Author: Galloway, George
Biography:
GALLOWAY, George (1757-1820: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born at Stirling to George Galloway and Janet (Cameron) Galloway and baptised there on 23 Oct. 1757. His father, having failed at farming, took up shoemaking but he died in about 1772 when Galloway was fourteen and had, according to the memoir that prefaces his Battle of Luncarty, developed “a taste for music.” He followed his older brother, Robert (q.v.), to Glasgow where he worked as a shoemaker and profited from having access to books and newspapers. After performing in a production of The Gentle Shepherd, he was involved with the theatre for about two years, and married Elizabeth Lawson at St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, on 28 Oct. 1786; they had at least three and probably more children. He went to sea but, caught up in “the Spanish war” (possibly the Anglo-Spanish war of 1796-1802), he returned to Portsmouth and eventually went to London where he worked as a shoemaker. At some point he returned to Edinburgh and operated a shop; some of his books were advertised as for sale there at “Wilson’s Land, Crosscauseway” in Edinburgh. The memoir in The Battle of Luncarty describes him as being in poor health after raising a large family and enduring a lifetime of manual labour. He died at Edinburgh and was buried on 29 Oct. 1820. (“Memoir,” The Battle of Luncarty; ancestry.co.uk 24 June 2019; findmypast.co.uk 14 Jan. 2025) SR