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Monument Inscription
ERECTED
BY
JOHN HENDERSON,
GREENBANK,
IN MEMORY OF HIS DAUGHTER
MARGARET GILLIES,
WHO DIED 18TH MARCH 1881,
AGED 37 YEARS.
Family History
This memorial, one of the plainest in the kirkyard, was dedicated by a grieving father in commemoration of the death of his beloved daughter. Made of local stone and shaped with a simple rounded top the stone displays minimal information.
Taking into account the likely earnings of the donor it would have been a great expense for this stone to be erected.
The donor was John Henderson, father of the deceased, employed as a gardener at Greenbank House, Mearns. The estate now renowned for its gardens under the ownership of the National Trust would, at the times the Hendersons stayed there, have been under the ownership of the Hamilton family.
John Henderson and his wife Mary Ann Lawson came originally from Paisley and it was in that town that they were married on 3rd October, 1843. Their daughter Margaret was born only nine days after the marriage on 12th October, 1843.
Margaret does not appear to have married, and resided with her parents throughout her life until her death aged thirty-seven years. She would perhaps have shared the gardener’s accommodation at Greenbank House, or if she had a position within the staff of the ‘Big House, lived within the servant’s quarters of that establishment.
Margaret Gillies Henderson was to die of tuberculosis, a common incurable condition of the times. She had suffered from this condition for two years prior to her death.