To download a copy of the Glasgow Infant School Society’s First Annual Report of 1829 click here: GISS First Annual Report
The original document may be viewed in the Department of Archives and Special Collections of the University of Strathclyde (see ‘Useful Links’ in the main menu). I am grateful to the Department for permission to copy this transcript.
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 14th 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 26th, 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 of April 27th, 1877,[footnote] Ibid[/footnote]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 19th, 1843. She was appointed to the school on September 30th, 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 6th 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, Brighton, 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 22nd April 1852
In his 29th 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. (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) (Stow’s first wife and William’s mother was ‘Marion’
• 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 22nd September 1924, Alexander sailed to Southampton from Buenos Aires, Argentina. On 15th May 1951 he arrived at Liverpool from Bombay, India. For further information see ‘Stow’s Family Tree on Ancestry.com.
William Stow officiated at the weddings of:
• his brother David George Stow and Jessie Smith, 25th June, 1850
• his cousin John Wilson Wilson (sic) and Mary Wilson Boyce on 4th 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 23rd 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.
After the bankruptcy of Fenwick Stow William Fenwick Stow, Stow’s father, the family moved to Scotland. He was baptised on 7th October 1753 in Berwick-upon-Tweed. When he was 16 he was apprenticed to Mark Patterson on 27th September, 1770. The ‘Book of Enrolments’[footnote]Berwick-upon-Tweed Book of Enrolments, op cit.[/footnote]records that he was the son of ‘ffenwick Stow’. He is mentioned in the Guild Rolls of Berwick-upon-Tweed, 1774-1775, where he is described as a merchant, as the eldest son of Fenwick Stow. However, by the time he became a Freeman of the Burgh, on 28th June, 1779 at the age of 25, he is described as a ‘Merchant in Paisley’. This is one year after Melkington was sold (1768) when the bankruptcy order was finally concluded. By that time William is recorded as the eldest son and had to leave England for legal reasons.
Paisley seems an odd choice for an Englishman, despite the eulogies of those such as William Fraser, Stow’s first biographer, who lived there. In 1868, a reviewer in the Paisley and Renfrewshire Gazette (based on the biography of Stow by William Fraser) describes Paisley at the time of William’s move:
‘From the middle till the close of last century Paisley was unrivalled among Scottish towns in taste, in thoughtfulness, and in the consistent observances of Christian life. Beautifully trimmed gardens, spreading closely over the healthful space which then lay behind almost every street, had long been the uncovered evening homes of the working population, in which was sustained a graceful rivalry in the culture of plants and flowers. The river, which divides the town, was not then polluted by the refuse of public works, nor the atmosphere by their smoke; and amid the quiet competitions of commerce, the intellectual, social, and moral life of the community was vigorous and comparatively untainted. In every home, through every street, might be heard, morning and evening, the voice of praise and prayer. An impressive Sabbath stillness marked the commencement and the close of each day; and so deep was the religious repose of the place, that Rowland Hill delighted to describe it as the “Paradise of Scotland”’.
The manufacturers of Paisley, during the greater part of the eighteenth century held a high place in the commercial world. In silk gauze, lawn, linen gauze, shawls and thread, their markets were, for many years, pre-eminently attractive. The workmen were held in high repute for sobriety, intelligence and taste. English capitalists opened branch establishments in the town, and appointed partners or sons for their management.’[footnote]Renfrewshire and Paisley Gazette, 1868.[/footnote]
William ordered machinery from McConnel & Kennedy, and McConnel & Co., Manchester. James McConnel and John Kennedy were ‘two Scots who travelled south in the 1780’s to become apprentices in the Lancashire cotton industry where they made their fortunes. Maybe William hoped to do likewise. However, the Monumental Inscriptions of Paisley High Kirkyard record the plot and death of a Thomas Grieve and children, 19th February, 1813.[footnote]Mitchell, J.F. and S., Eds., Renfrewshire Monumental Inscriptions pre-1855, Vol. 2. (Paisley Public Library)[/footnote]
Since the Grieve family was eminent in Berwick-upon-Tweed, William may simply have moved to Paisley to be near an old friend.
| Date | Manufacturing |
| 1731 | Linen gauze |
| 1760 | Silk weaving introduced |
| 1778 | 3,600 looms in silk manufacture 1,360 looms in the manufacture of cambrics. Lawns and other linen goods |
| 1802 | Making of the Paisley shawl commenced |
| 1818 | Depression from foreign competition and the growth of the cotton industry |
The population of Paisley grew dramatically through the 1700s. During the century muslin and silk gauze manufacturing grew in importance, and by its end cotton was replacing flax. In the early 1800s cotton thread manufacture became the biggest game in town, though not before Paisley’s ability to use patterns originating in India to produce fine shawls made Paisley better known worldwide as a type of patterned cloth than as the place in which it was produced.
The family home
The ‘New Chart of the Streets of Paisley, 1810, shows the quarters of the town as divided by the River Cart and by the line of streets from East to West Toll Bars. The South West Division runs from South Side of High Street to Canal Street. Stow Place is shown as running from South Side Canal Street to Stow Street. This means that both Stow Place and Stow Street existed long before the William Stow moved there in 1827. Almost certainly, therefore, the streets were named after Stow the Councillor rather than Stow the owner.
| Date | Business address | Home address | Other residents: |
| 1783 (earliest Glasgow/Paisley) | Not mentioned | ||
| 1810 | William Stow, Cotton yarn merchant, Causeyside
William Stow, Thread manufacturers, Causeyside |
||
| 1812-1813 | William Stow, Thread manufacturer: Causeyside Street and lodging the same | ||
| 1820-21 | Stow, William, Cotton yarn warehouse, 175 Causeyside | Thread warehouse and house, 125, Causeyside | |
| 1823 | William Stow and Co. Cotton yarn merchants, 165 Causeyside Street | 125 Causeyside Street | |
| 1827 | William Stow | Stow Place | Stow Place: Mrs Bell John Campbell William Hill William Blair Thomas Cook William Morton Stow Street |
| 1828 | William Stow | Stow Place | |
| 1829-30 | William Stow | Stow Place | |
| 1831-32 | William Stow | Stow Place |
William followed in the family footsteps and became a member of Paisley Town Council, being elected a Baillie by the Council on six occasions between 1793 and 1807. In both 1806 and 1807 he was elected first or chief Baillie, then the leading office on the Council, the office of Provost not being established in Paisley until 1812. He served on the ‘Allocation of Statute labour Committee (1810).[footnote]Paisley and Renfrew Advertiser 10th September 1831.[/footnote]The Stow family were closely associated with the Paisley Sabbath and Weekday Evening School Society. William Stow was President of the Society in 1803 and 1817.
