William was born on 12th September 1823. His baptism and the registration of his birth was witnessed by William Buchanan, who was a member of the Glasgow Educational Society GES); and by James Playfair who, in addition to being a member of GES was also a member of the Glasgow Infant School Society (GISS).[footnote]GROS: Extract of Entries in an Old Parochial Register 162175.[/footnote]He nearly died in infancy through ‘active inflammation of the lungs’,[footnote]Fraser (1868) op cit p. 230.[/footnote]causing his parents great emotional and spiritual distress. ‘We have been visited’, Stow wrote, ‘with a fatherly correction in the near prospect of the loss of our dear and only child, William’.[footnote]Ibid, p. 231.[/footnote]

‘In the family (William) was kind and affectionate – to his parents very strongly attached. As a boy at school, he displayed much energy and activity both of body and of mind. He had great facility in his studies, and variety did not perplex him. In his hours of relaxation, he engaged in games and amusements with all his heart; and on such occasions his ardent and conciliating spirit generally secured for him the place of leader among his companions. His principle of action was to do nothing ‘by halves’.[footnote]Wagner, Rev George. (1852) Short Biographical Sketch attached to the third Farewell Sermon of Rev William Stow, MA, Vicar of Avebury. London: Longman and Co., Paternoster Row, p. 4.[/footnote]

He was a student at Glasgow University from 1837-41:[footnote]Entry in the record of Matriculated Students, 13762, Gulielmus Stow[/footnote]his name, along with those of his two brothers, is recorded in the Matriculation Albums of the University 1728-1858. In the Census of 1841[footnote]Scottish Census 1841[/footnote]he was living at home in Sauchyhall (sic) Street with his parents: his age is given as 18 with a date of birth in 1823. It is not clear what he studied at Glasgow but on December 14^th 1841, he was enrolled as a Pensioner in Peterhouse College, Cambridge, with the intention of studying for the bar, becoming a scholar in 1842.  Wagner states that he was at the top of the list in his first examination and might have distinguished himself in law had he felt not felt it right to devote his energy to studies which bore more directly on the work of the ministry. In 1846, at the age of 23, he graduated from Cambridge University with a Bachelor of Arts to which he added, in 1851, a Master of Arts.[footnote]Cambridge University Alumni 1261-1900[/footnote]

He was ordained in December 1846, and in January, aged 47, was appointed to the first of two curateships at Sherborne, Dorset, by the Rev John Parsons, vicar of the parish.

‘His field of labour consisted of 2600 souls, being half of the whole population. He had generally three services on Sunday, there being three churches to serve; and he added two cottage lectures during the week. He also gave religious instruction to the factory young women; and had a class for preparing the Sunday School teachers to conduct Bible lessons, on the natural and efficient principle developed by his father in ‘The Training System;’ thus leaving only one evening in the week disengaged. At the same time, systematic visiting from house to house made him intimately acquainted with all his parishioners. He continued these abundant labours two years and a quarter, and on his leaving Sherborne, was presented with several public and private testimonials; one from the inhabitants of Sherborne and Castleton, another from the factory girls, who had attended his weekly class, a third from the use of the public Grammar School, and a fourth from the Sunday school teachers, who had attended his ‘Bible training’ class; to which may be added, one to his daughter by the children of the National School.

 He became Parish Curate of Dilton Marsh, Wiltshire from 1848-50.

‘The Manor of Daleton, or Dylton, was formerly a place of note for the manufacture of Broad and Woollen cloths; but is now reduced to a small village. It is situated in the Hundred and Parish of Westbury. Many who read the History of the Church will be in doubt as to the reason why it was built in such a thinly populated district. But when we find that Dilton was formerly, with so many more houses, as well as the large Cloth or Woollen Mills, and a Grist Mill, in full employ, it seems to have been a much more populous place than it now is; and remembering, too, that Dilton Marsh Church was not built till a comparatively recent date, we shall better understand why this church was built; the villagers of Marsh being in the habit of attending the old Church until the erection of the new one in their own village. ‘In connection with Dilton Church there was a well attended Sunday School for the children of Dilton and the district round.’[footnote]Burford, James. (1861) The History of Old Dilton Church, Westbury, Wiltshire. Westbury: W. Michael.[/footnote]

 Wagner wrote ‘In March, 1849, (William) entered upon the incumbency of Dilton’s Marsh, Wiltshire, a widely-extended and neglected parish, to which he had been presented by Bishop of Salisbury. In the morning of the day, on which he entered on his public duties, 15 persons only attended Divine worship; at the evening service 40 were present; and, in the course of two or three months, the church, which holds 700, became well filled. Here, also, he added a third service, re-established the Sunday schools on an improved basis, and organised two day schools at great expense and labour, on the ‘Moral Training System,’ which he in general visited daily; and gave two evening lectures during the week, one in the church, and one in a small hamlet, 3 miles distant from his house. His cottage and Sunday evening lectures were generally delivered from notes. The morning sermons were uniformly written and read, except on one occasion, which may be deemed worthy of notice’.[footnote]Wagner, op cit, p. 5[/footnote]

William introduced the Training System into the local school at Dilton’s Marsh which received good evaluations in two Reports. Rev E. D. Tinling writes:

‘Dilton’s marsh, Mixed. A mixed (juvenile) school under a master aided by two pupil teachers. Discipline was very good, the Glasgow Training System being tried. The master was trained at Glasgow. He has not yet been long enough in the school to bring his system into full operation. The Rev. W. Stow has lately reorganised his school and introduced the Glasgow training system. No expense or trouble is spared to give the system a fair trial.’[footnote]Quoted Houseman, Robert E. (1933) David Stow, His life and work, 1793-1864. Unpublished thesis for the award of Master of Education, University of Manchester, p. 229.[/footnote]

Rev H. Mosely, inspecting the schools in the counties of Wiltshire and Berkshire, refers to a school at Dilton’s Marsh which was taught by a master from Glasgow and where Stow’s son, William, was incumbent of the parish:

‘It is impossible not to be favourably impressed with the moral aspect of schools conducted on this plan. Children placed under influences so calm, and so humanising as these, for six hours a day, of three or four years of the most impressionable period of their lives, cannot become the same men and women as they would have been under other and less favourable circumstances.’[footnote]Ibid.[/footnote]

Stow’s pride in his son is reflected in a letter to Kay-Shuttleworth, dated Glasgow, December 26^th, 1843, where he discusses the idea of ‘my son’s writing or inspecting schools under the Church of England or Government’ (as a way of filling in time until he was old enough to obtain a curacy).

‘As to the idea of my son’s visiting or inspecting Schools under the Church of England or Government, it is chiefly to get employment in a way suited to his task. The fact is he cannot occupy the office of Curate in a parish for two years being only 21 years of age & he wishes to be employed not so much for support for he has some property of his own & I am willing to assist farther, but I think his being actively employed professionally might be of service to himself and to the public. Although young he is very mature in judgment, prudence & management as much so as most young men of 26 or 27 years of age. Even a year ago when at home during his University vacation & I ill at home he took my place as Superintendent in the Normal Seminary & while he pleased & maintained a good feeling with the Masters he kept all in order conducting the Strangers & explaining the System.’[footnote]Dated by Houseman, op cit. p. 297[/footnote]

William eventually succeeded to the vicarage of Avebury with Winterbourne-Monkton in September 1851, through the offices of the Marquis of Lansdowne, a friend of his father. [footnote]Letter from David Stow to Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, dated December 26th, 1843. Now among the Shuttleworth manuscripts. Quoted Houseman, op. cit. p. 298.[/footnote] A Fire Insurance policy of 1783 shows that there was a Charity School in Avebury at that time.[footnote]Wiltshire and Swindon History and Archives Office, Chippenham[/footnote] A School Inspection Report [footnote]Ibid.[/footnote]of April 27^th, 1877, states that the National School was built in 1844-49. It was a Church of England School attached to a school house but without internal communications. It was also used as a Sunday School but without any alteration of the desks or other furniture. The teacher was Henrietta Higgins, born January 19^th, 1843. She was appointed to the school on September 30^th, 1876. She was previously a pupil-teacher at the Girls’ School, Penkridge, Staffordshire. The original teacher at the Wesleyan School at Penkridge was trained at the Glasgow Normal Seminary. The report of the 6^th August, 1877 states that ‘The Certificate awarded to Mrs Higgins under Article 59 will shortly be issued.’

