The December Meeting of the Stewarton & District Historical Society was addressed by the Society's secretary, Ian Macdonald, who eventually gave an illustrated talk about William Cuninghame of Lainshaw House. The delay was due to a computer glitch, but eventually the Powerpoint presentation was fixed.

He began by tracing the history of the Lainshaw Estate over the centuries, and how it came to be owned by William Cuninghame, thanks in part to the efforts of Boswell of Auchinleck, who had married into the family that owned the estate. He then traced the career of William in America and then back in Glasgow, and explained how the tobacco merchants made their money, partly by spreading their investments well beyond the tobacco trade and also by having several shareholders in each company.

The speaker then went on to give a summary of some of the other Glasgow merchants, and pointed to many of the streets named after them to this day. Using the records of Robinson, one of Cuninghame's Factors in America, Mr Macdonald showed how and where the American trade operated in Virginia, despite the American War of Indpendence. After briefly touching on the slave trade, he concluded by showing how Cuninghame managed to diversify during and after the War, even although his warehouse in Richmond was taken over to accomodate the very first State Assembly in Virginia.

The January meeting will take the form of a Members' Night. Members and friends are invited to bring an object or picture, or tell a story relating to the Stewarton area in days gone by.