John Stow (Stow’s eldest brother) was born/baptised 7th May 1786 in Paisley. He became a Freeman of the Burgh of Berwick on August 5th 1817, where he is described as the eldest son of William. He, too, was a manufacturer and merchant. The Paisley and District Trade Directories give:
| Date | Business address | Home address | Other residents |
| 1810 | John Stow and Co. Thread manufacturers, Causeyside | ||
| 1812-1813 | Stow, John and Co, Manufacturers, foot of Causeyside Street | ||
| 1820-1821 | John Stow and Co, Manufacturers175, Causeyside (no street) | ||
| 1823 | Stow, John and Co, Manufacturers, 165 Causeyside Street | ||
| 1827 | Stow, John and Co. Manufacturers, 175 Causeyside Street | ||
| 1828 | John Stow and Co. Manufacturers
175, Causeyside |
||
| 1829-30 | John Stow, 175 Causeyside Street | ||
| 1831-32 | John Stow and Co. Manufacturer, 175 Causeyside Street | ||
| 1832-33 | John Stow and Co. manufacturers, 175 Causeyside Street | Stow Place | Stow Place Alex. Law John Roberton Stow Street |
| 1834-5 | John Stow, Manufacturer, 5, Stow Place
|
Stow Place Rev James Begg John Crawfurd John Lawson Robert Leslie Miss Barbara Sproul Stow Street |
John was a Sabbath School leader in Brown’s Lane School which had a roll of 60 and met at 4.00pm.[footnote]McKechin, William J. (2000) Schools in Paisley before 1872. Paisley, University of Paisley.[/footnote] He was also the Treasurer of the Paisley Sabbath and Weekday Evening School Society. This Society managed 36 Sabbath Schools, two of which were Gaelic schools, with 1,745 children enrolled, and three week-day schools with a total of 136 children, 120 young men and 365 young women.[footnote]Paisley Trades Directory, 1820-21.[/footnote]In 1828 he was Treasurer of the Paisley Infant School Society, Instituted June 16th, 1828.[footnote]Paisley Trades Directory, 1828.[/footnote]
The progress of this school is recorded in the First Report of the Glasgow Infant School Society:[footnote]GISS first report, page 26.[/footnote]
“The Committee have received the following account of the School at Paisley, by the kindness of the Rev Mr McNair, of the Abbey Church, Secretary of the Infant School Society.
The Paisley Infant School was opened on 7 July last, with upwards of 100 scholars. Since that time the number has varied. During part of the winter season, not more than 60 attended. At present there are about one hundred and ten scholars. When the school was opened, each pupil brought with him a penny a week, which was paid on the Mondays. The fee has, however, since October, been two-pence per week, without any diminution in the number of the scholars. The Teacher is Mr Wright, who, since his appointment, has given great satisfaction to see Committee of Managers. The success which has attended the Institution hitherto has been very encouraging; and, it is hoped, that the liberality of the public will be such as will enable the Committee to continue their exertions, still the school be in a condition to support itself.”
The GISS report continues with ‘Extracts from the Report of the Paisley Infant School Society’:
“The Committee cannot help stating their happiness in perceiving, from the recorded opinion of visitors, a diminution of those prejudices which at first existed against the system of Infant School instruction. Even Teachers have, in many instances, recorded their high approbation of it. They probably at one time thought it might tend to diminish the numbers attending schools the general education. But they now seem to find it has rather a contrary effect. While pupils are admitted from the time they are capable of running about till five years of age, and to leave the school at six, they have generally, by that time, got so much knowledge as excites in their parents a desire immediately to continue their education, lest they lose what they have bought; and even the little children themselves, accustomed to school, and become fond of it, sometimes give no rest to their parents till they are induced to send them some seminary for farther instruction. At all events, it is most gratifying to the Committee to find Teachers coming forward and bearing honourable testimony in favour of the utility of this institution; and expressing their wish, that all their pupils had passed through the hands of your Teacher, — they find those from the Infant School so much better behaved, and so much more tractable, than others. — the following, among many, is the testimony of a Teacher — “I this day visited the Infant School, and I heartily confess that I was gratified beyond my expectations, prior to my witnessing the different performances which the children exhibited. And I approve of the mode in which they are taught.”[footnote]GISS first report, page 26.[/footnote]
The Infant Schools, however, did not survive the initial burst of enthusiasm. In 1845 Stow wrote: ‘We may state that in the neighbouring town of Paisley, containing five training schools — one Initiatory and four Juvenile, they shared the same fate, and from similar causes.’[footnote]Stow. (1845) The Training System, op cit, 6th ed. pps. 403 -405.[/footnote]
By 1810 John was an elected Manager of the Dispensary and House of Recovery at 10 Bridge Street. Lorrain Wilson of Ferguslie House, his father-in-law, was a subscribing manager. John was also a Director of the Town Hospital (or Workhouse)[footnote]Paisley and District Trades Directory, 1820-21.[/footnote]and the President of the Paisley Society against Frauds.[footnote]Op cit.[/footnote]He was the Secretary of the Paisley Society for the Reformation of Manners, instituted on 26th December, 1757. The object of the Society was ‘to provide the observance of good morals and to counteract the progression of immorality. Its funds are employed, when necessary, in restraining and prosecuting the vicious and especially in bringing to justice the occupiers of irregular houses, thieves, resetters etc. The sum of £500 was lately given by this Society towards the erection of a Bridewell. The payment of seven shillings and sixpence, at entry, constitutes a member of the Society’.[footnote]Op cit.[/footnote]He was on the Committee of Directors of the Paisley and Renfrewshire Bible Society. John was elected a Councillor in Paisley on 11th October 1828; and a Baillie two years later on 9th October 1830.[footnote]Index to the Paisley and Renfrew Advertiser 1824-50.[/footnote]He died on the 17th December 1837, at the age of 51, leaving a will. Among the bequests are:
£100 to the ‘House of Recovery”
£100 to the Youth Church
£100 to the Parochial Sabbath School Society, addressed thus ‘to the heirs of John Stow’
There is currently no record of John marrying or of any children and the wording of the bequest to the Sabbath school Society suggests that he regarded the Sabbath School pupils as ‘his’ children.