The common interest in education shared by father and son must have deepened the sorrow caused by William’s illness and then death on April 23rd, 1852 at the age of twenty-eight. Wagner writes: ‘In February, 1850, he was seized with pleurisy whilst conducting the morning service, and was confined to his bed several weeks. He has weakened frame required a long rest, and he therefore secured the services of a curate the 12 months, and retired to Scotland. In the following winter another illness ensued, which led him to Brighton. In September, 1851, he left Brighton, and entered upon his duties as vicar (of Avebury) early in December last, and was only permitted to preach twice in each church, and to call upon some of his parishioners, when it please God completely and finally to lay him aside by congestion of the lungs. In March, 1851, he resigned his incumbency, and took leave of his parishioners in an earnest and affectionate printed address’[footnote]Wagner, George. (1852) Farewell sermon by the late Rev William Stow London: Longman. The sermon was delivered in St Stephen’s Church, Brighto, by the then incumbent, on November 23, 1851 with a short biographical sketch, ‘addressed to the parishioners of Avebury and Monkton by the incumbent of St Stephen’s, Brighton’. [/footnote]

Stow wrote to his son from Glasgow on March 11th, 1852, the day of the baptism of ‘dear little Charles George’, referring to Charles’ brother and sister. His final letters to his son, written daily, and recorded verbatim by Fraser, are deeply religious in emotion and Biblical detail.

A few hours before his departure, William calmly delivered at Bible to each of his three children, making a pencil mark by way of distinction, and requesting his father to write their names in them, as a ‘gift from a dying father with his blessing’.

William died at 13, Hans Place Chelsea, on 22nd April, 1852 at the age of 28.[footnote]Ibid and England and Wales Death Index 1837-1983, p. 196.[/footnote] He is buried in Avebury Churchyard.[footnote]Confirmed by Houseman (p. 297) from the Parish Church Register and visited by Glenda A. White.[/footnote] The gravestone is to the left of the church door and reads:

Rev William Stow
Vicar of Avebury
Died 22^nd April 1852
In his 29^th year.

The remainder of the inscription is indecipherable but appears to mention that he was the husband of Catherine, his children, and that he was the son of David Stow. A text, including the words ‘who believe that’ is at the bottom of the stone.

William married Catherine Bannister[footnote]Scott.(1888) op cit, Family Tree.[/footnote] and had three children: William David, Charles George (as above) and Marion. (Stow’s first wife was ‘Marion’.) A ‘Catherine Stow’ was staying with the Bannister family on the night of the 1851 Census.[footnote]English Census 1851.[/footnote]

William and Catherine had three children:

• Marion Catherine Stow (1846-1876)
• David William Stow ((1850 – 1880)
• Charles George Stow (1852-1852)

Marion and David received £4,000 between them from Stow’s will plus £1,000 already paid to William and Catherine, plus the share of the property from Elizabeth MacArthur. The interest from this was payable as required for their education and clothing.

Marion Catherine Stow married James Chancellor (1830-1889), a clergyman, and they had one child, Wilfred George Chancellor who was born in 1876 and died in 1935. He married Jessie Elizabeth (b. 1878) in 1909 and they had a son, Alexander Chancellor in 1909. On 22^nd September 1924, Alexander sailed to Southampton from Buenos Aires, Argentina. On 15^th May 1951 he arrived at Liverpool from Bombay, India. No other information has been traced.

William Stow officiated at the weddings of:

• his brother David George Stow and Jessie Smith, 25^th June, 1850
• his cousin John Wilson Wilson (sic) and Mary Wilson Boyce on 4^th September 1849 in St Peter’s Church, Dublin

As a footnote, after William’s death, Catherine remarried a William Burnley and settled in Edinburgh. He was thirteen years older than Catherine, and a West India Merchant. A ‘Marion Stow’, his stepdaughter, and William D. Stow, his stepson, are with them in the Scottish Census for 1861. Emily and Georgina Bannister are also shown as Sisters-in-Law. Catherine died of peritonitis in Dunoon on 23^rd October 1866 aged 42. Since William Burnley lived to 1903 it is tempting to suppose that Stow offered her his Lodge in  Dunoon when she became ill.

Though devoid of those striking incidents which interest while they instruct the reader, the record of Mr Stow’s life may be of some practical value as an exposition…of the beneficial changes which an original and independent thinker may effect in any department of philanthropy to which his energies may be persistently directed.

Memoir of the life of David Stow (1868)
William Fraser

David Stow was born, conspicuously, on 17th May 1793: a plaque erected by the Educational Institute of Scotland a century later, and now on the corner of Stow and Causeyside Streets in Paisley, Renfrewshire, proclaims the fact.[footnote]The plaque is well placed for, contrary to supposition, Stow was born at 125 Causeyside. The family did not move to Stow Place until about 1827 by which time Stow was living in Glasgow: Paisley Post Office Directories.[/footnote]

Indubitably, therefore, Stow was Scottish by birth. He was educated at The English School and the Grammar School both in Paisley.[footnote]Both the English School (so called because the medium of teaching was English rather than Gaelic) the Grammar School, were situated very close to the High Church, now referred to as Paisley Abbey. In Stow’s time The English School was on Oakshaw Street while the Grammar School, the third to be built, was on Church Hill. (National Library of Scotland Renfrew Sheet XII.2 (Abbey, Middlechurch, High Church and Low Church) Survey date: 1858 Publication date: 1864. Stow would have attended its replacement on Church Hill.[/footnote]

He lived all his life in Glasgow, owning many properties in the city, and he died at Bridge of Allan on 6th November, 1864. He was a silk merchant and subsequently manufacturer of worsted carpets, owning warehouses and providing employment on the south side of the City. He was also a landowner leaving, at his death, more by way of property [footnote]Amount of the Estate situated in Scotland England and Ireland given up in the Inventory recorded in the Commissary Books of Lanarkshire upon this 4th Day of August 1865: £24,022.15.1[/footnote]than stocks and shares in his carpet factory. [footnote]Stock in the Port Eglinton Spinning Company to the last docqueted (sic) and signed balance of the Company’s Books and affairs taken on the 30th June 1864 in terms of the Contract of Co-partnership of the Company: £21,676.5.8[/footnote]

He was an active member of the Church of Scotland being a deacon of the Tron Church, and an elder in St John’s and St Margaret’s Parish Churches. Following the ‘disruption’ of the Church of Scotland, he was one of the four founders of St Margaret’s Free Church in Elmbank Street, Glasgow. He stood for election to Glasgow City Council and was a Director of the ‘Scottish Provident Institution’ in Edinburgh. All his five children were born in Scotland, as was his second wife and most of his grandchildren. He was familiar with the Glasgow dialect.[footnote]Stow, David. (1860) Granny and Leezy: a Scottish dialogue. 6th ed. Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts. [/footnote]

He was closely associated with the establishment of infant, juvenile and senior schools and the foundation of two colleges for the training of teachers, all in Glasgow. His experiences formed the basis of his educational writings, often referred to as the ‘Glasgow’ or ‘Scottish’ System. He, and several members of his immediate family, are buried in the Gorbals cemetery.

Yet aspects of his life suggest that his English roots were also significant. David’s father, William Stow, was a bankrupt’s son, probably fleeing to Paisley in 1778-9, about fourteen years before David was born. Although by then domiciled in Scotland, William still enrolled his four sons [footnote]John, David, William and Matthew: Roll of the Freemen of the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed 1800-1899, Berwick-upon-Tweed archives, index.[/footnote]as a Freemen in the city of Berwick-upon-Tweed[footnote]Roll of the Freemen of the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, op cit, p. 30.[/footnote]carrying on a family tradition of nearly two hundred years. Stow owned a house, Melkington Lodge, in Dunoon named after the family estates in England. When his father moved north, a significant uncle, also named David, remained in Berwick, along with at least two grandparents, eight other uncles and aunts and thirteen nephews and nieces. Stow’s first wife came from Islington. Stow’s eldest son, William, named after his grandfather, chose to move to England, where he married, where his three children were born and where he died. The two surviving grandchildren, though brought up by a step-father in Scotland, died in England. Stow’s second son, John Fairbairn, died in Southend. After Stow’s death, his third and remaining son, David George, and his family of eleven children moved to London. Many of the family occasions – births, baptisms, marriages and deaths – thus took place in England. Furthermore, Stow had regular business dealings in London and was in partnership with his two brothers, William Fenwick Stow and Matthew Kenyon-Stow, who were both merchants in Leeds. If it helps to define who Stow was we should probably consider his family as Anglo-Scottish, domiciled in Scotland for three generations only.

