Jack McPherson had been born in 1854 on the shores of Loch Lomond on the Balloch Park Estate, where his Rhu-born father had been a gardener. In fact his mother had also been born in Rhu, which begs the question, whether they knew the McNeils, with two of the sons, Moses and Peter, going on to be founders of Rangers and a third, Henry a major player at Queen's Park. Moses and Henry indeed would both also play for Scotland with their international careers overlapping that of Jack.

However, from Balloch the McPherson family would soon edge south, initially to Bonhill and then across the river to Alexandria. At sixteen Jack was already working. Hhe is described as a "Fieldworker", although whether that is print or agriculture is unclear. But by his mid-twenties he had trained to be a Brass-Finisher and his working life was more or less set. Moreover, in 1887 and curiously in Glasgow, by then described as a Brass Founder, he married Margaret Galbraith, a farmer's daughter from Ardoch by Kilmaronock and they were to have three children, two daughters and a son, settle in Dumbarton and slowly prosper. In his thirties in 1891 he is a Brass Finisher once more, working, it is said, in the town's shipyards yet by his mid-forties in 1901 he is managing a Brass Foundry across the river in Dennystown.