After the difficult time of trying to find a safe port, the Silver Cloud anchored off Oban. Fortuitously this was where my grandmother Eliza Proctor had been born, and I had not been to Oban since doing research on her life. I knew it was the old wee Free manse that the family had lived in, and that her father was the minister of the Oban wee free church. In the heyday of religion, there were a number of Presbyterian churches in Oban, but most have closed. So it was difficult to find the one we wanted. After asking people in the street, the tourist office, and the local library, we were still wandering the streets without success. However I spotted a local bowls club, and on the premise that older people like them would know, I asked there. In fact we were only 100 yards from the Proctor's manse, which had recently reverted to a private house, from an earlier guise as a guest house. There was nobody at home, but we wandered round the garden and took photos. We then found the church, fairly close by, now a fishing shop. Such is the way human beliefs change with time.
The modern town of Oban grew up around the distillery, which was founded there in 1794. A royal charter raised the town to a burgh of barony in 1811. Sir Walter Scott visited the area in 1814, the year in which he published his poem The Lord of the Isles; interest in the poem brought many new visitors to the town. The town was made a Parliamentary Burgh in 1833. A rail link – the Callander and Oban Railway – was authorised in 1864 but took years to reach the town. The final stretch of track to Oban opened on 30 June 1880. This brought further prosperity, revitalising local industry and giving new energy to tourism. Also at this time work on the ill-fated Oban Hydro commenced; the enterprise was abandoned and left to fall into disrepair after 1882 when Dr Orr, the scheme's originator, realised he had grossly underestimated its cost.
Work on McCaig's Tower, a prominent local landmark, started in 1895. Paid for by John Stewart McCaig (1824–1902) the construction aimed, in hard times, to give work for local stonemasons. However, its construction ceased in 1902 on the death of its benefactor.
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The wee Free church today, and the Old Manse where my grandmother Eliza Proctor was born in 1880. My write up of the life of Rev William Proctor. William Proctor was minister of the Oban church from 1877 to 1884
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