The family origins in Berwick-upon Tweed

Stow considered that his family originated in County Durham and William Fraser, his first biographer, states as much. [footnote](1868), op cit, p. 5.[/footnote]While strictly true at the time of his birth, a parliamentary change in county boundaries during Stow’s lifetime placed the family estate firmly in Norhamshire, Northumberland, an alteration which has confused biographers ever since! Stow’s forbears held a large house and lands at Melkington, Cornhill-on-Tweed, just across the river from Coldstream. Almost certainly an earlier David Stow (1653-1733) purchased the Melkington Estate since he is the first to be referred to as ‘David Stow of Melkington’.[footnote]Ibid.[/footnote]The house, now a listed building, still stands on rising ground just outside Cornhill-on-Tweed. A serious fire is known to have occurred on December 23rd 1718 [footnote]Scott, John. (1888) op cit. ‘On December 23rd 1718 a disastrous fire occurred at Melkington, which would have been much more serious if there at not been appliances at hand to extinguish it’.[/footnote]but the building survived to be passed, unusually, to the second son George (1684-1767). He presumably occupied the home with his wife Sarah and their four children, the eldest of whom was Fenwick, Stow’s grandfather (1716-1782).

The Melkington Estate gave the Stow family considerable prestige and status in the Parish of Norham and beyond. Families of Temples, Lundies, Blakes, Comptons, Selbys, Watsons and Fosters were all inter-linked with the Stows by marriage, connecting the lands of Norham, Twizeldale, Allerdean, Tillmouth and Ford. [footnote]The Castles at Twizeldale, Norham and Ford are all still in existence, while Tillmouth is now a Country House Hotel.[/footnote]

Apart from their Estates, the families appeared to dabble in any entrepreneurial activities offered by improvements in transport and communication. Various members of these families rose in the ranks of the army, navy, civil service and church. [footnote]Francis Temple (1770-1863), for example, became a Rear Admiral as did David Stow (1754-1825), Stow’s uncle; the Temple family eventually produced two Archbishops of Canterbury. The first, Frederick Temple, erstwhile principal of Kneller College was Stow’s fourth cousin. David Stow (1728) was a lieutenant in the 24th Regiment of Foot; Nicolas Stow (1756) was a Salt Officer for the Excise in Edinburgh, etc.[/footnote]

Indeed, the church was the focal point for the baptisms, marriages, and burials of many of these families – and inevitably of business also. The Stows, ignoring the large, imposing ‘St Helen’s Parish Church’ on their doorstep drove thirteen miles in the opposite direction to worship at the Commonwealth Church of the Holy Trinity. William Stow-Lundie erected a gallery over the portal to provide the family with sufficient seats [footnote]Scott, John (1888) op cit, p. 367.[/footnote]and numerous Stows are buried in the most prominent tomb in the churchyard.

This church, of course, was situated in the prosperous town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. While Coldstream was the nearest large village to Cornhill, being but a mile and a half away compared with the thirteen miles to Berwick, the Tweed here defines the English-Scottish border and, in any case, was not bridged until 1767. Perhaps more importantly, Berwick offered far greater facilities, especially for merchants. The expansive river mouth provided safe harbour; the bridge [footnote]The ‘Old Bridge’ or ‘Berwick Bridge’ was built in 1611. Originally it linked the Norhamshire district of the County Palatinate of Durham to the county burgh of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Of Berwick’s famous bridges, the railway bridge or the ‘Royal Border Bridge’, was built in 1850; and the third, ‘The Royal Tweed’, in 1925.[/footnote]spanning the river allowed easy access north and south; the military were barracked in the town ensuring a degree of stability; and the Spittal Head, promenades along the broad sea walls, and spacious and cobbled town streets attracted wealthy, leisured families. Berwick was the ideal situation for business.

The Stow family was clearly part of a small group of merchants who organised and possibly controlled Berwick-upon-Tweed for over two hundred years. They bought, rented and sold property, particularly on Holy Island; engaged in the shipping trade; and speculated audaciously before the banking (or bankruptcy) systems had been formalised. The names of the freemen, aldermen and mayors give a fair indication of the influence of these families who dominated the politics and social life of the town. The list includes, for example, David Stow (1653-1733) who was mayor for three years from 1701; Stow’s great grandfather who was mayor in 1721; and Fenwick Stow, his grandfather, who in addition to being a Justice of the Peace was mayor on four occasions after which David Stow, Stow’s uncle, took office six times.

The move to Paisley

This lifestyle of wealth and influence was to end abruptly.

[footnote]Although most biographers consider that Stow was born into a wealthy, substantial family, cf., Sir Joshua Fitch (1898), in fact he was born above a warehouse, the grandson of a bankrupt.[/footnote]Within three years of inheriting Melkington, Fenwick Stow, Stow’s grandfather, ran into financial difficulties. In the summer of 1767, hearing that there had been crop failures in Spain and Italy, he ordered substantial quantities of wheat and rye from America for onward sale. This venture left him short of £5,000, probably because of the loss of the ships ‘The Charming Jennet’ and ‘The Mary John’ in Lisbon. [footnote]Folio 108: W.H. Lyttleton to Messrs. Fenwick & Blake Stow. Will take up the case of his ships the Charming Jennet and Mary John, and the forced sale of their cargoes of wheat at Lisbon in 1764. Hay has given him copies of the relevant papers. Date and place: 1768 Jan 17 Lisbon. The National Archives SP 89/92/20 (part of document SP 89/92)[/footnote]

At all events, by the following year (1768), despite pledging the Melkington Estate against the loan, he was declared bankrupt [footnote]Curiously, Stow’s grand-daughter, Agnes Graham Stow, was declared bankrupt in 1901 making Stow the grandson and the grandfather of bankrupts: ‘Closed record in multipoinding and exoneration (1901) Stow and others, Trustees of the late David Stow against Agnes Graham Stow or Silvester and others.’[/footnote]

Although this was announced in 1768, the legalities dragged on until 1778 when the Estate was sold. Fenwick sought sanctuary within the Abbey of Holyrood in Edinburgh – a right enjoyed by insolvent debtors and Berwick-upon-Tweed being then within the diocese of Holyrood. [footnote]‘From very early times there had been a right of sanctuary within the Abbey of Holyrood, extending to all the precincts of the Palace and the full extent of the Royal park; more recently this right was enjoyed only by insolvent debtors. A group of plain old houses, called St Ann’s Yards, which stood on ground now within the enclosure was their principal retreat.’ From Crawford, Thomas, ed. (1997) The Correspondence of James Boswell and William Johnson Temple 1756-1795. Vol. 1. Yale: Yale University Press.[/footnote]

Perhaps, as well as escaping the law, he was also glad to evade those who had lent him the capital for his ventures. William Johnstone Temple, for example, lost the £1100 which Anne Stow, his wife and cousin of Fenwick, had invested in the scheme. Temple was eventually forced to sell his lands at Allerdean as a result.[footnote]Inadvertently, the Temple’s debts contributed to James Boswell’s, financial difficulties.[/footnote]

After any settlement, according to Fraser, Fenwick Stow’s remaining money was divided between at least two of his sons – William, Stow’s father and David, Stow’s uncle. Fenwick continued to live at a small farmhouse, ‘Greystonelees’, which still exists five miles north of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Its situation just within Scotland [footnote]Precisely 2.5 miles across the border.[/footnote]is probably significant, being outwith further pursuance by the law.

