The Child in the Cemetery

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In amongst all the photographs of my Scottish relatives there are several ones taken of children who no-one in my family can now identify. Mostly they are just assumed to be ones of long-forgotten family friends or long-dead distant cousins, and often there is nothing remarkable about them. They are taken in anodyne studios with the young sitters in their Sunday best clothes, their hair brushed and faces scrubbed. The only thing that gives anything away about the time and place is the manner of their dress and hairstyles or the name of the studio. I have filed these images away in a separate folder, knowing that their identity will probably always remain anonymous.

Child in CemeteryGirl in a Graveyard

There is one such snapshot that I have become particularly fascinated with as it depicts a small girl on her own in a possible post-war outfit standing in what looks like a Victorian-era cemetery with relatively fresh graves. Because of the location it should be easy to identify her, and I would have possibly asked older relatives about her as a child myself, curious to now what she was doing in such a place. The name ‘Susan’ keeps popping into my head, yet I cannot remember seeing the image when I was young. My mother also has no recollection of the photograph, even though the memory of it might have been expected to stay with us over the years as it is the only one in the whole collection to feature someone in a graveyard, let alone a child. 

What I particularly like about digitalising old photographs is the ability – noire detective-style again- to zoom in on details and magnify these. It’s through doing this that I discovered the broken and dirty nails of my great great-grandmother, Christina Whitehead, indicating a life of hard work; and the locket round the neck of her daughter-in-law (my great-grandmother), depicting her oldest son who was fighting in the Great War. When I start to enlarge this image of ‘Susan’ in the cemetery I notice that the small rounded gravestones in the background are not actually what they seem. They are not made of stone but glass, and the circular shapes represent what was once termed rather macabrely ‘immortelles‘. This was a glass or ceramic dome, often with a removable metal frame, used to protect artificial flowers and trinkets. And while they were most popular during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, in some graveyards they were still in use until later in the last century. As they appear to be more prevalent in certain places, such as Wales, this could be an identifying feature of the photograph.

An ImmortalleAn Immortelle (c) Market Lavington Museum – link to website  here

And as to the reason the girl is there in the cemetery? Well, it’s tempting to think she was with her family visiting the grave of a relative – perhaps even a parent or sibling – and to assume this is what has given her a distracted and quizzical air. And yet there is not a specific gravestone in this image and it is difficult to read too much into her countenance. I’m wary of describing her as looking sad or upset, and at that age the graveyard trip might not have meant that very much to her. Even if there had been a recent death in the family, children react differently to grief and cannot always make the same connections that we do. 

So while I might never know the identity of this little girl – who is very possibly still alive – or what she was doing in the cemetery, the photograph has created a space which my own questions and stories have begun to fill. And maybe one day I will find out more.

The Incidental Genealogist, April 2024 

P.S. Due to current writing and study commitments, I will be posting every quarter instead of monthly from now on. 

 

 

 

A Reappraisal

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When I was a child I used to smirk at this photograph of what I deemed to be an old and ugly lumpen woman. With her hair scraped back unflatteringly from her face and a sack-like dark dress bagging at the waist, I considered her worthy of ridicule. She wore no make up nor had she made an effort to arrange her face into a pleasing smile. She sat awkwardly and rested one plump hand on the studio photographer’s prop of a table, displaying finger nails like horns that were blackened and stubby. 

Christina WhiteheadMy great-great-grandmother Christina Whitehead, circa late 19th C

I now know this woman to have been my great-great grandmother, Christina Whitehead, who was born in 1840. Her son, Robert Neilson, was my grandmother’s father and was my mother’s only living grandfather for the first decade of her life. He was a gentle man who was adored by all his children and grandchildren, until his untimely death when he fell and banged his head on an icy pavement in Edinburgh in the New Year of 1949, still in rude health well into his seventies. However, unlike my mother, my grandmother never knew her paternal grandparents: Christina Whitehead died in early 1902 at age 62, four years before Grandma was born, having outlived two husbands – just. Her first husband was Robert’s father, Adam Neilson, a blacksmith, who died of a kidney infection at the age of 40 in 1878 when Robert was only six. The second was Robert Harrison, another blacksmith, whom Christina married four years later, and who’d possibly been a friend of her first husband.

Robert Harrison had no children of his own so he might have been happy to take over the role of step-father to Christina’s seven children. It certainly would have made things less complicated than if they had been attempting to blend two families – a not uncommon situation in those days, created by the twin woes of short lives and straightened economic circumstances. In the end, Christina was to live with Robert for the same amount of time as with Adam, until he died in 1900 at the age of 64. His death and funeral were announced in the Edinburgh Evening News due to the fact that he’d been a member of both the Oddfellow’s and Blacksmith’s Societies in the City of Edinburgh Lodge. The notice requested the members to attend the ceremony held at Echo Bank – the older name for Newington Cemetery on the South Side of the city.

Harrison Death NoticeDeath Notice from the Edinburgh Evening News of 17th Nov 1900

It might have been this event that prompted Christina’s visit to the photographer’s studio and may be the reason for her sombre attire in the picture above. Or could it have been after the death of her first husband? Or is she simply wearing a dark, formal dress, as was usual at the time? There is no date on the cabinet card featured above, but the image does look like a woman dressed in a mourning outfit of the late 19th century. The dark, heavy dress with what looks like the addition of crepe frills to the sleeves and neck, and the simple hairstyle and jewellery suggest that this could have been taken to commemorate the death of her second husband, as might have been expected given his status. But as Adam Neilson died in 1878 when Christina was 38, it may even have been taken around this time, given that a working class woman in those days would appear older than today. 

