James Cullen Grierson
Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia
Photo from Shetland Museum and Archives
James Cullen Grierson, born August 1863. The eldest son, and second eldest of six children of Andrew John Grierson (2) and Alice Geraldine Clifford. He died on July 3rd 1915 at Lerwick. On August 14th 1895 he married at Sleaford, Lincolnshire, England. Alice Stanley Peake, born June 9th 1861 at Westholme, Sleaford, Lincolnshire, England. Daughter of Henry Peake. Born before 1850. They produced six descendants.
James Cullen Grierson qualified as a Solicitor, and practiced in Lerwick. In keeping with what had by then become a family tradition, he took a very active role in public affairs from a relatively early age. Before the age of thirty he had been elected on to the Zetland County Council and in to the role of Vice Convener. He was a member of almost all of the Council Committees, and the Chairman of most of them. He was also a Commissioner of Supply, a member of the County Road Board, and Chairman of the Visiting Board of Lerwick Prison.
In a broader sphere he was also a leading advocate of temperance and Chief of the local Rechabite movement, taking an active role in promoting and encouraging these not only in Lerwick but all over Shetland.
Upon the death of his father Andrew John Grierson (2), the fifth Laird of the Grierson of Quendale family estate, on April 12th 1896, James Cullen Grierson became his successor, the sixth and final Laird of the Grierson of Quendale family estate. The sale, by James Cullen Grierson of what today is Quendale Farm to George Leslie around 1900 brought the final chapter of the Grierson of Quendale family estate to a close.
It may be of interest to note that George Leslie, the purchaser, was, as a child of about nine years old, along with the rest of his family, one of the evictees from one of the twenty seven crofts at and around Garth, cleared by James Cullen Grierson's father Andrew John Grierson (2) only around twenty six years previously.
James Cullen Grierson's eldest son, and eldest child, John Henry Clifford Grierson, born October 28th 1896, a Lieutentant with the 8/10th Gordon Highlanders, was killed in action at Ypres, Flanders, Belgium on July 31st 1917.
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