Biographical notes

This family was blighted with bad luck. They initially lived in Kilmarnock. Of their two children the first, Elizabeth, was born prematurely and died on Christmas Eve 11 hours after birth. The second child, Archibald, developed bronchitis and died on Christmas day 7 weeks after birth. They were very poor and, in 1881, applied for poor relief. Sometime after this they must have moved back to Wallacetown, Ayr. Robert was killed in 1889 after being crushed between the buffers of two railway wagons whilst gathering coal on the dock railway in Ayr. Jane died in 1899 in the local Lunatic Asylum.