Christina died just over a year after her second husband, on January 3rd 1902, and was described as a cleaner in a club in the 1901 census of the previous year. However, she had been working as a cleaner for many years, which may explain the engrained dirt around her fingernails and the tired yet defiant look on her face. She was born into domestic work, starting out as a farm servant in her native Duns in the Border region, before moving to Edinburgh to take up a position as a domestic servant for a spirit dealer and his family on the South Side of the city. This is no doubt how she met Adam Neilson – a local blacksmith who was originally from East Lothian – and ended up living in the Canongate area of Edinburgh for the rest of her life. 

Christina Harrison Death NoticeDeath Notice from the Edinburgh Evening News of 6th Jan 1902

Yet not all is what it seems. Robert appears to have died from Paralysis – or tertiary syphilis. Like most family historians, I am no stranger to the shock of finding relatives with this illness. Before the discovery of penicillin, syphilis was a widespread problem affecting all swathes of the population and men and women alike. So it was with some trepidation that I ordered Christina’s death certificate. It did not make happy reading. It would appear that she too may have contracted the disease as she was described as having died at the Royal Asylum Edinburgh from: Brain Disease, Epilepsy over 10 years. Chronic Disease of the Heart and Lungs of over 7 months. She had been admitted to the asylum five months before she died.

So now when I look at the photograph of my great-great grandmother, regarding the camera warily, yet sitting so proudly erect, I see another story behind the image.  And certainly not one that I could have imagined fifty years ago. It is nothing short of a reappraisal. 

Wishing all my readers a very Happy New Year!

The Incidental Genealogist, January 2024

P.S. Due to current writing and study commitments, I will be posting every quarter instead of monthly from now on. 

 

 

 

 

Costumes and Disguises

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Whenever I’m in Scotland at this time of year I cannot help but think of Halloween and the build up of excitement ahead of the yearly Scottish tradition (for children) of ‘guising’ – the original Celtic version of the American trick-or-treating. As a child the whole month of October would be spend creating an outfit – usually something spooky, but not always – and learning a song or a poem to recite on our neighbours’ doorsteps in return for fruits, nuts or sweets, as well as gouging out turnip lanterns to carry. Nowadays everyone in the United Kingdom knows about the custom through the spread of the American tradition, but in the 1970s guising wasn’t practised much outside of Scotland and Ireland. This was something I only discovered when we had to patiently explain what we were up to in our strange costumes to a new English neighbour, who then confessed he had nothing to give us but coins from his pocket. We accepted the silver five-pence pieces, but rather guiltily, as our parents had told us never to take money from the households we visited. 

Thinking back to that autumn night when we confused our English neighbour, I can remember nothing of what my best friend and our little sisters were wearing, only that my mother had helped me to customise an old red velvet evening dress she’d worn as a teenager in the 1950s (itself created from a young aunt’s evening dress) and declared myself to be a pillar box. This was more about the fact that velvet was my favourite material and red my favourite colour than any resemblance to an actual post box. Of course my disguise had to be explained at every door we visited and once that was done I launched into a tuneless version of Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon, which I thought would mark me out as a budding folk singer. A year later I was told by a vindictive teacher that I was tone deaf and never sang in public again. And many years after that, when as a student I started raiding my mother’s collection of (now) retro outfits, I regretted cutting up that dress so much! 

Unfortunately no-one thought to take any photographs of us in our outfits and neither it seemed did any of my other Scottish relatives have their Halloween costumes captured for posterity. This was possibly because of the fact that it would have been difficult to take pictures at night, even supposing a family did own a camera. But my mother told me that when she and her young friend Jim were dressed up in their guising outfits, her father would smear their faces with soot that he collected by putting his hand up the chimney. I have since discovered that this was an old custom of early guisers from the 1600s, as ash was deemed to keep away evil spirits. But by the time I was into guising in the early 1970s, that tradition had faded out and cardboard masks were used to hide our faces. Even now, the smell of rough cardboard brings back that nervous feeling of pulling on our gaudy masks as we were about to knock (or ‘chap’) on yet another door. 

Please to help the guisers, we’ll sing you a merry wee song! That was what my mother and Jim said as they stood in their neighbour’s doorways in Edinburgh in the 1940s with their soot-smeared faces and ghost-sheets, their emergence into guising age (around seven) coinciding with the end of the war. Like most children, their excitement was not about the gains, although having some goodies to take to school the next day to compare with the ‘hauls’ of classmates would have been an added bonus. The anticipation surrounding the event was more about creating the ideal costume from what was to be found lying around at home, then being out at night unaccompanied by adults, and for some children (like myself and my mother) the chance to show off. Of course the whole scary nature of the event was the icing on the cake and the fact that the last day in October coincided with the clocks moving back, plunging the outside into darkness before we had even finished our dinner, made it feel even more of an adventure. We knew on some primeval level – even if it was never explained to us – that what we were ‘celebrating’ was the return of the dark. 

As we grew older, guising was replaced by Halloween parties and discos run by the school or the church. Like many teenagers of the fifties, my mother was very involved with her local church youth club, which she attended from age 14 to 20. This group was held on a Saturday night and involved dances, talks, amateur dramatics, games, trips away and retreats and summer hay rides. In the days when the church was the focus of the community this was an ideal way to meet other young people and future partners. Parties were held at key dates, such as Xmas, Valentine’s Day and of course at Halloween where games like ‘dooking’ (ducking) for apples were played.

Corstorphine Old Parish Church, Youth Club Halloween Party, 1958

Although there are no other Halloween images in my family’s collection, there are images of people in various costumes for other reasons. One of my favourites is that of my grandfather’s younger brother, John McKay, dressed up while collecting for charity during Glasgow University rag week in the 1930s. A student in a working class family in those days was a rare thing indeed, and in such a religious family one who was studying theology was even more of a cachet. Yet just after he trained as a minister of the Church of Scotland, John caught tuberculosis and died at the age of twenty-four, unable to devote his life to the service of the Church as he’d wished. A popular and devoted preacher, as well as a loyal friend and brother, he left a gap in many people’s lives. 

