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Relatives: Daughter of John Bovel and Catherine Kennedy Stone Condition: Damaged Material: Sandstone Height: 0.96 Breadth: 0.57 Depth: 0.09 Inscription Condition: Mostly decipherable Inscription Technique: Incised Mason: Not known Pre 1855 no. N/A ( What's this? )

Monument Inscription

ERECTED
BY
JOHN BOVEL.
IN MEMORY OF HIS WIFE
CATHERINE KENNEDY WHO DIED 1ST APRIL 1871
AGED 60 YEARS
ALSO HIS DAUGHTER MARGARET
WHO DIED 1ST APRIL 1877 AGED 38.

Family History

This plain and unadorned stone was raised by a printfield labourer in memory of his wife and daughter.

John Bovel, whose surname indicates that his origins may lie in Yorkshire or other northern county of England where the name is most common, was not a native of Mearns. He had arrived in the parish, brought there no doubt by his work in one of the many cloth printworks scattered around the district.

Catherine Kennedy his wife appears to have originated in Port Glasgow where she was born to a small farmer or crofter in 1811. The couple settled in the village of Newton and certainly by John’s occupation they would have more than likely occupied lodgings in one of the poorer buildings in the village. Two children were raised by this couple, a boy named John after his father, and a daughter given the name Margaret.

The work of a printfield labourer or, as he later became, a bleacher, was one of the most unpleasant jobs within that industry. Working long hours in bleaching sheds where noxious chemicals were used often at high temperatures; good health was a pre-requisite to survival. Remuneration was on the lower scale for such work, comparable to that of a day labourer, so it was not unusual for the womenfolk of such households to take employment to augment the family income. This occurred in this house where daughter Margaret became a seamstress to trade and continued in this work until her early death.

Mother of the family Catherine had suffered from paralysis for five months prior to her death on 1st April, 1871. It is probable that the female line of the family may have been genetically susceptible to heart problems. This theory is presented on the basis that daughter Margaret when only thirty-eight years of age was to die of cardiac disease which she had suffered from for seven months before her death.

Interestingly Margaret died on 1st April, 1877, six years exactly to the day her mother passed away.