GP and amateur genealogist; Born October 28, 1918; Died May 4, 2007. Dr Arthur Jamieson of Barnach, who has died aged 88, was a much-loved general practitioner of the old school in the Ayrshire community of Beith. He was also a proud native of Glasgow and made a massive contribution to the archives of the city through his meticulous work transcribing records dating back to the seventeenth century.
This labour of love, undertaken over a period of at least 12 years in the 1970s and 1980s, involved him in becoming expert at reading old manuscripts, including church and parish records. They covered not only births, marriages and deaths but also records of executions and shipping lists, reflecting migration to and from the city. As a result of his endeavours, this information is much more easily accessible in the Mitchell Library, the archives of Stirling Council and the Scottish Genealogy Society. The Mormons also have copies in Salt Lake City. His son, Charles, recalls: "Dad usually had the records on film and projected them on to a screen. He would then write out everything by hand and pass it to a typist. Then he enrolled our help in reading the typed manuscripts to him while he checked them against his handwritten version. This process went on for years. At one point, he had the projector on one side of the bed and the screen on the other and would work away while mother slept."
Arthur was born in Burnside, the son of Alexander Jamieson and his wife, Frances.
He was educated at Hutchesons' Boys Grammar School and Anderson College (then a medical school), before going on to study medicine at Glasgow University. He was one of seven children, three of whom became doctors.
One of his first jobs was as chief medical officer aboard the Queen Elizabeth I while she was being restored after being used as a troop ship. He got the job in Glasgow before the great Cunarder sailed to Southampton for her refit.
When this work was completed, Arthur moved on to a series of locum appointments, including one on Coll where his surgery was a bathroom in a hotel. There was room for only one chair, with the patients sitting on the toilet.
While doing a locum for his brother-in-law in Nottingham, he met Sheila whom he knew instantly he wanted to marry and who became his wife of almost 60 years, of which 47 would be spent in Beith.
Before then, he had 10 years as a GP in Rutherglen, where their three sons were born - Alexander, Charles and William. In 1960, his brother Willie's partner in the Beith practice died and Arthur was invited to join him. The two Dr Jamiesons became known within the community as Dr Arthur and Dr Willie.
Over the next 20 years, Arthur was the police physician in the area, medical officer for the nearby Admiralty depot and doctor for Geilsland School. Arthur retired in 1979 but in many respects his work continued. There was a steady stream of callers to his door; many of them with hard luck stories to tell or in search of advice over some predicament.
His passion for genealogy began when he was 12. Arthur came home from school and told his mother about some famous person of whom he had been hearing. When she told him that he was distantly related to this individual, it set him off on a search that fascinated him for life.
Arthur's researches into his family history convinced him he might well be the rightful heir to the Dukedom of Buckingham and Chandos, through an illegitimate relationship. As both MP and, for a time, neighbour, I was drawn into this entertaining, though ultimately unproven, theory which was supported by an impressive body of documentation and prodigious research.
Charles Jamieson recalls family holidays devoted to the search. The nineteenth-century duke in question had undertaken the Grand Tour of the continent and Arthur became aware of relevant evidence he had left behind in Rome. The family was packed into a railway compartment at Calais and set off on the trail.
The following year, in response to their protests about the gruelling nature of the journey, he drove the whole way. Life with Arthur was certainly unorthodox but never dull. He had his claim to the feudal baronetcy of Barnach, near Lochwinnoch where the family originated, recognised by the Lord Lyon.
Arthur usually wore spats and generally cut a figure from another, gentler age. He was a great collector of antiquarian books and during one election campaign, I took Donald Dewar to visit him and several hours were spent happily surveying Arthur's formidable library, electioneering forgotten. Anyway, there was no point. Arthur kept a finger on the local pulse and could always tell me at the outset what my majority would be.
He was a founding member of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Family History Society and its chairman for 10 years. Arthur was also a member of the Richard III Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries (Scot.). One of his great loves in later life was the Western Club in Glasgow.
Arthur was the kindest of men, full of human insights and generosity of spirit. He will be greatly missed in Beith and has left a formidable legacy to researchers into the history of old Glasgow.
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