John McKay and friend at Glasgow University rag week, late 1920s

Dressing up appeared to be in vogue in the 1920s as many of my grandparent’s snapshots from holidays with their friends can attest to. A small booklet of snaps from a local photographer’s in Rothesay in West Scotland, shows a group of young people, including my grandmother and one of her sisters all having fun at some sort of resort. This was possibly around about the same time she started dating my grandfather – although he is not there in the pictures. It was perhaps a family holiday where the young folk mingled with each other, but the parents were still there to keep an eye on everything, or older siblings and cousins took over that role. 

Dressing up at Rothesay, c1925

Looking closely at the photograph it would appear as if everyone has raided the dressing up box at their accommodation, mixing styles in an ad hoc way. I almost did not recognise my grandmother, who is standing with the young man and holding the parasol. Her companion appears to be trying to emulate Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik – a silent film that had come out in 1921 and had given Valentino his big break. The follow up The Son of the Sheik came out five years later and was the last film Valentino made before his death in 1926, which may mean that the photograph above was taken in that year. As the film was also a box office hit, it would have been seen by most young people, particularly the women who adored Valentino, dubbed the ‘Latin Lover’ by the studios and the first screen sex symbol of the 20th century.

Poster for ‘The Son of the Sheik’ (c) United Artists

An important celebration in Scotland was New Year – that other pagan Celtic holiday. Christmas was not a public holiday in Scotland until 1958 and New Year was when all the revelry took place instead. This image (below) shows my great-grandmother, by then a widow, playing a game (which involved eating chocolate in fancy dress) that I remember from my own childhood. Her oldest son Adam is standing over her next to various sisters-in-law. This annual party was held at Adam and Lilly’s house on New Year’s Day and my mother remembers it as a chance to drink lemonade and eat pickles and be spoilt and petted by all the grown ups present. 

My great-grandmother at New Year, 1950s

As a child, I always felt that Halloween marked the beginning of the wintery count down to Christmas, with Guy Fawkes Night to help us on the way to the main event shortly afterwards (a custom my father had been much more involved in as a child in London, with his ‘penny for the guy’-ing). By the 1970s Scotland had finally fully embraced Christmas, and having a London-born father also meant that much more weight was given to the English traditions of the festive period. Thus I was able to fully partake in the annual traditions from both sides of the border, gaining support and encouragement from the parent whose customs were being celebrated at the time. 

Wishing everyone a very happy Halloween!

The Incidental Genealogist, October 2023

P.S. Due to current writing and study commitments, I will be posting every quarter instead of monthly from now on. 

 

The (Non)-Sporty Life

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None of my direct ancestors could ever really have been described as sporty, including my parents. However, like many young people growing up in the forties and fifties, they had walked and cycled everywhere and played various sports through their schools or local youth groups. Later, in mid-life, my father developed a love of hill walking and round about the same time bought a new-fangled racing bike in a bid to maintain his level of fitness. But there was no membership of teams or sporting equipment in our house when I was growing up – unless you could include my father’s ugly stationary bicycle which was relegated to the garage after my mother refused to have it taking up precious space in the bedroom. There was no encouragement to follow in a parent’s footsteps by playing hockey (something I hated after an initial burst of enthusiasm) or taking up gymnastics or ballet. We had Brownies and Guides and Sunday School and the Church Music Club and that was enough. 

My mother (Catherine McKay) after a game of tennis c1956

As a teenager I discovered the joys of horse riding and hiking all on my own, and was also grateful my father had put in the hours to teach me to ride a bicycle. More importantly, these activities did not demand playing ball sports in a team, something I struggled with on account of having difficulties with hand-eye co-ordination. Because of this, there were many hours in the garden with my father training me to catch a ball as well as a few days every summer at the seaside while my father tried and failed to teach me how to do simple breast strokes in calm and shallow water. But in this case, the large plastic ring and armbands I was encouraged to wear probably did not help me to get any feeling for my own buoyancy, something I only realised almost twenty years later when I doggedly (literally) taught myself to swim a few metres in an outdoor pool in a much warmer country. As my mother could not swim (and neither her mother nor her grandmother) this was not generally considered an essential skill in the family; even the men were not great swimmers, having learnt only the basics in the fickle seas of the British Isles.

My grandfather, Alec McKay (far left), and friends, West Coast Scotland early 1920s

Looking back I now see that this was just the continuation of a historical pattern and if I’d been born a generation later I may have had a completely different experience. There were some relatives who bucked this trend: an English second cousin who was in the synchronised swimming team competing in the 2012 London Olympics; a Scottish second cousin who’d been a 1980s commonwealth athlete. But when I look closer, it appears that they mostly all were taking their cue from the other half of the family – the ones which my relatives married into – and so can effectively be discounted when it comes to passing on the sporting gene.

To be fair, it would appear that my own ancestors – who’d typically mostly belonged to large working families living in cities – often had little time or means to indulge in sports beyond those encouraged at school or through organisations such as the church or the boys’ brigade. Women in particular were bound to the home and the grind of constant childbearing and rearing. Even those like my maternal grandmother who only had one child after seven years of marriage often created extra work for themselves by obsessing about their home duties and the standard they had to keep up for fear they would be judged slovenly by others.

In addition, the sole family day off was usually a Sunday – a day that may have involved attending church and the cooking and eating of a huge dinner as well as dressing up to visit relatives or stroll in nearby parks. I can remember those interminable days and having to keep on my Sunday best to walk to Belleisle Park – one of the local estates which had morphed into a public park at some time in the 1920s, replete with a small zoo, greenhouses and a golf course. In the winter we fed the animals and in the summer we’d admire the Victorian bedding displays, then sit on the grass to listen to brass bands playing among trees whose provenance hinted at the colonial wealth that had funded the estate and it’s ‘big house’ all those centuries ago.

