On John Darroch's last leg of his journey to Glasgow, he passed by the home of his future wife, Agnes Greenlees. This post will look at the religious, cultural, and economic environments in which Agnes and her ancestors lived.
Renfrewshire and Paisley
Scottish politics and theology were intertwined, so it's not surprising that the counties and presbyteries shared the same boundaries. In Renfrewshire, Paisley was the administrative center for the county and the seat of the Presbytery. Paisley Presbytery was comprised of numerous parishes (see map below). This post focuses on two of them: Kilmacolm and Port Glasgow. The church had great sway in society, perhaps even greater in Kilmacolm than most, due to centuries of religious activity there.
Going back 1500 years, the name Kilmacolm is believed to be Gaelic for cell or church of Columba, a religious cell established there around the 6th century. [1] In the 13th century, a Norman church was erected at that site (and the current church was also built there). In 1560, the Scottish Reformation marked a break with the Papacy. This affected all of Scotland, yet it is interesting to note that John Knox, the leading figure in the Reformation, administered in Kilmacolm what is thought to be the first Protestant communion in all of Scotland.
The phrase religious upheaval understates the battles, executions, and revolts of the Reformation. Even after the Presbyterian Church was established as the national Kirk, the unrest continued. A century later, in 1662, Parliament passed the Act of Glasgow (aka The Drunken Act of Glasgow). In an ill-advised attempt to redirect support to the flagging Anglican Church, 400 Presbyterian pastors were locked out of their chapels and manses. They were outlawed from preaching, on the pain of fines, imprisonment, or even execution.
The lawmakers underestimated the determination of the clergy and their flocks. State-imposed ministers found empty pews or were greeted with stones hurled at them at the chapel door, while the ousted Presbyterian ministers continued to baptize and preach in fields, halls, and barns. Their parishioners bore the risk of being fined, imprisoned, or branded on the cheek and banished to an American colony. Nonetheless, the Kilmacolm congregation supported their ousted minister as he preached on the moors.
The moors above Kilmacolm were a gathering spot for more than the Presbyterians. A certain moor in Kilmacolm was "a favourite rendezvous for all the witches in the neighbourhood. There they were met by the devil himself...." [2] The lowlands were a hotbed of witch trials, and none more than in the Paisley Presbytery. The parishes most involved in witch hunts were Kilmacolm (#13), Inverkip (#11), Greenock (#6-8), and Erskine (#5). As shown on the map, each of these parishes shared a boundary with Kilmacolm.
In 1696, a sensational case emerged in Erskine Parish. It started with Christian Shaw, the eleven-year-old daughter of a laird, who saw the family maid steal a drink of milk. Christian told her mother. The maid was mad at the child. Soon after, Christian started suffering from convulsive fits. Physicians as far away as Glasgow could not explain the cause, so the family concluded she had been bewitched. They asked Christian who cursed her. She accused the young maid and other servants who had scolded or reprimanded her.
Accused "witches" were tried and, if found guilty, typically hanged and then burned. This travesty of justice is difficult to comprehend. Misunderstood illnesses such as epilepsy or paranoid schizophrenia often played a role. Add mass hysteria in the populace and the church and justice system felt obliged to respond. The accused were tortured, sleep-deprived, and offered clemency by naming other "witches." The outcome was horrific. Scottish courts executed an estimated 1,500 innocent people, 75% of whom were women.
In the Christian Shaw case, 21 people were brought to trial before a commission of 17 judges. Of the accused, 14 were declared not guilty and seven innocent people were sentenced to the fire. One hanged himself in his cell. Two other men and four women were dragged to the gallows where they were hanged and burned on Paisley's Gallow Green. It was the last mass execution for witchcraft in western Europe. [4] This website gives a full history of the Renfrewshire Witch Hunt of 1697.
Kilmacolm Parish
That brings us up to the 1700s. In the middle of the century, Kilmacolm Parish became renowned for its "Kilmacolm Preachings." Twice a year, people gathered from miles around to attend. Ministers from neighbouring parishes closed their doors and joined in the preaching from morning until night. In spite of admirable intentions, the event had unintended consequences, for:
"Between the sermons, many felt the need for liquid refreshment and kept the alehouses busy. What with the crowds, the excitement of the occasion and the effects of alcohol, things got out of hand." [5]
A subsequent minister described the event in more detail. He wrote, "Drunken men and women reeled homewards shouting and singing, with profane and filthy language. It was attended also with even grosser moral delinquencies." [6]
Agnes's father, William, was born here, as were his parents, Robert Greenlees and Ann Houston. We have little information about Robert Greenlees, but an 1898 book refers to his father (also named Robert Greenlees), who lived during this rough-and-tumble time. A book on the Parish's history refers to a Robert Greenlees who was awarded a sum of money after an unusual and unprovoked attack by a neighbour's son. The author cites this incident as further evidence of the uncouth ways of the parish residents in 1750.
