The following biographical sketches of little-known or forgotten individuals who were connected with Kintyre have been extracted from a work-in-progress, Kintyre Families: An Encyclopaedia, which I hope will be published next year. I have adapted these extracts for inclusion here, hence the removal of sources (which will be found in the book itself).

Donald Carmichael, piper, who died in Greenock in 1864, aged about 75, was born in Whitehouse, though his obituarist believed 'his family originally belonged to Lewis'. He was a cabinet-maker until 'adversity' overtook him and he was 'compelled to live by his pipes'. According to his obituarist, he 'ran away with a laird's daughter' and married her in the 'low country', in consequence of which he dared not show his face in Kintyre for many years. The Daniel/Donald McMichael, 'piper', who baptised several children in Campbeltown between 1824 and 1834 was probably him. His wife was Mary Macalister, which might lend credence to the elopement story. When he returned to Kintyre, he was a regular at fairs: 'He took his daily rounds through the town, and when the pipes ceased all of a sudden, Donald's tail might be seen disappearing into some favourite public house to receive his accustomed dram, for which he had the proverbial fondness of his class.' In 1855, his 'well situated' daughter in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) had written to the inspector of poor in Greenock asking for assistance in finding him, as she wished to pay his passage out.

Daniel Dewar. 'Cuthbert Bede' - Rev Edward Bradley - relates in The White Wife that Rev James Pinkerton of Longrow Church, when officiating at a marriage, 'scarcely thought the wedding was complete unless blind Donald Dewer was there with his fiddle to amuse the company'. This Donald, Bede wrote, was' father to the great Dr Dewer, Principal of Aberdeen College', who, as a boy, would guide him to dances and sleep on straw in a barn or outhouse until he was ready to return home with his customary payment of 'a piece of silver'. Daniel attended Glasgow University and graduated LL.D. in 1815 and D.D. in 1832. Late in his distinguished career, he was appointed Principal of Marischal College and University, Aberdeen, and Professor of Church History there. He died on 28 May 1867, aged 80, according to a Glasgow University website, but his death certificate - he died in Dunoon - gave his age as 86. His father's name was recorded as John, a farmer, and his mother's as Margaret McLaren. If his father's name was indeed John, then it looks as though he may have been the John Dewar, 'blind musician', who received a 'tack' from the Kintyre Estate to build a house in Campbeltown in 1787. So far, no baptismal record has emerged for Daniel, but in the 1861 Aberdeen census he gave his birthplace as Campbeltown.

Charles Drummond, described as a fishernan 'of Glasgow' when he married Agnes, daughter of 'the late Captain John ColviII of Campbeltown', in 1836, gave his birthplace as Ireland in the 1851 and 1861 censuses. In 1857, boat-builder John Greenlees, at the New Quay, launched a 'beautiful little smack', the Meg Merrilies, for Drummond. One night in January 1867, his boat, the Rambler, was damaged in a collision with John Osborne's Mary Agnes in 'the Lodden', that reach of sea between Davaar Island and Auchenhoan Head. The once-popular spring on Kilkerran farm, known as 'Charley's Well', was named after him: his 'good taste in water led him several times a day to the well'. In 1861, two Campbeltown 'mechanics' put a metal receptacle there, on which was engraved: 'May he who breaks or steals this ladle/ Incline to drink and not be able.'

Edward Hogarth in March 1888 had his 'Cast ashore on the lonely isle' hung in the Royal Scottish Academy exhibition in Edinburgh and had a local scene, 'Otter linn, Corven Glen', accepted for the Stirling Fine Art Exhibition; but his copy of Archibald MacKinnon's Davaar Island cave painting was unfavourably received in Campbeltown later that month. He was a son of William Hogarth, baker, and Isabella McTaggart, who married in 1856, and he appears in the 1861 Campbeltown census as an 11-month-old. Nothing further on his artistic career has so far emerged, apart from a reference to his 1888 R.S.A. exhibit in Peter J. M. McEwan's Dictionary of Scottish Art and Architecture (1994). His maternal grandfather, Edward McTaggart, butcher in Campbeltown, was a brother of Dugald, father of the artist William McTaggart.

