THOMAS DUNLOP MARRIES JEAN WHYTE

Thomas and Jean were married on 12 March 1791, in the High Church, Paisley, Renfrewshire.  Jean was local to the High Church parish, but Thomas, who was then working as a cotton spinner in Paisley, hailed from the Barony parish, Glasgow.

Jean bore at least eleven children to Thomas, and ten of the births have been located.  Six of the ten took place in Paisley, and four of them in Glasgow.  The Paisley births were, Jean (b. 1792), Thomas (b. 1793), Agnes (b. 1795), Robert (b. 1796), Andrew (b. 1798) and James (b. 1801).   The Glasgow births (all in the Barony parish) were, Alexander (b. 1802), Jean (b. 1805: the first Jean having, presumably, died), Janet (b. 1808) and William (b. 1810).   Thomas was probably hard working and careful, for whilst in Paisley he progressed from being an employed cotton spinner and weaver, to being a self-employed grocer.  After the birth of their sixth child, James, in 1801, Thomas and his family moved to the then rural district of Frankfield, about 3 miles from Glasgow centre, where Thomas took up farming.  (My thanks to George Dunlop Brown of St Andrews for much of this information.) Stepps, Frankfield, Hornshill, Cardowan Click on the image to zoom in.  Click on your broswser's back button to return here. It is not known where, precisely, Thomas's farm was located, nor the name of it.  Frankfield is on the southern fringes of Stepps, in the Barony parish, and from The Story of Stepps (1996) by Freda Bunyan and Neil Kidd, we learn that at about the time that the Dunlops were farming there the land to the south of Stepps belonged to the estates of Frankfield and Cardowan.  We also learn from the same source that in addition to the home farm at Frankfield, there were the farms of Craigendmuir and Avenue End.  So it might be that Thomas was the tenant on one of those three farms.  (This writer is uncertain, however, from his reading of Bunyan and Kidd whether or not they wish their readers to understand that those were the only three farms on the southern fringes of Stepps.) The first national census was conducted in 1841, and a trawl of the enumerators' books for the Barony parish of Glasgow was made at New Register house in 1998 in an attempt to locate Thomas Dunlop, Jean Whyte and family at Frankfield.  The family was not located.  Frankfield Farm, however, was.  In 1851 it was reported to be of about 43 acres, and in both 1841 and 1851 it was occupied by Andrew Gray, a farmer (whose age was given as 55 years in 1841, and as 61 years in 1851), and his large households (13 besides himself in 1841, and 10 besides himself in 1851). It is perhaps unsurprising that Thomas and Jean were not found.  They were, we might suppose, over 70 years of age in 1841, and it is quite likely that they were already dead. We know too, that their eldest surviving son, Thomas, removed from the Barony parish before 1829 (when his son David was born) to the Cadder parish.  (In fact, he appears to have removed to Hornshill Farm, in the upper fringes of Stepps, that part of Stepps being in Cadder.)  It is perhaps also worth noting, although it is not quite understood how it fits, that when Thomas and Jean's fifth son, Alexander, died in 1869, his father's occupation was given as 'contractor'.  Perhaps that might mean that Thomas gave up the farm in Frakfield some years before he died. It may be of interest to note here, that although our Dunlops were not located at Frankfield in 1841, another two families of Dunlops with some similarities to our own were observed nearby, at Cardown.  One household was comprised of Robert Dunlop, aged 65, cotton handloom weaver, born in county; Ann Dunlop, aged 65, cotton minder, born in county; William Dunlop, aged 25, cotton handloom weaver, born in county.  The other household was, Robert Dunlop, aged 35, cotton handloom weaver, born in county; Janet Dunlop, aged 35, cotton minder, [born in county].

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