Elizabeth Stow (William’s fourth child) was born 24th March 1791. It was Elizabeth Stow who gifted the school in Stow Street which is mentioned on the plaque which marks the site of Stow’s birth. She appears to have lived all her adult life at 5, Stow Place along with Mary, Margaret and Margery. They owned the house they lived in together and the house next door which was rented out furnished.[[footnote]Margaret Stow’s will dated 1842.[/footnote]Their successive wills ensured that the remaining sisters had the life-rent of the properties. Margaret left £19.19.00 to each of the following:
Paisley Female Benevolent Society
Paisley Tract Society
Scottish Missionary Society
Paisley Educational Society
The General Assembly Church Extension Fund
The Temples, like the Stows, were one of a small number of families who dominated the trade, politics and social life of Berwick-upon-Tweed. William Temple (1710-1774) was Mayor in 1749 and 1753; his name appears on the portico of the Town Hall; and on the Number 4 ‘William’ tenor of the bells in the belfry. There is a memorial to ‘William Temple, Mayor of Berwick when the Town Hall was built’ in Trinity Parish Church. William’s son, William Johnstone[footnote]His birth certificate spells his name with a ‘t’ but he is usually referred to as Johnson, his mother’s maiden name.[/footnote] Temple [footnote]‘Temple’s father, William, belonged to one of the solid merchant families who dominated the trade, social life and politics of the borough. Although the surname is found in the Berwick parish registers as far back as 1574, it is impossible to trace William temple’s direct ancestry beyond and earlier William, burgess of Berwick, who died before November 1667. This William’s son, also William, married Anne Selby on 24th September, 1675, and it was their second son, George (buried 19th October 1750) who carried on the direct line. The date of George’s marriage to Esther Watson, sister of Thomas Watson (who was three times Mayor of Berwick in the 1730’s) has not been traced, but her burial on 21st August 1719 is recorded in the parish register.’ Taken from Crawford, Thomas, (ed.). (1997) The Correspondence of James Boswell and William Johnson Temple 1756-1795. Vol. 1. Yale: Yale University Press. [/footnote] (1739-1796) was a close friend of James Boswell (1740-1795), the traveller and writer, whom he met at the University of Edinburgh. His friendship has been documented through the letters they exchanged. [footnote]Ibid.[/footnote]
By 1764, William Johnstone Temple was courting Anne Stow, the daughter of William Stow-Lundie either by his first wife Anne Blake [footnote]Ibid, p. xxxix[/footnote] or more likely by his second wife, Mary Mow. [footnote]Gaskell Family Tree website, op cit.[/footnote] Whichever, Anne had a personal fortune of £1,300 probably resulting from the family’s connection with Sir Francis Blake of Twizel Castle, near Tillmouth. [footnote] Johnstone-Boswell Correspondence, p xxxix and information given by Tillmouth Country House Hotel. [/footnote]
Separate correspondence [footnote]Crawford, Thomas, (ed.). (1997), p. xxxix quotes Charles John Powlett.[/footnote] suggests that Anne’s relatives were against the marriage and, given the difference in fortunes at this stage, perhaps this is not surprising. Anne was the grand-daughter of David Stow and Anne Selby and therefore the cousin of Fenwick Stow. Anne was regarded as well-read even before her marriage to William Johnstone Temple and she (or one of her contemporaries) had been to Bath.[footnote]Brenchley, op cit. p. 239.[/footnote]
As an independent woman with income of her own, Anne was able to marry William Johnstone Temple against the wishes of her family.They were eventually married in Holy Trinity Church, Berwick-upon-Tweed on 6th August 1767 but the marriage was not particularly happy. They started their married life in cramped accommodation in Mamhead on very little income [footnote] Her husband was left with only £150 a year after his father’s bankruptcy plus an annual income of £80 from the living. [/footnote] which had to stretch to supporting both William’s bankrupt father and his brother whose military career had suffered at the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War.
At the time of his courtship and marriage, William was already beginning to suffer financial difficulties. ‘In 1761 his father had been finding it difficult to keep his head above water, and in the second half of that year had got his son to join with him in a bond for raising £200 to discharge part of his debts. For some years he had “used or Exercised the Trade of a Merchant Dealing in Exchange”: that is, he was a primitive banker and discounter of bills, and it may well have been his bill-broking which pushed him over into insolvency in a time of considerable economic fluctuation. The joint bond, however, was not enough to keep all creditors at bay; it proved impossible, “on account of prior encumbrances”, to raise a mortgage on certain properties (including fisheries) which they owned jointly; whereupon the “said William Temple requested the said Wm. J. Temple to raise the sum of £500 upon a mortgage of his own separate Estate” at the same time promising to indemnify him “on account of the said two sums of money”. The son agreed, but before the necessary legal business could be completed William Temple was declared bankrupt. When it appeared that his assets could not realise as much as five shillings in the pound for his creditors, Temple, “out of filial regard”, as the Title Abstract put it, increased the amount to that sum, and in return was given ownership of what was left of his father’s lands and goods once certain debts and legal expenses had been paid. But Temple soon found that he had no option but to sell the lands and houses he had just acquired in Berwick’. [footnote]Crawford, Thomas, (ed.). (1997), p. xxxviii.[/footnote]
Possibly in an attempt to recoup their losses, Anne Stow (now Temple) lent money to Fenwick Stow, Stow’s grand-father, for his precarious and ultimately calamitous business venture. In the summer of 1767 Fenwick heard that there had been crop failures in Spain and Italy and therefore ordered substantial quantities of wheat and rye from America for onward sale. He lost £5,000 resulting in a deficit for William and Anne of £1,100. (It will be recalled that it was Fenwick Stow’s bankruptcy which caused his son William, father of David Stow, to move to Paisley.)
The Temple marriage came close to breaking point. In the event, they decided to stay together producing a total of eight children. Life improved when William was appointed to the vicarage of St Gluvius in Penrhyn in Cornwall with a living of over £300 a year and he produced one of his best books ‘Moral and Historical Memoirs 1779’.
James Boswell continued as a family friend and was one of the Godfathers at the baptism of their first child, William Johnson Temple. Boswell, however, never really liked Anne. ‘I was glad to turn my back on Mrs Temple, whose meanness of dress and manner and peevishness of temper quite disgusted me.’ In Temple’s letter to Boswell of 11th July 1792 he blames her peevishness from her ‘having been spoilt by her grandmother in girlhood, and her ‘incapacity of receiving satisfaction or pleasure. She hardly knows what an agreeable sensation is of any kind ….. Is not that person to be pitied who derives no satisfaction from conversation, nor from any of the pleasures of the sense? [footnote]Crawford, Thomas, (ed.). (1997) op cit.[/footnote] Such criticism might have arisen, however, out of the Temple’s inability to help Boswell financially when he needed it. Boswell applied to William Johnson for support, but the Temples, as a result of Fenwick Stow’s bankruptcy, were in no position to give it.
