THE tolling of
the bell from the Midsteeple, and the drooping of flags
half-mast high at Midsteeple, Municipal Buildings, and Junior
Conservative Club, on Monday, 13th April, 1908, conveyed the sad
intelligence to the people of Dumfries of the death, on Sunday
night, at the comparatively early age of fifty-five years, of Mr
Joseph Johnstone Glover, who only a few weeks before demitted
the office of Provost of Dumfries after a period of service
during which ho had so laboured for the public weal that his
name will go down to future generations as that of a man who,
with singular fixity of purpose and pre-eminent ability,
achieved much for the honour and well-being of the people who in
life delighted to do him honour and in death remember him with
admiring affection. The head of an important business, an
enthusiastic worker on a vast number of public bodies, political
and patriotic speaker with demands on his services from all
quarters of the kingdom, it is no wonder that his labours in
these different spheres of action told heavily even on his
robust nature, and about three years ago, at Rockcliffe, where
he had gone to spend the Easter holidays, canto the first
serious break-up in his constitution. There was an evident
diminution in his recuperative power of body though not in the
willing spirit, for he afterwards with all his wonted zeal
fought in the general election as the Unionist candidate for the
burghs of Dumfries, and, despite the rising tide of public
opinion throughout the country, secured the highest vote ever
given for a Unionist in the constituency. But a little over a
year ago he had a serious relapse, an internal trouble having
alarmingly developed, complicated by heart affection, and he
then sustained a slight paralytic seizure, and came very near to
the end. His physician, Dr Murray, who had often urged him to
slacken the reins of office, called in Professor Byron Bramwell,
Edinburgh, who advised complete rest. But in a few months with a
seemingly renewed measure of strength the Provost returned to
his public obligation, his very nature being such that he could
not allow himself to sink into seeming sloth, and in Council or
in other assembly he still was able, when necessity arose, to
take a firm stand for order and to electrify and influence his
fellows by those powers of eloquence which were so marked a
feature of his personality. It was evident, however, that
continued service was a weariness of the flesh, and at the
beginning of this year he yielded to the solicitation of his
family and the advice of his doctors and reluctantly consented
to give up public life. He resigned the Provostship on 25th
February last, and on March 5th attended and bade farewell to
the Council, the members of which paid hearty tribute to his
great work for the burgh and for national causes, and amid a
spontaneous outburst of acclamation, moved beyond words he left
the bench which for years he had occupied with splendid dignity.
During the short time that elapsed since then he appeared to
improve somewhat in health, and on the Saturday evening and
again on the day of his death he himself remarked that he had
not felt so well for several months. On the Sunday forenoon he
attended Troqueer Parish Church, of which he was an elder,
partook of communion at the first table, and assisted at the
second table in the distribution of the sacred elements. On the
Sunday evening, after tea, he walked in the garden of his
residence at Hazelwood, Maxwell town, with his eldest son, Mr
John M. Glover, and enjoyed the company of his little
grand-child and name-sake.' Shortly after six o’clock, the
evening having set in with a chill air, his son advised him to
go indoors, and soon after going in he complained of feeling
unwell. It was at once seen that he was seriously ill, and he
was assisted to bed while Dr Murray was sent for. He retained
consciousness for about an hour, and his intellect was perfectly
clear. He knew of himself that the end was at hand, and he
called each member of the family to his bedside and bade them an
affectionate farewell. About seven o’clock unconsciousness
supervened, and at eleven o’clock he passed peacefully away.
Joseph Johnstone Glover was born on 20th February, 1853, at
Maxwelltown, the Brig en’ of Dumfries, and was the son of Mr
James Anderson Glover, who also did public service on Parish
Council and Water Commission, and died only about eight years
ago. The family has had a very long connection with Galloway and
the trades of Dumfries, the direct line of ancestors being
traceable for over two centuries in the inscriptions on
tombstones in Tioqueer Churchyard. An ancestor of his won the
famous “siller gun” which was presented to Dumfries by King
James VI. to be competed for by members of the trades, and the
shooting for which, after a lapse of very many years, was
revived on Provost Glover’s suggestion as one of the events in
the celebrations in connection with the coronation of King
Edward, our present sovereign. His mother, whose maiden name was
Jane Renwick, and who resides at Rotchell Park, is the
great-granddaughter of a doughty Highland soldier, Colour-Sergeant
Angus Sutherland, - who received a medal for having proved
himself the most powerful man in his regiment. The Provost’s
great-grandmother, the daughter of Angus Sutherland, was bora in
Edinburgh Castle when her father’s regiment was stationed there,
and she married a member of a Galloway family of the name of
Renwick. Her son, James, was endowed with the splendid physical
qualities of her soldier sire, for it is on record that in a
trades’ procession in the town of Dumfries he marched with the
shoemakers as their elected King Crispin, and looked every inch
a king.
