At the age of 19, while the rest of his family migrated to Canada, John Malcolm McLaren chose to remain in Manchester. In 1852, he resided in Halifax, West Yorkshire, where he entered into matrimony with Jane McDougall on 5th October 1852 at Salford Presbyterian Church. The marriage announcement garnered attention in both Manchester and Inverness, as it was published in newspapers from those regions.
Jane McDougall, the bride, was the youngest daughter of Lawrence McDougall and Ann Fraser. Lawrence McDougall and Ann Fraser originated from Inverness, located in the northern part of Scotland. According to parochial registers, Lawrence McDougall, a shoemaker by trade, married Ann McIntosh on 2nd January 1822. Unfortunately, Ann McIntosh passed away shortly after their wedding. Subsequently, on 5th August 1823, Lawrence McDougall, now a resident of Inverness, registered another marriage, this time with Ann Fraser. Lawrence McDougall and Ann Fraser welcomed their first daughter, Margaret, in 1824 in Inverness. Two years later, their second daughter, Ann, was born in Chatham, Kent, England. Finally, Jane, their third daughter, was born in Sligo, Ireland, in 1830.
The varied birthplaces of the McDougall children can be attributed to Lawrence McDougall's enlistment in the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners. This professional corps carried out scientific work, surveying the countryside and producing standardized maps, pioneering the creation of the first standardized maps in the United Kingdom. In the 1820s, the regiment's headquarters, which still stand to this day, were located in Chatham, Kent, where their middle daughter was born. Lawrence McDougall served in the 16th Company of the Royal Sappers and Miners and was deployed to Ireland to undertake a significant survey of the country. In present times, this exercise is regarded as controversial as it involved standardizing the names of townlands and places in Ireland, resulting in the removal of many Gaelic names. Nevertheless, for Lawrence and Ann McDougall's family, it would have been a relatively pleasant posting.
Lawrence McDougall left the army in 1846 and by the time of the census in 1851, he lived with Ann, his wife, in Lambeth in London with his occupation noted as surveyor. The following year in October at the time of his daughter’s wedding, Lawrence McDougall was listed in the Manchester papers as living in Salford , but in the listing in the Inverness paper he was listed as living in Swansea in South Wales being labelled as Esquire and C.E. – possibly indicating an engineering role.
In 1861, Lawrence and Ann McDougall were registered in London again, living with their 3-year-old grand-daughter Elizabeth. It’s not been possible to trace the parents of this young child. 10 years later, in 1871, Lawrence McDougall was listed as a widower, living with his daughter Jane McLaren in Bradford. Looking at the records there are details of an Ann McDougall who died in Hackney in London in 1867 and was buried in the local non-conformist – i.e. Presbyterian church.
At some point after 1871, Lawrence McDougall left living with his daughter and son-in-law in Bradford and moved to Sale in Manchester with his daughter, Margaret, and family. He died in 1880 of ‘Old age.’ The death was notified by his grand-daughter Elizabeth, who lived with her grandfather, aunt and her family.