Me at Belleisle Park, Ayr, c1967

For my ancestors, the fortnight trades’ summer holiday allowed opportunities to indulge in extended leisure activities – or a holiday away, if you could afford it. While a week’s paid holiday for workers was not enshrined in law until 1938, many families still saved up through the year for this event. In my grandparents’ case, this often meant heading off to a boarding house somewhere by the sea with a round of golf on the local putting course to start the day. Living only a stroll from a local municipal course in West Edinburgh, my grandfather went on to take up golf more seriously in his retirement, an egalitarian activity (as it still is in many parts of Scotland) a world away from the elite Pringle-sweater-wearing, deal-making activity of how the sport is currently perceived.

My grandmother, on the putting course, early 1930s

In the above image, my grandmother does look rather glamorous for the occasion but the two-week holiday would have been an opportunity to wear smart clothes to parade along the local promenade and sit by the sea. Even an outing onto the sands often did not demand different attire, reminding me of the days at the seaside in Ayr with both sets of grandparents dressed as if for a city trip. Rolled up trouser legs and shirt-sleeves and sometimes a knotted hanky on their head (the men) and a short-sleeved summer dress were often the only concessions they made to the informality of the day.

A Day at the Beach, 1920s

In the above photograph my young grandmother (far right) is sitting with her parents and other relatives on what was possibly a rather cool and windy beach. The unknown child looks to be in fancy dress but it is my great-grandfather’s formal hat that seems the most unusual about this image. Unsurprisingly, no-one is looking as if they are sitting very comfortably, least of all my great-grandmother, although the children behind them seem to be having fun. 

My Grandfather and one of his sisters on a hike, early 1920s

The 1920s and 30s was a time when the benefit of a healthy body (tied in with notions of patriotism after the First World War) was extolled, culminating in a craze for rambling – often in large groups – as well as cycling and camping. It is no coincidence that both the Ramblers Association and the Youth Hostel Association were formed in these interwar years, and unsurprisingly my grandparents had both both keen walkers. As a child I once discovered their tiny fold up portable metal drinking cups abandoned at the back of a drawer and they told me about when they they were young and newly married and had packed these funny little cups into their knapsack as part of their paraphernalia for a day’s hillwalking in the nearby Pentland Hills.

My grandparents (far right) on the West Coast, 1920s

The photograph above seems to symbolise the freedom won by the post-war generation, which was often put to use in exploring the great outdoors. Here my grandfather is on a trip on the water with my grandmother and her elder sister, Chrissie, and a friend of his. Both girls are wearing the peasant blouses that were popular at the time, in part due to their popularity in silent Hollywood films depicting the characters of ‘free and exotic’ women. It’s a timeless look, which combined with their windswept hair, gives them a healthy, modern vibe. They look happy and carefree and ready to embrace the spirit of the age – until another world war would come along to change the course of their lives, yet again.

The Incidental Genealogist, September 2023

 

Followers of Fashion: Part 2

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Sometimes it’s just one or two details that draw you into the old photograph of an ancestor: a shy smile, a wayward kink of hair, the angle of a foot. More often than not the details lie in the subject’s clothes and accessories: an outsize hair ribbon, the buckle on a shoe, the unusual cut of a jacket. We are fascinated by all that is strange about the fashions of the past, yet it does not come as a surprise to note that late Victorian women really did wear leg-of-mutton sleeves or Edwardian men carried silver-topped canes. At times, however, it can almost look as if our relatives raided the dressing-up box of 19th and 20th century outfits in order to tell us: Look! We really did dress the way that you imagined we might – and some more!

Susan Connelly and friend/relative c1918

In the above photograph, the wife of Charles Thomson (the youngest brother of my maternal great-grandmother and who experienced a tragic early death*, leaving Susan a widow with three young children in her twenties) and another young woman look rather overdressed for the photographer’s studio. They are obviously sporting the season’s winter fashions and keen to make a statement with their up-to-the-minute outdoorsy looks. Such stylised images make the women appear as if they have walked off the pages of a contemporary fashion magazine, although the hats seem a rather strange addition, hiding their hairdos and putting some of their features into shade. 

*See An Ordinary and Remarkable Woman: Part 2

There are some hats that should never have been allowed near a head, let alone a camera, and for those who did not suit hats – or those of the time – it must have been a difficult to avoid them, given that they were such an important part of any outfit worn outside the house. In the image below, someone should have told the wife of my great-grandfather’s older brother that this hat shape did not suit her (and would possibly not suit anyone). Though in her defence, she does sport a lovely pair of shoes.

My mother’s Great Uncle Adam and wife c1930

One of the things my grandmother and her sisters inherited from their mother was the possession of a pair of slim lower legs, allowing the women to wear a variety of shoes which emphasised their neat ankles. My mother has the same leg shape, which luckily she passed on to me, so while not being a ‘hat person’ I covet some of the shoes that the Neilson sisters wore, particularly the styles from the 1940s.

Anne and Mary Neilson with their mother c1940

In the above photograph, my great-aunt Anne is wearing a pair of shoes almost identical to ones on which I spent some of my student grant in the 1980s in a now defunct upmarket shoe shop. I wore them until the end of the decade: they carried me down to London but were too edgy for my genealogy job (see The Incidental Genealogist is Born), although I did wear them later with my lab coat at University College Hospital. That was until my boss happened to mention during one coffee break (as I put my feet up on a stool) that I was literally down on my uppers!