Educated at Mr William Martin’s Academy and afterwards at
Dumfries Academy, the Provost—we can as yet think of him only by
that familiar title—was, as he himself often said, more
distinguished as a boy in the realm of athletics than in that of
learning, though in after manhood he achieved prominence as a
scholarly speaker and writer of verse. He was a powerful
swimmer, and at quite a young age saved several persons from
drowning in the river Nith in days when the Royal Humane
Society’s medals were not agitated for with so little excuse as
too often is worked up to-day. When serving his apprenticeship
as a house decorator with the late Mr Thomas Costin, he * one
day in mid-winter, when the river was In high spate, after a
great struggle saved a boy from drowning near Crindan, and as a
result was himself confined to a sick bed for six weeks. He took
another boy out of the “gullet pool” near the caul one summer
evening, but the lad expired after being brought to the bank. On
another occasion he saved a man who had fallen through the ice
on Babbington Loch, pulling him out by means of a dog strap.
Only eight or nine years ago he saved two of his own sons from a
watery grave at Rockcliffe. Both were swimmers, but had exceeded
their strength, being seized with cramp, and sank in deep water.
The Provost went to the rescue, dived and brought one ashore and
then the other, and succeeded in restoring animation on the
bank.
After serving his apprenticeship he went to the establishment of
Messrs J. G. Grace & Son, Wigmore Street, Cavendish Square,
London, and studied the higher branches of the trade, gaining
third-class honours in the advanced course of instruction in art
in his first season at South Kensington, and being engaged in
the embellishment of some of the finest mansions in the British
Ides. In 1877 he established the business in Dumfries .which has
become the most important of its kind in the South of Scotland.
In later years he has had as his partner his eldest son, Mr John
M. Glover, who was a distinguished art student in London, while
his third son, Charles, has charge of a branch of the business
which was opened some years ago in Newton-Stewart. His work has
marked a new era in the art of interior decoration in the
district; some of his earlier efforts still stand as monuments
to his skill, and the decoration a few years ago of St Michael’s
Parish Church after original and beautiful designs is a triumph
of ecclesiastical embellishment.
It was in his civic career that Mr Joseph Johnstone Glover came
perhaps most prominently to the front. He was elected to the
Town Council in 1886, was promoted Treasurer, and afterwards
Bailie, and in 1896 was chosen Provost in succession to the late
ex-Provost John Luke Scott. Since then, with a unanimity which
has been the best tribute to his ability and tact as a leader,
the Town Council at every successive period returned him to
office. As we have indicated, his reign has been practically a
record one for the important schemes initiated and carried
through, and in which he was always in the forefront, including
the erection of baths and wash-houses by the late Miss M'Kie of
Moat House, for whom he was the intermediary in many
benefactions; the erection of the Ewart Public Library, for
which by his instrumentality Dr Andrew Carnegie gave the
magnificent sum of .£10,000; the institution at a cost of over
£40,000 of sewage purification works, and which but for the
Provost’s leading in the purchase of Castledykes, thus obviating
a more extended system with pumping, would have brought the
total cost to over £60,000; the introduction of electric light
by the Silvertown Company in the end of 1906, on terms
considered favourable to the town, though the Provost all along
maintained that this should have been kept as a subject for
municipal enterprise ; and at the close of his reign there were
being brought to an end difficult negotiations attended by much
disputation between the Town Councils of Dumfries and
Maxwell-town for the erection of a joint hospital for
infectious- diseases. Apart from all these greater schemes he
performed great service in the ordinary routine of office, and
either ex officio or by special appointment laboured on a
multiplicity of public bodies. On the Bench he on all possible
occasions exercised the quality of mercy, he was ever ready to
“help a lame dog,” or by kindly word to point an erring one to a
better path.
