William Quarrier, Greenock

William Quarrier was born in Greenock at Crosshore Street in 1829. His father was a ship’s carpenter who died in 1834 of cholera at Quebec, Canada.

This left his widow to bring up his son and two daughters. They moved to Glasgow where his mother kept the family by fine sewing. There at the age of just seven years of age he entered a pin factory as a hand machine operator where for ten hours a day he earned one shilling a week as a hand machine operator.

Later he became an apprentice to a boot and shoemaker. By the time he was twelve he had progressed to the position of journeyman, and then obtained work in a shop in Argyle Street, Glasgow.

Four years later he started his own boot shop and very soon he opened another two shops. His wealth enabled him to marry, but the hardships suffered in his early years, and his Christian faith, resolved him to use his profits to help poor and destitute children.

Archway to the tenement where William Quarrier was born

In 1864 the distress of a boy whose stock of matches had been stolen from him, led Quarrier to found the shoeblack brigade.

This was followed by a news brigade and parcels brigade with the headquarters for the three brigades - the 'Industrial Brigade Home' - in the Trongate.

A house in this tenement was his birthplace

These projects however, did not prove to be as successful as had been hoped and sadly they closed down. In 1871 he

turned his attention to the formation of an orphan home which opened in November in Renfrew Lane, Glasgow. In the

same year a home for girls was opened in Renfield Street. From these homes a number of children were sent to Canada

on emigration schemes to receiving homes where each child was placed with suitable families.

In 1872 the boys’ home moved to Cessnock House in a suburb of Govan, and the girls’ home moved to Elm Park in

Govan Road. Dovehill Night Refuge & Mission Hall was established at Dovehill and carried out it's own work with

children, while the James Morrison Street City Home taught boys a trade, and trained girls in housekeeping.

He was determined set up a children's village, where poor children from the towns and cities of

Scotland might enjoy a new life in cottage homes, under the supervision of house fathers and house mothers.

In 1876 a farm of forty acres was purchased between Bridge of Weir and Kilmacolm and he erected a small cottage

home for orphans. The colony grew steadily to around fifty houses, and was opened in 1878 as the Orphan Homes of

Scotland. The Homes were funded by the gifts of individual friends and erected at an average cost of £1,500 each. The

village had its own hospital, church, general store, post office, water works, laundry, schools, and farms.

Over the next 20 years, the Orphan Homes developed as a self contained community comprising over forty children's

cottages, hospital, general store, post office, water works, laundry, Mount Zion Church, a large school, a fire station,

William Quarrier also opened the first TB sanitarium in Scotland next to the village and set in place plans for a care facility

for people with epilepsy, which opened in 1906, three years after Quarrier's death.

The original stones from Quarrier’s house in Crosshore Street, Greenock were incorporated in the building of Quarrier’s

Homes as a permanent reminder of the hardship and poverty which Quarrier himself had experienced. When Quarrier

died on 16th October 1903, management of the institution continued on by the family with advice from trustees. In time,

the trustees took over the administration, and gradually introduced more involvement with the local community.

When the Crosshore street tenement was demolished in 1929, the archway was transferred to Quarriers Village and rebuilt

The Orphan Homes continued operating much as Quarrier had begun until the late 1970's to 1980's. During the 1920's and the 1930's over 1,500 children lived in the village at any one time. In total between 1878 and the mid 1980's over 30,000 children were cared for in Quarrier's children's village.