THE history buffs of Cleator Moor gathered with excitement last Wednesday to welcome Sir Angus Stirling, the great grandson of 19th century ironmaster John Stirling. 

Scotsman John Stirling’s name is revered in Cleator Moor not only for providing work in his coal and ore mines for legions of local men, but also as a town benefactor. In the early days of mining he tried to look after the health and welfare of his workforce and their families by building a local hospital, schools and churches. 

The great-grandson of Stirling, Angus, who lives in London, was keen to visit the haunts of his ancestor on a first ever trip to Cleator Moor. Sir Angus, age 80 and his wife Morar, have been exploring the Stirling family tree and wanted to learn more about John Stirling, who lived at Park House, Bigrigg and later at Bridekirk, and who built an infirmary at Cleator Moor’s Jacktrees Road to treat his injured workers. 

And members of the local history group turned up to share photographs and their knowledge with Angus, who was delighted at the turn-out and somewhat overwhelmed by all the information on offer. Stirling owned the Montreal mines at Cleator Moor and was one of the pioneers of iron ore mining in the 1800s. 

He was held in such high regard that townspeople had a memorial fountain erected to him and his wife, Marian, on the occasion of their golden wedding in 1902. It cost £200 a large amount at that time and represented “a token of high esteem” in which the Stirlings were held. 

It is inscribed: “Their love for the people of the district has been made manifest by many acts of large-hearted kindness” and still stands in The Square. Angus and his wife Morar, visited the memorial, and the infirmary (which is now a house) where they were welcomed in by the current owner, and St John’s Church, to which John Stirling had donated the sum of £1,500 towards its erection. 

Stirling also paid for the stone carving and towards the font. They were keen to discover as much as they could about the 19th century haunts of Angus’s forefather, John, who supported Cumberland Foxhounds and Whitehaven Harriers and whose mare Black Bess ran at Harras Moor Races. 

Sir Angus, a former director general of the National Trust, hadn’t realised that his great grandfather, after his return to Scotland, had continued to own and run his Cleator Moor mines. 

“I have found letters from John Stirling dated about 1900 written from his home, Fairburn House, to the leader of the miners who worked at Montreal mines,” he told The Whitehaven News . Fairburn House is a magnificent baronial Scottish mansion complete with towers, turrets and conical roofs set in the Ross-shire countryside. 

Stirling built it in 1880 for £8,000. He had used the business training he had received in a Scottish bank to good effect, arriving in Cumberland in the early 1800s to work with his brother-in-law Thomas Ainsworth in the flax industry in Cleator Moor. 

Ainsworth had married Stirling’s sister and John and she were both the children of the Rev Dr Stirling of Ayrshire. In 1841 a local group of iron ore owners, including Stirling and Ainsworth, joined forces and built the Cleator Moor Iron Ore Works which, by 1925 had closed. 

But in 1858 Stirling starting borings on Todholes, near Cleator, and had almost given up prospecting when haematite was discovered. In 1862 he started looking in the Montreal area where more haematite was discovered. Montreal Mine was unique in that it was a coal and iron ore mine, both being drawn through the same shaft. 

Coal was produced at Montreal Pit until 1918. In 1852 Stirling, a local magistrate, and his wife Marian took up residence at Park House, Bigrigg and the couple had six children. Around 10 years later the family moved to Bridekirk, near Cockermouth where Marian, the daughter of John Hartley of Moresby House (later Howgate Hotel), was to give birth to four more children. John Stirling began visiting Scotland more and more, initially renting Castle Leod, Strathpeffer. 

In 1876, he purchased four estates and amalgamated them into what became the Fairburn Estate, near to Muir of Orde in Ross and Cromarty. (It is now a private care home for disabled people.) 

Stirling had already purchased 17 Ennismore Gardens, London. At Fairburn, Stirling planted one of the finest collections of silver firs, spruces and pines in the country. Back in Cleator Moor we learn that between 1867 and 1912, more than 100 patients were treated at Stirling’s Infirmary and records from that time, still in existence, make grim reading. 

The early age at which boys were sent to work in the local ore mines is revealed in these early records which show six boys, aged between 13 and 15 being admitted to the hospital as the result of mine accidents. Up until 1872 there was no inspection of the mines and working conditions were virtually unregulated. 

Mines Act legislation of 1864 only applied to coal mines. When Stirling died in 1907, aged 87, he left his Monar estate in Ross-shire to his son William, his Foulton estate in Ayrshire to his son James and his Holm Hill estate at Dunblane to his son Alexander. 

He also left several legacies to hospitals, including the Whitehaven and West Cumberland Infirmary (at Whitehaven Castle). There were other beneficiaries too: to his mine manager, Robert Inkes; his mining engineer, William Black; his housekeeper at Montreal, Mrs Peats, and others in his employ. 

His wife Marian died just a month after her husband. Son William (1859-1889) took over at Fairburn which was used as a World War I convalescent home but was sold out of the family back in 1982. 

Sir Angus explained: “Fairburn was where my father, Duncan, the sixth of seven children of William Stirling, John’s son, was born and brought up. All our family loved Fairburn and I spent much of my childhood there. When my uncle, Sir John Stirling KT (my father’s eldest brother) died, the next in line, Roderick Stirling eventually had to sell Fairburn as it was just too big and costly to run.”