WILLIAM COWAN

Family Grocer & Tea Merchant

Hamilton objects are scattered all across the world and that’s a fact! They turn up everywhere and I was delighted when a lady named Kim got in touch with me and told me that an old food jar had turned up at her charity shop in Dumfries.

Kim was looking to put a value on the old Hamilton Jar and as I collect anything that’s old and comes from Hamilton, I offered to buy the jar from the charity shop, so the next Saturday after I spoke with Kim, I got in my car and did the one-hour drive down to Dumfries to collect this old relic of Hamilton.

Hamilton during the 19^th century had its fair share of grocers, none more popular or larger than Keith’s, who was the largest of them all and William Cowan was one of the smaller local Hamilton grocers but I have to say, William Cowan’s grocery shop was a shop that I have never heard of, so I decided to find out who William Cowan was.

I found that William was actually born in 1848 at Moffat in Dumfriesshire, just up the road from where the jar was donated to the charity shop. William lived here with his parents until his father got a job as a railway porter in Hamilton.

William, born on the 19^th  of July 1848 at a place called Middlegill near Moffat, Dumfriesshire to parents Hope Johnstone Cowan & Janet McCaughie, his father was a railway porter, and his mother was the home maker.

By 1851 William is living with his mother and siblings in Moffat, however, on that day that the census was taken, his father does not seem to be living with them. I did find a man called Johnson Cowan working as a farm laborer living and working at Whitecastles Farm in Dumfriesshire, however, I can’t confirm if this is the same person as Hope Johnson Cowan.

The family made the move to Hamilton between 1850 & 1853 and we next find the Cowan family on the 1861 census where the family are living at Burnbank Road, the Cowan family had grown, and William had eight siblings two of them were twins.

At this time, William, aged 12 had left school and is working as a grocer’s message boy, and we find his dad working locally as a railway porter. Burnbank at this time was not yet joined to the wider Hamilton but was more of a rural community, this was before the three large coal pits were opened at Greenfield, Earnock & Clyde which changed Burnbank forever.

At some point between 1861 & 1871, William is living away from his family at Beith in Ayrshire, and it is possible that he has found himself an apprenticeship with a local grocers merchant and it is sometime around 1871 that he meets a local Hamilton girl called Jessie Hamilton.

Jessie Hamilton was five years older than William and at the age of 30 when she married him and at the time this was quite the age, William five years younger at twenty-five was also considered to be married at an older age, perhaps they both had concentrated on building their businesses and time had simply just drifted by.

Jessie Hamilton was the daughter of shop keeper, her father was James Hamilton, and he was a Master Baker employing 3 men & 2 boys and one of these boys was none other than William Cowan’s wee brother Hope Cowan who was employed as an apprentice baker. There is a possibility that this is how William & Jessie met.

The Hamilton family lived at 89 Townhead Street and were wealthy enough to have a servant and all of Jessie’s siblings whose ages ranged between the mid-twenties to the mid-thirties.

On the twenty fourth of August 1872 tragedy struck William Cowan’s family when his mum passed away at the age of 54.  She had been suffering from an illness for the past eight years and had succumbed to it. William’s father had also recently become a Goods Agent for the Caledonian Railway Company, so it was bittersweet times for the family. William, who was still living at Beith travelled up to Hamilton and he was the person who registered his mother’s death.

William’s father remarried on the twenty fourth of November 1875 when he met a woman from Partick in Glasgow, her name was Margaret McKay, and there is a possibility that none of his kids had attended the wedding as none appeared to have been witnesses recorded on the marriage certificate.

By 1875 William & Jessie had returned from Beith and back to Hamilton, they had started their own family, and they now had little James, Margaret & Jessie and it’s in these names that I suspect that William did not have a great relationship with his father.

The first-born son usually takes the name of the fathers’ father; however, James was named after Jessies dad. The second daughter Margaret was named after Jessie’s mother and the third daughter named Jessie, possibly after William’s mum, or could it have been named after his wife Jessie? There could be another possibility that Jessie was the boss in the house, and she decided on the names of the children. Back in these days it was typically the man who named the newborn.

When William and Jessie arrived in Hamilton they rented at a house in Miller Street, where they lived and grew their family and William opened his first shop  with its own cellar at 2 Duke Street in Hamilton’s New Cross (Which later became the Royal Hotel) where the popularity of his choice of foods allowed him to then expand and have another outlet at Low Waters which would have been a small outlet but nonetheless, Low Waters was a long walk down to Hamilton Town Centre, so he brought the shop to the people that lived a more rural life up the hill.

William’s life away from his work, he was an ardent gospel-temperance worker and a well-known figure on the evangelistic platform and was a member of St. John’s Church and he eventually was appointed to eldership and did great work in various capacities for the St, John’s congregation.

On two occasions William sought to enter the Town Council as a temperance candidate, but was unsuccessful on both occasions, however still wanting to do good for Hamilton, he was made Justice of the Peace for Lanarkshire and notability he was appointed to take evidence in the famous Coatbridge Case.

