PDA

View Full Version : Alexander Bain



efoulis
28-Apr-09, 00:21
I am looking for info on Alexander Bain b 1810 in Watten Caithness parents John Bain & Isabella Waiter/Waters. There is a lot of information about his inventions but nothing about his family. I have searched the Scottish & English censuses of 1841-1861 and have found nothing. I believe that he married Matilda Davies and they had 4 children. Elizabeth Aexander, Isabella and Henry. Does anyone know where and when he married or when and where children were born?

Mamie_2
28-Apr-09, 03:26
She and Alexander supposedly married in 1844. A widow, she was the sister of John Finlaison's second wife.

John Finlaison was born in Thurso and was Actuary of the National Debt
Office and Government Calculator, lived at Alghers House in Loughton.

I suspect Loughton is somewhere near London. - Aha here it is Chelsea, Greater London 2nd qtr 1844 she is listed as Matilda Bowie in FREEBMD Indexes.

He and Matilda apparently moved to Edinburgh until ~ 1848 I guess when he went to "America".

that's the best I can come up with.

Mamie

efoulis
28-Apr-09, 12:51
Mamie, thank you for this info it has been a great help , I have just ordered the marriage cert .
Liz

elizabeth forbes
01-May-09, 20:58
Alexander Bain Died 2 Jan.1877. Broomhill Home, Kirkintilloch, East Dumarton. There is a picture of his head stone on line. (Google:Alexander Bain)

w.j.milne
01-May-09, 22:37
Loughton is in Essex.

efoulis
02-May-09, 20:37
Thanks to all for info on Alexander Bain at last i have got the details of his marriage and found his family on the 1851 Census in London but he wasnt on it, so far havent been able to find him on any census either in Scotland or England Where was he?

Mamie_2
04-May-09, 17:43
In 1951 I suspect he actually was in the US on matters relating to his chemical telegraph. His wife died c 1856 in England.

He moved back to Scotland and lived in Glasgow sometime prior to his death in 1877 whether he died in Glasgow or in Dumbarton is not clear to me at the moment. He died at age 67 in a "home" for the terminally ill.

I think he went bankrupt in the late 1850's - 1860's so there might be something in the English court documents about it.

He was awarded a pension from the civil service in 1873 but it was quite sometime before he actually received it as the government had a difficult time finding him.

In 1852 he lived in Beevor St, Hammersmith and called himself a gentleman that was apparently a short lived state.

There is a Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry by R. W. Burns available for Alexander.

Matilda Davis/Davies father was Thomas Davis of Waltham Abbey(Essex). There seem to have been at least 3 sisters - Matilda, Elizabeth and Caroline. Caroline was definitely married to John Finlaison but Elizabeth may also have been his wife. In 1848 in Waltham Abbey there is a John David. Esq resident in the area.
Caroline died in May 1832, age 27. An infant son Leopold Thomas Finlaison died in Feb 1832. They are interred in the same tomb in the church Parish Church( St Marys) of Ghistelles.
Thomas was possibly already desceased. There is a note that Caroline was Thomas' second daughter.(source Miscellanea Genealogica Et Heraldica edited by W. Bruce Bannerman, pg 266)

Hope this leads somewhere lol

Mamie

scotsannie
04-May-09, 19:25
Alexander Bain was my 4 x Gt Uncle he lived in Beevor Lodge Hammersmith with 5 servants and a resident teacher. And whether or not the title"Gentleman" was short lived he was seen to be a "Gentleman" in everything he did, hence he died penniless because of his honesty and integrity.
John Finlaison was married in 1804 to Elizabeth Glen then in 1851 married Elizabeth Davies. Alexander was married in 1844 to Matilda Davies

Tricia
04-May-09, 23:35
Alexander Bain described in Caithness as a quiet, humble man, who never forgot his lowly beginnings in the shadow of Backlass Hill.


In 1959 the Town council of Kirkintilloch, where Alex died 1877, noted the importance of his inventions and placed another inscription on his tombstoneto be maintained in perpetuity at public expense :

Quote" He thought above himself and also helped to secure a great and better world"

spittalhill
05-May-09, 00:46
Adam Hart Davis did a programme on Alexander Bain in his Local Heroes series a few years ago. I am sure it will reappear on the History Channel in due course. I remember he even cycled up to Backlass and Lanergill School!

Tricia
06-May-09, 09:36
I have a book

INVENTORS AND ENGINEERS OF CAITHNESS

by Robert P Gunn - 1998 reprinted 2004
Whittles Publishing (Latheronwheel)
ISBN 1-870325-02-8
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~whittl/main.html

26 pages of this are devoted to Alex Bain 1810 - 1877
Other inventors in the book
Dane Sinclair 1852 -1930
Neil Leitch 1865 -1923
Donald Brown 1879 -1953
James Bremner 1784 - 1856
Temple Frederick Sinclair 1853 -1918


Tricia