Another look at some of Ayrshire's most famous heroes

Whether born in the county or making their names here, these names from the past and present certainly left their mark.

John Dunlop

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This Dreghorn man made his name as the inventor of the first practical inflatable tyre. 

Born on February 5, 1840, Dunlop studied to be a vet in Edinburgh having been born on a farm in North Ayrshire. He first set up practice in Scotland then worked animals in Ireland.

It was not until he was almost 50 that his most famous invention took shape. In 1887, working on his young son’s tricycle, he developed the first practical inflatable tyre and patented it the following year.

Unfortunately for Dunlop, another Scottish inventor had patented the idea of the inflatable tyre in the 1840s and would invalidate Dunlop’s creation.

Commercial production of Dunlop tyres began in 1890 but would not make vast amounts from the sale of the tyres. Dunlop died in 1921 in Dublin, and is buried in Deans Grange Cemetery. 

Ally MacLeod

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After managing Ayr United from 1966-75 and Aberdeen FC between 1975-77, McLeod seemed the perfect choice to lead Scotland to the 1978 World Cup Finals in Argentina.

Huge numbers of fans turned out to bid the team farewell - and such was the faith in the manager that many actually believed they would return with the trophy.

It wasn’t to be, of course, but there were plenty of entertaining moments - and not just Archie Gemmill’s goal, either.

Battered but unbowed, Ally continued in management - including two further spells at Ayr - and ended his career at Queen Of The South, where he once put himself in the reserves and scored, aged 61! Ally was also a successful publican in Ayr and died in 2004 at the age of 72 following a long illness.

Let’s leave him the last word (which he usually got anyway): “I am a very good manager who just happened to have a few disastrous days, once upon a time, in Argentina.”

Alexander Fleming

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Fleming is a Noble Prize winner for his discovery of penicillin. He was born on August 6, 1881 at Lochfield, a farm near Darvel in East Ayrshire.

He enrolled in medical school in London, then became assistant bacteriologist at St Mary’s to Sir Almroth Wright, a pioneer in vaccine therapy and immunology .

Throughout World War I he served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps. He and many of his colleagues worked in battlefield hospitals at the Western Front in France.

After the war Fleming actively searched for anti-bacterial agents, having witnessed the death of many soldiers from septicemia from infected wounds. 

His accidental discovery of penicillin in September 1928 marked the start of modern antibiotics. Penicillin has saved, and is still saving, millions of people around the world today.

In 1955, Fleming died at his home in London of a heart attack. He was cremated and his ashes interred in St Paul’s Cathedral a week later.

Betsy Miller

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The first woman to be registered as master of a ship hailed from Saltcoats. Betsy Miller was born in the town in 1792 and lived in Quay Street overlooking the harbour.

Her father, William Miller, was a ship-owner and timber merchant and her only sibling - a brother - tragically drowned.

After the death, Betsy began to help her father to run his business which she later took over when he passed away in 1847 leaving large debts.

Betsy left the counting office to take charge of the family’s ship ‘Clytus’ which carried coal from Saltcoats to Ireland. She retired to her house on Quay Street at the age of 70 and died two years later in 1864.

She is buried in the churchyard of the old Ardrossan Parish Church in Saltcoats which is now the North Ayrshire Museum.

William Fife

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William Fife OBE, born in 1857 came from a proud boatbuilding dynasty in Fairlie.

His father and grandfather (both also named William) had also been designers and boatbuilders at the Fairlie yard, which was demolished in 1985.

Fife began building yachts in 1890 and became known as one of the premier yacht designers of the day.

Fife designed two America’s Cup yachts for grocery and tea magnate Sir Thomas Lipton who challenged for the cup a total of five times at the turn of the 20th century.

Fife, who died in 1944, was installed in the America’s Cup Hall in Fame in 2004. Of his larger vessels, the schooner Altair (1931) and the keel cutters Cambria (1928), The Lady Anne (1912), Moonbeam of Fife (1903), Moonbeam IV (1920), and Mariquita (1911) still grace the classic yacht circuit in Europe.

John McAdam

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The engineer and road builder was born in Ayr in 1756 and is famous for inventing a process known as “Macadamisation”, for building roads with a smooth hard surface.

The youngest of ten children and second son of the Baron of Waterhead, he moved to New York in 1770 where he made his fortune working as a merchant during the American Revolution at his uncle’s counting house.

He returned to Scotland in 1783 and purchased an estate at Sauchrie.

McAdam became involved with day-to-day road construction over the next 10 years. In 1812 he moved to Bristol, and put forward his ideas for a new road surface to parliament.

He put this into practice by developing hard road surfaces with a convex shape, allowing rainwater to drain off, a method which quickly spread across the world.