Despite the documented difficulties in their marriage, when Anne died unexpectedly early in 1793 William was devastated. He wrote to Boswell two days after her death: ‘I never knew till now how dearly I loved her, more indeed than words can express. She had her failings (as we all have) but they were forgot in her many excellent and estimable qualities. Denying everything to herself, grudging nothing to others; temperate even to abstemiousness – naturally indolent, yet never deficient in what concerned her children and family; submitting to give pleasure, tho’ I fear little susceptible, perhaps, averse to it; wishing for no enjoyments but those we afforded her, and rather enduring company than deriving any satisfaction from it; frugal and retentive in matters of small moment, but truly generous when duty or propriety demanded it’. [footnote]16th March 1793, quoted Crawford, Thomas, (ed.). (1997) op cit.[/footnote]
Frederick Temple (1821-1902) was Stow’s fourth cousin, his grandmother (Anne Stow) being a cousin of Stow’s grandfather (Fenwick Stow). There is no solid evidence that Stow and Temple ever met but ‘Frederick Temple claimed to belong to the Stowe branch of the Temple family, of which Richard Grenville, third duke of Buckingham and Chandos, was the head’[footnote]Spooner, H. M. ‘Temple, Frederick (1821–1902).’ Rev. Mark D. Chapman. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008. 15 June 2009 <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36451>.[/footnote] and it is inconceivable that Sir James Kay Shuttleworth, a mutual friend, did not introduce the two men. Following an education at Eton, Temple went on to Oxford leaving in 1848, ‘on the advice of Sir J. P. Kay Shuttleworth to undertake work under the committee of council on education, first as examiner in the education office at Whitehall until the end of 1849, then as principal of Kneller Hall, between Whitton and Twickenham, a training college for workhouse schoolmasters’.[footnote]Ibid.[/footnote]
The training school was not a success, there was controversy over its use in the educational field, and it was closed in 1856.[footnote] www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.asp?ContentID=126. (May, 2010). Etching taken from the frontispiece to the Minutes of the Committee of Council, 1846.[/footnote]
Temple went on to be inspector of training colleges for men, another area in which he and his cousin, Stow, shared an interest. Temple also contributed an essay on ‘National Education’ to the Oxford Essays of 1856, a further connection with Stow. Temple became Archbishop of Canterbury, as did his grandson, the well-known William Temple.[footnote]Gaskell Family Website available at http://www.gaskellfamily.com/ (May, 2010)[/footnote]
In all, Kneller Training College received £41,809 in grants from the CCE (to 1851), a sum which must have infuriated Stow.[footnote] Mason, D. M. (1985) The Expenditure of the Committee of Council on Education, 1839-52 in Journal of Educational Administration and History, 1478-7431, Volume 17, Issue 1, 1985, pps. 29.[/footnote]
To download a copy of the Glasgow Infant School Society’s Visitors’ Book 1829-31 click here: GISS Visitors’ Book 1829-31
The original document may be viewed in the Department of Archives and Special Collections of the University of Strathclyde (see ‘Useful Links’ in the main menu) . I am grateful to the Department for permission to copy this transcript.
Contrary to common understanding, Stow’s family in Paisley was not especially wealthy. Granted William, the head of the family of ten children, owned three houses, plus the feu duties in Stow Street and Stow Place, but the 1825 codicil to his will adjures ‘such of my children as are not settled in life nor have any establishment of their own, to live together in the most harmonious and cheapest way’. So anxious was he for their welfare that he was forced to apply to his brother in Berwick-upon-Tweed[footnote]Stow’s favourite Uncle David, Rear Admiral.[/footnote]
to make provision for the unmarried daughters (Elizabeth, Margaret and Marjorie). The £600 each of these received appears to have been badly invested for by 1829, another codicil was added to the will: ‘There is, owing to bad trade, a great depreciation of heritable property and as I have lent out money upon bond upon tradesmen’s houses and placed it in the name of my unmarried Daughters and as it is probably that they may lose by it I therefore by this Codicil ordain that the property shall be valued by Judges, and that they are to have that property according to their division that all be alike.
It is not unreasonable to suppose, therefore, that in 1811, at the age of eighteen, David as the second son had no choice but to move to Glasgow where he was indeed ‘a clerk in a counting house’ as Fraser states. The counting house was ‘Wilson, Hervey and Co. Silk warehouse’, No. 115 on the south side of the Trongate, so named because of the large weighing and measuring scales for merchants at the market cross. Even in Stow’s day the area was associated with commerce and innovation.[footnote]In 1818 James Hamilton, who owned a grocer’s shop at 128 Trongate was the first to introduce gas lighting and in 1821 the dials of the steeple of St Mary’s Parish Church (the ‘Tron Church’ were illuminated by gas reflectors, the first attempt in the UK. (Foreman, Carol. (2007) Glasgow street names. Edinburgh, Birlinn).[/footnote]The first street lights were provided on the south side in 1780, to reward the shopkeepers for constructing a pavement [footnote]Foreman, Carol. Glasgow street names. Edinburgh, Birlinn, 2007, p. 157.[/footnote]and the ‘plainstanes’ or pavement in front of the Tontine coffee house nearby had once echoed to the sound of the barter of the ‘tobacco lords’.
The ‘Wilson’ was Stow’s brother-in-law, John, who had married his eldest sister, Ann, in 1807. The Herveys were close friends. John Hervey’s daughter was married to (unhelpfully) another John Wilson who was also a silk merchant: Rev Patrick Mcfarlan, a staunch supporter of the Glasgow Infant School Society, officiated at the wedding. The business was still listed as ‘Wilson, Hervey and Co. as late as 1816 [footnote]Foreman, Carol. Glasgow street names. Edinburgh, Birlinn, 2007, p. 157.[/footnote]but in 1817 it was entered as ‘Wilson, Stow and Co, Silk Warehouse’. In that year Stow became a burgess of the city of Glasgow.
‘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]Scottish Record Society: the Burgesses and Guild Brethren of Glasgow 1751-1846, Vol. 2 Edinburgh 1935 p. 309.[/footnote] Stow was launched on his mercantile career.
By 1825 the ‘silk warehouse’ was at 38, Argyle Street, moving to 76, Argyle Street in 1826. In 1832, John Wilson died, leaving Stow in sole charge of the Company. By 1834-5, the business had moved to even more salubrious surroundings at 85, Buchanan Street. Buchanan Street had been originally considered too far west to be a viable property, but from the late eighteenth century the first residences began to be built. It was not until the opening of the Argyll Arcade in 1828 that commercial premises began to appear. Stow obviously moved in the wake of that venture.[footnote]O.S. Map 1857-58, NLS; photograph from Foreman, Carole. (2007) op cit.[/footnote]
Sometime before 1825, a new branch of the business was established at Guildford Street, Leeds.[footnote]‘Conveyance of a share of the partnership in premises in Leeds from David Stow of Glasgow to William Fenwick Stow of Leeds and Matthew Stow of Leeds (1852)’ (Leeds Archives) and Glasgow Post Office Directories 1815-1836.[/footnote] This enterprise initially involved John Wilson and the two Stow brothers, David and William Fenwick, who purchased a plot with others for £1,554.17.6 to build a warehouse. Since ‘the said John Wilson David Stow and William Fenwick Stow had made the said purchase by and out of the monies of the Partnership Trade and Business carried on by them in Leeds’ Stow must have been trading in Leeds before 1825. In 1833, after John Wilson’s death, his partnership was initially inherited by Ann, his widow, and then Lorraine his eldest son:
The said John Wilson departed this life on or about the twentieth day of August One thousand, eight hundred and thirty two intestate and Letters of administration of his goods, Chattels, rights and credits were shortly afterwards duly granted to Ann Stow Wilson his widow by and out of the Exchequer Court of the Archbishop of York And whereas by Indenture bearing date on or about the seventeenth day of December One thousand, eight hundred and thirty three and made between the said Ann Stow Wilson of the first part and Lorraine Wilson therein described as the eldest son and heir at law of the said John Wilson.
