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« on: Tuesday 23 February 10 09:29 GMT (UK) »
Hello Ruth,
I'm very interested in John Dick, the calico printer/ shawl manufacturer who died suddenly 31 July 1847. You say that he drowned on the isle of Arran; I'd be interested to know how you found that out. His will (or Inventory, rther) is on scotlandspeople, as you may have seen by now. First of all, his wife Jean was his executrix, so she certainly didn't die at the same time. Secondly, he apparently owned a printfield on Bentinck Street, in the Netherton, valued at ₤900, so he seems to have been quite well-established in business.
In Pigot's 1837 Directory for Kilmarnock, John Dick was partner in the shawl manufacturing and printing firm of Dick & Kerr on Ladeside. The 1846 Post Office Directory lists him as ‘Dick, John, Shawl manufacturer, Low Church Lane’. Per Archibald McKay, a disused printworks at the foot of Welbeck Street, used as a temporary hospital “poorer patients” during the 1849 cholera outbreak formerly belonged to John Dick.
The reason that I'm interested in (and puzzled by) him is that on 31 Dec 1833 his daughter Jane Dick (b about 1815, in Riccarton) married another Calico Printer/ Shawl Manufacturer, my gggrandfather's brother, George Humphrey. How I know she was his daughter is that her 1891 death record - at age 73 according to the registration, or at age 82 per her gravestone - has her parents as: "John Dick Calico Printer Master (Dead)' and "Jane Dick M.S. -------- (Dead)".
George Humphrey seems to have acquired some of John's property and/or business after his death - in the Netherton area.
Unless I'm missing something here, Jane Dick/Humphrey's age indicates that her father John Dick was born well before 1800. Which means he can't be the same John Dick (Cotton & Wool Manufacturer aged only <30>) found in the 1841 Kilmarnock census, who married Jean Gardner in 1835. It makes sense that the younger John Dick (your gggrandfather) was the son b Feb 1810 of David Dick & Janet Calderwood, and that David was John Sr's brother, making John Jr a nephew of John Sr.
But what I don't understand is how the older John Dick missed the 1841 census - nor how BOTH John Dicks seem to suddenly vanish off the face of Ayrshire from 1847 onwards. Which one died on the Isle of Arran?
Any ideas?
John Humphrey (Toronto)