand secret at length within his grasp.
It may be explained that lime had been employed for bleaching purposes from a very early time, but owing, we suppose, to its destructive action upon vegetable fibre, it had been prohibited by an ancient and well-known Act of Parliament - unrepealed in Mr. Tennant's time - which empowered the Government inspector, the manufacturer's "bogie," to enter bleaching warehouses, and, on discovery of the forbidden material, to seize the cloth found on the premises, suspend all bleaching operations for two years, beside coming down upon the offenders with the inevitable pecuniary penalties; in short, it gave him power for the offence to ruin the offender. We do not think that the triumph of the discovery would be lessened, in the estimation of the keen-sighted young man, by the fact that he had found what he sought in a substance so common and so unsuspected, and one, moreover, that he well knew would subject him, by its use, to the penalty of having his business and prospects ruined for all time; and we feel persuaded that had the incautious inspector paid a visit to the Darnley warehouse in the hour of triumph, the reception given him would have been "on the north side of friendly."
The advantages of the discovery were at once appreciated. Here was a process that enabled the manufacturer to do the work of months in a few hours. The economy of the discovery, too, was immediately felt. It has been calculated with great plausibility that in the first year that the invention came into use (1789), no less a sum than £166,800 was saved by the process in Ireland alone.
A few years thereafter the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce sent a memorial to Government, praying that, in view of the great importance of the discovery to the whole nation, it should be purchased from Mr. Tennant and thrown open to the public. There is no record of any response to this request. Mr. George Macintosh the younger, mentions that the trustees for the promotion of the Irish linen and hemp manufacture voted a sum of money to the inventor; but he adds - "This proved truly a Hibernian vote; not one penny of the money ever reached the inventor's hands, who was paid with a cock and bull story, in the usual style of official honesty.
In the latter end of 1802, Mr. Tennant brought an action against a firm of bleachers for infringement of his patent. The firm, in fact, represented the bleachers of Lancashire, who had entered into a combination to resist the claims for compensation for the use of the bleaching liquid which the patent conferred.
The case was tried before Lord Ellenborough, who found that, owing to some confusion in the phraseology employed in the specification, as well as to the fact that one material mentioned had been in use previously, therefore the patent should be held invalid - a decision which even at the time was generally held to be partial and unjust.
By this time, however, the chemical works had been removed to Glasgow, and had assumed considerable dimensions. Messrs. Charles Macintosh, James Knox, Alexander Dunlop, and Dr. William Couper - all gentlemen of substance and talent - had become partners in the concern. A new patent, more carefully framed, was obtained for the manufacture of bleaching powder, as it was called, the former patent having reference to the impregnated substance in a liquid form. Fortunately the new patent remained unchallenged till the firm had so extended its various manufactures, and so established its reputation, that it could bid defiance to legitimate competition.
Mr. Tennant was a gentleman of remarkable business energy. The manufacturing establishment at St. Rollox, under his vigorous management, was rapidly extended in all its branches, till it became the largest of its kind in Europe; and, notwithstanding a constitutional hesitancy or nervousness, somewhat remarkable in one possessing such a robust and healthy physical frame, Mr. Tennant entered ardently into most of the schemes which his brother merchants projected for the progress and welfare of Glasgow at the time. The Garnkirk, and the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railways - the former the first railway opened for public traffic in Scotland - owe much to his advocacy and help; indeed, the Garnkirk may be said to have had its origin in his own mind, and to owe its completion entirely to his individual exertions. He was an intimate friend of the great railway engineer, George Stephenson, and was present with him at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Line; and he witnessed the melancholy accident that cost the amiable and talented Mr. Huskisson his life.
After a busy life, full of good to the city of his adoption, in which he enjoyed the privilege of being respected by all classes of the community, Mr. Tennant died suddenly at his own residence, Abercrombie Place, Glasgow, in 1838, in the seventy-first year of his age. His friend, Mr. Henry Ashworth of Manchester, thus gracefully and lovingly estimates his character and worth:- "Mr. Tennant was an earnest and indefatigable promoter of economical and educational improvement - an uncompromising friend of civil and religious liberty; while his own inborn energy of character and clear intellect placed him among the foremost of those men who, by uniting science to manufactures, have at once extended their field of action, and entitled their occupations to be classed among the ranks of the liberal professions."
A little episode in the life of Mr. Tennant, which was repeated to the writer by one of his relatives, is worth recording. At the time he first established his bleachfield at Darnley, in company with his friend, Mr. Cochrane of Paisley, one of his neighbours was the late Mr. Wilson of Hurlet, whose house overlooked the bleaching field. Mr. Wilson was then understood to occupy a prominent place in that distinguished circle or "caste," which we have elsewhere described, and out of which the mere tradesman or dealer was rigidly excluded; but being himself a gentleman of great business energy, he took no pains to conceal his admiration for any who might be imbued with a kindred spirit. For some time the new industry was regarded with little favour by the grand neighbour. As the old man, in his younger days, however, had acquired a habit of early-rising, he observed, one summer morning, a smart, good-looking young man, long before the usual business hours, wandering in the green field with his large watering-can, dispensing its refreshing showers over the snowy croft carpet; next morning there he was again, before the lark had left its nest; and the next, and next. On inquiry, he learned that this industrious young man was no less a person than the proprietor and vigorous manager of the new work. His sympathies were at once attracted towards this enterprising neighbour, who was forthwith invited to visit the big house, and on further acquaintance he fairly won the confidence of the old man. Not only so, but Mr. Wilson's fair daughter also was captivated by her new acquaintance, and, in a reasonable time, after going through the usual preliminaries, Miss Wilson became Mrs. Tennant, and thus formed an important link in the chain that still binds the honourable name of Tennant to the fortune and progress of our good town.
On the death of Mr. Charles Tennant, in 1838, his son John carried on the works. He also was a gentleman of uncommon energy and ability, and was esteemed one of the most honourable and upright of the merchants and citizens of Glasgow; and every movement for the social, commercial, or educational advancement of his native city, found a ready claim to his support. Especially was the goodness of his heart manifested in sympathy with the various agencies in the city for the relief of the destitute and the afflicted, irrespective of station or denomination, - the last act of his useful life being a liberal donation for the relief of poor humanity during the Indian famine. He died in 1878, aged 82 years.
His son, Charles Tennant, M.P. for Peebles-shire, inherits no small share of the family energy and probity. His genial courtesy makes him a universal favourite, while his quiet unostentatious wisdom and prudence favour the anticipation widely entertained, that as in his private and business life, so also in his Parliamentary career, he shall justify the confidence reposed in him, and be found a worthy representative of the honourable name he bears.
A word or two regarding the multifarious and onerous duties which devolve upon Mr. Tennant, may fitly close this record of a remarkable house, honoured equally with the noblest in the land. Some idea may be formed of the extent of the works belonging to the firm of Charles Tennant & Co., of which he is principal partner, when it is mentioned that they are estimated to cover one hundred and eighty acres of ground, and to absorb about £120,000 of yearly wages. He is owner of an estate in Peebles-shire, and takes a great interest in agriculture. He is also one of the most extensive West Indian planters, his estates producing from eight to nine thousand tons of sugar per annum. He is chairman of the Steel Company of Scotland, situated near Glasgow - an extensive industry, the first of its kind in Scotland - and also of the very successful Tharsis Copper and Sulphur Company.
After this enumeration, surely we cannot withhold from Mr. Tennant our kindliest wishes, that he may be long spared to perform his many duties worthily, and enjoy the reward of his labours in the esteem of his constituents and his fellow-citizens.
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