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In the 1760s Thomas Dewar left the small rural community at Overtoun, where his forebears had for long been resident, to commence business as a vintner in the rapidly expanding town of Kincardine. The new venture prospered and the Unicorn Inn, often referred to as Dewar’s Inn, became the principal tavern in the parish. There, on 20th September 1842, James Dewar, who was to become an experimental chemist of world renown, was born to the great grandson of the founder of the business, who was also named Thomas, and his wife Agnes Eadie (note 1). James was their sixth son and the youngest member of the family. The Dewars, one of whom became a Bailie, were highly respected in the community and were frequently called upon to witness legal documents such as wills and sasines, their inn being a recognized venue for property and other goods. The family were staunch members of The Auld Licht Kirk. His father, James tells us, was a man of marked originality and character and was an active member of the Board of Management of the local United Presbyterian Congregation in whose affairs he evinced a keen interest (note 2). His Presbyterianism was transmitted to his famous son of whom an intimate colleague, Professor H. E. Armstrong, said, “The son was true to the breed; was ever a presbyter”. Besides conducting the routine business of the inn Thomas Dewar also catered for local functions, such as the annual dinner of the Horticultural Society, where his standard of catering and service was invariably highly commended (note 3). He was a keen amateur naturalist and, possessing also a bent for engineering, by a self-constructed plant he installed gas into his house and inn when it was quite unknown in the neighbourhood (note 4). After The Kincardine Light & Gas Company, in which he bought shares, became suppliers of gas to the town, he dispensed with his private plant in favour of receiving supplies from that Company and disposed of his equipment. Little is known about James’s early years in Kincardine. He attended the New Subscription School (note 5) where, in 1852, as a pupil in the second top class he gained with 81% the second prize and was awarded also a prize in drawing. His schooling was interrupted by a long illness; he having contracted rheumatic fever as a result of his falling through the ice, in consequence of which he had to go about on crutches for two years and his lungs were so weakened that he was forced to abandon playing the flute at which he had become quite proficient. At his golden wedding celebrations he remarked in jocular vein that it had been his ambition at that time to become a professional musician. To bring some cheer and variety into the young invalid’s monotonous days, which were spent chiefly in reading, his father engaged the services of the local fiddler who not only entertained James but also taught him to play. Having stuck up a friendship with the local joiner James acquired the art of making fiddles, a skill at which he became quite expert and he often remarked in later life that his manual dexterity, which was the envy of many of his colleagues, sprang from those early years when, as a boy, he tried his prentice hand at fiddle making. Several of his fiddles found their way into the homes of local families and for a number of years were seen about the town. But there was one which he labelled “James Dewar – 1854” in boyish imitation of the practice of Stradivari who signed his violins and about whom twelve-year-old James had been reading at the time. The prank he recalled with puckish humour when that violin was played to good effect by two young ladies after he and Lady Dewar had received a golden wedding present from the members of the Royal Institution in August 1921. During his two years’ convalescence James, who was a voracious reader, laid the foundation of what was to become his extraordinarily wide knowledge of English literature and his life-long love of good books. But his particular interest was given to arithmetic and mathematics. By 1858 James had so far outstripped his teacher in these disciplines that “the teacher had to prepare for the pupil”, which was a far from satisfactory state of affairs. In that year the sixteen-year-old boy, whose mother had died in 1852, had to face also the sad, traumatic experience of his father’s death which took place on 2nd September 1857, and which resulted in the almost immediate break-up of the family home. Now, James was an orphan with no home of his own. Alexander, one of his older brothers who for a short time had been a teacher in the Subscription School, was to become a medical student at Edinburgh University. None of the others were interested in carrying on the large business which their father had pursued with considerable success. The Unicorn Inn or Hotel, which was also... NEXT PAGE
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