Fenwick Stow’s bankruptcy thus split up the family. All Stow’s aunts and uncles remained in Berwick along with the offspring of, by 1800, exceedingly numerous relations. [footnote]Many of these have been traced: by the end of the nineteenth century formal records of births, marriages and deaths, many available online, contribute to a very comprehensive family tree.[/footnote]

The Stows had large families and the branches of the family tree become increasingly expansive – but always throughout England. It is unlikely that Stow re-visited Melkington, yet his will states that he owned a ‘Melkington Lodge’ in Dunoon; and in 1844, sixty-six years after the Estate was sold, Stow’s nephew (his brother, Matthew’s, son) was baptised ‘Frederick Melkington’. It can surely be assumed that Stow would visit his Uncle David who, after a long and successful career in the navy, retired at the rank of Rear Admiral and settled in Berwick-upon-Tweed fulfilling many duties as a magistrate, including laying the foundation stone of the lighthouse. His uncle did not die until 1826 when Stow would be 33. Stow is named as a Trustee of his uncle’s will and was present in Berwick-upon-Tweed when it was signed.[footnote]Public Record Office of England and Wales: David Stow’s (1754-1826) will.[/footnote]

The uncle was also named as a Trustee in his father’s will.[footnote]William Stow’s will.[/footnote]Fenwick’s bankruptcy had other implications. When William headed north to Paisley,[footnote]The reason for choosing Paisley is currently unknown. However, the monumental inscriptions of Paisley High Kirkyard’ record the death and plot of a Thomas Grieve and children, 19th February, 1813. (Mitchell, J. F. and S. (eds.). Renfrewshire Monumental Inscriptions pre-1855, Vol. 2), and the upper flats at the back of William’s tenement were built by a Henry Grieve. (William Stow’s will). Since the Grieves were a distinguished dynasty in Berwick-upon-Tweed, William may simply have moved to Paisley to be near an old family friend.[/footnote] in 1779 at the age of 25, he was the eldest son of a bankrupt. There he met Agnes Smith,[footnote]Agnes Smith, 1753-1836, daughter of William Smith and Elizabeth Main, b. 1733. General Register of Scotland (GROS) baptismal, marriage and death certificates certificates.[/footnote]whom he married on 19th April 1783.[footnote]GROS op cit.[/footnote]

They had ten children of whom David was the fifth and second son. Despite William becoming a Provost and Magistrate in the town, the family was always comfortably off rather than wealthy. Stow was born and brought up in a thread and cotton warehouse rather than the more expansive lands of a Northumberland Estate. Indeed, his father became increasingly anxious about his financial affairs as the value of property slumped and the silk trade foundered. Codicils to his will refer to his mounting anxiety over the fate of his four unmarried daughters. He makes provision for his wife to have ‘privilege of access’ to ‘the necessary’ (that is, access to the outside toilet); he instructs his family to ‘live together in the cheapest way’ and the furniture, bed linen and plate are left, first to his daughters and then, when his brother in Berwick provides for them,[footnote]GROS op cit, David Stow’s (1854-1826) will.[/footnote]to his two younger sons. Although William left about £5000, much of that was owed to him by members of his family, probably in property. Cash-in-hand, amounting to £398, had to be shared out among his wife and nine surviving children. It seems a far cry from Melkington. Nor were his children much better off. His eldest son, John, left about £741 including debts owed to him and the gold watch he inherited from his Uncle David in Berwick. Interestingly, Stow, his brother’s executor, refers to ‘The deceased (being) likewise possessed of funds in Canada amounting to about Five thousand, five hundred pounds but the particulars cannot at present be precisely stated’ which may well be the money still owed to his grandfather Fenwick, and which should have descended to first William and then his son, John. The four surviving unmarried daughters – Elizabeth, Mary, Margery, and Margaret – lived all their lives at 5, Stow Place, Paisley, existing on the rent from the furnished flat next door. Each of their wills, while leaving small sums to charity, ensures that the life-rent of the two houses passed to the surviving sister(s). In 1853, David, as the eldest surviving male, successfully established his right to the houses. [footnote]Decennial Indexes to the Services of Heirs in Scotland. Vol.4. 1830-59, p. 175. However, they are not particularised in the inventory of his will. Either they were sold or they have been included in the ‘Additional Inventory’ of 1866 which added £24,022 to the original inventory.[/footnote]Elizabeth, the last sister to go, left her remaining estate to William Fenwick and Matthew, her two brothers – but not, interestingly, to her third surviving brother. By that time, David had money of his own.

Stow’s early life

Very little is known of Stow’s early life. He started his education at the English School[footnote]The Paisley Directory for 1812-13 when William Bell was the teacher. The Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Vol. XVII. London: Charles Knight and Co. 1840, p. 148, notes there was also a Burgh School.[/footnote]

‘I remember being taught English reading in a parochial school in which were children of the weaver, the mechanic, the chief magistrate of the town, the clergyman, and the merchants, sitting in the same class and learning the same lessons’. [footnote](1836) The Training System, op cit, 3rd ed., p. 14.[/footnote]

Fraser notes that later he attended Paisley Grammar School regularly and received an ‘ordinary English and classical education given in such institutions to pupils of his rank, and he held an honourable place in all his classes’. [footnote](1868) op cit., p. 7.[/footnote]

Fraser’s description of Stow continues: ‘A fair-haired and beautiful boy, quick in the glance of his eye, and with a countenance of highly intellectual caste, he delighted rather to observe the amusements of his companions and witness their happiness, than to mingle with them’ [footnote]Ibid, p. 8; and p. 227. Stow comments on his own aloofness in a letter to Thomas Chalmers. ‘I am aware that my general manners to my Pastors may have appeared distant’: Letter dated 1st December, 1823.[/footnote]

The school Stow would have attended was the third to be built on the same site. It was newly opened on Church Hill in 1802, when Stow was nine. ‘The lower floor was used for the school, while the upper floor was the Rector’s house. The only drawback was the lack of playground but otherwise no expense was spared in its construction’.[footnote]Even by Stow’s time here had been two previous schools. The original was built in 1576 probably on the site of the Chapel of Saint Nicholas in School Wynd. This school was rebuilt on the same site in 1753. In 1802, the school a larger school was built in Church Hill. Paisley Grammar School website http://www.paisley-gs.renfrewshire.sch.uk/ 10 July, 2015, National Library of Scotland Renfrew Sheet XII.2, op cit.[/footnote]

Stow was later to write disparagingly of the education he received, contrasting the dull, mechanical repetition of meaningless words with his own methods. His later insistence on the importance of ‘the uncovered classroom’ (the playground) may have been prompted by personal experience. He also opted to have the Rector’s house above the school in his own plans.

The move to Glasgow

Stow probably left school at the age of fourteen when at least some of his peers would go on to university. Instead, he worked at a loom,[footnote]Children’s Employment Commission. (1843) Second Report of the Commissioners. Trades and manufactures. para. 183. He employed a five-year-old ‘Draw-boy’ even at this age.[/footnote]either with his father or his eldest brother, both of whom had premises in Causeyside Street. [footnote]William Stow, his father, at 165 and John, his brother, at 125 Causeyside Street: The Paisley Directory containing a list of the merchants, manufacturers, Trades in the town and suburbs, corrected till 1812.[/footnote]

In 1811, however, at the age of eighteen, Stow was ‘extensively engaged with a commercial firm’[footnote](1868) op cit, p.12.[/footnote]

in Glasgow. The move to Glasgow could suggest that there was no room for another son in the family business in Paisley, or that Stow was sent to the industrial capital to extend the business, or that the demise of the silk industry in Paisley was already becoming apparent,[footnote]In the case of Dick V. Stow and Pollock (1809) in which William Stow sued Dick for payment of £39, Stow was unable to pay Dick £7, as suggested by the magistrate to simplify matters because ‘he had not the wherewithal’. David Dick v. William Stow for behoof of Stow and Pollock (1815) National Archives of Scotland CS271/50912 and CS271/50945[/footnote]or simply that since his sister Anne had married into the silk trade, there was an obvious position available for her brother in her husband’s firm.[footnote]John Wilson was Stow’s eldest sister’s husband. He was born in 1770 and is described as a silk merchant, as was his father, Lorrain(e) Wilson. He and Ann married on 17th August 1807 in the Low Church, Paisley, when he was 37 and she was 23. Their first child, also Lorraine Wilson, was born in 1810 and seven children followed. John and Anne lived in at 2 South Wellington Place in the Gorbals and David, who also lived in the Gorbals when he first went to Glasgow, might well have been their lodger.[/footnote]

The firm he joined was Wilson, Hervey and Co., situated at 115, Trongate. The Wilsons and the Herveys were clearly friends as well as partners. John Hervey, along with John Stow (Stow’s brother), witnessed the registration of the Wilson’s second child.[footnote]John Hervey’s daughter, Barbara, married another silk merchant in Glasgow also, confusingly, named John Wilson, whose business eventually moved to Cumberland Street, along the road from ‘The Port Eglinton Spinning Company’ see below.[/footnote]

Fraser refers to Stow, at this time, as a clerk in a counting house but by 1817, both Stow and Wilson had become partners in the firm of Wilson, Stow and Company and, according to the records of the Burgesses and Guild Brethren of Glasgow, admitted as Burgesses:
‘Stow, David, merchant, one of the partners of Wilson, Stow and Company, silk merchants, 115, Trongate, (admitted Burgess and Guild Brother by purchase – August 11th, 1817’. [footnote]Burgesses and Guild Brethren of Glasgow 1751-1846, Vol. 2 Edinburgh 1935 p. 304.[/footnote]

(For more about Stow’s working life see ‘Stow’s Business Interests’.)

