Peter MacFarlane, Lord Provost

It is often said that Peter MacFarlane was a remarkable man, and had many achievements in his lifetime – we’ll hear more about them shortly. But for me one of his greatest achievements was surviving and overcoming the tragedy that befell the family in 1893 when his wife Louisa died, leaving him as sole parent to their seven surviving children, as I reported in last week’s post.

Further misfortune would strike the family only a couple of years later when the youngest daughter, Anise Jane, died on the 5th of February 1985, three months short of her third birthday. The cause of death is given as cerebral effusions and convulsions. Poor Peter must have thought that history was repeating itself.

But this man was nothing if not resilient, because the following year we find a wedding recorded – Peter MacFarlane, Chemist, widower marrying Catherine Cameron, Housekeeper, spinster on the 15th of April 1896, which would, ironically, have been Peter and Louisa’s 19th wedding anniversary. One can only imagine the mixture of hope and sadness he would have been feeling on that day. Peter and Catherine were married at Bunroy, Roybridge, by Peter’s brother Angus, by then a Canon and Parish Priest in Partick, Glasgow.

Peter was still a relatively young man of 46 when he married the 29 year old Catherine. I think it likely that she had initially been employed to run the household and care for the children after Louisa had passed away. And perhaps the two were drawn even closer together by the death of little Anise – I know this is speculation on my part, but it seems very likely to me. But their happiness would be short-lived for by January of 1898, Peter found himself yet again having to perform the sad duty of burying his wife. Some say Catherine died in childbirth, though her death certificate records the cause of death as tubercular pyelitis. This is sometimes a complication of pregnancy, so it’s possible…

I’ve heard that there may have been a third wife, but haven’t seen any evidence for that and the 1901 census records only Peter plus four of his children and a young servant girl, no mention of a wife. So, as far as I know, he lived out his days as a widower and perhaps focused his considerable energy in other directions, though I suspect he was the type of man who would always have been striving in one direction or another regardless of whether or not he had a wife by his side. In any case that decade of loss, the 1890s, also seems to be one of the most productive times in his full and busy life.

Take his commercial activities, for example. Not only did he build the fine new premises  at 50 High Street but along with his druggist business, Peter manufactured aerated water and in fact mentions this enterprise in a document written in 1896 or 7. The additional property he mentions became known to the family as ‘The Barn’. I think its position just round the corner from 50 High Street meant that both buildings overlooked the same bit of ground/garden at the back. “I purchased additional property behind the burgh hall and am now in course of rebuilding a part of it in order to meet the requirements of the aerated water branch of my business, which has very largely expanded of late.”

Peter also had a photographic enterprise.  On the back of his photographic images he printed P MACFARLANE / Photographer to the Queen / FORT WILLIAM.

At the same time, Peter was very active in civic life and had already been elected to a seat on the Council Board by 1880, ultimately succeeding to a Bailieship and finally attaining the office of Provost, I think in about 1887. He was the first Catholic elected to this position in Scotland since the Reformation in the 16th century. The day after he was elected Provost he found a bag of oranges on his doorstep – quite an understated tribute one would have thought, after all those centuries!

At this time, Fort William was enjoying a period of considerable expansion, largely due to the coming of the railway in 1894. We can get a sense of this mood of development in a document in which Peter laid out his arguments for extending the railway line south through Ballachulish and on to Glencoe. I’ve used snippets from his document as captions for the following photographs…

“Since the opening of the West Highland Railway in August 1894, the burgh of Fort-William has made rapid strides in advance /  I am satisfied that the formation of the railway to Fort-William has been of enormous benefit to the burgh; in fact before it was opened the burgh was in a somewhat stagnant condition. “

“…the houses built along each of these roads are not, owing to the lie of the ground, shut out from a view of the sea by those immediately in front, there is no reason why many new roads should not be formed and feuing go on to an almost unlimited extent.”

