« Reply #11 on: Wednesday 24 June 15 22:19 BST (UK) »
Phew, I'm pleased the Scottish Mining website hasn't closed down as it's been a valuable resource for me and I often re-visit to check if anything new has been added. I'm particularly keen to discover how/when Allan M'kenzie of Clyde Ironworks died sometime between 1841-1851.
My interest started with seeing my gg g/father Donald M'kenzie blacksmith ancestor, from Urray, in the 1841 census worked at the Clyde Ironworks which initially I hadn't realised was allied to the coal mining business until my surfing landed me on the Scottish mining website.
It was his son Kenneth M'kenzie, mining engineer, who bought a stake in the Bank mine at New Cumnock which I believe was named "Seaforth" because that is the family's branch of the M'kenzie clan. When I saw the initial asking price, then even the lowered asking price of the business I wondered how on earth a son of a humble tradesman could even think of buying into such a project. I was a "self starter" in business with no assets so I know it can be done, but I didn't have to lay out such a large sum of money. I believe Ken raised funds from various contacts. For instance his sister Jane was married to John Crum, stationer, Glasgow. in 1841 John was an apprentice blacksmith living with his widowed mother in Little Dovehill but in 1847 he'd managed to find money to set up in business and owned a wholesale stationery company. (He re-printed Alan Ramsay's "The Tea-Table Miscellany in 1871 which is still circulated today). John Crum had various contacts such as Robert Dalglish MP because John's cousin Lilias Crum married Robert's brother Andrew Stephenson Dalglish, a well known benefactor who had fingers in many pies.
Cheers, Rena
Aberdeen: Findlay-Shirras,McCarthy: MidLothian: Mason,Telford,Darling,Cruikshanks,Bennett,Sime, Bell: Lanarks:Crum, Brown, MacKenzie,Cameron, Glen, Millar; Ross: Urray:Mackenzie: Moray: Findlay; Marshall/Marischell: Perthshire: Brown Ferguson: Wales: McCarthy, Thomas: England: Almond, Askin, Dodson, Well(es). Harrison, Maw, McCarthy, Munford, Pye, Shearing, Smith, Smythe, Speight, Strike, Wallis/Wallace, Ward, Wells;Germany: Flamme,Ehlers, Bielstein, Germer, Mohlm, Reupke