Family Card - Person Sheet
Family Card - Person Sheet
NameJohn Farquhar270
Birthabt 1751, Bilbo, Parish of Crimond, Aberdeenshire, Scotland270
OccupationManufacturer of gunpowder for the Britih Army591
FatherJohn Farquhar
MotherElizabeth Chalmers
Notes for John Farquhar
In 1825 a short lived industrial venture began with the building of a cloth factory at the southern end of Fonthill Lake. There was a 6-storey block, a 5-storey factory with 3 water wheels, a drying house and a dyehouse. The buildings were erected by the eccentric Mr Farquhar, a retired gunpowder maker, and completed by 1827 with a house and 24 cottages. The idea was to weave a superfine woollen cloth and 200 people, mainly from Gloucestershire, were employed. Despite an abundant supply of water the venture failed, probably as this was a remote area, with poor communications and a factory could not compete with the steam powered ones of western Wiltshire that were sited near canals. The machinery was sold in 1830 and the buildings demolished between 1838 and 1886.595
BIOGRAPHY: The below is from:
A Short Memoir of James Young, merchant burgess of Aberdeen, and Rachel Cruickshank, his spouse, and of their descendants: with an appendix, containing notices as to the connections, by marriage and otherwise, of many of that family
By Alexander Johnston
Printed by J. Craighead & Co., 1861, 120 pages
BIOGRAPHY: John Farquhar of Fonthill Abbey, in the County of Wilts, who died, unmarried, at an advanced age, about 1826, leaving a fortune of many hundreds of thousands of pounds,- to which his nephews and nieces, and their descendants, become entitled,- was born of the marriage between John Farquhar, for sometime tennant in Newton of Murtle, on Deeside, and in the Aberdeenshire portion of the parish of Nether Banchory, or Banchory-Devenick, and his spouse, Mrs. Elizabeth Chambers; which couple were interred, as recorded on their gravestone in that Cemetery, within the Town's Churchyard, Aberdeen. John, son of John Farquhar and Elizabeth Chambers, is understood to have been bred originally, to the medical profession,- and to have gone early in life, as Surgeon's Mate, or Asistant Surgeon, as the phrase now is, to the East Indies; where he susequently engaged, at Pulta in the Presidency of Bengal, in the manufacture of gunpowder. In that business John Farquhar amassed a great fortune; which doubtless, after his return to Britain, had been largely increased, by the exercise of the frugal habits of this old East Indian.
BIOGRAPHY: The below is from:
A Short Memoir of James Young, merchant burgess of Aberdeen, and Rachel Cruickshank, his spouse, and of their descendants: with an appendix, containing notices as to the connections, by marriage and otherwise, of many of that family
By Alexander Johnston
Printed by J. Craighead & Co., 1861, 120 pages
BIOGRAPHY: John Farquhar of Fonthill Abbey, in the County of Wilts, who died, unmarried, at an advanced age, about 1826, leaving a fortune of many hundreds of thousands of pounds,- to which his nephews and nieces, and their descendants, become entitled,- was born of the marriage between John Farquhar, for sometime tennant in Newton of Murtle, on Deeside, and in the Aberdeenshire portion of the parish of Nether Banchory, or Banchory-Devenick, and his spouse, Mrs. Elizabeth Chambers; which couple were interred, as recorded on their gravestone in that Cemetery, within the Town's Churchyard, Aberdeen. John, son of John Farquhar and Elizabeth Chambers, is understood to have been bred originally, to the medical profession,- and to have gone early in life, as Surgeon's Mate, or Asistant Surgeon, as the phrase now is, to the East Indies; where he susequently engaged, at Pulta in the Presidency of Bengal, in the manufacture of gunpowder. In that business John Farquhar amassed a great fortune; which doubtless, after his return to Britain, had been largely increased, by the exercise of the frugal habits of this old East Indian.