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Monument Inscription
SACRED
TO THE MEMORY OF
JOHN POLLOK.
OF BROOM,
WHO DIED 14TH FEBRUARY 1858
AGED 80 YEARS.
ARTHUR POLLOK,
DIED 30TH JANUARY 1870
IN HIS 90TH YEAR
ALSO
BARBARA THOMSON.
WIFE OF ARTHUR POLLOK,
WHO DIED IN 1821.
Family History
John Pollok, born in 1778, and Arthur Pollok, born in 1780, were the grandsons of Allan Pollok of Craigton who purchased the farm of Fa’side in 1707.
Their father, Thomas Pollok, was a Captain of the Volunteer Corps at the time of the French Revolutionary War. As young men John and Arthur, who were also members of the Corps, walked the eight or nine miles from Mearns to Paisley and back every day to attend drill. They attended Mearns Parish School at Mearnskirk in the late 1700s under the tutelage of the much respected schoolmaster, Mr Jackson, as did Allan Gilmour with whom John and Arthur entered partnership with a capital of £3000 in 1806. Their firm, Pollok, Gilmour & Co., traded until 1873. The company’s Glasgow office was in Stockwell Street until 1824 when they removed to 6 (afterwards 19) Union Street. This extremely successful enterprise traded in timber with Scandinavia and Russia and with eastern Canada in the area south of the St Lawrence River.
The three partners resided at 24 Carlton Place, Glasgow, but in 1837 the Pollok brothers purchased the estate of Broom and built Broom House (now Belmont House School). They resided there in the summer months much to the objection of their partner, Allan Gilmour, who felt they could not properly attend to the business in Glasgow at such a distance.
John Pollok never married. In 1818 Arthur Pollok married Barbara Thomson who died three years later in childbirth. In 1839 their daughter Margaret married her cousin Allan Pollok (cf. monument Z03), the son of John and Arthur’s older brother Allan (cf. monument Z01).
John and Arthur Pollok, as did their partner Allan Gilmour, became immensely rich and invested in property. They bought up the estate of Lochlibo in Renfrewshire and Ronachan, near Tarbert in Argyllshire. In 1853 following their retirement from business the brothers purchased the estates of Lismany, Glinsk and Creggs in Galway. Arthur’s son-in-law, Allan Pollok (cf. monument Z03), had over ambitious plans for developing these Irish estates which involved building large modern farming units, having cleared the land and the tenants from it. This resulted in huge financial losses and distress for the family, in particular for Arthur who lived to his ninetieth year. He died at Lismany in Ireland in January 1870.