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Blantyre Folk

Neil Douglas J.P.

1912

During the year Lanarkshire was deprived by death of one of its most gifted sons in the person of Mr Neil Douglas, J.P.

The parish of Blantyre felt the loss most keenly for it was there that his usefulness was most apparent. For fully forty years he was one of the most outstanding men in the David Livingston village, and his influence was felt in a very marked degree both in parochial and educational activities. His working life began in the office at Earnockmuir Colliery belonging to Messrs Wm. Dixon Ltd and from that humble position he rose to be cashier at the Blantyre Collieries of the same firm. That responsible position, calling as it did for the exercise of carefulness, discretion and good judgment, he filled with great acceptance for nearly forty years.

He was returned as a member of the old Parochial Board in Blantyre in 1874, and when, in 1894, the Parish Council Act came into operation, he was unanimously elected as chairman of the reconstituted body. That was a post to which he was admirable suited, and that his colleagues appreciated his fitness is shown by the fact that he continued in office until the time of his death.

Mr Douglas was an enthusiast in the matter of educational administration and for fully a quarter of a century he continued to be one of the most zealous and useful members of the Blantyre School Board. Of a certainty he was one of the stalwarts—in a public sense—of Blantyre , and his death left a gap in the parish which was difficult to fill.

Ref. Stothers’s Xmas and New Year Annual. 1911-1912. Page. 363

Neil Douglas played a prominent part in organisation in the aftermath of the Blantyre explosion 1877. It was he who noticed a man stealing a watch from the body of a dead collier and so led to the thief’s arrest.

Wilma Bolton. 2005.

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