J. Hunter & Son

J. (sometimes ‘James’) Hunter & Son was a firm of joiners and builders in the coastal village of Skelmorlie, Ayrshire. James Porter Hunter (1825–1898) was the son of a labourer in rural Dundonald, and aged 15 was already a handloom weaver. He left this trade, to become a wright, working as a journeyman in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute in 1851. He married in nearby Dunoon where four of his children were born in the following decade. 1

Around 1860, the family returned to Ayrshire, and James built his own cottage, Silverwood, one of the first houses on the ‘High’ Road, Upper Skelmorlie. He was perhaps assisted by his father and brother-in-law, who were both stonemasons. By 1871, the cottage was let to summer visitors (the village became a popular resort following the arrival of the railway in 1865). Almost a decade later, Hunter advertised an additional property to let which had 'modern' gas and plumbing. Both houses were let until at least the 1890s with advertisements appearing in the Glasgow Herald. 2

Two sons, Charles and Robert, served apprenticeships as joiners and worked with their father. Robert inherited the firm (initially as Hunter & Son) on James’s retirement in 1893: his elder brother had emigrated to the United States. 3 John Honeyman was originally named an executor of James’s will in 1879, but declined to accept the role in 1898. 4