Captain William Hutcheson R.N. (1778-1837) was born in Campbeltown, a son of John, shipmaster (died in 1812), and Ann Love (died in 1810). In 1816, on his retiral, he married a Campbeltown shipmaster's daughter, Elizabeth Ballantine, and lived in an old house in the present garden of the Ardshiel Hotel. He was 'elected' to the old undemocratic Town Council in 1824, but failed to attend even one meeting and was 'eased', or retired, a year later. Colonel Charles Mactaggart described him as a seaman who accomplished the 'almost impossible feat' - for those times - of 'rising, by sheer bravery, from the forecastle to the quarter-deck'. He was, at one time, Lord Nelson's coxswain, and was in the boarding party which captured the Spanish flagship San Jose during the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1797. This was doubtless the occasion, recalled by Mary Streete Campbell from the Captain's own narration, when he lost his dagger and Nelson 'instantly took his from his side and gave it to him'. Mary saw the 'very handsome' weapon displayed in the Captain's dining-room. She also related that Captain Hutcheson's mother took ill at about the age of fifteen, and, having supposedly died, was being carried to the churchyard when the pall-bearers became aware of movement in the coffin and took her out.

Lizzy Kirkland, 'a famous sorceress' at Markland, Campbeltown, in the early 18th century, was allegedly 'practising her orgies every night between her dwelling and Glenramskill wood', c 1705, and was said to have been executed at the Witchburn, an event 'referred to' in A Collection and Abridgement of Celebrated Criminal Trials in Scotland from A.D. 1536 to 1784, by Hugo Arnot, published in Glasgow in 1812.

Thomas Lacy, when he married Katherine Beatson in 1810, was 'Commander of the Hardwick Irish Revenue Cruiser'. Between 1811 and 1825, they baptised nine children in Campbeltown. Elizabeth Streete Campbell recorded a story about his besting the champion English boxer, Daniel Mendoza (1764-1836). He was in 'full dress', going out to a dinner party, when Mendoza, 'seeing a well-dressed gentleman, was tempted to insult him in some way'. Lacy had been 'taught boxing scientifically', and, with his 'English blood ... fairly up', he pulled off his coat, handed it to a by-stander and engaged with the 'bully'. Soon, the cry from the crowd was 'Mendoza down, Mendoza down!' Lacy put his coat back on and carried on to the dinner party, afterwards remarking that 'until it was all over, he had no idea who he had been fighting with'.

John Alexander Paterson MacBride (1819-90), sculptor, was believed to have been born in Liverpool, but his parents, Archibald MacBride and Margaret MacKenzie, were from Campbeltown. He studied drawing at Liverpool Art School and anatomy at Liverpool Medical School, and, at the age of 22, moved to London and became a student member of the Royal Academy: 'There he exhibited his group of "Margaret of Anjou", a work which so struck one of the examiners, the eminent sculptor Samuel Joseph, R.S.A., that he took Mr MacBride into his studio as a pupil, foregoing, on account of the excellence of the group, his customary fee of 500 guineas.'

Francis McCallum, Adjutant of the 2nd Battalion Argyllshire Militia, died in 1839, aged 65, and is buried in Kilkivan with his wife Isabella McLean. The marriage was childless. Their house, of which only the foundations remained in 1926, was in the middle of a small field west of Kilkivan Glebe; and a little wet valley nearby was known as The Adjutant's Bog. In 1813, he took the lease of Lecknalarach, near Colluska, as a summer retreat 'for the benefit of his wife's health' and to graze 250 sheep, two cows and a horse. Elizabeth Streete Campbell recalled him as a 'brave old soldier' who had been badly wounded and 'returned with a pension'. On one occasion, during the Napoleonic Wars, he had just ridden up to his General and was about to salute, when his horse bit one of his feet. He unleashed a 'volley of oaths', which appeared to be directed at the General; but the outburst, when explained, 'ended in a hearty laugh'.

John MacDougall. On 4 January 1912, a lecture on Charles Dickens delivered to Clachan Literary Association by John MacDougall M.A. was one of the earliest tributes to the novelist in the centenary year of his birth. MacDougall was described as 'examiner in Gaelic, Edinburgh University, and a former pupil of Clachan Public School'. He was born at Crubasdale in 1877, a son of Archibald, farmer there, and Agnes Currie, who married in 1875. He read Gaelic and Celtic at Edinburgh University between 1902 and 1904, and in the following year studied in Wales and Dublin on a scholarship. His papers were donated to the Department of Celtic, Glasgow University, in 1975.

Helen McIntyre, Campbeltown, was sentenced in 1851 at Inveraray to seven years' transportation for theft by housebreaking, with previous convictions. She sailed on the Sir Robert Sippings on 17 March 1852, along with 221 other convicts destined for Van Diemen's band. When she arrived in Hobart, she was put to work in a paint shop; but, on 19 July, a few days later, she was admitted to the Colonial Hospital and died there on 2 August, aged 22.

