Details of the monument you have selected are shown below. Click on the image(s) of the monument (at the bottom of the page) to view a larger version (opens in new window). Please allow a few moments for the larger version to load; although every effort has been made to ensure the large images download quickly, internet speeds may vary depending on connection speeds. Click here to go back to your search results.

Relatives: Husband of Elizabeth Struther. Stone Condition: Sound Material: Granite Height: 2 Breadth: 1.08 Depth: 0.48 Inscription Condition: Clear but worn Inscription Technique: Incised Mason: W. Scott, Cathcart Pre 1855 no. N/A ( What's this? )

Monument Inscription

ERECTED
BY
HIS WIFE
AND NEPHEW

IN LOVING REMEMBRANCE
OF
ARTHUR GILMOUR
WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE
AT TOWNHEAD HOUSE, MEARNS.
9TH FEBY1894, AGED 82 YEARS.
ALSO
IN MEMORY OF HIS WIFE
ELIZABETH STRUTHERS,
WHO DIED AT EAST COATES, LARGO
11TH JUNE 1898 AGED 68 YEARS

IN EVER GRATEFUL MEMORY. J.S.

Family History

This branch of the Gilmour family of which there were many within the farming community of Mearns, traced their roots to the neighbouring parish of Eaglesham. It was at East Ardoch, a farm of one hundred and fifty acres to the south-east of Eaglesham village that Arthur Gilmour was born to James Gilmour and his wife Margaret Herbertson in 1812. Arthur married Elizabeth Struthers in 1851.

Arthur’s brother Andrew had, as a single man, run Townhead Farm which as the name suggests was close to the village of Newton Mearns. Situated on Eaglesham Road, near Mearns Cross, the farm was a mixed arable holding of some one hundred and twenty acres. By local standards it was a fairly modern farm as it only came into existence about 1850. It came into Arthur Gilmour’s ownership between 1870 and 1880. Arthur chose to live, not at the farm, but at nearby Townhead House, sometimes known as Townhead Cottage. Arthur and his wife Elizabeth, who appear not to have any children, seem to have ‘adopted’ two nephews: Arthur Gilmour (b.1853) son of his brother James and his wife Ann Craig of Stonebyres Farm in Eaglesham, and John Struthers (b.1857), a nephew of Arthur’s wife.

Arthur (Jnr.) was entrusted by his uncle with the management of Townhead Farm. It is believed that he intended to marry Ann Strang of the neighbouring Shaw Farm, but the interference of her mother seems to have put a stop to any marriage. Whilst Ann Strang (cf. monument E02) never married, Arthur did. He married Marion Raeside, a farmer’s daughter from Floak Farm in 1882; the couple had six children, four of whom survived to adulthood, and had a long and prosperous life together. Arthur died at the age of eighty-seven years in 1939: Marion died in 1952 at the age of ninety-three.

John Struthers was already part of the Gilmour household in 1861 at the age of four years. By 1871 he was a pupil teacher and by 1881 was an Arts student at the University of Glasgow. It was this same John who with his aunt, Elizabeth Struthers, erected the memorial to her husband Arthur Gilmour following his death in 1894.

Elizabeth Gilmour née Struthers died at Coates Farmhouse in Newburn, Fife in 1898 at the age of sixty-eight. Her death was attributed to pulmonary phthisis allied to a heart condition. Her death was notified by her nephew, John Struthers, who added the inscription IN EVER GRATEFUL MEMORY J.S. to the memorial.