Jane Moore

Tobacconist and philanthropist.

Jane, sometimes Jean, Watson was said by local tradition to have been of humble birth and to have been employed initially as a domestic servant. Following a minor theft from her employer she fled Cardross, found her way to Leith, married a man by the name of Moore or Muir and with him travelled to London. Following her husband's death in London, she ran a successful tobacconist's business in Wapping. Her interesting will, proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in 1695, reveals her considerable wealth, including her 'Negro servants', and that she moved within a circle of ex-patriot Scots.

Moore's Bridge, which carries the busy A814 road across the Auchinfroe Burn in the village of Cardross, is a permanent memorial to her. Although now largely a Victorian reconstruction, the bridge still bears the date 1688, the year in which she funded its construction. She also gave a bell to the parish kirk, with two fine mortcloths. Her greatest act of charity, however, was her bequest of £500 sterling for the poor of Cardross. Known as 'Mrs Moore's Mortification', the bequest is still available for community causes in the village, more than three centuries after her death.