Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming Mary & Dick Kelly to the museum. Mary’s great-great grandparents Robert and Margaret Cumnock had lived and worked in Johnstone at one of the cotton mills before emigrating to America. The 1841 Census shows Robert as a cotton spinner with an address listed as Hagg in Johnstone. The family arrived in Boston in July... Continues...

Great news for the Museum is that a work team has arrived to repair the two lifts at the bridge end of the store. According to the new Manager they should be in operation by early September.

After about eighteen months it will be great to get them back in operstion.

Johnstone was one of Scotland’s quickest growing towns in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The town, of course, was planned by George Houston, Esq, the local laird, and the first houses were built in 1782. Johnstone prospered and, eleven years later in 1793, it was described as “a neat and regularly built village.”

The town... Continues...

The following photograph of the public park football team from 1954 was uploaded to the Johnstone history Facebook page and is surely worth reposting here.

  The following article was published by Eddie McRorie on 19th August 2023 on the Johnstone History Facebook page and is reproduced here with his kind permission. David Crawford was a farmers son from Sproulston Farm in Howwood and attended school in Lochwinnoch. He spent his early years working on the farm until the family... Continues...