This page was last updated on 15 May 2011 Click here to  Print this page Biography finder A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z     Index of first names

Dr Patrick Douglas of Garrallan

 

 

 

 

Patrick Douglas of Garrallan was a medical doctor whose estate was in the parish of Old Cumnock. He was one of those involved in the Douglas-Heron Bank collapse.

 

Robert Burns visited him in Ayr, and it was through Dr Douglas, who had bought an estate in Jamaica which his brother, Charles, managed, that Burns was offered the post of book-keeper to Charles in Port Antonio.

 

 The Rev Hamilton Paul listed him as one of those present at the first meeting in 1801 in the Cottage at Alloway held to celebrate the poet's birth.

 

Dr Douglas was for a time a surgeon in the West Lowland Fencible Regiment. He died in 1819

 

 

The Cumnock Express of 23rd September 1892 says :-

The Late Patrick Charles Douglas Boswell of Garrallan

This well-known and much respected county gentleman departed this life at Garrallan on the early morning of Tuesday last, in the 77th year of his age, after a comparatively brief illness, for he was present at the Cumnock Flower Show on the 3rd instant, and seemed then in much his usual state of health, although for a considerable time past his strength was visibly departing, and as his hearing had also become somewhat impaired, he appeared much less in public than formerly, and having also resigned the chairmanship of the Parochial and School Boards of the parish – offices which he had long and most satisfactorily filled – he thenceforth took almost no part in public affairs, although the deep interest which he always took in everything which concerned the prosperity of the district, and the welfare of the country at large, continued, till his last illness prostrated him on that bed from which he was never more to rise.

Mr Boswell was sprung from a younger branch of the Boswells of Auchinleck , his ancestors possessing the lands of Knockroon, his father – Mr Hamilton Boswell, only son of Mr John Boswell of Knockroon – coming to the Garrallan estate by his marriage with Miss Jane Douglas, daughter and heiress of Patrick Douglas of Garrallan, whose eldest son, John Douglas Boswell – whom many yet remember – dying about thirty years ago, the estate fell to his brother (the gentleman whose death we now mourn) who was then in New South Wales. About twenty-five years ago he returned to his native land, and took up his residence at Garrallan, and has resided there, happy in the bosom of his family, ever since, with the exception of a few months in recent winters, when they sought the milder and more salubrious clime of the South of England.

Besides the Garrallan estate, Mr Boswell possessed a small estate in the adjacent parish of New Cumnock, and was a kind, generous, and enlightened landlord. For many years too, he undertook the management of the extensive estate of Auchinleck, not as paid agent, but only as an act of friendship towards his relative and neighbour, the late Lady Boswell, and in this capacity he was as successful as he was trusted and beloved by all parties concerned.

As a magistrate too, Mr Boswell was popular, for he delighted to mingle mercy with judgement when occupying a place on the bench, and in every capacity he was equally trusted and respected by men of every shade of politics; and now “he has come to his grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season,” leaving a widow, two sons, and three daughters to mourn his loss and love and revere his memory. His eldest son – Mr Hamilton Douglas Boswell – is at present manager and part proprietor of the Etah Tea Estate in the Sylhet district of India

 

 

Any contributions will be gratefully accepted