Local Connections
James Gammell of Garvel House 1735-1825
James Gammell 1735-1825 James Gammell was born in Greenock on 12 December 1735 to William Gammell and Margaret Scott. William Gammell had been a shipmaster and later a merchant. He became a Baillie of the town and the landowner of the Garvel estate. James was their 4th child. James attended the Greenock Grammar School with his brother William where one […]
Alexander Graham Bell
In the 1870s a group of Greenock Business men, including a Mr Thomas Borthwick who had a deaf child, went to hear Alexander Graham Bell in Glasgow lecturing about his “Visible Speech Machine”. They approached him afterwards about the possibility of him helping start up a school in Greenock for the deaf children of the area using his […]
Ian McCrorie – A Life Lived to the Full
Ian McCrorie is a well known and very popular figure in the Greenock area for several reasons, the main four being:- His contribution to education as a Chemistry teacher and as Assistant Rector of Greenock Academy. His contribution to Music in the Inverclyde area and beyond. His love of and enthusiasm for steamers and the […]
Mary Campbell – Highland Mary
Click the link below to access the leaflet about Highland Mary Highland-mary-Leaf-Highland-mary-Leaf[2] Mary Campbell’s grave in the Old West Kirkyard
Henry Robertson Bowers
Henry Robertson Bowers (1883 – 1912) Adventurer. Short, hardy, reliable, understated and the finest example of a man Greenock has ever produced. He sailed at least five times around the world. He was a Royal Indian Marine and he captured gun runners on the Persian Gulf. Henry was born in the house at the corner […]
James Watt
James Watt (1736 – 1819) Inventor & Mechanical Engineer There can be little doubt that James Watt is Greenock’s most famous son. He was born in William Street not far from his statue and just around the corner from the pub named in his honour, The James Watt Bar, now known, by the descendants of those who […]
William Quarrier
William Quarrier (1829 – 1903) Philanthropist William Quarrier was born in a house on Cross Shore St, Greenock but moved to Glasgow at an early age after his father died. He was brought up in a situation of poverty and witnessed first hand the squalour, deprivation and utter hopelessness of slum life. At the age […]