“Among the other new buildings on this sloping ground, a large hotel is on the eve of completion. It contains about sixty bedrooms and has been specially designed for the accommodation of tourists and summer visitors.”

For me as his great grand-daughter, I feel quite a personal connection with some of the further declarations in Peter’s submission, remembering as I do our family holidays by Loch Leven in the sixties (see ‘End of an Era’ from August 2017).  Of course, the main thrust of the document concerns the financial benefits to be gained from further investment in the area, but despite the references to ‘feuing’ (taxation), I find myself drawn to the parts where he mentions Onich and North Ballachulish…

“This Feuing has already commenced at Onich and North Ballachulish and as it is well suited for residential purposes, being perfectly protected from the north and east winds, with a southern exposure and having in many places a sea-shore well adapted for boating and bathing, there cannot fail to be a considerable extension of feuing in that quarter if the railway is extended to it. I think it not unlikely, however, that the feuing at this point will take the form of villas and other residences for summer visitors; and if I am right in this they will naturally come to Fort-William to make their purchases and transact their business.” He turned out to be quite right of course, and it didn’t end there:

“Fort-William being much nearer and otherwise, is pre-eminently a better point for tourists to visit Glencoe than Oban, and if the railway be extended from Fort-William to Ballachulish, I feel confident that a large proportion of the tourists would visit that famous glen from Fort-William. The distance from Fort-William to Bridge of Coe, which is at the entrance to the glen, is about 16 miles, while it is distant from Oban about 32 miles, or double the distance.”

Peter didn’t succeed in getting the railway line extended from Fort William to Ballachulish – in fact it was the Oban line that won this argument, though Ballachulish station didn’t survive the Beeching cuts of the sixties, and the ground was eventually built upon. However, the Fort William line WAS extended to Mallaig which is now one of the most scenic sections of the West Highland Line, taking in as it does the spectacular Glenfinnan Viaduct.

During his term as Chief Magistrate he had the satisfaction of seeing the Burgh illuminated by electricity – in fact Fort William was the first town in Britain to be entirely lit by electric light – the erection of a slaughterhouse, the acquisition of an ambulance and fire engine, but the crowning glory of his provostship was an inexhaustible supply of pure water to the town (hence, one suspects, the aerated water project).

My great grandfather was by all accounts a very patriotic Scotsman, which I feel is no surprise considering that his father may have been descended from someone who fought with Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden (1746). He retained his knowledge of the Gaelic language and taught it to one Father Willie Gillies who used to preach in Gaelic. Remember that Gaelic had been suppressed in Scotland after Culloden, so that’s probably why the book written by Peter’s erstwhile teacher, James Munro, came to be regarded as a cultural treasure. I have no doubt that Peter would have picked up his nationalistic attitudes from an early age. One of his ambitions was to change the name ‘Fort William’ back to the original ‘Maryburgh’, and he would pray every day for the Boers to win the Anglo-Boer war (1899-1802)!

My challenge when writing about this ancestor of mine, has been to try and ascertain what he was like as a person – it can be quite hard to see beyond all the undoubted achievements; it can even feel fairly daunting! So far, I have found him rather remarkable, someone who was obviously very driven and motivated in everything he did, who withstood adversity and tragedy in his life and didn’t allow them to divert him from his purposes. He was capable of falling in love – more than once! – and like his father before him, built a fine successful business which sustained his family for many years into the future.

I suppose what I want to know on top of all that is whether he would have been the sort of person to gather his children and grandchildren into his arms when they were upset, whether he was approachable and friendly, whether, I suppose, I would have liked him!

I’ll explore all these questions in my next post, which will take us into the 20th century and chart what’s know about Peter’s later years and the period when his children would grow from childhood and start to make their own way in the world.

Now run by Lloyd’s Pharmacy, this is the original building on the High Street which Peter built to house MacFarlane’s the Chemist’s, with the house for the family above (please ignore the red arrow). I understand that no-one lives in the house any more and that these days it comprises ‘ancillary storage’