Don Hugo/Pop (Hugh MacIntyre b1899-d1980)

Well, here we are in Covid-19 lockdown, so I'd better get on with this blog.









My granddad, Pop, as his daughters called him, was born at Estancia Los Mirasoles, Bahia Blanca. His parents emigrated to this farm from Alticry near Newton Steward in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.

Margarita, Bettie and Hugh on Christmas Day at Mirasoles, 1901

He was the second child and eldest boy of the family. For some reason he always looked very miserable in photos, but he was a most kind and gentle man. One of my only memories of him was one morning near Christmas when my advent calendar got torn in a sibling scrap and Granddad patiently glued the layers and pieces back together.




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As in all large Victorian and Edwardian families, the siblings tended to separate into the "older ones" and the "younger ones" although they all remained very close even when scattered far and wide across the world. In order of age they were: Margarita (1897), Hugh (1899), Bettie (1900), Nancie (1903), Alastair (1910), Minona (1912) and Felicity (1913). There was a girl called Sheila (1908) who died before her 4th birthday.




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At the tender age of 8 the young Hugh was sent across the ocean to Merchiston Castle boarding school in Edinburgh and became friends with two boys who would later become his brothers-in-law, Cecil and George Clark. As he was at school in Scotland, Hugh spent some of his school holidays at Alticry under the care of his aunts, Aunt Mamie, Aunt Annie and Aunt Dora and occasionally Cecil would come too.

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In 19-----,the MacIntyres moved to Highmoor Hall in Henley-Upon Thames where





When the First World War began, Hugh was ----- and joined the --------. After training at ----- he was posted to ------- and after the war finished his ----- stayed in Belgium for a further ----- months.




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After the war Hugh went to Clare College in Cambridge to study Botany and was in the Henley Regatta in 1921. He was also in one of the rugby teams. The Boat Race of that year was a great occasion for his family as they at that point had moved from Argentina to Henley-Upon-Thames, a house called Highmoor. Hugh's father had died (on the operating table in Buenos Aires of a burst appendix 1918) so his mother had moved the family back to the UK.

Aunt Dora

In we go. “This should be interesting” I hear the family think - well, I hope it will be once I’ve got more than the bare bones down. I’ll add as I find things out, so this blog will be updated and changed.

Dora Wright was in 1873 in Mochrum, Wigtownshire, Scotland, probably at Alticry House. Her father was Hugh Wright (b.1831- d.1911) and Margaret Bell (b.1833 - d.1911). According to the UK Census on 3 April 1881 she was aged 8 and living at Alticry. She had two older sisters (Mary and Annie) and 5 brothers (Duncan, Hugh, Leslie, Graham and Angus)

All very hum-drum so far, but then surprisingly, I found that she was sent as a teen to school in Schleswig-Holstein in the town of Glucksburg, the most northernmost German settlement near the Danish border. Why would a Scottish family send their youngest daughter there?

This photo was in Aunt Dora’s belongings.  Presumably it is of the school.

 Anyway, her dream was to study medicine at Cambridge, and I have a receipt for an entrance exam, so she did go.

The next document I have is of a St John’s Ambulance certificate.

There’s also a Beekeeper’s Certificate.