His twenty-two years of service on the Town Council was
practically concurrent with that on the Dumfries and Maxwelltown
Water Commission, of which he was for years the chairman, and he
took a keen part in obtaining an amended Water Works Act,
appearing before committees of both the Lords and Commons, and
displaying in cross-examination that readiness of wit and
thorough grasp of the situation which were characteristic of all
his appearances in public life. He was a Justice of the Peace
for both Dumfriesshire and the Stew-artry of Kirkcudbright,
chairman of the Gas Commission, Dumfries and Maxwelltown Water
Commission, Moorheads’ Hospital, Dumfries and Maxwelltown Ewart
Public Library, Dumfries Town Band, Nith Navigation Commission ;
and for a number of years acted as chairman of Dumfries Drill
Hall Trustees, governor of Dumfries Savings Bank, president of
Glasgow Dumfriesshire Society, councillor from the first for the
South Ward of Maxwelltown on the Stewartry County Council,
director of the Crichton Royal Institution, member of Dumfries
Burgh School Board, member of Hutton Trust-, member of
newly-created Dumfriesshire Territorial Army Association,
Past-Master >r St Michael’s Lodge of Freemasons, his mother
Lodge, at the last meeting of which it r.^s agreed to confer on
him an honorary life membership; a Past Provincial Grand Master
Depute, having previously held many other offices in the
Provincial Lodge of Dumfriesshire; and honorary member of many
Friendly Societies, and director of Dumfries and Galloway Royal
Infirmary. In the last-named connection, it may be recalled that
he acted as convener .if a committee which raised a jubilee
offering of nearly £4000 to found the Victoria Fever Ward. He
also headed committees which raised £1000 in aid of our
soldiers’ and sailors’ families during the Boer War, and £600 to
give a welcome home to the officers and men of the 3rd K.O.S.B.
He served, too, on various trusts and philanthropic bodies, and
his dealings with the poor were characteristically kindly and
generous.
The fame of Provost Glover of Dumfries has been of no parochial
order. Especially has this been shown in the recognition of him
by many of the important cities and towns in Scotland and
England as a splendidly versed and thrilling speaker on the life
and works of Scotland’s bard, Robert Burns; and for years he was
in great request to attend gatherings at various centres in the
United Kingdom and give the leading address on the celebration
of the 25th of January. He was the head of the movement which
culminated in the Burns’ Centenary celebration at Dumfries on
21st July, 1896, at which Lord Rosebery was the chief speaker,
and which attracted world-wide attention. It was he also who
initiated the annual pilgrimage by the Town Council on 25th
January to the poet’s tomb, and the placing of a wreath over the
grave. He also took part in the sex-centenary celebration of
Robert the Bruce’s rising in Dumfries, which preceded his
struggle for the independence of Scotland. He was the chief
promoter oi a very successful exhibition of art nine years ago
in Dumfries Academy, which was opened by Lord Balfour of
Burleigh. During his regime the freedom of the burgh was
conferred on more distinguished people than in any similar
length of time possibly in the history of Dumfries—these
including the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, then Prime Minister; the
late Miss M'Kie of The Moat, the lady bountiful of Dumfries;
Lord Wolseley, then Com-mander-in-Chief; Lord Balfour of
Burleigh ; Dr Andrew Carnegie ; the Active Service Volunteers of
Dumfries and Maxwelltown ; Lieut. Robertson, V.C., the Gordon
Highlanders, a Dumfries man; the officers of the 3rd K.O.S.B. on
their return from the South African War; and the late Lord
Young, who, as a distinguished judge, brought honour to his
native town of Dumfries. On these occasions the Provost’s
speeches were marvels of eloquence, and he lent a dignity to his
position which could not fail to create—and did create —a deep
impression on those being honoured by the town. These
dignitaries and many others, including the Duke and Duchess of
Buccleuch, who were on occasion municipal guests, were
entertained by Provost and Mrs Glover at Hazelwood.
One of the most important stages in the career of Provost Glover
was his appearance as champion of the Unionist cause in the
Dumfries Burghs before the election of 1906. A life-long
Conservative, he had on many occasions given yeoman service to
the cause, and on December 15, 1903, he was unanimously adopted
as the candidate of the party, in opposition to Sir Robert Reid.
