William Maclean
(1832-1920)
my gt gt grandfather
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William Maclean (above) was born on 6th Sept 1832 at Whitefield, a farm on the Grantully estate near Aberfeldy in the
upper Tay valley, Perthshire, Scotland. He was baptised in the parish of Dull in Perth. William was the 7th child of James Maclean
(or McLean) (1791-1872) and Ann Anderson (1799-1871).
In around 1840, the family left Whitefield. There is no clear reason for this. According to an account by Roy Pyman Maclean
written in the 1930s or 1940s, James had been running a whisky distillery on the side, and "sampled his own wares rather
heavily". According to Roy, he "became converted" in around 1840, "gave up drink both for profit and pleasure,
and took a farm near Crieff".
Another account by Mervyn McLean (of New Zealand) suggests that the move coincided with a severe potato blight as well as the
Highland clearances, in which tenant farmers were pushed unceremoniously off their land to make way for more profitable sheep
grazing. Mervyn also suggests that the family may have struggled to find new lodgings: I have been unable to find them in the 1851
Scottish Census.
By this time, William had already left home, and there is no surviving record of any further contact with his family. According to
Roy's account, he was effectively adopted by Mr George Wharrie, a Yorkshireman. As a
result, William moved south to England, and in the late 1840s was enrolled in a private school in Aberdeen Walk, Scarborough,
overseen by one James Sykes. (Sykes appears in the 1851 census as a lodger living at 65 Aberdeen Walk, and is described as a
schoolmaster in mathematics and higher classics). William later studied medicine in Edinburgh. In fact the 17-year-old William
does appear in the 1851 Scottish Census, lodging with the Aikman family at 9 Hope Street, Edinburgh. Wharrie, then 61, was also a
lodger at the same address.
After two years studying in Edinburgh, William went to Jersey for a holiday. On the return journey, he caught smallpox in London,
and then scarlet fever and "erycipelas" (a now defunct illness, described as an "acute, infectious disease
evidenced by a deep red inflammation of the skin"). "Upon his recovery," wrote Roy, "he was so weak that he
decided to give up medicine and take up a commercial career".
He entered the office of George Lockwood & Son, a well-to-do coal merchant in Stockton-on-Tees. In 1861, William makes his
first appearance in the English Census. Accompanied by George Wharrie, he is a visitor to Mary Darling, a married gentlewoman
living in Seaton Carew, then a seaside town neighbouring Hartlepool, later to become known as West Hartlepool. The nature of this
visit is unclear. However, it is almost certainly connected with William's new career, and it is tempting to see George Wharrie,
by now in his 70s, as the architect of this connection for his young protege: Mary Darling was related by marriage to the wife of
George Lockwood, a well-to-do merchant and shipowner in the town.
William quickly built his own family connection. George Lockwood Jr (1821-1877) was married to Lucretia Share (1821-1872),
whose niece Clara Hogg (pictured above right, b 1845 in Stepney, East London) was a
frequent visitor to their house. William and Clara met at some point in the early 1860s and were married at Holy Saviours in
Tynemouth (where Clara's widowed mother, Catherine Share, kept a lodging house) on 22
March 1866. Their first marital home was at 32 Scarborough Street, West Hartlepool. Daughter Catherine ("Katie") was
born a year later (1867), and was given the middle name Wharrie after William's mentor. Eleven further surviving children
followed. In 1872, the family moved to Wellington Road, and later built Grantully House in Westbourne Road. They were settled in Grantully House by 1891.
In around 1868, having left Lockwoods, William set up on his own in an office in Victoria Terrace, Hartlepool as a coal
"fitter" (exporter and agent) and timber agent in partnership with James Groves, son of Eskdale Ingram Groves, a
well-known coal agent in the town. In 1872, they launched their first steamship, named the James Groves, carrying around 1,000
tons. That ship was lost at sea in 1875, but was replaced with another of the same name. Other vessels subsequently owned by the
firm between 1875 and 1901 included the Aberfeldy, Grantully and Whitefield, all names with personal significance to William. The
last was Duart, built in 1901.
In 1875, William was a founding member of the Hartlepool Shipowners Society whose other original committee members included George
Horsley (1837-1895) and Thomas English Pyman (1843-1892), two other prosperous merchants who became fathers-in-law to two of
William's daughters. William was also a founder and secretary of the Hartlepool Chamber of Commerce, as well as a Trustee of
Hartlepool Hospital, and one of the original bench members of the local Borough Magistrates, along with George
Pyman (1822-1890).
In 1909, he and Clara retired to Lochbuie house in Harrogate, where William died in 1920. Clara died in 1925. Grantully House, their former home in West Hartlepool, was either purchased or gifted to the borough council and was converted into the main maternity hospital in the town.
He was described in his obituary in the Northern Daily Mail as "one of the straightest if not the straightest dealing
shipowner on the coast, who could not endure an underhand suggestion. He might often be seen walking alone to business or for a
constitutional, tall, well set up and well groomed, an active person, a keen man of business, a perfect gentleman and a humble
Christian."
William and Clara's children were:
Catherine Wharrie Maclean
Frederick William Maclean
Clara Maclean
Florence Maclean
William Share Maclean
George Henry Maclean
Horace Malcolm Maclean
Mabel Pera Maclean
Norman Keith Maclean
Alan Douglas Maclean
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