The Celtic cross on the left commemorates Allan MacLean and his wife Marjory Mackintosh. The granite obelisk on the right commemorates Provost A F Garvie and his wife Margaret MacLean. I have included both of them in a single view because the memorials are best discussed together: A F Garvie was Allan MacLean's son-in-law, and the men were also business partners.
This area was originally the northern edge of the cemetery, before the latter was extended.
Allan MacLean was born at Springburn, Glasgow. He engaged in various business ventures, but he was primarily a wine and spirit merchant, carrying on business (as Allan MacLean & son) from 105 and 107 High Street, Dumbarton. When he arrived in Dumbarton, he was a widower, with two sons and two daughters, but he subsequently married Marjory, the daughter of Provost [Thomas] Mackintosh. Allan MacLean died on April 22nd, 1891, in his seventy-first year. His wife Marjory died on the 10th of June, 1903.
The memorial is of silver-grey granite from the Fell Quarry (
NX4856) near Creetown. It was created by D Buchanan of the Townhead Monumental Works, Collins Street, Glasgow. The same sculptor was responsible for the
NS6065 : Memorial to Charles Clark Mackirdy in the Glasgow Necropolis.
[The June 8th 1892 issue of "Dumbarton Herald" newspaper provides information about the MacLean memorial, but states that it was made of stone from the Liverpool Dock Company's quarry at Creetown; however, as is noted in a correction in the following issue, the stone came from the adjacent Fell Quarry.]
Archibald Fraser Garvie is commemorated by the obelisk on the right, which features some decorative carvings and a bronze wreath. He died on the 25th of March, 1901, aged 56. He married Margaret, one of the daughters of the above Allan MacLean; she died on the 13th of May, 1911. (Allan's other daughter married a Dr Robertson.) A F Garvie was a wine and spirit merchant, and he was assumed as a partner in his father-in-law's firm.
Archibald Fraser Garvie also became Provost of Dumbarton; a detailed description of the events that took place in Dumbarton during the period when he held that office can be found in pages 136-153 of Donald MacLeod's "Dumbarton: Its Recent Men and Events" (1898); there is portrait of the Provost on page 136.
Following the death of A F Garvie, the firm of Allan MacLean & Son (Wholesale and Retail Wine and Spirit Merchants), of which Garvie had latterly been the sole partner, was sold by his Trustees, on 19th June 1903, to the Dumbarton wine and spirit merchant Walter Scott, who intended to carry on the firm's business on his own account.