Robert MacKenzie, born in Campbeltown in 1822, was a son of John McWhinnie, who came from Ayr as a stonemason and changed his name to MacKenzie, which was no great adjustment, because McWhinnie is a Lowland form of Mac Choinnich. In 1819, he married Agnes, daughter of Alexander Ross and Elizabeth Templeton and sister of the eccentric distiller John Ross No. 85, pp. 9-11). Robert, who was one of six children, went out to Ghazipur in India to manage the business of his uncle, Robert Mc Whinnie. In 1847, with fellow-Campbeltonian William MacKinnon, he founded MacKinnon, MacKenzie & Co., which became a major exporter of Indian goods to the U.K. He was drowned in the wreck of the S.S. Monumental City, which struck a reef near Gabo Island, off the coast of eastern Victoria, Australia, on 15 May 1853. He had been to Victoria on company business and was returning to Calcutta via Sydney. His estate would benefit his immediate family, and between 1854 and 1856 his two brothers, two sisters and widowed mother emigrated to Australia. One of his brothers, John Lorne Stewart MacKenzie (named after the Duke of Argyll's Kintyre chamberlain) became a successful sheep farmer in Australia, and Sir William MacKinnon, who died in 1893, left him, as 'brother of my deceased early friend and partner', the very substantial sum of £5,000.

John 'Dorrif' McMillan, a 'scandalous person', was referred in 1658 to the Bailie of Kintyre, Neil Campbell, for judicial punishment. His nick-name appears to represent Gaelic doirbh, 'difficult'. Described as 'stupid, senseless and ignorant', he was clearly resistant to ecclesiastical pressure to raise his moral standards and was ultimately 'banished'. Banishment - in effect, transportation - was the final punishment following excommunication, which was pronounced on those who showed no signs of repentance for 'guilt' and refused to submit to the discipline of the Church. They were forbidden to take communion or to have children baptised, and anyone socialising with them or sheltering or employing them risked censure.

F. Marion McNeill (1885-1973) was a daughter of Rev Daniel McNeill, M.D., pastor of the Free Church at Holm, Orkney, for almost 50 years, and Jessie Janet Dewar, a minister's daughter. Daniel's father, John, was a collier at Drumlemble, whose wife, Mary, was also a McNeill. Marion was one of twelve children, of whom four sons and three daughters were graduates or alumni of Glasgow University. She graduated M.A. in 1912 and was a folklorist, writer, and political activist, best known for The Scots Kitchen and The Silver Bough, a four-volume study of Scottish folklore. She was a prominent Suffragist and, with her brother Duncan, a founding member of the Scottish National Party.

John M. Murphy, who was born in Limerick in 1808, was a nail-maker in Campbeltown. He was twice married, but had no (surviving) children. His first wife, Ann McLoughlin - described in 1912 as a 'braw, sonsy colleen' - died in 1879 in the Wide Close. He was an authority on cock-fighting and once put a Dublin-bred bird up against a Dalintober bird. The fight, which took place in his own yard and was watched by 'a number of Campbeltown's staid and respectable inhabitants', ended in the third round when Murphy's bird 'succumbed'. He had wagered £5 on the contest, but his opponent, Donald McLean, didn't have that much money and instead took away the unfortunate Irish bird for his cooking-pot. In census 1851, Murphy is shown as employing four live-in nailers and a female house servant, but he died penniless in Campbeltown poorhouse on 22 May 1889.

Rev Dr Robert Stevenson, who was born at Lintmill on 8 May 1882, was said to have been a cousin of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson, but the claim seems dubious. His father, William, a wool-spinner and son of a weaver, came to Kintyre to work at Lintmill weaving and carding mill and married, on 31 December 1879, Mary McAulay, daughter of a local weaver. According to a biographical piece published in 1929, Robert took an arts degree at Glasgow University, a divinity degree at London and a philosophy degree at Oxford. He was widely travelled and, when elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society in 1913, was 'the youngest on whom that honour had ever been conferred'. He served in both the Boer War, with the Cameron Highlanders, and the First World War, which he spent on the Eastern front with the Scots Fusiliers. In 1921, under the auspices of the R.G.S., he was one of a party of seventeen which explored the Amazon River into the Andes, and one of the thirteen who survived the expedition, having 'fought hostile tribes of wild Indians, snakes, all species of wild jungle animals, but most of all malaria'.

Copyright belongs to the authors unless otherwise stated.

Published with permission of The Kintyre Antiquarian & Natural History Society.
2020 Harold A. Ralston, Mt Pleasant, Wisconsin, USA.
E Mail