However, Stow and his brother bought out this share for £1,254.3.4. In 1840, they mortgaged their share to the other partners for £3,820 and some time after 1845 [footnote]Interestingly, the date is left blank in the Conveyance.[/footnote] Matthew Kenyon- Stow, Stow’s youngest brother, joined the firm which was by now ‘Stow, brothers and Company’. By 1852, Stow having paid off his share of the mortgage, was bought out for 5 shillings. The Glasgow Post Office address is given as ‘Guildford Street’ just off the famous ‘Heads Row’ in Leeds. Land ‘Fountain Street’ was also purchased.
The Leeds Branch may have been re-mortgaged to finance the purchase of ‘The Port Eglinton Spinning Company’, in 1847-8. This was a shrewd business move since Port Eglinton benefited from being on the Paisley-Glasgow canal [footnote]Which, ran close to Stow Street, Paisley, where Stow’s family lived.[/footnote] a half-hourly bus service for workers (although many lived nearby), and the railway. The Port Eglinton Spinning Company was a very substantial Mill:
‘The building forms almost a square, having Eglinton Street on the east, Francis Street on the west, Victoria Street to the south, and Canal Street on the North. The frontage to Eglinton Street is five storeys in height, and extends in length nearly 250 feet. Immediately behind the front building is a court, some fifteen or twenty feet in width, which separates it from a three-storey erection of brick, used for preparing wool in the rough. Then comes another court of similar width, which is bounded on the west by a third building, extending from Victoria Street to Canal Street.’ [footnote]The Scotsman, 23rd of January, 1874.[/footnote]
Port Eglinton was a busy site with an iron foundry, several other factories. The following accident might well have involved one of Stow’s employees:
About ten o’clock on Thursday forenoon, a number of boys got in about the goods station of the Glasgow and Ayr Railway Company, Port Eglinton, and commenced pushing along a line of rails one of the empty trucks. They had not been long thus employed, when one of their number, a boy aged about ten years, the son of a carpet weaver residing in Bedford Street, fell before the wheels of the carriage, which passed over his body. The boy was immediately conveyed home, and medical aid procured, but we regret to add he expired in about an hour afterwards. [footnote]The Scotsman, Saturday 2nd November 1844[/footnote]
Stow also made legal history. In 1842 in ‘Inglis v. Port Eglinton Spinning Company’ it was laid down that an insolvent could reject goods sent to him after he became bankrupt, but could not then use them to pay off creditors, or accept a portion of them later [footnote] Burton, John Hill. The Law of Bankruptcy, Insolvency, and Mercantile Sequestration in Scotland Edinburgh: William Tait, 1845 pps. 191, 2. [/footnote]
By 1852 John Freebairn and David George, two of Stow’s sons, appear in the firm, although John died in that year. David George, therefore became Stow’s sole male heir and he ensured that his will allowed David George to take over the reins immediately on his death:
Immediately after my decease to appropriate assign and transfer to my son David George Stow in fee to the Credit of his Account with the Port Eglinton Spinning Company out of the sum at my Credit with the said Company the sum of £3500. [footnote]GROS. Stow’s will[/footnote]
Thereafter, David George and Jessie Graham, his wife, inherited the company, which at Stow’s death was valued at £22,864. However, in 1874, ten years after Stow’s death, part of the Port Eglinton Spinning Company burned down.
‘About noon yesterday fire broke out in the Port Eglinton Spinning Mill, situated near the south the end of Eglinton Street, Glasgow, and before the flames were got under, damage to the extent of from £10,000-£12,000 was done.’
The fire originated in the reeling and finishing mill and because of the nature of the material spread rapidly. About 250 girls were forced to evacuate along with ‘A great number of families who inhabit houses in Francis Street, contiguous to the fire, were during the time this scene was being enacted busily engaged carrying their chattels to the street.
Despite the best efforts of the Fire Brigade the mill fronting Canal Street was soon ablaze. : ‘the iron girders shortly afterwards showed signs of giving way, and in a few minutes the whole front wall fell out into the street…….. One engine situated in the spinning and finishing mill, was destroyed, in addition to a large quantity of valuable machinery. [footnote]The Scotsman, 23rd of January, 1874.[/footnote]
The fire resulted in all the employees being thrown out of work, but the buildings were exceedingly well insured. Stow had been a Director of one of the first insurance companies, ‘The Scottish Provident Institution’ in Edinburgh and the Mill covered (with a number of other companies) for £55,000.
According to a document, probably dated 1898, found in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the Caledonian Central Station Co. demolished the remaining buildings. The Caledonian Railway Company was formed in 1845 and originally ran trains between Carlisle, Glasgow and Edinburgh. In 1848, the company ran the first direct train from Scotland to London. The engines used were painted a shade of blues that became known as “Caledonian Blue”. [footnote]SCRAN[/footnote]
By 1881, the English Census of that year indicates that David George Stow had moved, with his family, to 32, Princes Square, Paddington. He was only 51 and spent the rest of his years in the south of England, dying in 1865 in Rochford, Essex at the age of 65. Maybe he had inherited the family’s poor health: maybe the insurance money was too tempting.