Stow’s family life

At the age of 28, Stow married Marion (or Maryanne) Sarah Freebairn, on March 12th 1822 in St Mary’s Church, Islington (although the marriage was also registered in Scotland). Fraser [footnote]Ibid p. 229; see also the letter from Thomas Chalmers to David Stow on the death of his wife, dated August 6th 1831, quoted Fraser, p. 238.[/footnote]describes her as ‘a young lady of decided piety, highly accomplished, and of great personal attraction’.[footnote]Stow’s grandson, David Frederick Stow, also married a ‘Freebairn – Adelaide Millicent Blanche Freebairn – perhaps another example of keeping things in the family?[/footnote]

David and Marion had five children: William, Sarah, John Freebairn, David George, and Agnes. William was born on 12th September 1823. His baptism and the registration of his birth was witnessed by James Playfair, who was a member both of the Glasgow Infant School Society (GISS)[footnote]GROS. Extract of entries in an Old Parochial Register.  [/footnote]and the Glasgow Educational Society (GES), and by William Buchanan, similarly a member of GES. William nearly died in infancy through ‘active inflammation of the lungs’,[footnote]Fraser (1868) op cit, p. 230.[/footnote]causing his parents great emotional and spiritual distress. ‘We have been visited’, Stow wrote, ‘with a fatherly correction in the near prospect of the loss of our dear and only child, William’.[footnote]Ibid, p. 231.[/footnote]William, however, survived to adulthood. He became a student at Glasgow University from 1837-41:[footnote]Entry in the record of Matriculated Students, 13762, Gulielmus Stow.[/footnote]his name, along with those of his two brothers, is recorded in the Matriculation Albums of the University 1728-1858. In the Census of 1841,[footnote]Scottish Census 1841.[/footnote]when he was 18, he was living at home in Sauchyhall (sic) Street but by December 14th 1841, he was enrolled as a Pensioner in Peterhouse College, Cambridge, becoming a scholar in 1842. In 1846, at the age of 23, he graduated from Cambridge University with a Bachelor of Arts to which he added, in 1851, a Master of Arts.[footnote]Cambridge University Alumni 1261-1900.[/footnote]

He became Curate in Sherborne, Dorset in 1848, Parish Curate of Dilton Marsh, Wiltshire from 1848-50, and eventually succeeded to the vicarage of Avebury with Winterbourne-Monkton in 1850 through the offices of the Marquis of Lansdowne, a friend of his father. [footnote]Letter from David Stow to Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, dated December 26th, 1843. Now among the Shuttleworth manuscripts. Quoted Houseman, op. cit. p. 298.[/footnote]

It was William who often replaced his father at the Normal Seminary when on vacation, and during his father’s illness: ‘He pleased and maintained a good feeling with the masters, he kept all in order conducting the strangers and explaining the system’.[footnote]Letter from David Stow to Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, dated December 26th, 1843.[/footnote]

He introduced Stow’s system into the parish school while at Dilton Marsh in Wiltshire, which received a glowing inspector’s report. Stow’s pride in his son is reflected in a letter to Kay-Shuttleworth, dated Glasgow, December 26th, 1843, [footnote]Ibid.[/footnote]where he discusses the idea of ‘my son’s writing or inspecting schools under the Church of England or Government’ as a way of filling in time until he was old enough to obtain a curacy. The common interest in education shared by father and son must have deepened the suffering caused by William’s death on April 23rd, 1852 at the age of twenty-eight. During his illness, Stow wrote daily to his son including March 11th 1852, the day of the baptism of ‘dear little Charles George’, his grandson. His final letters, recorded verbatim by Fraser, in which he expounds Biblical exegesis, are profoundly emotional and devotional. William died at 13, Hans Place Chelsea, on 22nd April, 1852 surrounded by his father, his wife and his three children to whom he gave a Bible each, with a request that they be signed by their grandfather. [footnote]England and Wales Death Index 1837-1983, p196; and Fraser, op cit, p.267[/footnote]

His time at Avebury is attractively recorded in the Record of Vicars beside the chancel and he is buried in the graveyard just outside the church door. His gravestone records that he was the husband of Catherine and son of David Stow and concludes with a partly obliterated text.

William had married Catherine Bannister [footnote](1888) op cit, enclosed family tree.[/footnote]and had three children: Marion, Charles George (as above) and William David. After William’s death, Catherine remarried, a William Burnley, and settled in Edinburgh. Burnley was thirteen years older than Catherine, and a West India Merchant. The Scottish Census for 1861 records Marion Stow, his stepdaughter, and William D. Stow, his stepson. ‘Dear little Charles George’ died in infancy, but Stow had his remaining two grandchildren near him in Edinburgh. He made a contribution to their education and left them a total of £5,000 in his will.[footnote]They also inherited property from Stow’s second wife. Unfortunately Marion died at the age of 28 and David at the age of 30 which does suggest that there was a congenital weakness in a[/footnote]

Stow’s second child, Sarah Rebecca Stow, was born on 23rd July, 1825. Her baptism and the registration of her birth were witnessed by John Wilson, Stow’s brother-in-law and Partner in the business; and by James Playfair described above. [footnote]GROS, op cit, [/footnote]

The English Census for 1841 records a ‘Sarah Stow’ who was born in Scotland and was now at school in Euston Square, St Pancras, and since there is no record of a ‘Sarah Stow’ in the Scotland Census for 1841, although her parents and brothers are all mentioned, it seems likely that this is Stow’s daughter. A letter written by Stow to his children on December 31st, 1840 ‘See that you three unite together in prayer’ [footnote]Fraser (1868) op cit. p. 244.[/footnote]also suggests that one of the four surviving children was not at home. In 1873, at the age of 48, she suffered the first recorded attack of what was probably some form of bi-polar disorder although her condition was diagnosed as ‘insane’. She was admitted to Dr Winslow’s private asylum, Brandenburgh House, in St Pancras, London.[footnote]Asylum Report 1867, Twenty Second Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy to the Lord Chancellor.[/footnote]

They had ‘59 patients, 39 male and 20 female, the patients in the most part belong to the middle and upper classes, and the payments are generally liberal’. Sarah appears to have been required to leave Dr Winslow’s asylum for financial reasons. [footnote]It is difficult to account for Sarah’s financial difficulties since she inherited the life-rent on Ashfield House, which was later sold for £19,000.[/footnote]

The second recorded attack took place in January 1884: two months later she was admitted to Glasgow Royal Asylum at Gartnavel by her nephew, David Frederick Stow of Greenvale, Dunbarton. Her next of kin is recorded as David George Stow, her brother, of 17, Springfield Road, St Leonards, Surrey. He stood surety for her fees as a private patient. She was recorded as ‘of unsound mind and a proper Patient to be placed in an Asylum’. [footnote]Casenotes, Glasgow Royal Lunatic Asylum, Gartnavel.[/footnote]The records show that she was unmarried, and an Anglican which suggests that she spent most of her life in England although she lived in Charlotte Street, Ayr, prior to her admission to Gartnavel Hospital. She died on June 23rd 1886, [footnote]‘Scotland’s People’ Statutory Registers: Deaths 1855-1956.[/footnote]at the age of 60. Her hospital records may simply suggest she suffered from depression or may sum up a sad story.

