A COUPLE of months ago I told of Hugh Millar’s memories of a period of his childhood spent in part of an old mansion in West Stewart Street, Greenock, at the corner with Jamaica Street.

In 1951 he then moved to Canada with his mother and siblings a year after his father found a job on the other side of the Atlantic. Hugh, who lives in North Vancouver, got in touch after becoming aware a photograph of the property had just appeared in my Wednesday page.

I recently came upon another picture of the building that featured here a few years ago.

Hugh Millar mentioned a belief that the property may have been a private school at one time.

This paper’s archives contain a suggestion that Alexander Graham Bell — the inventor of the telephone — was a pupil at what was called the Jamaica Academy.

I have not, as yet, been able to confirm Edinburgh-born Bell’s connection with the property, which is also thought to have been a convent or convent school at one time.

A former owner of the mansion was James Johnston Grieve, who was Provost of Greenock from 1860 until 1868 and also the town’s MP from 1868 until 1877.

It was said his daughters got so fed up making their way from the front door down to West Stewart Street in the worst of weather to their horse and carriage that their father decided to have built the covered walk-way seen in the accompanying picture.

During Grieve’s term as Provost he vigorously campaigned for and launched many of the biggest schemes projected in the town. They included the construction of Princes Pier, the James Watt Dock, the Garvel Graving Dock and the extension of the waterworks at the Gryfe. Grieve came to Greenock from a farm in Glenfalloch, Perthshire.

In his ‘History of Greenock’ published in 1921, R M Smith says of Grieve: “His entrance to municipal service came at a time when the industrial life of the county (Renfrewshire) was specially charged with the spirit of progress and the natural resources of Greenock were waiting to be developed.

“Under him the town enjoyed a career of prosperity, extension and improvement such as no other period can lay claim to.

“His sagacity, largeness of view, liberality of heart, aptness for business, indomitable perseverence did very much to make Greenock what it is.” After resigning as an MP Grieve lived in Edinburgh. In 1891 James Johnston Grieve died in Peebles, where he spent his summer months, at the age of 81.

He slipped when out walking and injured several ribs.

The best medical attention was summoned but the man who had done so much for Greenock passed away.

His former Georgian mansion was around 200 years old when its demolition started in the spring of 1972.