John Pratt

John and had a good business as a gunmaker, with a partner, until the year 1829 when the partnership was dissolved. His grand-daughter was under the impression that the partner did not behave honourably and concludes that he must have had more capital in the business than John as he retired to a comfortable country house while John had a very hard struggle before he was able to make headway alone. He did eventually succeed in building up a good business which he carried on in Princes Street (at 99 in 1857) without the aid of a partner and his guns had a good name among sportsmen.

John was a religious dissenter and a member of the Glasite Church in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Glasites, a sect formed by John Glas in 1725, later became known as the Sandemanians after Robert Sandeman who was responsible for the formation of many new congregations in New England.

He was a very musical man and a good singer. His voice was a pure alto (counter-tenor) and his grand-daughter Elizabeth's earliest recollection of him was of him leading the the singing at the Glasite Meeting House. His children were all musical and were always singing about the house. When his eldest child Margaret was nine years old John taught her the notes on the piano then gave her Graser's Tutor and promised her sixpence if at the end of three months she could play a tune from it.

A great reader, John was a fan of Dickens and the first time he visited London, he made a point of visiting all the places there which are mentioned in Dickens' works.

John's first wife died in 1844, aged 51, and he remarried just over a year later. He and his second wife, Elisabeth Halley, lived for some years at 12, Maryfield, Calton, Scotland, a short road running from Edinburgh, Scotland in the direction of Leith with only a few houses on one side.