1854 July events or tourist attractions in Alexandria

[thisisharriet]

Why might a 54-year-yr-old Baptist grocer from Lancashire have been in Alexandria in July 1854?
Was there a Baptist convention?  a grocery convention?  was he sightseeing at LochNess?  or just visiting relatives (calico printers were very mobile, and he and his wife were born to calicoprinting families in Lancashire).  Or had he gone AWOL from home.....  Or just on business in the Glasgow area?
He died there, suddenly.  see Glasgow Herald 14 July 1854 - Joseph LAYCOCK.
Was he also buried there?

All ideas welcome.
Thanks

[DonM]

I really have no idea, it's an impossible question to answer. 

Perhaps he had enough of the grocery business and wanted to do something else.  Cailco Printing was big business in this area.

My suggestion - check the newspaper archive and see if the Grocer's Business was for sale.

Don

[Ian Nelson]

Hardly be looking for the Loch Ness Monster in Loch Lomond (near Alexandria).  They are 2 different beasties.

[thisisharriet]

Many thanks to Ian for pointing out I've got my Scottish lochs mixed up.
Disgraceful I know.
But exactly highlights how uncomfortable I am, in Wiltshire, dealing with an event in Scotland - way off my radar.

[ev]

The railway station in Alexandria opened in 1850 , so perhaps just on holiday/visiting relatives 


ev

[RJ_Paton]

Calico printing may have been your link. Alexandria was considered one of the most important centres for textiles in the 19th  Century and was especially famous for its "Turkey Red" Dye Works.

https://www.west-dunbarton.gov.uk/leisure-parks-events/museums-and-galleries/collections/industry/textiles-and-mills/

[thisisharriet]

Wonderful : thank you all for these ideas.
I need to find out more about all the blood and in-law siblings, nephews and nieces - to see if any of them might be in the calico works in Alexandria in the early 1850s. 
And to see if any of this man had any children who died young and might have been buried before 1854 in the wider Manchester area, which might lead me to a grave where he is also buried.
With a railway station in Alexandria the or the whole family might well just have been on a visit.
And he could have been sent back by the mortuary by train - someone has told me of a similar long distance trip by train, from death to burial, in that same decade.

[Istrice]

Harriet,

You may find this an interesting link re Alexandria and the Vale of Leven. (http://www.valeofleven.org.uk/alexandria2.html)

Istrice

[Rena]

When Bryan was demobbed from the forces, before the event of supermarkets, we found ourselves in a silent Lancashire town where not one foodshop was open (help, we'll starve!).  We eventually learnt we'd arrived in that town's "Wakes Week", where everything shut down for an annual holiday.  Every town in Lancashire had their own "wakes week".  This could mean that your grocer was either on holiday up in Scotland, or on a work fishing trip.

You say he was a grocer, and in those days if he was anything like my ancester, he grew his own vegetables and fruit to sell.  Thus, he may have had something different to offer in the way of a coloured dye.

In the early days dyes for cloths and woollens came from nature, e.g. yellow dye came from onions.   Gardeners know that different areas have different soils, which produce different fruits and vegetables = e.g. only the island of Jersey produces the tasty potato grown on that island.

On the other hand he may have been visiting relatives and here's a webpage that lists various people's names who worked in various mills for you to check against your surname list.

url link:
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01pl0/