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Relatives: Father of Martin Blue Stone Condition: Sound, Tilted Material: Sandstone Height: 0.9 Breadth: 0.5 Depth: 0.15 Inscription Condition: Clear but worn Inscription Technique: Incised Mason: Not known Pre 1855 no. N/A ( What's this? )

Monument Inscription

ERECTED
BY
JAMES BLUE,
IN MEMORY OF HIS SON,
MARTIN,
WHO DIED 8TH JUNE 1874,
AGED 34 YEARS.

THE SAID JAMES BLUE
DIED 5TH JULY 1875,
AGED 60 YEARS.

Family History

The initial subject of this memorial was a young single man named Martin Blue. Martin was part of a widespread family group living within the parish of Mearns carrying this unusual if colourful surname. Born to James Blue, a domestic servant / gardener/ outdoor labourer and his wife Mary Bruce, Martin was to work as a stable groom. Such work, as its name suggests, entailed working with horses within a stable complex making sure they were fed and watered and generally looked after. Where he carried out this work is unknown, but in Newton and the surrounding area there were many such establishments where horses were stabled either for hire or private use.

Martin Blue was admitted to Glasgow Royal Infirmary with a compound fracture of his right leg. This wound became septic, as a result of which, without the availability of modern drugs, he succumbed to the poison coursing through his body and died at the age of thirty-four years.

Within thirteen months of his being laid to rest under the turf of Mearns Kirkyard, his father James was to join him there. James, the son of a weaver called Martin Blue and his wife Isabella Currie, had lived his life and raised his family within the Mearns district working as an outdoor labourer and gardener and sometimes as a domestic servant. No doubt suffering from the loss of his son the year previously James would have been in low spirits but it was not through this loss that he was to expire, but through inflammation of the bowel.

On the memorial James is shown as having been sixty years of age and having died on 5th July 1875 whereas his death certificate shows him as being fifty-nine years of age and dying on the 4th July, 1875.