Mr James Wood, Galashiels. By J. Ferguson, 



F.S.A. (Scot.), Duns. 



We have also to record the death of Mr James Wood, 

 wool merchant, Galashiels, which took place on 19th August 

 1896. Mr Wood had been in indifferent health in the 

 earlier part of the year, but had apparently been much 

 benefited by a holiday spent with Mrs Wood in the north, 

 in the month of Jul}'. Shortly after his return home he 

 caught a chill, and though no serious results were at first 

 anticipated, cerebral congestion ultimately supervened, which 

 terminated fatally. By his death the Club lost one of its 

 most deeply attached and interested members, and Galashiels 

 — where Mr Wood had resided since 1857 — one of its best 

 known and most useful and esteemed citizens. 



Mr Wood was born at Redpath, near Earlston, on 13th 

 January 1832. His father, James Wood, was a mason, and 

 a man of good natural parts, which had been carefully 

 cultivated by wide reading and study. By the villagers of 

 Redpath he was much respected ; and in days when news- 

 papers were seldom seen by the great majority of working 

 people, he was usually chosen to read the contents of the 

 solitary journal which came to the village to the assembled 

 subscribers. His wife, Ellen Shillinglaw, was a shrewd, far- 

 seeing, active woman, and an excellent manager. She was 

 the daughter of George Shillinglaw, nurseryman at Redpath, 

 who planted a great part of the Abbotsford estate for Sir 

 Walter Scott, and whose name a plantation there still bears. 

 Her brother Joseph, a joiner at Darnick, was a clever 

 carver in wood, and is mentioned as such in Lockhart's 

 " Life of Scott." Most of the carving of the ceiling in the 

 library at Abbotsford was his work, and it was he who made 

 Sir Walter's revolving desk. Another brother, Thomas, was 

 for many years chief clerk in the Crown office in Edinburgh. 

 WW. 



