Monument Details Z10

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Forename
Surname
Date of Death
Age
Place Name
Isabella
MacPhail
30 December 1926
75
Isabella
Strang
21 February 1914
31
James
Strang
27 May 1916
84

Relatives: Wife of James Strang Stone Condition: Sound Material: Granite Height: 2.5 Breadth: 0.73 Depth: 0.56 Inscription Condition: Mint Inscription Technique: Incised Mason: A. Mckelvie,Cathcart Pre 1855 no. N/A ( What's this? )

Monument Inscription

IN LOVING MEMORY
OF
ISABELLA STRANG
DIED 21ST FEBRUARY 1914
AGED 31 YEARS
JAMES STRANG
DIED 27TH MAY 1916 AGED 84 YEARS
ISABELLA MACPHAIL HIS WIFE
DIED 30TH DECR 1926 IN HER 76TH YEAR

Family History

James Strang (1851-1916) was the son of Robert Strang, a handloom weaver in East Kilbride. In 1874 he married Isabella MacPhail, a sewing machine worker, in Greenock. Isabella’s father, Lachlan, was a tailor.

Following their marriage, James worked in Greenock where their first three children, Robert (b.1875), John (b.1877) and Agnes (b.1880), were born. Later the family moved to Tarbert where Isabella was born in 1882, and her sister Janet in 1885.

The family moved to Mearns about 1888 where they set up a tailoring business in Pollok House on the Kilmarnock (later named Ayr) Road. This two storey stone house still stands opposite the site of the former Mearns Primary School which was demolished in 2005. The last two children, James (b.1888) and Crawford (b.1892) were born in Mearns.

Following James’s death in 1916 the tailoring business was run by his two eldest sons, Robert and John. According to the late Mrs Isa Campbell, John’s daughter, the business catered for the local farmers, Mearns being a rural community in the early part of the 20th century. She described her father and her uncle sitting on the floor, cross legged, stitching away and pressing the garments with a goose iron heated on a stove which was on ‘night and day’. ‘They made suits for all the farmers from Mearns to Eaglesham, often working in the summer time until ten o’clock. They only got paid at term time’, Mrs Campbell recalled.

During the 1914-1919 World War John was drafted into the armed services where his work involved sewing fabric on to aircraft wings. The business, once thriving, declined following the war and eventually stopped trading. One explanation of this was that improved transport facilities at this time made it easier for local people to travel to town where they had the opportunity to purchase cheaper mass produced goods.

Isabella Strang’s death was the first to be recorded on the memorial. She died prematurely in 1914 of a heart condition.

James Strang (b.1888) was the author of A History of Mearns, a three volume manuscript written in the 1930s. It is available for study in the Heritage Centre at Giffnock Library, in East Renfrewshire.