My mother and grandparents, c1946

In the above picture, my grandmother’s shoes are the perfect compliment to her simple but stylish dress, which she would have created herself. As a trained dressmaker she made most of her and my mother’s clothes, including jackets and coats, and remained neat and fashionable up until her nineties. Many older relatives, however, began to look outdated as the decades marched on, and from middle age onwards they often wore fashions from the previous decade(s). As Jayne Shrimpton points out in her book Tracing Your Ancestors Through Family Photographs: In general, in mixed group photographs such as weddings scenes or large family gatherings, it is the appearance of young adults and, especially, that of younger woman that offers the closest date range for the entire scene. With photographs portraying only older subjects, we may need to consider a wider date range for the image.

Thomson sisters and husbands Robert Neilson and George Fyfe, c1935

There was also the issue of changing body shape to consider. My great grandmother and her beloved younger sister Jean and their respective husbands look rather dated in this snapshot taken in the 1930s, despite them wearing their own versions of the latest trends. My great grandfather is wearing what was called Doo-lander – named because it looked wide enough for a dove (or ‘doo‘ in Scots) to land on (possibly already past it’s popularity peak by then) and the two women’s dresses seem rather frumpy, even for the times.

Thomson sisters, c1935

I particularly love this photograph, taken around the same time, of the two sisters relaxing together and displaying their neat ankles and lovely shoes. It has a slightly surreal look to it that seems to chime with the decade and emphasises the comfortable slide from mid-life into old age that the two women are about to embark on.

Catherine McKay c1955

This image of my mother in the fifties as a teenager (but looking like an adult by today’s standard) was taken by her best friend Anne, who lived next door. She’s sitting on the coal bunker between the two houses and is wearing a very up-to-the-minute style, fashionably emphasising her narrow waist, just as her female late Victorian ancestors once did to display their youthful figures. The wide skirts of the fifties also harkened back to those of the previous century, proving that styles really do come around again in circles, but always in new and unexpected forms.

Catherine Miller Thomson c1892

Over sixty years separate these two pictures of my mother and her grandmother, and while both ‘looks’ obviously now appear dated, the images are clearly of vibrant and fashionable women in their youthful prime who appear to be comfortable in their respective outfits and proud of their slim waists.

The Incidental Genealogist, August 2023

Followers of Fashion: Part 1

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There is is something rather Emperor’s New Clothes about the world of fashion. What looks good one season may be deemed ugly another year, while the reverse is also true. A case in point is the high-waisted ‘mum jeans’ my female students all seem to be currently sporting. They obviously don’t know that anyone caught wearing these shapeless trousers post 1990s was once deemed to be a fashion pariah. Of course, when the style arrived back a couple of years ago it came with the edgy twist of frayed hemlines, but those of us who wore them the first time around would probably not want to be seen in them again, even allowing for age differences.

My grandfather (r) and friend in felted hats at a wedding,1930s

And so it is with the fashion of our ancestors. There are some pieces that will almost always look good if worn the right way – men’s felted hats, for example – but any fashion when taken to extremes becomes a parody of itself. This was one of the things I found most fascinating as a child when rummaging through the photograph boxes, and in particular the fashions of the late Victorian/Edwardian period and the strange shapeless garments that succeeded them.

Three (Neilson) Sisters c1925

In the above image, my grandmother is flanked by two of her older sisters in fashionable suits of the twenties. And while my very slim and relatively tall grandmother suited the dropped waist dresses of the period, all three sisters appear to be drowning in these baggy outfits. As the tallest girl (five feet, two inches!) my grandmother was nicknamed ‘Lofty’ by the others, yet I always regarded her as tiny (even allowing for the shrinkage she underwent in old age). 

Unknown family friends c1920

This picture of unidentified family friends from a few years earlier has always intrigued me. I love the seated girl’s woollen cardigan and the contemporary style of the belt, lapels, upturned cuffs and the open front. It’s also clear that the garment is made from thick, high quality wool and could easily double up as a jacket. I would also like to possess the tailored tweed jacket with the buttoned belt of the other girl, a style that was common at the time. Yet I could easily forego their shapeless thick skirts and clumpy utilitarian shoes, not to mention their hairstyles – which are a less extreme version of the folded over fringe that looks rather ridiculous to us today.

The Girl with the Hair c1920

Yet men were not immune to taking some styles to caricatures (see Adam Neilson’s trouser length below). Like many people, my mother’s oldest brother Adam and his wife Lilly loved to dress up on a Sunday, when the main activities were attending church and then going for a walk or visiting relatives. My grandmother once remarked that Lilly always had a new blouse whenever she came to visit them, and it would appear that Adam was often seen with his silver topped cane during the 20s and 30s. In the photograph below, both are wearing hats and holding gloves as was usual at the time, possibly indicating that they had come from a church service. 

Adam and Lilly Neilson, 1920s

When the couple’s only son Robert was born in 1929 he was not spared the lavish outfits, and as an infant was often dressed in a way that the rest of the family thought made him resemble Little Lord Fauntleroy. When looking through the family photograph collection as a child myself, I was naturally drawn to pictures of girls who were around my age, but often disliked those of children who’d obviously been primped and primed for the camera. Possibly I once found this photograph of the young Robert (below) quite horrible, but now I can appreciate the artistry of the image and the way the soft faded blue of the velvet shorts and the pinks and yellows of the flowers seem to harmonise. 

Robert Neilson, c1931

One of my most favourite photographs in our collection is, however, not of a little girl but a studio portrait from around 1900 of my maternal great-grandmother’s youngest sister. She is posing next to a fashionably rustic scene, as if she were out on a Sunday afternoon stroll. It is probably for this reason that she’s wearing a pair of leather gloves and carrying a parasol/umbrella and the kind of highly decorated hat which would have been kept for Sunday best.

My great-grandmother’s youngest sister, c1900

I love everything about this image, from the details on her outfit to the artfully posed booted feet, which are just slightly – and charmingly – out of focus. The fact that I will never know the colours of her dress or hat or gloves, or the reason for the trip to the photographer’s studio lends the picture a sense of enchantment. Perhaps that is the very reason why we are drawn to old photographs: they create a sense of mystery that simultaneously fascinates and frustrates, yet by doing so they open up a space for our imagination to thrive.

