Sir Gabriel Wood's Mariners' Home

Image: © Lairich Rig Taken: 17 Sep 2011

For other views, see Image and linked images. The present photograph was taken from Newark Street. Originally known as Sir Gabriel Wood's Mariners' Asylum, the home was opened on October 17, 1854, having been founded as the result of a bequest by commissary-general Sir Gabriel Wood (1767-1845). Gabriel Wood was the son of a Greenock merchant (also called Gabriel Wood – Image), and he was born in Gourock on May 19, 1767. He entered the civil service, and served in the capacity of Vice-Consul for the state of Maryland. He was later sent to the West Indies, where he served as Commissary-General of Accounts until 1811. He likewise served in Canada as Commissary-General of Accounts in British North America. He died at Bath on October 29, 1845, having bequeathed funds that would allow a Mariners' Home to be set up. As recorded in R.M.Smith's "The History of Greenock" (1921), "the deed of constitution bears that a sum of £38,000 was applied to the establishment and support of the Home or Asylum, for the reception of fifty aged and decayed merchant master mariners and merchant seamen, natives of Renfrew, Ayr, Dumbarton, Argyle, and Bute, and who should have attained the age of 55 years and be of good character". At the time of writing, the establishment still operates as a care home. The architect who designed this building was David Mackintosh, a Greenock man who later moved to Exeter. The foundation stone was laid by Sir Michael Shaw Stewart in October, 1850. The land on which the home was built was bought from the above-mentioned Sir Michael Shaw Stewart. Three burial grounds associated with the Mariners' Home are located within Greenock Cemetery (see Image and Image for two of them), as is an obelisk commemorating Adam MacKay, who was, for twenty years, the Home's house governor: Image During the Second World War (more specifically, in 1942) the home was evacuated to Skelmorlie.

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