sentences:  He was the eldest of nine children of John Gillies, local lawyer and town clerk, and his wife, Isabella Lillie, daughter of a Glasgow businessman and granddaughter of a Huguenot refugee.Determined to train as a mechanical engineer, he was forced by his father to study law and trained in his father's practice for four years.He then went to Manchester, where he worked for Robert Barbour and Sons, with his next brother John taking his place in his father's firm.