William Brown of Kilmardinny

Awarded 1/3rd of the compensation for Jordanhill in Trinidad with John Smith the youngest as executors of Francis Brown (d. 1825). Almost certainly William Brown of Kilmardinny, son of James Brown of the Browns of Broadstone, near Beith and Jane, daughter of Bailie William Euing of Glasgow. With his brother John, James Brown was an oil and colour merchant in Glasgow, living on the west side of the city in Dreghorn's (Bob Dragon's) land. William was the brother of Francis Brown of Jordanhill estate, Trinidad.

William Brown grew-up in Glasgow and entered his father's business. In 1817 he married married Jane, daughter of Glasgow surgeon Charles Wilsone. The couple had three children: a daughter who died in infancy and two sons. James who became Controller of Stamps for Ayrshire and Charles Wilsone of Castle Wemyss. Both sons predeceased their father. William Brown's obituary described him as an 'active citizen, as well as an energetic man of business'. He joined the Town Council in 1832, upon being asked by the Provost Robert Dalglish. In this role he was Dean of Guild in 1837-38 and again in 1856. From 1833-44 he resided at Kilmardinny, selling it to William Whyte of Glasgow and Gibraltar. William Brown served as a director of the old Glasgow Water Company, as well as trustee of the Savings Bank and deacon of the Glasgow Tron, where he was also a Sunday School teacher and active 'spiritual, moral and physical' campaigner'. A keen advocate for the expansion of railways in the West of Scotland he served as director for several old railways in the Monkland district. Despite a lengthy and fulsome obituary no mention was made to the family's Caribbean connections or to its involvement in slavery.

1. "January 15 1826. [Death] At Jordanhill estate, island of Trinidad, Francis Brown Esq."

2. William Brown is no. 12 in Maclehose's Memoirs and portraits of one hundred Glasgow men (1886).

T71/894 Trinidad claim no. 1836A&B.

William Brown obituary, Glasgow Herald, 1/10/1884.

1. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 19, p. 761.

2. http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/mlemen/mlemen012.htm [accessed 11/06/2015].

We are grateful to William Norton for his help compiling this entry.