Grave of Alexander McGilp
Alexander McGilp (d.1917)
Alexander McGilp was a jeweller in Conwy. Two of his sons died in consecutive months in 1915, and a third was killed in the First World War a month after the father’s death.
Alexander and Jane McGilp and their family moved to Conwy from Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute. Alexander kept a jewellery and watchmaking shop at 3 High Street, Conwy (known as “The Abbey”). He died in March 1917.
One of their sons, also named Alexander, was a watchmaker before joining the army in 1916. While serving with the Royal Scots Fusiliers he was killed at the Western Front, aged 24, on 23 April 1917 and buried at Bootham Cemetery, France. He is named on the war memorial in St John’s Methodist Church, Conwy. The army sent his newly widowed mother his possessions: some letters, photos, prayer books and a razor.
Another son, John, was a watchmaker and repairer at the Duncan jewellery shop in Llandudno for five years before taking over the family business in 1909. John died in November 1915. His brother Robert had died the previous month.
After the loss of four family members in 18 months, there was further anxiety because Charles McGilp of 3 High Street, Conwy, was ordered to join the armed forces. He was working for a grocer at the time. His appeal against conscription was rejected in November 1917. He was still living at 3 High Street in 1939.
Conwy historian Betty Pattinson recalled in 2015 that the family continued to run the jewellers’ shop in the 1930s, and that the sisters – Minnie, Mary and Helen – always wore black, as a symbol of mourning. Jane McGilp, another daughter of Alexander and Jane, died in 1932. Jane, the mother, died in 1952.