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Relatives: Wife of James Rankin. Mother of Robert Rankin. Stone Condition: Sound Material: Sandstone Length: 2.35 Breadth: 1.22 Depth: 0.05 Inscription Condition: Mostly decipherable Inscription Technique: Incised Mason: Not known Pre 1855 no. 89 ( What's this? )

Monument Inscription

SACRED
TO THE MEMORY
of
JAMES RANKIN
who died on the 11th day
Of March 1815
Aged 63 years.
And
HELEN RANKIN
His wife
Who died on the 29th day
Of January 1838
Aged 74 years
And
ROBERT RANKIN
their Son
who died on the 28th day
of March 1800
aged 2 years.

Family History

James Rankin (1752-1815) and his wife Helen Ferguson of Auchentiber (1764-1838) whose names are inscribed on this memorial were married on 5th June 1786 and lived at Mainshouse, Mearns. Their two year old son Robert who is also commemorated here died in 1800; another son, born the following year, was also named Robert. The Rankins had seven children, a daughter Marion, and six sons including the two Roberts.

The ‘replacement Robert’ (1801-1870) received his education at the Parish School at Mearns and joined the staff of Pollok, Gilmour & Co. in Grangemouth on his fourteenth birthday, transferring a year later to the company’s Glasgow office. He must have shown great ability for he was sent as a young man of seventeen to represent the firm in Miramichi, New Brunswick in 1818. He founded the firm of Robert Rankin & Co. at St John, New Brunswick in 1822 and the firm of Rankin, Gilmour & Co. of Liverpool about 1838-1839. Two of his daughters, Helen and Agnes, died in Mearns in December 1838 (cf. monument G05).

The Rankins’ four other sons were James (1787-1870), Alexander (1788-1852), Arthur (1790-1838) and John (1794-1815). They all worked in the timber industry in eastern Canada. John was drowned in a rafting accident in Miramichi, New Brunswick at the age of twenty-one.

Marion Rankin, their sister, was born in 1792 and died in 1856.

The one-storey ruin of Mainshouse, the home of James and Helen Rankin, can still be seen within the grounds of the Golf Academy, off Waterfoot Road.