Jerry Weir
In one important way Jerry Weir, James Biggar Weir, was typical of so many Scots, who were to emigrate, whether temporarily or permanently. It is his connection with the iron-horse. In fact he was to die of typhoid, in Warrina, a remote railway construction camp in the northernmost reaches of South Australia, whilst working on the line, the Northern Extension that would connect the Adelaide to the north of the continent. The year was 1889. He was aged just thirty-seven.
Jerry Weir had been born in 1851 on Thistle St. in the Gorbals. He was the youngest child of William, a joiner to trade, and Agnes Biggar, both born in Cathcart. In 1861 the family was living nearby on Crown St. and in 1871, the father now a more prosperous house-builder and his son himself an apprentice-joiner, it was at Allanton Terrace in Crosshill, a stone's throw from Queen's Park itself.
James Biggar "Jerry" Weir seems to have joined the Queen's Park club in about 1870 and soon established a reputation for his bandy-legs, ball control, possession and and dribbling. And he remained a fixture in his club team for the best part of a decade, featuring in the first international in 1872, three more, although not the second, his last against Wales in 1878, when he scored twice, and won the Scottish Cup three times. However, after the death of his father in 1880 he left for Australia, there said to have married and presumably continuing to work as a carpenter but with nothing else known definitely until his own death. However, two Australian records remain of interest albeit perhaps coincidental. On 19th October 1881 a Mr. J. B. Weir, a thirty year-old joiner, sailed from London to Adelaide. The only problem he is listed as English, not "Scotch". And on 3rd November 1886 this time in Adelaide a James Weir, whose father is given as William, married a twenty-eight year-old widow, Emma Jane Brown nee Tampion, who as Emma Jane Weir is then known to have again remarried to a Thomas Na(e)ylon in June 1889.
Birth Locator:
Thistle Street, Gorbals, Glasgow
Residence Locator(s):
1861- 205, Crown St, Hutchesontown, Glasgow
1871 - 1, Allanton Terrace, Crosshill, Glasgow
Grave Locator: n/a
Other Sources:
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