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Names
P0322 · Person · 1803 - 1885

General Sir James Edward Alexander KStJ CB FRSE FRGS (16 October 1803 – 2 April 1885) was a Scottish traveller, author and soldier in the British Army. Alexander was the driving force behind the placement of Cleopatra's Needle on the Thames Embankment.

Born in Stirling, he was the eldest son of Edward Alexander of Powis, Clackmannanshire, and his second wife Catherine Glas, daughter of John Glas, Provost of Stirling. The family purchased Powis House near Stirling in 1808 from James Mayne (his uncle by marriage) for £26,500. His father, a banker, had to sell Powis House in 1827 on collapse of the Stirling Banking Company. He received his training in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

In 1837 he married Eveline Marie Mitchell, daughter of Col C. C. Mitchell of the Royal Artillery.

In 1853 he obtained Westerton House in Bridge of Allan, built in 1803 by Dr John Henderson of the East India Company (a cousin and friend). Here he became an elder of Logie Kirk, walking there each Sunday.

He died in Ryde on the Isle of Wight but is buried in Old Logie Churchyard just east of his home town of Stirling. The graveyard lies several hundred metres north of Logie Cemetery and the 19th century Logie Kirk.

After his death his trustees sold Westerton House to Edmund Pullar.

P0255 · Person · 1785 - 1868

John Macfarlane of Coneyhill, Bridge of Allan was born in 1785 in Stirling but made his money in commerce in Glasgow and Manchester. He was the supporter of many schemes to improve Stirling and a keen participant in local events and projects. He tried to establish a Stirling School of Design but had more success founding one of the first free libraries in Scotland, the Macfarlane Free Library, Museum and Reading Room. In Bridge of Allan, where he settled when he retired in c 1845, he founded an extensive museum of natural history. He was involved in various other schemes some of which were successful, he claimed to be the originator of the idea for the Wallace Monument, but others, such as his plans to extend the canal network, were less so. A man of wide-ranging interests he was a keen rower and supporter of Stirling Rowing Club. Macfarlane died at Coneyhill in 1868.

P0225 · Person · 1894 - 1988

Ella MacLean of Helenslea, Bridge of Allan, was a recognised authority on the history of Bridge of Allan. She was born Ella Sisterson in County Durham in 1894 and married Archibald MacLean in 1920. The couple settled at Helenslea where she devoted herself to local activities, her particular interests were working with young people, music and local history. In 1970, her 'Bridge of Allan: The Rise of a Village' was published. As well as writing articles of her own, she collected a large library of reference books and other material, some of which she gave to Stirling Council Archives. Ella MacLean died in 1988.

P0278 · Person · fl 1927 - 1939

Alexander Morrison was a Town Clerk in Bridge of Allan, Stirling. He was the author of a number of booklets detailing the history of Bridge of Allan, its local people, and geographical features.