Knowing the Gow family of Fettercairn, Hamilton

There was no celebratory clinking of glasses of Scotch whisky when Fanny Gow, aged 42, gave birth to a boy in 1886, after 10 girls in succession. Temperance was the watchword of this prominent Hamilton family. Ramsay Gow, Fanny’s husband, was a foundation member of the Sons of Temperance, a member-only organization devoted to a life of abstinence from alcohol. Fanny herself was a great worker for the temperance cause, though her father was a publican.

Inside Gow's Drapery - the Gow Girls

The first trainload of migrants passing through Hamilton waved wildly to the crowds of spectators gathered along Beaumont Street. Men and women alike, the ‘new Australians’ stretched precariously out of windows the length of the train, as if they wanted to physically touch the people welcoming them. They were on their way from Newcastle to a migrant camp inland, thence to a job, and hopefully, a new and better life.

Survival of a stately home

It means 'a pile of rough stones'. One of Hamilton’s rare surviving late Victorian homes, Fettercairn is truly a survivor. Over the past 110 years, it has reinvented itself time and time again. Built in 1903 for Mr and Mrs Ramsay Gow, the imposing two storey, 50 square house was an unambiguous statement by its owners of achievement and prosperity.