Appendix E: Biographies

Ainsworth and Stirling

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Ainsworth are spoken of in the diaries as nephew and niece to John and Eliza (McNeill) Winstanley (see Image 40) by virtue of the fact that Thomas Ainsworth’s mother and John Winstanley’s first wife were Hatton sisters (of whom there were seven). Thomas Ainsworth (bap. Preston 29 March 1804 – 28 June 1881) was the son of David (c. 1773 – 13 May 1819) and Alice (Hatton) (c. 1776 – 1 December 1827) Ainsworth.1 They made their home in Preston. David Ainsworth and his younger brother, Thomas, were partners in the cotton-spinning business.2 The death of David Ainsworth while his son Thomas was still at school precluded Thomas’s going to college, while his extreme youth made it impossible for him to “take his father’s place in the business partnership,” and resulted in the closing of the business.3 On the death of his mother and shortly thereafter of one of his three sisters (Charlotte [c. 1809 – 18 July 1828]), all younger than himself, Thomas Ainsworth left Preston “with his two remaining sisters” and “went to live at Summer Hill … in North Lancashire.”4 He was already engaged in flax spinning in this area and became very successful.5 In his religion, he was a staunch Unitarian.6 On 24 May 1836, he married Mary Laurie Stirling (bap. 6 April 1808 – 28 February 1867), eldest daughter of the Rev. John Stirling, D.D., of Craigie, Ayrshire, and of Mary (Macquhae) Stirling.7 Mary Laurie (Stirling) Ainsworth’s father had been moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.8 “About the time of his marriage, [Thomas] Ainsworth purchased the mills at Cleator, in Cumberland.”9 He also bought “the property at The Flosh.”10 In addition to flax spinning, he was a “pioneer in the commercial development of West Cumberland … one of the first to commence iron-mining … in that district … also a large farmer.”11 He and his wife were living at the Flosh during the period covered by the diaries, and all of their children were born there.12 At the time Anna Whistler (see Images 1–5) speaks of meeting Mrs. Thomas Ainsworth, the Ainsworths had two sons, David (1842 – 21 March 1906) and John Stirling (later Sir) (30 January 1844 – 24 May 1923)13 and had lost a son named Thomas Hatton (d. 1847).14 Their fourth son, William Macquhae (20 December 1848 – 26/27 May 1891), was born just after the period covered by the diaries.15 Thomas Ainsworth was one of the executors of John Winstanley’s will.

Mary Laurie (Stirling) Ainsworth had seven sisters: Isabella (bap. 8 October 1809), Jane Erskine (bap. 12 February 1811), Elisabeth (bap. 18 December 1812), Lydia Ainsworth (bap. 18 December 1814), Rose-Sophia (bap. 22 September 1818), Laura Margaret (bap. 1 October 1822), and Annabella Fullerton (bap. 24 June 1824), as well as three brothers: William (bap. 30 August 1816), John (bap. 13 July 1820), and James (bap. 8 October 1827), all with the same parents and baptized in the same place as she: Craigie by Kilmarnock, Ayrshire.16 At the time of Anna Whistler’s meeting with her, she had lost two sisters: Laura Margaret and Annabella Fullarton.17

For a tribute to Thomas and Mary Laurie (Stirling) Ainsworth and further details of their lives, see Ainsworth, Memorial, pp. x–xxiv.

Notes