The account refers to Wateryetts, a farm just a few hundred meters north of Kilmacolm. Houstons also lived there, so William's mother, Ann Houston grew up. Regardless, in the late 1700s, William and two sisters grew up in the parish. Agriculture was the main economic driver, with about 80% of the parish's 1600 people living in the country. Rural living was humble. Families travelled to the village for Sabbath worship and to attend market fairs to buy goods or to trade produce and cattle.
The only village in the parish was Kilmacolm, with a population of three hundred (367 by 1836). They lived in low thatched-roof houses with attached barns. Like the rest of the area, weaving was a common occupation. Even with its small population, up to 30 weavers from Kilmacolm sent their goods to Paisley on a weekly basis. The village did not industrialize like Paisley, which had built large factories to employ hundreds of workers. Instead, the Industrial Revolution bypassed the village. A saying arose: "Out of the world and into Kilmacolm." [5]
For a while, Kilmacolm became a sleepy little parish forgotten by time. In some ways, that seems to have been a blessing in disguise. In spite of its colourful past, in 1836, the parish minister reported,
“It is pleasing to see the improvement that has taken place in the character and manners of the people. The church is more regularly attended; the people are cleanly, and their dress tasteful. Their manners and language are also improving, and they are not surpassed in religion or morality by any around them.” [8]
In contrast to its previous reputation for being poor and uncouth, things started to turn around. By the time Agnes's parents came on the scene, the surroundings were peaceable.
It wasn't so everywhere. Just four miles northwest of Kilmacolm was the Parish of Port Glasgow, named after the growing port and industrial town. The two parishes shared a common border but had vastly different economies, cultures, and histories.
Port Glasgow
Port Glasgow was a busy industrial town, although it started as a simple fishing hamlet called Newark. Things changed when ships became too big to sail up the River Clyde. To resolve the issue, merchants in Glasgow bought land in the deeper downstream waters. They built piers and warehouses, and the fishing hamlet became a port town. In 1775, Port Glasgow was granted burgh status, making it a post and market town. By 1836, the parish had a population of 6,000, almost four times that of Kilmacolm, packed into two square miles.
This graph compares the proportion of industrial to agricultural workers in the two parishes. In Port Glasgow, the port and shipbuilding industries were the economic engines. Only seven families were engaged in farming, depicted as a thin red line on top of the tall blue column.
Frank Darroch wrote that Agnes Greenlees was born in Port Glasgow in 1829. I have not, however, been able to find any primary documentation on her birth. Her headstone (in Ontario, Canada) states she was born in Kilmacolm. Nonetheless, the point is that Port Glasgow was a fast-growing industrial town, in direct contrast with Kilmacolm just four miles away.
More than Port Glasgow was growing. In the opposite direction, 10 miles southeast of Kilmacolm, Paisley had emerged as the world leader in thread making and weaving. Interestingly, Christian Shaw, the eleven-year-old girl in the story above, grew up to be the founder of the thread industry in Renfrewshire. [9] And just 12 miles east of Paisley was the burgeoning metropolis of Glasgow. These larger towns and cities struggled with all the problems of the day: overcrowding, lack of sanitation, and poor housing.
This background gives us context for Agnes's childhood. We will now learn how life's events and her response to them developed her character. The following posts will be about Agnes, her parents, and their stories. I will start with her parents, Anne Findlay and William Greenlees.
References:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilmacolm, retrieved April 26, 2014.
[2] James Murray, Kilmacolm: A Parish History, 1100-1898, (Рипол Классик, 1898), 126.
[3] Map from https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/RFW/rfw_pmap4, retrieved March 18, 2022.
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisley_witches, retrieved March 19, 2022
[5] David Roe, Kilmacolm: A History (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2007),
https://www.kilmacolmcivictrust.org/images/docs/Kilmacolm.pdf, retrieved March 18, 2022.
[6] James Murray, Kilmacolm: A Parish History, 1100-1898, (Рипол Классик, 1898), 151. https://electricscotland.com/council/pdf/kilmacolmparishh00murr.pdf, retrieved March 18, 2022.
[7] "The Old Village" etching: Ibid., face page.
[8] "Parish report for Kilmacolm, County of Renfrew (1834-45)." The New Statistical Account of Scotland (Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1845), volume 7, 58-59. http://stat-acc-scot.edina.ac.uk/link/1834-45/, retrieved July 13, 2010.
[9] https://paisleythreadmill.co.uk/history/, retrieved March 23, 2022.
[10] James Murray, Kilmacolm: A Parish History, 1100-1898, (Рипол Классик, 1898), 165-66. https://electricscotland.com/council/pdf/kilmacolmparishh00murr.pdf, retrieved March 18, 2022.
Note: Kilmacolm was originally spelled Kilmalcolm, assuming it was named after King Malcolm. In 1905, the town decreed the spelling would be changed to Kilmacolm.