John Freebairn Stow, the third child, was born in 1827. His baptism was witnessed by John Wilson, as above, and John Stow, Stow’s elder brother. This son also took a degree at Glasgow University and then entered his father’s business. Fraser records that he ‘was becoming by the frankness of his disposition and his integrity in business transactions, a favourite in commercial circles’. [footnote]Fraser (1868) op. cit. p. 270.[/footnote]

He also took part in Sabbath-School teaching and, on his death, a ‘touching tribute was paid by the society of which he was a member’.[footnote]Fraser (1868) op. cit. p. 270.[/footnote]

There seemed ‘nothing ominous’ in John going to Brighton for a holiday, yet ‘Mr. Stow was ‘confounded by the sad announcement that his son was dying’. [footnote]Ibid. p. 270[/footnote]

John died in Brighton on Christmas Eve, 1852 aged 25, just eight months after his elder brother. ‘Mr. Stow’s anguish was intense’.[footnote]Ibid p. 270.[/footnote]

Fortunately, Stow’s third son, David George Stow, outlived him. David George was born on 1st November 1828: his baptism was witnessed by James Playfair and Allan Buchanan, (a member of GISS and joint-founder member, with Stow, of St Margaret’s Free Church of Scotland). As his two brothers before him, David George attended Glasgow University. [footnote]Glasgow University Matriculated Students 1841, p. 438.[/footnote]He is also described as a ‘Worsted Spinner and Carpet Manufacturer’. On 25th June 1850 he married Jessie Crum Smith. In a little bit of family history, the minister officiating at the ceremony was his brother, Rev William Stow, minister of Dilton Marsh in the County of Wiltshire. [footnote]Old Parochial Register, Proclamation of Banns and Marriages: William, also officiated at the wedding of his cousin, John Wilson.[/footnote] Jessie and David George had eleven children, providing Stow with a quiver full of grandchildren of whom he would have known six.

David George and his wife were able, periodically, to offer Stow a home at Bridge of Allan. This son wrote to the Congress of the Educational Institute of Scotland, held at Paisley on 5th January 1893, at which John G. Thomson gave the Centenary Address: ‘Mr. Thomson kindly sent me the handbook-programme, and I need hardly say how deeply I, and all the various members of our family, are interested in the contents thereof and feel intense gratification at the great honour to be paid to the memory of my sainted and revered father’.[footnote]Thomson, John G. Centenary Address delivered before the Congress of the Educational Institute of Scotland, Edinburgh: 1893 p. 21.[/footnote]

David George probably retired after the disastrous fire at his father’s Port Eglinton [footnote]Port Eglinton (and Eglinton Street) were then as spelled here[/footnote]factory in 1874 for he died at Southend, Essex, on 22nd February 1895.

Agnes Stow was born on 10th October 1830 and baptised the following November on the 14th. Both the registration and baptism were witnessed by John Wilson and James Playfair (as above). She died on 26th July 1831 aged nine months and was buried beside her mother and, in the fullness of time, with her father. [footnote]There were four gravestones in the Gorbals’ Cemetery, now unfortunately lost, but recorded by the photographer Thomas Annan, and included in Houseman’s thesis. The central stone names Agnes and David Stow and an unknown third person who was aged 10 years. The stone on the left refers to Stow’s second wife, Elizabeth McArthur. The stone on the right records Marion Stow, his first wife, and John Freebairn Stow, his second son. The stone to the right of this was undecipherable even in Houseman’s time but surely must be Sarah Stow. William Stow, as we have seen, is buried in Avebury. David George is probably buried in Southend.[footnote]

Marion Freebairn and Elizabeth McArthur, his wives; William and John Freebairn, his sons; Charles George, his grandson; John, Elizabeth, Mary, Margaret and Marjorie, his brothers and sisters; John Wilson his brother-in-law; Mary and Marjorie his aunts and David his uncle; and Elfrida Susan and George Herbert his nephew and niece. There may have been more, for example Sarah Wilson who is mentioned in a letter from Stow to Thomas Chalmers as being seriously ill, but searchable death records do not start until 1855.[/footnote]

Stow’s first wife, Marion, died of typhoid on July 30th 1831, nine years after their marriage and four days after the death of their nine month old daughter. At their mother’s death, Stow was left with four children to bring up on his own: William then aged eight, Sarah aged six, John Freebairn aged four and David George aged three [footnote]Fraser. (1868) op cit p. 239, ‘May my four children that are left be dear in Thy sight’.[/footnote]

‘The tempers and dispositions of my children are varied’, writes Stow with a wry smile, ‘and the nature of the provocations, or mutual misconceptions, requires the utmost delicacy on my part, more, indeed than in my own strength I am capable of performing; but I do my best and God has been pleased to bless my endeavours. My children do not always steal, or lie, or quarrel, or fight, or deceive, or exhibit the strong propensity of selfishness’.[footnote](1854) The Training System op cit, 10th ed. p. 44.[/footnote]

And Fraser observes: ‘Happy in the tenderly reciprocated affections of his children, he clung to them with increasing tenacity as the years advanced. To him home was ever a sanctuary, in which he found refuge from the disappointments and cares of life’. [footnote]Fraser (1868) op cit, p. 245.[/footnote]

The ‘cares of life’ were many since although Stow married again, Elizabeth McArthur from Rothesay, in the Barony Parish Church, Glasgow on 9th March, 1841, even this peaceful period was short-lived. Elizabeth died in 1847.

Stow’s character

And what of Stow himself? All the portraits, even that in his old age, illustrate a confident, personable and imposing man with a broad brow and regular features. His success both in business and in education suggests that he was intelligent, strong-minded and resourceful, able both to take the initiative and to cope with the routine grind of seeing projects through to fulfilment. He could be litigious, contesting his own non-election as a councillor [footnote]Adam Menteith and Others, Appellants v. Robert McGavin and Others, Respondents. in ‘The Scottish Jurist (1838) Reports of cases decided in the supreme courts in Scotland and in the House of Lords on appeal from Scotland, Vol. XI’. Edinburgh: Anderson, p. 419.[/footnote]the election of a Glasgow Provost,[footnote]John Fleming, Esq. Town Councillor and claiming to be Provost of the City of Glasgow, Appellent, v. Henry Dunlop, Esq. Town Councillor and claiming to be Provost of the City of Glasgow, Respondent. in ‘The Scottish Jurist (1839) Reports of cases decided in the supreme courts in Scotland and in the House of Lords on appeal from Scotland, Vol. XII’. Edinburgh: Anderson, p. 79. Henry Dunlop was Vice-President of GES and benefactor of both GISS and GES. He was Lord Provost of Glasgow 1837-1840.[/footnote]

and, ironically, the ownership of goods by a bankrupt.[footnote]Inglis v. Port-Eglington Spinning Company 27th Jan. 1842 4 D. 478. V. in Burton, John Hill. The Law of Bankruptcy, Insolvency, and Mercantile Sequestration, in Scotland Edinburgh: William Tait, 1845, pps. 191, 2.[/footnote]

Indeed, his apparent reluctance to speak about his relatives may suggest an embarrassment at being the grandson of a bankrupt, while his lack of a university career may account for his self-importance at times. Fraser describes him as ‘ardent in his temperament, generous, sensitive’. [footnote](1868) op cit, p. vi.[/footnote]

Dr Thomas Morrison, Rector of the Free Church Training College in 1893, who knew Stow from 1852 to 1864, recalled his enthusiasm, earnestness and devotion to work. Morrison described him as ‘gifted with fine sensibility, and a most chivalrous sense of honour, simple as a little child, free from all affectation and generous to a fault’.[footnote]Thomson, op cit, p. 20.[/footnote]

As a writer, Stow could master his arguments logically, although he was much given to the use of repetition for emphasis and self-advancement. The frustration and, sometimes, intolerance, expressed in his writings perhaps reflects his determination and a degree of inflexibility. But he had a lively streak of humour and was able to recount stories of his own experiences with children with flair and amusement.

