49564

Generation: C

Andrew Mackay

Mary Campbell

My father was never communicative about him. He "married the beautiful Mary Campbell who died young", after which he went to pieces. Andrew worked in a public house in Eglinton St. Glasgow. Alcohol was a bit too much for him. He was helped out of trouble by 'Ben Reay' and his brothers. He could sing and recite R. Burns poems. No family.

Mary was a cousin of the father of George Buchanan, M.P.

RLM March 1971

Andrew Mackay. 1858-1900.

Andrew was the sixth child of William and Janet. I could never find out anything about him from my father, and the name Andrew attracted me, somehow. My father preferred not to speak of him, and his taciturnity warned me off the subject.

Andrew, however, did run a 'pub' in Eglinton Street, Glasgow. It is not likely to have been his own. Kate Grant, my Buchanan cousin, says she remembers its situation and could walk to it today. SHE is 83!

I had the impression he 'married into the trade'. He did marry "the beautiful Mary Campbell and when she died young he went to pieces". They had no family. He was a source of worry to his brothers and sisters in Glasgow, and his older brother, Ben Reay, of the police, got him "out of trouble now and then". I have heard that his sister, Ann Buchanan helped him when distressed, and there is little doubt that Helen would help too.

The granite stone over his parents' grave at Ardgay is the sole visible reminder of his existence today: "Also our brother, Andrew, who died in 1900, age 42 years". I do not know where Andrew was buried.

42 years is a bit early for anyone to die of alcoholism these days. I think he may have had some other disease. Pneumonia is a possibility. Tuberculosis was then rife in Glasgow, and contacts in pubs were close. Many lads from the Highlands had no immunity at all against it... but I don't know.

The Campbell family mentioned above were well established in the fruit and vegetable trade. This family had also some links with our Lancashire Murrays, but I have not worked out the exact connection.