In 1915, John was senior bailie (magistrate) of the town council and co-owner of Ford Mill with his brother James (1861-1924).

Their woollen mill business was started by their father James (1831-1905), a former mill manager in Galashiels who bought the Ford Mill in Langholm in 1889.

John moved initially from Galashiels to Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, where he married Charlotte Darg, the daughter of a ship’s captain. Her father John Darg had his master’s licence withdrawn for six months for a shipwreck in 1876 off the Isle of Wight when returning with a cargo of wool from Australia. Charlotte’s brother John was a ship’s carpenter on a vessel to Rangoon, Burma, which disappeared, presumed wrecked, when he was 26.

John and Charlotte relocated to Langholm in around 1890, moving house a couple of times before settling in Holmfoot in 1907.

Their eldest daughter Joey was a leading light in the Langholm Amateur Dramatic Society and married the town clerk, George Irving Bell. Their younger daughters, Bessie and Lottie, were very active in wartime fundraising for soldiers’ comforts and were a cook and nurse respectively at the Langholm Red Cross Hospital.

John succeeded Thomas Easton as provost, holding the position from 1919 to 1931. In the course of his lifetime, he was an elder of the Church of Scotland’s Langholm parish church; a founding member, captain and vice-president of the Langholm Golf Club; a member of the Langholm School Board; a vice-president of the Langholm Rugby club; and a keen angler and bowler.