William Cowan’s shop was known for providing quality foods, locally sourced and some imported, he sold items such as Tea, Sugar, Corn flour, Barley Rice & Peas, Irish Butter, Ham, Smoked Hams, Jellies & Marmalades & Biscuits and households who placed orders and lived a bit further away could have their provisions delivered by William Cowans very own horse & carts.   

William Cowan had firmly established his new business in Hamilton and by 1878 he lived at 99 Quarry Street, he was a popular Grocer & Provision Merchant, and he must have been doing well as he employed two men & 2 boys, he even had a servant living with the family named Grace Cross.

Number 99 Quarry Street today is used as an office building for a lawyer, but back in William’s day, it was a two-story charming townhouse, and it had enough space for his family & servants.

Tragedy was to strike the family again when on the 8^th of November 1878 William & Jessie’s son William died at the house on 99 Quarry Street. The poor boy was only five years, six months old when he died of diarrhea.

By June 1887, Quarry Street had a new modern building constructed and to commemorate the coronation of Queen Victoria, this new building was given the appropriate name of Victoria Buildings.

There was quite a number of established businesses who quickly made the move  into the new grand Victoria Buildings and William Cowan was one of the first. He rented two units which were 25 & 27 Quarry Street and the move to the busy bottom cross was underway.

William regularly advertises the move of his business all the way up to November that year, so perhaps his decision to move premises further down the road was not working out for him. Why did he need to put out so many adverts in the Hamilton Advertiser, did his custom not follow him, or was he just not getting enough customers through the door to sustain the high rents that he was paying. 

By 1891, we next find that William & Jessie have moved out of their central townhouse on Quarry Street and they have moved to Fernlea on Park Road and this is when the family go through some tough times that begin with his wife Jessie passing away of breast cancer.

Jessies was 51 years old and she had been suffering the illness for the past year. She died on the 26^th of August 1892 at Fernlea and this was just the beginning of Williams grief when William’s father Hope later died on the 20^th May 1895 at 13 John Street and William is the person who registers the death.

Tragically, William’s youngest daughter Agnes Marie dies 1^st May 1901 at Fernlea, she had been suffering from tuberculosis, the past 10 years had been relentless for William.

William did find love again and eventually remarried three years after his wife’s passing. He met a woman from East Bowhill Farm in Cummertrees, Cumnock called Barbara Rae, who was a farmer’s daughter. Barbara was fifteen years younger than William and she lived quite far away from Hamilton, so it is a possibility that her father was a supplier of dairy products to William and this is how they met. They went on to have two sons, one called William-Rae and the other Fergus. On the day that Fergus was born the 1901 census of Hamilton was being taken and the enumerator recording the 1901 Census had knocked on the family’s door when the baby boy was only 6 hours old, he was yet to be named.

William & Barbara decided to leave Park Road and Hamilton for good, they sold up their properties and left for Canada, William would never return to Hamilton, nor Scotland again. He had members of his family who had previously emigrated to Canada and were very successful which may have been some of his siblings and this may have been why William made the decision to emigrate.

Barbara starts the journey to Canada and she leaves on a ship called the SS Corinthian which sails from Greenock to Montreal, Quebec and it arrives 7^th of June 1904, accompanying her on the journey are their kids James, Margaret, Rae & Fergus. Jessie stays behind with her father to help wind up their properties & businesses. In late August 1904 William and Jessie boarded the SS Pretorian and they arrive at Montreal, Qubec Canada on the 5^th of September of that year, they would never return to Hamilton.

William Cowan settled in Canada very quickly and he became embedded in the community and I never seen any evidence that he stayed in the business of being a Grocer & Tea Merchant but when he arrived in Toronto, he worked for the Toronto Pharmacal Co.  He was prominently known in church circles and was a member of the parochial board which administered the poor law.

William seen out his last days in Toronto, Canada and on the 28^th of December 1910 he was struck down with a urinary tract infection, he passed away at his home, 216 Cottingham Street. He was laid to rest at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto which was only a short walk from his house.

William’s second wife Barbara was devoted to William and before her death, she did return to Scotland in May 1932 and arrives at Greenock, she has her son William Rae Cowan, who is now 33 and is working as an engineer, she is now 69 years of age.

The last trace that I found of Barbara and her son William was in July 1934 when we see them returning back to Canada on a ship called the SS Duchess of York that sailed from Greenock.

During WW2 the SS Dutchess of York was recommissioned by the Royal Navy as a troopship and used early in the war to transport Canadian soldiers to Britan, returning to Canada carrying RAF crew & German prisoners of war. In 1943 she was attacked by enemy aircraft and all but 27 people were saved, the ship burning and badly damaged the ship was sunk by the Royal Navy the next day, she now lies at the bottom of the ocean.

Barbara returned from Scotland to the family home of 216 Cottingham Street, Toronto after being in Scotland for the past two years, she died in 1939 and is buried alongside William, along with their daughter Jessie & son James.

Today the grand large house of 216 Cottingham Street still stands and thanks to Google Maps, we can see the last residence of William Cowan, Hamilton’s Family Grocer & Tea Merchant.

THE END

Researched & written by Garry McCallum – Historic Hamilton. © 2025. With thanks to Jo-Anne Ellis & Kim MacMillan Pearson of the Ontario Ancestors Facebook Group In Canada.