To be continued in Part 2 next month.

The Incidental Genealogist, July 2023

 

Reminders of Love

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Last month I described my delight at finding a lost album of sorts, originally belonging to my grandmother’s oldest brother, Adam Neilson. This book included many studio portraits from the 1920s and early 1930s, mostly of young, single adults who were born around the turn of the century. These pictures – some looking incredibly modern to my eyes – were taken in formal photographic studios and copies had obviously been distributed to close friends and family. Among their peers, the youth of the day appeared to indulge in what was possibly a ‘photo swap’, reminiscent of the small school portraits I exchanged with my favourite classmates at secondary school, fifty years later.

The majority of these images from a century ago were made into postcard format – possibly the cheapest option at the time, enabling the sender to mail out copies, if needed. Although most of the sitters appeared to eschew this activity (perhaps they put them into envelopes first to protect the photographs), many of them were quite happy to sign the corner of their portraits with a personal greeting (see Sincerely Yours).

Yours Sincerely, Lilly, Jan 1920

It seemed obvious that it was mostly young women who indulged in this activity and that the bulk of these portraits probably belonged to Adam’s wife Lilly, perhaps from the period before their marriage in 1926. As a couple, Adam and Lilly also had several variations of this postcard portrait made of the two of them. This was possibly to announce an engagement or similar intention, although the ring that Lilly wears on her left hand does not appear to be an engagement one (and in fact is the same as the one in all her photographs from this period). It is also interesting to note that in both photographs she also displays her large wristwatch, at that time a relatively modern piece of attire for young women and a certain amount of status would be attached to its ownership. 

Adam Neilson and Lilly Blythe, early 1920s

In contrast to Adam and Lilly, my grandparents did not possess very many of these types of photographs, either of themselves or others. In fact, the only two portraits they have of themselves from around the period they were going out together – or ‘courting’ in the parlance of the day – were kept in brand new condition in their original pristine folders. It is also telling that they had both gone to the same studio in Edinburgh: that of Drummond Sheils in Lauriston Place near the Castle, a company that had already been operating since 1899 and had won many awards for their photographic endeavours.

Photograph Cover for Catherine Neilson

Opening the cover of the photograph – with it’s striking contemporary image – to reveal the sepia tinged photograph of my grandmother in her youthful prime felt like spying on a private moment between a couple in love. For who else was this photograph for but my grandfather? 

Catherine McKay, mid 1920s 

The cover of my grandfather’s photograph – with its stylised rose – is equally of its time and place and opening it reveals another surprise: my grandfather as a handsome young man! Even though my mother insists her father was good-looking in his youth, I have not always been able to agree with her and so put it down to the kind of natural bias we often have for our parents in their prime. But this time I can see what she means about young Alexander McKay, the electrician from Glasgow who met local dressmaker, Catherine Neilson, at a social dance in Edinburgh in the mid-1920s.

Photograph Cover for Alexander McKay

Alexander McKay, mid 1920s 

Here they are, my grandparents, Cathie and Alec, alive again and without their glasses or false teeth or grey hairs or wrinkles or ailments – just a young couple at the beginning of everything who were obviously very much in love with each other. These two portraits are reminders of their love, and also of their youth – a time that was so  fleeting and now almost painful to behold. 

The Incidental Genealogist, June 2023

Sincerely Yours

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When my great-grandmother moved in with my grandparents in the late 1940s following the unexpected death of her husband, she was only able to bring along a few possessions to the small 1930s four-in-a-block house in West Edinburgh where she’d have to share a bedroom with her granddaughter. The photograph boxes and albums that travelled with her were thus obviously of importance, and often I wonder what would have happened to them had they fallen into the hands of another branch of the family whose descendants were not so interested in social history.

As it was, my great-grandmother only decided to stay with this particular daughter and her husband because they were a one-child family with more living space. However, my great-grandmother did depart for weekends and weeks at a time to visit some of her other adult children and their families, giving my grandmother what must have been a welcome break and a little more freedom in a life that was already circumscribed by the societal pressure of the times in which she lived.

My Great Grandmother with her oldest son Adam, c1958

Among these messy boxes that my mother inherited was an album that belonged to my mother’s oldest uncle – and my great-grandmother’s ‘favourite’ child. Adam had been a signaller in World War One (see The Portrait in the Shed), and after surviving the conflict he met local Leith girl Lilly Blyth, a book sewer, through his work as a letterpress printer at McDougall Educational Company, on Leith Walk. Adam married Lilly in 1926. and like my grandparents they also only had one child – my mother’s older cousin Robert – and lived with Lilly’s Shetlandic mother (Granny Blyth) after their marriage. 

Adam Neilson’s Photograph Album

My mother remembers their house in Leith Walk as being very old-fashioned with religious paintings on the walls until the house was modernised and a bathroom added after Granny Blyth died. She recalled being taken to the 81-year-old woman’s deathbed in 1943 and was then scared when she returned to the house on a subsequent visit and her aunt and uncle mentioned still being able to hear the old woman’s walking stick tapping down the hallway. My mother had literally interpreted this as meaning there must be a ghostly presence!

Adam and Lilly, several years prior to their 1926 marriage

I’m not quite sure why Great Uncle Adam did not ever want his own photograph album to remain in his family. Perhaps he already had copies of most the images, or maybe he just forgot to collect the album from his parents’ house when he left home to marry Lilly. Or could it be that my mother and I are just imagining that this album belonged to Adam? But then I look through it again and see pictures of his friends and Lilly’s friends, and pictures of Lilly’s family and people who my mother cannot put a name to, and agree that it more than likely once belonged to him.