As a postscript, Andrew Aird in his book ‘Glimpses of Old Glasgow’ refers to Cumberland Street in Hutchesontown where was the ‘Port Eglington Hotel and the entrance to the Paisley and Johnstone Canal. Immediately above this was the large wool-spinning and carpet manufacturer of Wilson, Stow and Co. the chief partner of which was the late Mr David Stow’. [footnote]Aird, Andrew. (1894) Glimpses of Old Glasgow, p108 Available at http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/airgli/index.html. (8 April, 2010).[/footnote]
Throughout his life Stow describes himself variously as a: Manufacturer: Roll of the Freemen of Berwick 1800-1899;
Silk Merchant: Glasgow Burgesses and Guild Brethren 1811-1825
Silk mercer: Glasgow Post Office Directory 1828
Silk and Stuff (archaic name for worsted cloth): Glasgow Post Office Directory, 1829
Woollen Manufacturer: Scottish Census 1841
Mill Owner: Scottish Census 1861
Merchant: Sarah and Agnes Stow’s baptismal records; William’s entry in Glasgow University’s Academic Lists; his own Death Certificate; Inventory of his Estate;
Worsted and Spinner: Sarah Stow’s death certificate
Yet at his death more than half of Stow’s wealth was tied up in property and from the scraps of information available, he might be better described as a property developer.[footnote]1844 Sylvan Manuscripts: Reconveyance of land and houses in St. Pancras, Middlesex, between David Stow of Glasgow, merchant, William Henry Langley of John Street, Bedford Row, gent, Francis Parkyn of Bedford Street. A triangular piece of ground in St. Pancras of 1 acre, bounded by the Hampstead, Kentish Town Road, and Ferdinand Street, with all houses erected thereon. http://www.durtnall.org.uk/DEEDS/Middlesex%201102-1201.htm.[/footnote]
Stow does not seem to have been particularly interested in his business. In the early years he spent a great deal of his time on church work, being involved in the Parish Poor Relief and taking a very active part in establishing and maintaining the Sabbath Schools in St John’s. When the Normal Seminary was opened in 1837, and possibly before hand in the two model schools were open, he spent Tuesday and Thursday afternoons attending the public ‘criticism’ lessons. He never attained the huge financial sums such as his compatriots James McConnel and John Kennedy, from whom his father and possibly Stow bought machinery.[footnote]
1844 Sylvan Manuscripts: Reconveyance of land and houses in St. Pancras, Middlesex, between David Stow of Glasgow, merchant, William Henry Langley of John Street, Bedford Row, gent, Francis Parkyn of Bedford Street. A triangular piece of ground in St. Pancras of 1 acre, bounded by the Hampstead, Kentish Town Road, and Ferdinand Street, with all houses erected thereon.http://www.durtnall.org.uk/DEEDS/Middlesex%201102-1201.htm.[/footnote]
They had moved to Manchester and ‘set up their own firm in 1795 with an initial capital of £1,770…… by 1810 their capital had risen to £88,000………, By 1820 the company had three mills and had established itself as the leading spinner of fine cotton in Manchester,’[19][footnote] Fulcher, James. (2004) Capitalism: A very short introduction. Oxford, O.U.P. [/footnote] Conversely, Wood (1986) suggests that, in modern terms, Stow spent between £100,000 and £150,000 on his educational interests.[footnote] Wood, op cit. p. 74[/footnote]
Stow’s business affairs are crucial to his story. Had he concentrated on his carpets he would have been a wealthier man; but had he done so, there would be no story to tell.
| Adventure schools | Schools run by private individuals for profit. The School Inspection Form No. VI for England Wales gives as the definition ‘conducted by the Teacher at his (or her) own risk, and on his (or her) responsibility. |
| Antinomianism | The opposite of legalism in religious thought: the belief that saving grace does not depend on rigid adherence to a set of laws. |
| Argyll Commission | A Royal Commission which enquired into the state of education in Scotland |
| Assembly school | Schools provided by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (1824) and supervised by the Church of Scotland’s Education Committee. By 1839 there were 118 Assembly schools and by 1843, 146 with an enrolment of 13,000. |
| British and Foreign School Society | Founded in 1808 the British and Foreign School Society co-ordinated the efforts of the Nonconformist churches in providing voluntary schools for their children. |
| Burgh Schools | Burgh Schools usually had church origins and by the Reformation served as Grammar Schools for the large towns. In some of them the number of pupils of secondary age had declined by the mid-nineteenth century. |
| Certificated teacher | A teacher who had attained the certificate of the Committee of Education of the Privy Council. |
| Chapel of Ease | A chapel of ease was a church built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who could not reach the parish church conveniently. The links with the presbytery were less formal and many congregations regarded themselves as independent of the parish church. |
| Church of Scotland Education Committee | Established in 1824, the Church of Scotland Committee co-ordinated the work of the national church in providing and supervising education. |
| Circulating schools | Intensive literacy campaigns involving adults as well as children which moved round the country. They were organised by the ‘Society for the support of Gaelic schools’ established in Edinburgh (1811), Glasgow (1812), and Inverness (1818). The Edinburgh Society concentrated on Gaelic reading, while the Glasgow and Inverness Societies included English, writing and arithmetic. |
| Disruption | In 1843 a large group of ministers and congregations of the Church of Scotland left the church on the grounds that individual churches and congregations had the right to choose their own ministers and not the heritors. The group formed the Free Church of Scotland. |
| Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) | The EIS was founded in 1847 and remains the largest organisation in Scotland representing the views and needs of teachers. |
| English school | A school which taught English – reading and writing. |
| Evangelicals | Evangelicals are often contrasted with the Moderate Party in the Church of Scotland but there was considerable overlap, particularly at personal level, until the Disruption. Evangelicals emphsised personal belief in Jesus Christ, particularly his death and resurrection. They took part in Christian socialist action, beliving that faith without action was meaningless. They placed particular stress on the teachings of the Bible. |
| GES | The Glasgow Education Society, (1836 – c. 1843) of which Stow was the secretary. |
| GISS | The Glasgow Infant School Society, (1826 – c. 1836) of which Stow was joint secretary with David Welsh. |
| Heritors | In Scotland the term ‘Heritor’ was used to denote the major “landowners” of a Parish until the early 20th century. Historically – land-holding in Scotland is feudal in nature, meaning that all land is technically “owned” by the Crown, which, centuries ago, gave it out – or feued it – to various Tenants-in-chief in return for certain services or obligations. These obligations became largely financial in time, or ceremonial or at least notional. Similarly, these Tenants-in-chief gave it out to lesser “owners”, and the resulting reciprocal obligations too became financial -feudal dues – or notional. Often, though, conditions were imposed by the feudal superior at the time of the transaction – used in the 19th century as a form of planning control. (Most financial obligations were abolished in Scotland in 1974).