He fought in manly fashion, and won golden opinions by his
speeches and his straightforward demeanour under the ordeal of
“heckling,” and this, too, as we have stated, when he was
beginning to feel the effects of the illness which in a few
years ended his life of usefulness. Sir Robert’s elevation to “
the Gilded Chamber ” brought a new opponent, Mr J. W. Gulland,
whose supporters resorted to a good many meannesses in warfare,
and, although the swing of the pendulum made the fight seem
hopeless in what had for many years been regarded as a
"hopeless” constituency, Provost Glover, while beaten, was not
disgraced—for he secured by far the largest vote ever recorded
for a Unionist candidate in the burgh, viz., 1402, the Radical
majority being 633, while they themselves had been sanguine of
making it four figures. The subsequent march of events, and the
change of feeling evident in the country, for a time buoyed up
the hopes of the Unionist party that Provost Glover would make
another effort, and not in vain, for the representation of the
burghs—but it was not to be.
Provost Glover took a keen interest in and was a generous
supporter of manly sports. He was a keen angler, and recently
when the local Angling Association made representations to
endeavour to obtain extension of the fishing season he in that,
as in every other request for help, gave yeoman service in
advocating the case. In his younger days he was an enthusiastic
bird and dog fancier, and a very successful exhibitor. His
school days ended when he was fifteen years of age, and the
strenuous iife then began, and in one of his political speeches
he recalled the fact that as an apprentice lad he on occasion,
when tramping out to the country to a prolonged job, carried his
box of herrings on his back with which to eke out the provender.
When we recall these facts his attainments in after life are all
the more remarkable, especially that wide reading and culture
upon which he could draw to such purpose in public assembly.
In 1897 Mr Glover was one of the Provosts and Mayors who were
commanded to the Diamond Jubilee reception by Queen Victoria,
when he received the decoration. He was present in Westminster
Abbey at the Coronation of King Edward, and received the medal
issued to Provosts and Mayors. In 1903 he and Mrs Glover
received the King’s command to attend the Court at Holyrood on
the occasion of King Edward’s State visit to Scotland. Another
interesting episode was the entertaining of Provoet and Mrs
Glover at a public banquet 01 May 5, 1898, and the presentation
to them of a silver cradle, silver tea and coffee service, and
other gifts, in honour of the birth of a daughter (Jessie M‘Kie
Glover) during the Provost’s term of office.
When he retired from office a few short months ago, it was
suggested that he should not be allowed to pass into private
life without some acknowledgment from a grateful people of his
many great services and sacrifices for the good of the
community. The idea was taken up by the Council and public with
a most gratifying enthusiasm. People all over the South of
Scotland, from the Lord Lieutenant of Dumfriesshire, His Grace
the Duke of Buccleuch, to the humblest artisan, joined in the
movement, and, while the Provost was not destined to see the
actual realisation of it, we know that he was cheered and made
the happier in his later days by so general a manifestation of
the public love and esteem. It was only a day or two before his
end that the lists were called in, and it was seen that the
response amounted to about £450. The circumstance is sadly
tragic, and recalls that other recent episode when another
distinguished son of the South, the late Colonel Malcolm of
Burn-foot, a venerable nonagenarian, died almost immediately
after being honoured by a public presentation. A general desire
is expressed that the presentation should be made to the
Provost’s widow, who, during his public career, so ably aided
him in his work in many ways, and proved a graceful and tactful
hostess to municipal guests at Hazelwood. The fitness of this
desire will be all the more readily recognised when it is
remembered that Dumfries— unlike the larger centres—gives no
grants to the civic head for the discharge of social duties, and
in this particular Provost and Mrs Glover for many years must
have been put to great expense in maintaining the dignity of the
town.
Mr Glover leaves a widow and a family of seven sons and five
daughters. Of the sons, John has for some years been identified
with his father in the business at Dumfries, while Charles, the
third son, is in charge of the Newton-Stewart branch. The second
son, James, is connected with the Canadian Press at Montreal,
and the fourth and fifth, Joseph and Angus—the latter being
named after the redoubtable Highland ancestor, and being himself
a proven athlete—are in London, Joseph being in the service of
the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co., and Angus being with Messrs
Maple, the great furnishing firm. The younger boys are at home.
The eldest daughter is at home, and the second is in Germany
undergoing a course of training in modern languages and music,
while the others are at Dumfries Academy, the youngest of the
family being the god-child of the late Miss Jessie M'Kie, the
lady burgess and benefactress of Dumfries.