Sincerely Yours, Lilly, Oct 1920

One of the most noticeable things about this album is the number of portraits of young women – and to a lesser extent, men – which appear to have been made into postcards in order to give to friends and family. Obviously these type of photographs were not just limited to young, single adults; in the collection as a whole there are also many of these taken of children as well as couples and families. But in Adam’s album there seemed to be a predominant amount of hundred-year old ‘selfies’, many which were signed with Sincerely Yours (or variations thereof), which reminded me of the old teenage habit of swapping miniature official school portraits with friends at the end of the school year, a sort of British version of the American yearbook.

From Yours Sincerely, Mary c1920

How I love these old images of young adults in their physical prime looking wistful and serious or supressing shy smiles, all the while sporting the latest hairdos and fashions. Some regard the camera boldly and others have a more guarded countenance, leaving subtle clues about their personalities that may or may not lead us to the truth. And what did it mean when you gave someone a copy of your official studio portrait at that time? Did you have to be family or close friends or dating before you took such a step?

Sincerely Yours, Jean, March 1921 (Lilly’s older sister)

Jean Neilson, Adam’s younger sister c1920

A’ You, Alex – Friend of Lilly or Adam, c1920

The vintage ‘selfies’ in Adam and Lilly’s collection range from the Edwardian-style disembodied face set sail in a sea of white space, to the upper body and full length ones from the decade which followed. They are sometimes signed on the front or the back, but unfortunately very few bear a message on the reverse, despite the postcard format. Apart from a few of Lilly and Adam’s brothers and sisters, most appear to be of unknown friends, in particular young women (who were possibly more likely to be friends and colleagues of Lilly’s). Some of these girls look surprisingly modern, despite their dated clothes and hairstyles, while others are harder to imagine in todays’ world.

Unsigned Pictures of Lilly’s Friends, c1920 

The middle-aged and older are unsurprisingly absent from the collection. Not for them the modern tyranny of constantly having to be on their guard for the ubiquitous camera phone wielded by younger friends and relatives. The maturing section of the population from a century ago could mainly be left to age gracefully, leaving the posing and the exchange of portraits to those who were under thirty. 

The Incidental Genealogist, May 2023

 

Interruption

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My genealogical research has been interrupted these last few weeks while I was fulfilling a long held dream to take an intensive Spanish language course in the Andalusian city of Granada. But now that I’m back to the cold northern springtime it feels as if it was an experience that happened to someone else. The city was a full-on sensory experience: the light was intense and hot; the narrow streets of the old Arab quarter in front of the school’s apartment echoed day and night with the noise of traders and passers by and revellers, making sleep impossible; the smell of spices and sweetmeats and jasmine lingered in every corner of the whitewashed lanes. I’m not even sure if I was able to really improve my Spanish as my brain was mostly taken up with processing everything going on around me. 

However, while away from home and out of my comfort zone I also was able to view my family photographic collection with new eyes. Images that seemed strange or surreal jumped out at me and I began to see patterns connecting previously uncategorised photographs. Some startled me out of my rigid way at looking at the album and I thought more about the person behind the lens. Others were photographs that no-one in the family could clearly define or describe and that transcend the normal idea of an image in a family album, becoming surreal and disconnected and forcing the viewer to see the world anew. 

One such photograph I discovered while originally searching for images related to work was of two labourers leaning against a stone wall, one looking absurdly tall next to the other. My mother believes this to be her Great Uncle Adam Neilson – a short man with a great sense of humour who was a blacksmith by trade. But there is something about this image which I find simple and playful, and at the same time it strikes me as rather unusual, even if it was never intended it to be so.

Little and Large

Another image where the focus is on the number of people is that of a my mother’s paternal grandfather (who died before she was born) flanking a window with his daughter Netty and another young woman – possibly one of the four sisters – staring out from behind the glass. I love the ghost-like appearance of the face gazing through the window panes and the relaxed posture of the Netty and her father. And sometimes when I look at this picture I can almost imagine that they are not aware of the other person between them.

And Then There Were Three

A picture which I found rather disturbing was one my mother told me was of a partially sighted woman in an Edinburgh street. I’ve spent a long time looking at the photograph and am almost convinced it is a mannequin rather than a person. No one knows who took the photograph or why, and obviously today it would quite rightly be deemed an offensive thing to do. But what is particularly strange about this photograph is the way the mind flip-flops between thinking it is a person and a doll-like figure, perfectly illustrating Freud’s idea of the uncanny in which the frisson of fear comes from the ambiguity of the situation. 

Woman or Mannequin?

Another slightly strange picture is the one below of a family gathering in which only one person appears to be recognisable today. After many hours of cross-checking censuses and other documents, my mother and I gave up trying to identify the other people and accepted that apart from the man in the top left corner (a great-uncle of my mother’s, recognisable due to his likeness to her maternal grandfather, Robert Neilson) we would probably never know who they were. Thus these fascinatingly old people whose wizened faces are testament to the fact they would have been born at the dawn of photography, would always just remain as spectres from another era.

The Unknowns

The way the group all cock their heads and gaze directly at the camera gives the impression that they are challenging us to think about their lives and what they have witnessed. They reach across time with their silent messages. We can only guess at what they have to say.

The Incidental Genealogist, April 2023

 

 

Their Working Lives: Part 2

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Although my grandmother gave up her job as a dressmaker after her marriage to my grandfather in 1931, it would be another seven years before they had their first and last child – my mother. But continuing to work while married would have reflected badly on my grandfather’s ability to be a good husband who ‘kept’ his wife. Despite being relatively busy with housework, shopping and cooking, as well as visiting her parents and other members of her family, the new Mrs McKay’s day would not have involved such onerous tasks as previous generations had to undertake.