The upshot was that “landowners” had differing rights to the land they “owned”. However, those who held their land without limit of time – that is, only had a ceremonial or ancient financial obligation towards their notional “superiors” – were distinguished from others and were called Heritors. In effect, they were the gentry of the Scots countryside, with legal privileges and obligations. Most ordinary farmers, etc rented their land for a specific space of time – from the Heritors. Like the gentry in other countries, the Heritors ruled the countryside. They were responsible for justice, law and order in their district and for keeping the roads in good repair. They were responsible for appointing – and paying – the Minister and the Schoolmaster, and for maintaining the church, manse and schoolhouse. They had also to provide for the poor of their Parish. For all this they levied a rate on all the Heritors in the Parish – and often included non-Heritor Tenant Farmers in the rate too. Sinclair, Prof. J.M (1991), Collins English Dictionary, HarperCollins, Glasgow (Wikipaedia) |
| Intellectual system | A system of question and answer designed to foster knowledge and understanding developed by John Wood in the Sessional (and model) school in Edinburgh. Although often seen a rival to Stow’s system, the difference was mainly in emphasis. |
| Lancastrian | A monitorial system developed by Joseph Lancaster, favoured in dissenting and utilitarian circles (see also below). |
| Latitudinarianism | Initially a pejorative term applied to a group of 17th-century English theologians who believed in conforming to official Church of England practices but who felt that matters of doctrine, liturgical practice, and ecclesiastical organization were of relatively little importance. In this, they built on Richard Hooker’s position, in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, that God cares about the moral state of the individual soul and that such things as church leadership are “things indifferent”. However, they took the position far beyond Hooker’s own and extended it to doctrinal matters. As a positive position, their stance was that human reason is a sufficient guide when combined with the Holy Spirit for the determination of truth in doctrinal contests, and therefore that legal and doctrinal rulings that constrain reason and the freedom of the believer were neither necessary nor salutary. At the time, their position was referred to as low church (in contrast to the High church position). Later, the latitudinarian position was called Broad church. |
| Madras System | A monitorial system, favoured by the Church of England since Bell was an Anglican clergyman) developed by a Scotsman, Andrew Bell, at Egmore, near Madras (see below). |
| Merchants’ House of Glasgow | The Merchants House of Glasgow was founded in 1605 to represent the interests of the city’s merchants and to provide charitable assistance for members and their relatives in hard times. The House had an important role in local government and until 1833 it was strongly represented on the town council. (www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/biography/?id=CB0019&type=C) |
| Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education | From 1839 when the first Committee of Council on Education, for the whole of Britain, was established, until 1939, the minutes of the Committee’s proceedings, provided they were not challenged and overruled by Parliament, had statutory force, and therefore many important changes were introduced not by legislation, but simply by the publication of a minute. |
| Moderate Party | Ministers (and laymen) in the Church of Scotland who distrusted both enthusiasm and dogmatism, preferring structure and organisation as a bulwark against heresy. They supported the ideas emanating from the Scottish enlightenment, emphasised Christian conduct rather than creed, rationalism and scholarship. They were dominant in the Church of Scotland during the late 18th century until the 1830’s when the Evangelicals (see above) became more powerful. |
| Monitorial System | Publicised by Andrew Bell (National Society) and Joseph Lancaster (British and Foreign School Society), this was a system whereby clever pupils were taught particular pieces of knowledge or skill, and then, as ‘monitors’, given the task of passing this on to their fellows in the class. It enabled one teacher to achieve limited results with very large numbers, and for a time seemed a solution to the problems of popular education. The system was not popular in Scotland. |
| National Society | Founded in 1811, this society co-ordinated the efforts of the Anglican church in providing schools. |
| Normal Schools | Institutions in which intending teachers were trained in the best practice of the time, the name coming from the Latin ‘norma’, a rule. Probably the first was founded by the Glasgow Educational Society under the direction of David Stow at Dundas Vale in 1837. |
| Parish Schools | From 1696 onwards the heritors of each parish of Scotland were legally required to provide a school for the children of the parish, and these schools formed the basis of the Scottish educational system from then until 1872. |
| Pupil-teachers | Senior pupils who entered into an apprenticeship, assisting with the teaching of the school, and being given further education outside school hours. On satisfactory completion of their apprenticeship, they might go to a Training College to become certificated teachers. |
| Quoad sacra | A quoad sacra parish is one created and functioning for ecclesiastical purposes only. Originally a parish was “a township or cluster of townships having its own church, and ministered to by its own priest, parson, or parish clergyman, to whom its tithes or teinds [a proportion of the inhabitants produce or income] and ecclesiastical dues were paid” (Oxford Dictionary). The ecclesiastical parish, as a unit, was distinguished from the civil parishes after 1597 with the passing of the first Poor Relief Act. This division of the medieval parish created a parish that dealt solely with ecclesiastical functions and had its own church and clergyman. |
| Revised Code | Instituted in England in 1862, this revised the codification of all the existing regulations about grants for education, and operated a system of payment by results in individual examinations of pupils by the inspectors. By the time it was applied to Scotland in 1873, some of its original rigour had been lost, though the principles remained the same. |
| Sessional schools | Schools established and controlled by the kirk sessions of prosperous churches in the large towns, usually giving only elementary instruction but, in the conditions of the industrial revolution, playing a very important part in the educational provision of the time. |
| Subscription schools | Schools organised by parents, or the local community, who collected money to provide a salary for a teacher for their children particularly when the Parish school ran out of space owing to an influx of workers, for example miners and iron workers A Subscription List would be sent round all members of the community, from highest to lowest and from the smallest to the largest businesses. Often this was indicative of the broad-based support for a school within the community. Not all contributions were made in cash: masons, joiners etc could contribute in kind and/or labour. |
| Voluntary schools | Schools which were controlled by the religious denominations. They might receive government grants for the work they were doing, but could obtain no support from the rates. |
While editions two to eleven of Stow’s ‘The Training System’ are still extant, it has always been assumed that the first edition has been lost. Stenhouse [footnote]Lawrence Stenhouse, Lawrence Hartvig Nissen. (1961) ‘Impressions of the Scottish Educational System in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’ in British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2 (May, 1961), pp. 143-154.[/footnote]notes that the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature gives the 1st Edition as 1836 but the Second Edition, ‘Moral Training Infant And Juvenile As Applicable To The Condition Of The Population Of Large Towns’ was published in 1834 so the Cambridge Bibliography is self-evidently incorrect. Alexander Morgan states that ‘the date of the first edition is doubtful, but the second edition was published in 1834. [footnote]Morgan, A. (1929). The makers of Scottish history. London: Longmans, Green and Co., page 180.[/footnote] This article argues that the book ‘Infant training: A dialogue explanatory of the system adopted in the model infants School, Glasgow by a director’ usually catalogued as the first edition of ‘Granny and Leezy’ is, in fact, the first edition of ‘The Training System’.
Reference is made in the Preface:
Reference is made in the Appendix to:
There is therefore considerable similarity of subject matter with the following editions of ‘The Training System’ rather than the following editions of ‘Granny and Leezy’
Of the six notices concerning the First Edition of “this” work given in the second edition of “The Training System” the following from the ‘Scottish Guardian’ appears conclusive:
“To all our readers who are interested in the improvements of the rising generation – and who is that calls himself a Christian should not be interested – we recommend the perusal of this little volume, containing, in a dialogue, entitled “Grandmothers Visit to see Infant School,” an interesting exposition of the whole system.”
The Training System, second edition, end flyleaf
Furthermore, the following quote from the ‘Christian Instructor’ emphasizes a “system” more reminiscent of “The Training System” than ‘Granny and Leezy;
“Much, however, as we have to congratulate ourselves on the great and beneficial change that has taken place on the old system of education, we have two congratulate ourselves yet more on the invention of a new system of education altogether – a system peculiar to the present age – a system invented for, and adapted to, and most numerous class of the human race – overlooked by every other system from the beginning of the world to the present day, — I mean the system of Infant Training in Infant Schools.”
The Training System, second edition, end flyleaf.
[1] Lawrence Stenhouse, Lawrence Hartvig Nissen. (1961) ‘Impressions of the Scottish Educational System in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’ in British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2 (May, 1961), pp. 143-154.