Despite his love of his educational work, Stow must have been a lonely man. During his life-time he suffered the deaths of seventeen near relatives including two wives, two sons and a daughter, a grandson, a brother and four sisters, a brother-in-law, two aunts and the eponymous uncle, and a nephew and niece. [footnote]Marion Freebairn and Elizabeth McArthur, his wives; William and John Freebairn, his sons; Charles George, his grandson; John, Elizabeth, Mary, Margaret and Marjorie, his brothers and sisters; John Wilson his brother-in-law; Mary and Marjorie his aunts and David his uncle; and Elfrida Susan and George Herbert his nephew and niece. There may have been more, for example Sarah Wilson who is mentioned in a letter from Stow to Thomas Chalmers as being seriously ill, but searchable death records do not start until 1855.[/footnote]

Stow’s double spate of writing falls first between the two marriages, and then after the deaths of his second wife, and his sons – perhaps the loneliest periods of his life. He was also a sick man. After the death of his wife ‘the affliction pressed on him with such weight as to unfit him for a year for his ordinary Sabbath-School and other labours’.[footnote](1868) op cit, p. 237.[/footnote]

In his old age, Fraser records that he was ‘shut out from an active share in the work of the Normal College and spent his time chiefly at Bridge of Allan’, [footnote]This is in accord with the Minutes of the Free Church Normal Seminary (1845-1865) which record that although Stow was still a member of the Committee he did not attend during the last two years of his life.[/footnote]where ‘he was sustained and cheered by the sympathy, affection and tender solitude of his only daughter and his only surviving son’. [footnote]Fraser. (1868) op cit, p.276. It is natural to assume that the daughter was Sarah Rebecca but, given the context, might have been David George’s wife, Stow’s daughter-in-law.[/footnote]

He died on November 6th, 1864 [footnote]Glasgow Daily Herald, November 8th, 1864.[/footnote]

at the age of 71. The death certificate records that he was living in ‘Bombay House’ and that he possibly (‘uncertain’ is recorded) died of softening of the brain and paralysis of the right side.

George Insh Pratt writing in ‘The Life and Work of David Stow’ – the Commemoration lecture to the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow, December 22nd 1937 – noted caustically: ‘The tomb of David Stow (is) crumbling to ruin in the most desolate and deserted corner of the most desolate and deserted burial ground in Glasgow’. He adds, prophetically, in view of the present position. ‘It will not be long, we feel, till the reproach of this crumbling tomb is taken away’.[footnote]Pratt, George Insh. (1938) ‘The Life and Work of David Stow’, address delivered 22nd December 1937 to the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow, Edinburgh 1938. p.15.[/footnote]

In 1938, Robert Houseman, [footnote]Houseman, Robert: ‘The Life and Work of David Stow’. Unpublished M.Ed. Thesis, The John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, 1938.[/footnote]

Stow’s most recent biographer, photographed the Stow family vault in the Old Gorbals Cemetery, Glasgow. This cemetery, situated on Commercial Road, between Old Rutherglen Road and Caledonian Road, still exists although the surrounding area has been extensively redeveloped since Houseman’s time. It is now laid out as a park, and most of the individual headstones are lost or removed. It is a fitting icon of the neglect which the name of David Stow has suffered over the succeeding centuries.

