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Relatives: Daughter of John and Margaret Smith Stone Condition: Sound, Tilted Material: Granite Height: 2 Breadth: 1 Depth: 0.46 Inscription Condition: Clear but worn Inscription Technique: Incised Mason: Scott & Rae, Glasgow Pre 1855 no. N/A ( What's this? )

Monument Inscription

IN
LOVING MEMORY
OF
JOHN SMITH,
FARMER, GREENLAW,
WHO DIED 28TH SEPR 1887,
AGED 64 YEARS.
ALSO HIS DAUGHTER
MARGARET,
WHO DIED 6TH SEPR 1857,
AGED 1 YEAR AND 5 MONTHS.
AND HIS WIFE
MARGARET SMITH,
WHO DIED 23rd JANY 1890,
AGED 64 YEARS.



“NOT LOST BUT GONE BEFORE”

Family History

John and Margaret Smith named on this memorial originated from the village of Riccarton near Kilmarnock. In 1851, as a young couple in their mid-twenties with two young children, they took tenancy of the farm at Balgrayhouse.

This substantial holding of one hundred and forty-five acres, situated near to what was to become the Balgray reservoir, was run by the couple with the assistance of only two agricultural labourers. Within twenty years the family are seen to have moved to nearby Greenlaw Farm. This farm, comparable in size to Balgrayhouse Farm, required the services of three farm servants and a domestic servant to aid in its operation.

From a farmer’s point of view the children produced by this couple must have been a slight disappointment. Out of a total six children only one boy, Alexander, arrived to assist his father in the heavier tasks about the farm. Alexander’s siblings were sisters Elizabeth (b.1848), Mary (b.1852), Ann (b.1854), Margaret (b.1856) and Agnes (b. 1863). Second youngest Margaret was to contract scarlatina as a baby of only seventeen months old and succumbed to it in 1857.

Over time various members of the family left home leaving only the two eldest daughters Elizabeth and Mary to work the farm with their elderly parents. John Smith was to die in 1887 aged sixty-four years, followed within three years by his wife Margaret also aged sixty-four years.

After the deaths of their parents Elizabeth and Mary continued working the farm with a dairymaid and a farm servant, obviously on a much reduced scale from its earlier years.