Important Greenock Memorial

I recently came across some extra information about the memorial stone to Greenock artist John Fleming (1792 - 1845).  It is situated in the west wall of the Duncan Street burying ground in Greenock.  The photographs show how badly eroded the stone now is.  It would be a shame if such an important Greenock artist had no permanent memorial in the town, but time and weather are taking their toll on this gravestone.

The memorial stone is so badly eroded that it is difficult to make out the inscriptions, but it is interesting to know what was originally depicted -

"It consists of a palette and brushes sculptured in white marble by Mr Mossman of Glasgow, and having a variegated marble tablet beneath …".

It would appear that the palette is inscribed with the words "Lakes of Scotland" referring to a work of that name which consisted of engravings by Joseph Swan of Glasgow of John Fleming's sketches.  Swan also illustrated "Strathclutha" from Fleming's landscape paintings.  Sixty gentlemen subscribed to the monument which also bears the words "In memory of John Fleming, artist, who died at Greenock, 16^th February, 1845.  Erected by a few friends and admirers of his genius."

The sculptor, Mossman, was part of a family of famous Glasgow sculptors.  You can read more about them here.  It is such a shame that this memorial stone is slowly being allowed to decay, soon it will be almost unrecognisable.

Burridge Purvis Esq

I came across this interesting gravestone in Greenock's old cemetery in Duncan Street.  The name on the stone is Burridge Purvis - it didn't sound like a local name, so I decided to do a bit of research to find out more about Mr Purvis and his family.  The results are fascinating, and lead from Scotland to South Carolina in the United States.

The wording on the stone reads:-

Buried

near this monument

lie the remains of

Burridge Purvis Esq

Of Glassmount Fifeshire Merchant.

To perpetuate the memory of so

beloved a husband and parent

his disconsolate Widow

Mary Brown

has erected this frail memorial

of veneration for his virtues

and faint testimony of her grief

for alas a misfortune indelibly

engraved on her heart.

He died at sea on the 17th July

1816 aged 46 years on his return

home from South Carolina after

an absence of about 10 months.

The first thing that struck me about this is that his remains were "buried near this monument"  and yet it is also recorded on the stone that he died at sea.  Were his remains, like Nelson's preserved in a barrel of brandy and spices and landed when the ship docked at Greenock ... I wonder?!

What had Burridge been doing in South Carolina?  I discovered that he was one of many sons of John Purvis and Elizabeth Thomson.  Some of the brothers went to South Carolina and purchased a cotton plantation there as well as ships to transport the cotton back to Britain.  Burridge was involved in this family business, and seems to have travelled between Scotland and South Carolina on a regular basis.

Burridge Purvis (born 1770) was indeed married to Mary Brown.  They had (at least) four sons and four daughters - many of them were born in Scotland at their estate of Glassmount in Fife (between Burntisland and Kirkcaldy).  Mary Brown was born in Georgetown, Carolina, the daughter of Stephen Brown, an army captain and his wife Mary Jennings and went on to outlive her husband by many years, dying in St Colme Street, Edinburgh on 24 January 1861 at the grand age of 82.

This is a fascinating family and I'll be writing more about them next week.

The Greenockian

John Fleming - Greenock Artist

I came across this interesting gravestone in Greenock's Duncan Street cemetery at the weekend.  It marks the grave of John Fleming a local artist who was born in Greenock in 1792.  If you look very closely you can just make out that the top is a depiction of an artist's palette with paint brushes.  The weather has taken its toll and I can't quite make out the writing on the scroll across it.

 

 

 

John Fleming was mainly noted for his landscapes, many of which are of the local area and are a fascinating glimpse of how Greenock looked at that time. 

He was also a portrait painter - many of his sitters were local merchants.  This is a self portrait.

 

 

John Fleming was an original member of the "Institution for Promoting and Encouraging the Fine Arts in the West of Scotland" formed by forty-three west of Scotland men in 1821.  They held their first exhibition later that year in a Glasgow gallery in South Maxwell Street (near where the St Enoch Centre is now).  Fleming supplied the drawings for Joseph Swan's engravings of the local area.  Fleming became a member of and exhibited at the West of Scotland Academy in 1841.

 

Based in Greenock, John Fleming appears in several trade directories, having premises in William Street and then moving to Hamilton Street.  He was a member of the Watt Club in the town.  He died at Hamilton Street on 16 February 1845.  His obituary shows the esteem in which he was held locally.
 

 

Fittingly his gravestone states that it was erected

"by a few friends and admirers of his genius."

 

 

You can see some of Fleming's work at the McLean Museum and Art Gallery in Greenock and online here.

The Greenockian