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Relatives: Wife of William Mather. Mother of Annabella Boyd Mather Stone Condition: Sound Material: Sandstone Height: 2.9 Breadth: 2.7 Depth: 0.54 Inscription Condition: Clear but worn Inscription Technique: Incised Mason: W. Arneil Pre 1855 no. N/A ( What's this? )

Monument Inscription

IN
MEMORY
OF
WILLIAM MATHER
OF WATERFOOT
WHO DIED 23rd NOVEMBER 1891
AGED 56 YEARS
AND OF HIS WIFE
ANNABELLA HANNAH BOYD
WHO DIED 8th JANUARY 1922
AGED 77 YEARS
AND OF THEIR DAUGHTER
ANNABELLA BOYD MATHER
WHO DIED 22nd AUGUST 1955
AGED 75 YEARS

Family History

William Mather, born and brought up at Waterfoot Farm, Waterfoot in the parish of Mearns was during his lifetime to evolve from a raw farmboy into a successful local businessman. Born to James Mather and his wife Margaret Maxwell, William had by the age of twenty-five years lost his parents and his only brother Matthew. Inheriting the farm seemed to stimulate the entrepreneurial instincts of William as within a short period he had expanded the farm and became involved in non-farming enterprises.

Seeing the opportunities of the ever developing nearby village of Busby, with the expansion of the various mills thereabouts and the large number of persons employed therein, he invested in the new Busby Laundry, a company that quickly expanded into a very successful enterprise. Becoming a director of the Mearns Gasworks added to his portfolio of business interests. There would undoubtedly have been other businesses in which he became involved.

Taking himself a wife in 1867 he soon became a family man as his children started arriving. His wife Annabella Hannah Boyd had been born to John Boyd, Writer, and Jean Watson. All did not go well for the family as their firstborn son James died at the tender age of four years from scarlet fever. The loss of a daughter Margaret aged ten was another blow for the family to suffer. Two more of their offspring died before their forties and were to be buried alongside their grandparents at Monument Z31.

By 1881 William and family are shown residing at Kirkhill House, an imposing estate house. Shown as employing a groom, a cook, housemaid and nurse indicated he had moved from agriculturalist to businessman.

William himself died at the age of fifty-six years in 1891. His wife lived another thirty-one years before joining her husband under the soil. Annabella Boyd Mather, the second youngest child of this couple, is shown on their monument.