Introduction / Families / Hourston / David Hourston and Christian Drever / David Hourston and Janet Miller

John Hourston and Mary Reid

John Hourston (b. 22nd April 1819) was the oldest of the seven children of David Hourston and Janet Miller. He married Mary Reid (b. 8th May 1820) on 14th December 1841. Mary was the eldest daughter of John Reid and Barbara Deerness.

They stayed and raised their family at Millbank. John is described in the censuses covering this time as a general merchant and in the 1871 census as a farmer of 50 acres. This was close by Wellhouse, where his parents stayed.

John and Mary had seven children:

• John Hourston, born 13th January 1844 who died at Millbank on 5th March 1870, aged twenty six.

• David Hourston, born 19th September 1845 who married Margaret Seator Harcus

• Mary Hourston, born 20th June 1847 and died young

• Mary Hourston, born 27th March 1850 who died at Millbank on 12th August 1875, aged twenty five.

• William Reid Hourston, born 20th May 1852 who died at Millbank on 1st June 1872, aged twenty.

• Caroline A H Hourston, born abt 1859 who married Alexander Gordon McGregor in Kirkwall in 1885. They appear in the 1901 census at Greenfield, St Ola with a son, Alistair McGregor (aged fifteen). Caroline died in Kirkwall in 1946. It is thought that Alistair went to Canada for the Hudson’s Bay Company and was a casualty of WWI in 1918.

• James A Hourston, born abt 1863. He was at Greenfield, St Ola with his oldest brother in 1881.

They moved to Greenfield, St Ola where they were with the younger members of the family in 1881. Also at Greenfield at this time were John’s nephew, James Fraser and his wife, Jane Shearer, and their family. James was the son of John’s sister Janet Hourston and James Fraser.

John and Mary both died at Greenfield in 1894, on 16th August and 15th January respectively.