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Relatives: Son of Margaret Mackie. Husband of Ann Peterkin Stone Condition: Sound Material: Sandstone Length: 1.96 Breadth: 0.82 Depth: 0.19 Inscription Condition: Mostly decipherable Inscription Technique: Incised Mason: Not known Pre 1855 no. 29 ( What's this? )

Monument Inscription

ERECTED
BY
WILLM DOUGLAS,
IN MEMORY OF HIS MOTHER
MARGARET MACKIE
RELICT OF THE LATE HUGH DOUGLAS
WHO DIED 7TH MAY 1870.
AGED 88 YEARS
ALSO OF
ANN PETERKIN, HIS WIFE
WHO DIED 2[9]TH JUNE 188[ ]
AGED 70 YEARS
WILLIAM DOUGLAS
DIED 16TH NOVR 1892 AGED 82 YEARS

Family History

This memorial stone, dedicated by a man named William Douglas, is a bit of an enigma. The stone is of the flat slab type made of local whinstone and very simply inscribed. At the dates in which the persons commemorated died, the fashion was for upright stones. Sometimes old well worn and unidentifiable stones were re-used and this may have been the case in this instance. The fact that William Douglas was a joiner to trade may have given him a connection with the local gravedigger who was responsible for the management of lairs and old stones.

William was not a son of Mearns, having been born in Livingston, West Lothian, in 1811. His parents were Hugh Douglas (Coachman) and Margaret Mackie. It may have been through his father’s employment that William came to the Mearns where on 21st November 1848, he was to marry his first wife Ann Peterkin. Ann was the daughter of a soldier James Peterkin and his wife Margaret King.

There do not appear to have been any children from this marriage and the fact that Ann was to suffer from a heart condition over many years may have been a contributory factor to this situation. William meanwhile appears to have changed his occupation to that of grocer, and the couple were residing at Wardhill Mearnskirk. Ann died at this address aged seventy years in 1888, suffering from senile gangrene.

William, as a very old man, married Hillary Park and moved from the Mearns to 6 Cleveland Street in Partick where he died aged eighty-one years in 1892.