[2] Morgan, A. (1929). The makers of Scottish history. London: Longmans, Green and Co., page 180.
[3] The Glasgow Herald – May 26th 1828.
[4] Extracted From Dr. Cleland’s Statistical Work. (1831) (2nd ed.).
[5] Glasgow Herald, 18th January 1828: ‘Wanted: for An Infant School’.
[6 Glasgow Herald, 26th May, 1828.
[7] GES Third Report, List of Office Bearers.
[8] The Scotsman, 15th October, 1828: Attack on secular infant schools.
[9] Glasgow Herald, 21st May, 1835: Examination of the Educational Society’s Model Infant School; The Scottish Guardian, 2nd November, 1837: Report of the opening of the Normal Seminary.
The Stow family originally owned a large house and estate in Cornhill-on-Tweed, near Berwick-upon-Tweed, called ‘Melkington’. Stow’s grandfather, Fenwick Stow, was bankrupted through a business speculation and he lost the estate in the 1780s. Stow’s father, William, moved to Paisley where he became a merchant and magistrate.
The Stows appear to have regretted the loss of ‘Melkington’ for David Stow owned a house of that name in the West Bay in Dunoon. The house is mentioned in a newspaper article of 23rd September, 1843 (see below) and in the inventory of his will in 1865. In the Census of 1881 the house was occupied by John and Frances Black and their four sons and daughters. In addition, Stow’s nephew was called Frederick Melkington Stow.
David Stow was the secretary of the Glasgow Infant School Society and of the Glasgow Educational Society. James Ewing, who lived at the Castle in Dunoon, was President of the Glasgow Infant School Society, Vice-president of the Glasgow Educational Society and a benefactor of both. He was also President of the Model School, Green Street, Saltmarket, which was built and maintained by the Society as a ‘Model’ for both training teachers and exemplifying how other schools should be run. Kirkman Finlay, who lived at Castle Toward, was a benefactor of both Societies.
The following is a Newspaper account which describes David Stow at his house in Dunoon. It is not clear which of Stow’s sons, William or John Freebairn, was in the boat, but both, unfortunately died in 1852.
The Scotsman, 23rd September 1843: Melancholy accident at Dunoon
‘We regret to state that a fine young man of the name of Ferguson, a seaman, belonging to Rothesay, and the only son of a widow, was unfortunately drowned on Saturday night, when attempting to land from a yacht at the West Bay of Dunoon. The yacht, which belonged to Ferguson, had been attending the regatta held that day in the Holy Loch. She had on board Mr Stow, son of Mr David Stow of Glasgow, with a Mr Hamilton and Mr Chancellor from Edinburgh. The yacht had been brought up immediately in front of Mr Stow’s residence in the West Bay, and Mr Stow, senior, Mrs Stow, and other friends, were waiting on the beach. There was a partial swell at the time, but nothing to cause any alarm. The gentleman above named had got into a punt and Ferguson was just stepping in, when it was upset, and the four were immersed in the sea. At first, Ferguson, who was an excellent swimmer, exerted himself to support Mr Stow. Afterwards however, he had ceased to give him any aid, and came in contact with Mr Hamilton, who found difficulty in getting disentangled from him. Having managed to do so, Mr Hamilton exerted himself in supporting both Mr Stow and Mr Chancellor, whom he succeeded in enabling to hang on by the punt. Their clutches seem to have caused it again to turn, and led to their being again immersed. By this time, however, Mr Hamilton (who appears to have acted with much courage and self-possession) saw that a boat was pushing from the beach, and as his own strength was failing, he made for the land. As the boat neared him, he called out to the persons in it not to wait him, but to make for the punt. He succeeded in reaching the beach in a very exhausted state, and, at the same time, Messrs Stow and Chancellor were picked up by their friends in the boat, and brought safely ashore. The greetings natural on such an occasion may be readily conceived. Several persons were present who heard the cry repeated, ‘we are all safe,’ and, being satisfied with the assurance of this fact, naturally withheld themselves from intruding on the agitated feelings of those more immediately interested in the scene. But after Mr Stow’s party had withdrawn, it began to be surmised that another man was still in the water. By this time, however, no one was present who could give any information, and some time was lost before it was ascertained that Ferguson had also been thrown out of the punt, and no efforts made to search for him. With the information that has reached us we do not feel authorised to see where the blame of this negligence is imputable, but we know that great regret was felt by persons present, that some more active effort had not been made to save Ferguson’s life. He was, as we have said, an excellent swimmer and, as he had not been able to save himself, it is possible he may have sunk from some stun received in the upset or subsequent struggle in the water, so that even the promptest possible aid might have been unavailing. At an early hour this morning his body had not been found — Glasgow Chronicle of Monday.’
There are some interesting details in this account which helps to pinpoint Stow’s house on the West Bay. The ‘Mr Stow’ mentioned was probably William, aged 20, home on holiday from Cambridge where he was studying law. John Stow would be 16 at the time and the younger son, David George, was 15: neither might have been addressed as ‘Mr’, have taken part in a yachting race or had two friends with them addressed as ‘Mr’. The ‘Mr Hamilton’ was probably a member of the Hamilton family, while it is intriguing to note that Marion Catherine Stow (1848 – 1876) Stow’s grand-daughter and heir, married a James Chancellor in 1865. Their son, Wilfred George Chancellor (1876-1835) was Stow’s great grandson.
Other family connections
Stow’s eldest son, William (1823-1852), married Catherine Bannister (1824-1866). They had three children, Marion Catherine Stow, as above, (1848-1876), David William Stow (1850-1880) and Charles George Stow who died in infancy. After William Stow’s early death, Catherine remarried William Burnley (1811-1903). Catherine died in the parish of Dunoon and Kilmun on 23 October 1862 at the age of 42. Her second husband did not die until 7th January 1903, at the age of 92. Why Catherine should die in Dunoon is currently not known, but Stow had many properties in the area and she may have been convalescing.
Educational Connections
Mary Brown, who trained at the Church of Scotland Training College taught at the Female School in Dunoon.
‘Within the last few years also, a female school of industry has been set on foot in Dunoon, with the object of instructing the rising female generation in the necessary and useful departments of knowledge. It owes its commencement and support to an Association of ladies resident in the parish, and it usually resorting to Dunoon in in the summer season. It has been attended with very gratifying success, is well conducted by a committee of ladies annually chosen, and is very efficiently taught. This seminary promises to be a very great benefit and blessing to the female youth of the village and its neighbourhood. The salary offered the Female School of Industry, Dunoon, is £30 with house and garden. ‘The school-house and teachers accommodation at Toward have been liberally granted and erected at the sole expense of the late Kirkman Finlay Esq. Salary of the teacher £22.’ [footnote]The New Statistical Account of Scotland, 1845, p. 625.[/footnote]
Donald McDonald, who trained at the same college between 1857 and 1860, taught at nearby Sandbank.
