Milroy of Port Logan?

[MonicaL]

You sound happy with the new info! Great that someone has forwarded on more details 

I had been looking for details in Kirkmaiden - 'Kirkmaiden By Drummore' (with the Port Logan ref on that census entry) and Stranraer. Online parish details are really contained on Scotlands People www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/ - with the additonal support of the IGi index:

www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp?PAGE=igi/search_IGI.asp&clear_form=true - and,
www.familysearch.org/#start

Have struggled to find much for you so far online. I have now at the back of my head with what you mentioned regarding the Barnstaple Congregational Church that the family may not have belonged to the established Church of Scotland, ie presbyterian. The records on SP and indexed on IGI are from the established CoS records in the main.

Like you, I am thinking that perhaps the Milroy merchants down in Cornwall were likely connected by family lines. There aren't actually that many entries for the surname Milroy and variants showing on the censuses down there. To have a number of them, at the same time, all merchants and involved with tea, does certainly seem to draw a line around them doesn't it.

Monica

[Trees]

Checking the IGI I find:
Children of Parick Milroy and Agnes Hamilton
Margaret 1795
Jean 1797
John 1805
Henry 1807
Agnes 1811
Then Peter and Agnes Hamilton
Peter 1802
Alexander 1813
a marriage
Patrick Milroy and Agnes Hamilton

I think Peter is a red herring and all should be Patrick and Agnes

Alexander had a daughter Agnes Hamilton Milroy
James also had an Agnes
Henry peter and Jean are new to me
BUT where is James??

[MonicaL]

Patrick and Peter are both interchangeable variants in Scotland/Ireland, see www.whatsinaname.net/php/search.php?action=search2&search_name=peter

Interesting about the Hamilton surname as a middle name. Do you have all the children for Alexander and Julia in order? She died young didn't she?

Monica

[Trees]

Alexander and Julia children on Bodmin
John Henry 1838-1840
Alexander 1839
Julia 1841
John 1842
Agnes Hamilton 1844
Julia their mum died 1846

James and Mary children in Barnstaple
Margaret 1830
Mary 1833
Agnes 1836
Julia 1839
Ellen 1841
James died 1843

[Trees]

These Milroys are proving very interesting It appears they set up a tea dealing fim in Devon and Cornwall taking "Apprentices from Scotland on an agreement that after a fixed term...it looks like three years they would be set up in business either with one of the brothers or alone buying their tea from the brothers there are many notices in the London Gazette terminating these partnerships. It is an interesting look at business arrangements in the 1800s

[MonicaL]

They certainly look very industrious and active in the tea business. With some many of them involved with it, you would think there would be more trace of them in Scotland, but we struggle so far.

Checking Wills & Testaments on Scotlands People only one entry that I can see with a reference to tea (surname search as M*l*r* and the key word tea) - a William Milroy, April 1853, a tea merchant living in Glasgow and married to a Lillias Aitkon.

Monica

Added: Early marriage entry for a William Milroy and Lillias Aitken on 24 Nov. 1807 in Barony, Lanark.

No idea really if this William is at all connected, Trees....Just thought to add as it was the only entry showing on SP with the tea/Milroy ref.

[Trees]

I have found a reference to William Milroy of glasgow the London Gazette

[Extracts from the Edinburgh Gazette of January 10,1851."]
NOTICE.
npHE Company which carried on business as Tea Mer-
JL chants, in Glasgow, under the firm of Milroy and
Rodie, of which the Subscribers were the sole partners, was
dissolved by mutual consent on the 1st day of May 1850.
The Subscriber, William Milroy. has power to collect the
•whole debts due to the Company, and will pay the debts due
by them. William Milroy.
Alex. Rodie.
JOHN REID, Witness, Stationer, Glasgow.
JOHN GHAT, Witness, Tobacconist, Glasgow.
Glasgow, January 6, 1851.
IN reference to the above notice, the Subscriber, William
Milroy begs to intimate that he will continue the business
under the same firm as formerly, and in the premises
occupied by that firm for the last twenty years; and he
respectfully requests a continuance of that patronage which
has hitherto been so liberally bestowed on the Company.
William Milroy.
48, Ilutchcson-street,
Glasgow, January 6, 1851

[MonicaL]

Ah, there is a Wigtownshire connection to this William 

A messy transcript from 1851 for him and wife Lillias:

William Mitrey 64, Fa (?tea)Merchant Employ 7 Men b. Shire, Wigton
Lilias Mitrey 60 b. Glasgow
Isabella Mcgill 22, servant

Address: 30 Rose St, Barony

[Trees]

I have collected all the notices from the London Gazette ready to follow up
Several refer to Devon and Cornwall dissolving partnerships
Several of the names appear together on censuses as one working for the Milroy It seems that after the apprenticeship they were taken into partnership for a while then set up alone and the partnership dissolved. The problem being there are two such notices where a partnership of James and John Milroy is dissolved  one in barnstaple 1829 and one in Cornwall 1837
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/18556/pages/429/page.pdf
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/19461/pages/206/page.pdf

I just can't work out how many James and how many Johns are involved in all this
I have also found a bankruptcy of a partnership between Alexander and his son in law William Carlyon

its really soo interesting but in some ways just too much information to absorb quickly I am now simply collecting and will take a deep breath when i get some time to sort it all out...great fun