Unsung Heroines

Helen Simpson Dunsmore

Helen was born on 15th November 1926 the elder of 2 girls.  Educated in Greenock and went on to study chemistry at Glasgow University.  After being awarded a BSc she continued her studies for a PhD in Electrochemistry.  When these studies were completed she received a research fellowship in Canada staying there for 3 years.  […]

Isabel Marion Mackintosh 1886 – 1918

On January 17th 1886 Isabel Marion Mackintosh was born at 57 Newton Street Greenock.  Her parents were Jessie Victoria McKenzie and Archibald Robert Donald Mackintosh who had married in Edinburgh on August 30th 1882.  Marion’s parents came from the Nairn area but they seemed to have moved around quite often and in fact disappear from records […]

Muriel Ritson 1885 – 1980

Muriel Ritson was born on the 8th July 1885 to John Fletcher Ritson and Agnes Jane Catto in Broomberry Drive, Gourock.  John and Agnes had married in Peterhead on the 6th June 1882.  Muriel was the middle child of the family, Ada, the eldest and Cecilia being the youngest.   The family was originally from the north […]

Agnes Curran 1920 – 2005

Agnes was born on 12 February 1920 to Mark Brennan and Agnes Ferris Hendry at 25 Lyle Street, Greenock.  She was the youngest of 9 children and when her father died at a young age she took over the care of the younger children as well as bringing up her own family of 3 children. […]

Isabella (Isabel) Wood Meldrum

Sister Isabel Meldrum is commemorated on the fine memorial erected by members of the Military Nursing Services in St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh to Scottish nurses who died while on war service.  She served with the Territorial Force Nursing Service during the First World War. Isabella, or Bella as her name appears on one of the census records was […]

Agnes Bankier Harvey – a “Glasgow Girl” artist

Agnes Bankier Harvey was born in Glasgow to William Gourlay Harvey and his wife Sarah Tennant Sloan.  They had married in 1867 and had 6 children, Francis William, born 1870, David S, born 1871, Charles, born 1873, Agnes Bankier, born 1874, Lawrence born 1876 and Tennant Sloan, born 1878.  Sadly their mother died in 1878 […]

Alice May Syme Murdoch

Alice May Syme Murdoch

Alice Murdoch is one of the few women who are named  on a municipal war memorial from the First World War.  She is named on the Gourock Municipal Memorial which was dedicated on 4th March 1922.  She died in Perth War Hospital on 10th December 1916 at 28 years of age.  She served as a […]

Mary L. Fairgrieve – a “Glasgow Girl” artist

Mary Fairgrieve was born in Glasgow in 1875 to Alexander and Margaret James.  She married John Dunn Fairgrieve, a Greenock man, in Middlesbrough in 1897.  Tragically her husband died while they were on their honeymoon at Port Ellen, Argyllshire and is buried there.  She came with her parents to Greenock shortly after this and the family lived at 11 Sandringham […]

Elizabeth Wood Inglis

Bessie Inglis was known latterly as the “Grand Old Lady” of Port Glasgow.  She was born on 31 January 1854  at Ivybank, Port Glasgow and died on 25 November 1936 at Woodbank, Port Glasgow and buried in Port Glasgow cemetery.  The granddaughter of the Rev Dr Inglis of the United Presbyterian Church (now Princes Street Church) Port […]

Dame Louisa Augusta Wood

Louisa Augusta Fanning was born in Canada to General Edmund Fanning and Phoebe Maria Burns on 3 October 1786 at Halifax Nova Scotia.  Her father was the governor of Prince Edward Island.  On 28 June 1830 she married Gabriel Wood by special license in London.  They made their home in Bath, Somerset. She died on […]