Throughout the 20s and 30s, houses were becoming electrified and gas cookers were being installed, removing the need to cook on a range and all the mess that entailed, including the weekly ‘blackleading’ (not to mention having to keep a fire going throughout the day, whatever the weather). Labour saving gadgets were also being introduced, and life was becoming easier for the housewife who could afford such items of the new modern age. 

Dumbiedykes ‘range’ (c) Wullie and Tam Coal @ EdinPhoto.org.uk

In contrast to my grandmother, who actually would have preferred to have continued in her profession as a dressmaker at an upmarket Edinburgh department store, my great-grandmothers were no doubt relieved that they did not have to try to supplement the family income by going out to work. Typically of working class Victorian woman, they had toiled in factories or given up their independence to become domestic servants until their ‘real life’ as wives and mothers could begin. Such women did, however, often still have to work sporadically throughout their lives (in between having all those babies) with older children or relatives and neighbours looking after the younger ones when they were out at work.

This was particularly the case if husbands became sick or lost their job, or were absent for whatever reason. In these instances, women would have had little choice but to return to work as ‘day nurses’ to wealthy families, taking in laundry or piece work, or working factory shifts. Those who had room to spare might have taken in lodgers, as did my English great-grandmother (my grandfather being the young boarder who married the landlady’s daughter). At the other extreme, prostitution was an option many women had in the days when they could operate in this trade independently.

N.B. It is interesting to note that in 1921 the Edinburgh Trades Association reported in Industrial Edinburgh that: It is pleasant to be able to add that the “married woman” class in Edinburgh industry is conspicuous by its absence, and what this means to the home and social life of the worker and of the community, only those can appreciate who have lived and worked in centres where the factory mother is a regular feature.

My great-grandmother, Janet McKay, at home with her children c1906

My Scottish great-grandmothers must have been relieved when they married kind and reliable men with stable jobs, and thus could focus all their energy on creating a family home. Nowadays we tend to dismiss this lifestyle as being an unfulfilling one, but from what I have heard from family anecdotes both women were relatively content in their roles and relished being the family organisers. It should also be emphasised that having the support that comes from a strong and loving marriage would have certainly made it easier to create a ‘happy home’ and to withstand any hardships that came their way.

My great-grandmother, Catherine Neilson, at home on her ‘balcony’ c1910

The above photographs of both great-grandmothers show them at home carrying out their daily chores, both maternal and domestic. Such images are rare in most family albums so they are very much treasured and among my favourites from the Scottish family collection. In the case of Catherine Neilson it would appear as if she is holding some sort of cleaning implement in her left hand (where her wedding ring glints) and is wearing a pinafore to protect her Edwardian-style clothes. Her rolled up sleeves also suggest that she is in the middle of some dirty household task, and the cheeky look that she gives the unknown photographer shows so much more of her personality than any forced studio pose could ever hope to do.

My grandmother once told me it was so rare for her mother to rest that she and her siblings all knew that if their mother was in bed in the morning when they left the house then a baby was imminent. When they returned later that day from school or work, in most cases they would have a new brother or sister waiting to greet them. My great-grandmother even had a system set up where she was able to use her foot to pull a string to rock the cradle in order to be able to continue sewing or knitting during the nights when the baby could not sleep, thus not wasting a minute of her time, and able to create a whole sock during this time. Even as an old lady, this fierce spirit shone through, right up until her final years when I only knew her as ‘Great Grandma’ and she still had the energy to play games with me.

Catherine Neilson having a rare, enforced rest (by her daughters) in her 70s

I wonder how Great Grandma felt when she saw all her nine living children having much smaller families throughout the 20s, 30s, and 40s, right up to the 50s when her youngest child (born when she was in her early 40s) had her second and last child at 38. This baby of the family, my great-aunt Mary, was the only woman I knew to work full-time and for that reason I was fascinated by her lifestyle. Widowed in her forties, Mary had no choice but to go back to the office until her retirement, but by the time I knew her well she was already in her 50s and living alone, and this seemed more of a lifestyle choice than anything else. Everything about her life as a single working woman seemed glamorous: from the fashionable Teasmade alarm clock by her bed to the selection of strange alcoholic drinks in her sideboard and the high heels and suits and clasp handbags in the wardrobe. Even the fact that she smoked Embassy Regal almost non-stop appeared more like a carefree choice rather than a dangerous addiction that she would battle with for a further two decades.

Great-aunty Mary, who was born in 1917, had been in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (known as the WAAFs) during the Second World War, and had enjoyed her work packing parachutes and sense of camaraderie she encountered there, and this was something she found again in midlife through her clerical job and her membership of the Foresters Friendly Society – a mutual aid organisation that also organised dances and social events. As a child, I always imagined the Foresters as some sort of secret society that encouraged my great-aunt to work and smoke and drink and dress up in gowns to dance the night away with handsome strangers! This was in direct contrast to the lifestyle of my grandmother, who had not only been constrained more by her traditional marriage, but personality-wise was a more serious and anxious person than her younger sister. In later life, when my grandmother was widowed too, the sisters (who had always been close) spent more time together, although always with a certain amount of good-natured bickering involved.

Great Aunt Mary in the WAAFs, early 1940s

Mary was also the only older relative I knew who could charm my father. He respected her and talked to her more like an equal than he did to my grandmother. Once more I put this down to her masculine lifestyle and her possession of a career, although their shared experience of the air force as well as my great-aunt’s sense of humour and lively personality probably had more to do with it. She was my favourite female relative after my grandmother, and when my grandmother died in 1998 she took over her role for the next decade. As she was very close to my mother all her life, I was given her name as my middle name. It was something I just took for granted until after she died and I realised the significance of the gesture.

Camaraderie in the WAAFs (Mary is in the same striped top throughout)

To be continued.

The Incidental Genealogist, March 2023