Footnotes

1. The plaque is well placed for, contrary to supposition, Stow was born at 125 Causeyside. The family did not move to Stow Place until about 1827 by which time Stow was living in Glasgow: Paisley Post Office Directories.
2. Both the English School (so called because the medium of teaching was English rather than Gaelic) the Grammar School, were situated very close to the High Church, now referred to as Paisley Abbey. In Stow’s time The English School was on Oakshaw Street while the Grammar School, the third to be built, was on Church Hill. (National Library of Scotland Renfrew Sheet XII.2 (Abbey, Middlechurch, High Church and Low Church) Survey date: 1858 Publication date: 1864. Stow would have attended its replacement on Church Hill.
3. Amount of the Estate situated in Scotland England and Ireland given up in the Inventory recorded in the Commissary Books of Lanarkshire upon this 4th Day of August 1865: £24,022.15.1
4. Stock in the Port Eglinton Spinning Company to the last docqueted (sic) and signed balance of the Company’s Books and affairs taken on the 30th June 1864 in terms of the Contract of Co-partnership of the Company: £21,676.5.8
5. Cf. Stow, David. (1860) Granny and Leezy: a Scottish dialogue. 6th ed. Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts.
6. John, David, William and Matthew: Roll of the Freemen of the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed 1800-1899, Berwick-upon-Tweed archives, index.
7. Roll of the Freemen of the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, op cit, p. 30.
8. Fraser. (1868), op cit, p. 5.
9. Ibid.
10. Scott, John. (1888) op cit. ‘On December 23rd 1718 a disastrous fire occurred at Melkington, which would have been much more serious if there at not been appliances at hand to extinguish it’.
11. The Castles at Twizeldale, Norham and Ford are all still in existence, while Tillmouth is now a Country House Hotel.
12. Francis Temple (1770-1863), for example, became a Rear Admiral as did David Stow (1754-1825), Stow’s uncle; the Temple family eventually produced two Archbishops of Canterbury. The first, Frederick Temple, erstwhile principal of Kneller College was Stow’s fourth cousin. David Stow (1728) was a lieutenant in the 24th Regiment of Foot; Nicolas Stow (1756) was a Salt Officer for the Excise in Edinburgh, etc.
13. Scott, John (1888) op cit, p. 367.
14. The ‘Old Bridge’ or ‘Berwick Bridge’ was built in 1611. Originally it linked the Norhamshire district of the County Palatinate of Durham to the county burgh of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Of Berwick’s famous bridges, the railway bridge or the ‘Royal Border Bridge’, was built in 1850; and the third, ‘The Royal Tweed’, in 1925.
15. Although most biographers consider that Stow was born into a wealthy, substantial family, cf., Sir Joshua Fitch (1898), in fact he was born above a warehouse, the grandson of a bankrupt.
16. Folio 108: W.H. Lyttleton to Messrs. Fenwick & Blake Stow. Will take up the case of his ships the Charming Jennet and Mary John, and the forced sale of their cargoes of wheat at Lisbon in 1764. Hay has given him copies of the relevant papers. Date and place: 1768 Jan 17 Lisbon. The National Archives SP 89/92/20 (part of document SP 89/92)
17. Curiously, Stow’s grand-daughter, Agnes Graham Stow, was declared bankrupt ion 1901 making Stow the grandson and the grandfather of bankrupts: ‘Closed record in multipoinding and exoneration (1901) Stow and others, Trustees of the late David Stow against Agnes Graham Stow or Silvester and others.’
18. ‘From very early times there had been a right of sanctuary within the Abbey of Holyrood, extending to all the precincts of the Palace and the full extent of the Royal park; more recently this right was enjoyed only by insolvent debtors. A group of plain old houses, called St Ann’s Yards, which stood on ground now within the enclosure was their principal retreat.’ From Crawford, Thomas, ed. (1997) The Correspondence of James Boswell and William Johnson Temple 1756-1795. Vol. 1. Yale: Yale University Press.
19. Inadvertently, the Temple’s debts contributed to James Boswell’s, financial difficulties.
20. Precisely 2.5 miles across the border.
21. Many of these have been traced: by the end of the nineteenth century formal records of births, marriages and deaths, many available online, contribute to a very comprehensive family tree.
22. Public Record Office of England and Wales: David Stow’s (1754-1826) will.
23. William Stow’s will.
24. The reason for choosing Paisley is currently unknown. However, the monumental inscriptions of Paisley High Kirkyard’ record the death and plot of a Thomas Grieve and children, 19th February, 1813. (Mitchell, J. F. and S. (eds.). Renfrewshire Monumental Inscriptions pre-1855, Vol. 2), and the upper flats at the back of William’s tenement were built by a Henry Grieve. (William Stow’s will). Since the Grieves were a distinguished dynasty in Berwick-upon-Tweed, William may simply have moved to Paisley to be near an old family friend.
25. Agnes Smith, 1753-1836, daughter of William Smith and Elizabeth Main, b. 1733. General Register of Scotland (GROS) baptismal, marriage and death certificates certificates.
26. GROS op cit.
27. GROS op cit, David Stow’s (1854-1826) will.
28. Decennial Indexes to the Services of Heirs in Scotland. Vol.4. 1830-59, p. 175. However, they are not particularised in the inventory of his will. Either they were sold or they have been included in the ‘Additional Inventory’ of 1866 which added £24,022 to the original inventory.
29. The Paisley Directory for 1812-13 when William Bell was the teacher. The Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Vol. XVII. London: Charles Knight and Co. 1840, p. 148, notes there was also a Burgh School.
30. Stow. (1836) The Training System, op cit, 3rd ed., p. 14.
31. Fraser. (1868) op cit., p. 7.
32. Ibid, p. 8; and p. 227. Stow comments on his own aloofness in a letter to Thomas Chalmers. ‘I am aware that my general manners to my Pastors may have appeared distant’: Letter dated 1st December, 1823.
33. Even by Stow’s time here had been two previous schools. The original was built in 1576 probably on the site of the Chapel of Saint Nicholas in School Wynd. This school was rebuilt on the same site in 1753. In 1802, the school a larger school was built in Church Hill. Paisley Grammar School website http://www.paisley-gs.renfrewshire.sch.uk/ 10 July, 2015, National Library of Scotland Renfrew Sheet XII.2, op cit.
34. Children’s Employment Commission. (1843) Second Report of the Commissioners. Trades and manufactures. para. 183. He employed a five-year-old ‘Draw-boy’ even at this age.
35. William Stow, his father, at 165 and John, his brother, at 125 Causeyside Street: The Paisley Directory containing a list of the merchants, manufacturers, Trades in the town and suburbs, corrected till 1812.
36. Fraser. (1868) op cit, p.12.
37. In the case of Dick V. Stow and Pollock (1809) in which William Stow sued Dick for payment of £39, Stow was unable to pay Dick £7, as suggested by the magistrate to simplify matters because ‘he had not the wherewithal’. David Dick v. William Stow for behoof of Stow and Pollock (1815) National Archives of Scotland CS271/50912 and CS271/50945
38. John Wilson was Stow’s eldest sister’s husband. He was born in 1770 and is described as a silk merchant, as was his father, Lorrain(e) Wilson. He and Ann married on 17th August 1807 in the Low Church, Paisley, when he was 37 and she was 23. Their first child, also Lorraine Wilson, was born in 1810 and seven children followed. John and Anne lived in at 2 South Wellington Place in the Gorbals and David, who also lived in the Gorbals when he first went to Glasgow, might well have been their lodger.
39. John Hervey’s daughter, Barbara, married another silk merchant in Glasgow also, confusingly, named John Wilson, whose business eventually moved to Cumberland Street, along the road from ‘The Port Eglinton Spinning Company’ see below.
40. Burgesses and Guild Brethren of Glasgow 1751-1846, Vol. 2 Edinburgh 1935 p. 304.
41. Ibid p. 229; see also the letter from Thomas Chalmers to David Stow on the death of his wife, dated August 6th 1831, quoted Fraser, p. 238.
42. Stow’s grandson, David Frederick Stow, also married a ‘Freebairn – Adelaide Millicent Blanche Freebairn – perhaps another example of keeping things in the family?
43. GROS. Extract of entries in an Old Parochial Register. See Appendix 2/4: Timeline of General Register of Scotland Searches.
44. Fraser (1868) op cit, p. 230.
45. Ibid, p. 231.
46. Entry in the record of Matriculated Students, 13762, Gulielmus Stow.
47. Scottish Census 1841.
48. Cambridge University Alumni 1261-1900.
49. Letter from David Stow to Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, dated December 26th, 1843. Now among the Shuttleworth manuscripts. Quoted Houseman, op. cit. p. 298.
50. Letter from David Stow to Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, dated December 26th, 1843.
51. Ibid.
52. England and Wales Death Index 1837-1983, p196; and Fraser, op cit, p.267
53. Scott. (1888) op cit, enclosed family tree.
54. They also inherited property from Stow’s second wife. Unfortunately Marion died at the age of 28 and David at the age of 30 which does suggest that there was a congenital weakness in at least two of Stow’s children and two of his grandchildren.
55. GROS, op cit, See Appendix 2/4: Timeline of General Register of Scotland Searches.
56. Fraser (1868) op cit. p. 244.
57. Asylum Report 1867, Twenty Second Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy to the Lord Chancellor.
58. It is difficult to account for Sarah’s financial difficulties since she inherited the life-rent on Ashfield House, which was later sold for £19,000.
59. Casenotes, Glasgow Royal Lunatic Asylum, Gartnavel.
60. ‘Scotland’s People’ Statutory Registers: Deaths 1855-1956.
61. Fraser (1868) op. cit. p. 270.
62. Ibid, p. 272.
63. Ibid. p. 270.
64. Ibid. p. 270.
65. Glasgow University Matriculated Students 1841, p. 438.
66. Old Parochial Register, Proclamation of Banns and Marriages: William, also officiated at the wedding of his cousin, John Wilson.
67. Thomson, John G. Centenary Address delivered before the Congress of the Educational Institute of Scotland, Edinburgh: 1893 p. 21.
68. Port Eglinton (and Eglinton Street) were then as spelled here.
69. There were four gravestones in the Gorbals’ Cemetery, now unfortunately lost, but recorded by the photographer Thomas Annan, and included in Houseman’s thesis. The central stone names Agnes and David Stow and an unknown third person who was aged 10 years. The stone on the left refers to Stow’s second wife, Elizabeth McArthur. The stone on the right records Marion Stow, his first wife, and John Freebairn Stow, his second son. The stone to the right of this was undecipherable even in Houseman’s time but surely must be Sarah Stow. William Stow, as we have seen, is buried in Avebury. David George is probably buried in Southend.
70. Fraser. (1868) op cit p. 239, ‘May my four children that are left be dear in Thy sight’.
71. Stow. (1854) The Training System op cit, 10th ed. p. 44.
72. Fraser (1868) op cit, p. 245.
73. Adam Menteith and Others, Appellants v. Robert McGavin and Others, Respondents. in ‘The Scottish Jurist (1838) Reports of cases decided in the supreme courts in Scotland and in the House of Lords on appeal from Scotland, Vol. XI’. Edinburgh: Anderson, p. 419.
74. John Fleming, Esq. Town Councillor and claiming to be Provost of the City of Glasgow, Appellent, v. Henry Dunlop, Esq. Town Councillor and claiming to be Provost of the City of Glasgow, Respondent. in ‘The Scottish Jurist (1839) Reports of cases decided in the supreme courts in Scotland and in the House of Lords on appeal from Scotland, Vol. XII’. Edinburgh: Anderson, p. 79. Henry Dunlop was Vice-President of GES and benefactor of both GISS and GES. He was Lord Provost of Glasgow 1837-1840.
75. Inglis v. Port-Eglington Spinning Company 27th Jan. 1842 4 D. 478. V. in Burton, John Hill. The Law of Bankruptcy, Insolvency, and Mercantile Sequestration, in Scotland Edinburgh: William Tait, 1845, pps. 191, 2.
76. Fraser. (1868) op cit, p. vi.
77. Thomson, op cit, p. 20.
78. Marion Freebairn and Elizabeth McArthur, his wives; William and John Freebairn, his sons; Charles George, his grandson; John, Elizabeth, Mary, Margaret and Marjorie, his brothers and sisters; John Wilson his brother-in-law; Mary and Marjorie his aunts and David his uncle; and Elfrida Susan and George Herbert his nephew and niece. There may have been more, for example Sarah Wilson who is mentioned in a letter from Stow to Thomas Chalmers as being seriously ill, but searchable death records do not start until 1855.
79. Fraser. (1868) op cit, p. 237.
80. This is in accord with the Minutes of the Free Church Normal Seminary (1845-1865) which record that although Stow was still a member of the Committee he did not attend during the last two years of his life.
81. Fraser. (1868) op cit, p.276. It is natural to assume that the daughter was Sarah Rebecca but, given the context, might have been David George’s wife, Stow’s daughter-in-law.
82. Glasgow Daily Herald, November 8th, 1864.
83. Pratt, George Insh. (1938) ‘The Life and Work of David Stow’, address delivered 22nd December 1937 to the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow, Edinburgh 1938. p.15.
84. Houseman, Robert: ‘The Life and Work of David Stow’. Unpublished M.Ed. Thesis, The John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, 1938.