Category Archives: Work

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Their Working Lives: Part 1

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When I was finally able to access the 1921 census for Scotland for the first time last year, I was excited to see how much more information was given about the place of employment of each family member – not simply a job description, as had been the case before. Oh, if only such detailed notes had been included in previous decades! A quick phone call to my mother resulted in her filling in the gaps: as I reeled off the list of employers for whom my family had worked, she was unexpectedly reminded of the jobs her parents and their siblings had once had, and the stories they’d told her about their workplaces.

Not only was I able to ascertain that in 1921 my grandfather, Alexander McKay, was still working as a newly-qualified electrician for the firm in which he undertook his apprenticeship (Anderson and Munro), but my grandmother, at 15, was a year into her own apprenticeship as a dressmaker with John Allan Silk Mercers and Drapers on the South Bridge of Edinburgh’s old town, where she worked helping to create bespoke outfits for the wealthier women of Edinburgh. It was here the teenage Catherine Neilson learnt to do many of the intricate tasks (such as button covers and fastening loops in the pre zipper age) which stood her in good stead when it came to making her own clothes and those of my mother as a girl. This was a skill my mother picked up from my grandmother as a teenager herself, passing on some of what she’d learnt to me a couple of decades years later. Regrettably I never had the patience to take it further, growing up as I did in the new era of fast fashion and the burgeoning trend of visiting charity and vintage shops to search for retro outfits.

Catherine (right) and Christine Neilson in homemade dresses

My grandmother’s older sister Bessie was also working as an apprentice dressmaker for the St Cuthbert Co-operative Society. It was perhaps a less salubrious address, but it appeared that she’d had just as rigorous a training:  it was Bessie who’d made my grandmother’s intricate silk wedding dress from one that was being made for a wealthy client at John Allan’s. The story goes that my grandmother simply described the dress her department was creating, while Bessie sketched out the details, later going on to create her own design and pattern based on what she and my grandmother had put together. I often wonder why they did not simply ‘borrow’ the pattern from my grandmother’s place of work, but no doubt there were strict rules governing such bespoke designs, and if discovered any such behaviour would have probably resulted in instant dismissal, a shameful occurrence in those more deferential days. 

My Grandmother in her wedding dress, 1931 (sister Chrissie is bridesmaid)

N.B. Although it was Bessie who made the wedding dress, tradition dictated that the oldest unmarried sister had to be the bridesmaid. Bessie had married young so it was Chrissie who had the honour, while my grandfather’s best man was his younger brother John, who was a theology student at Glasgow University at the time.

At the same time as Bessie and my grandmother were learning dressmaking skills, their older sisters – Chrissie and Jean – were folding envelopes for George Waterston and Sons, Stationers, in the printing works at Logie Green Road in east-end Warriston. This was a job that was soon to be replaced by machines as the end of the twenties saw such companies struggling to stay competitive during the era of the Great Depression. In a similar vein, their older brother Adam, a young veteran of the Great War, was working as a Letterpress printer at McDougall Educational Company, based at Allander House on Leith Walk, Edinburgh, part of the once-extensive traditional printing and publishing industry in Edinburgh.

The head of the family, my great-grandfather Robert Neilson, then aged 48, was still continuing in his trade as a brass finisher, now described as a ‘Brass Turner and Fitter’ for R. Laidlaw and Sons, Brassfounders, at nearby Simon Square. Advertisements from the period show that they made a range of goods from gas meters to piping and there is an old photograph which is said to be of my great-grandfather at work in the company (although it is impossible to work out which man he is, given that they are all sporting thick moustaches while they work at their respective benches). My mother thinks he is the man at the front but is now not sure whether she just assumed this at the time and now believes it to be true. I do think he has a look of my great-grandfather, though.

R. Laidlaw and Sons, Edinburgh, early 20th century

Another photograph of my great-grandfather at work (thought to be second from left in the middle row) – but in what looks like a different company – is one in which the workers are sitting in a group in the style of a school photograph with a slate chalked up with the company name. Images such as these were relatively common at the time as, just as with school photos, the photographer could hope to sell several copies to each of the employees. The photographs would have been taken outdoors due to the issues of lighting, and is another reason why the indoor image (above) is so difficult to make out. Yet it somehow tells us a more interesting story about the type of work which was undertaken than the more formal seated picture does and has a rarity because of this.

Robert Neilson at work, Edinburgh, 1905

N.B. It is, however, curious to note that, unlike Glasgow, Edinburgh University did not have it’s own press until the 1940s. So this photograph presents something of a conundrum. 

A description of Laidlaw and Sons  in 1888 reads with characteristic high Victorian hyperbole as follows: The firm have executed contracts for complete gas and waterworks, piers, bridges, &c., in all parts of the world, and have invariably afforded unlimited satisfaction by the results they have achieved. Messrs. Laidlaw, at their Edinburgh works, manufacture wet and dry gas meters of the most improved construction, also station meters up to the largest dimensions made, governors, pressure indicators, photometers, and gauges of all kinds ; water meters, light, medium, or heavy gas and water fittings, and brasswork of every description, inclusive of gasaliers, brackets, pendants, pillars, hall and lobby lamps, paraffin lamps, and complete fittings for the lighting of railway carriages by gas, &c., &c. In each of these highly important lines a uniformly high standard of excellence is scrupulously maintained, and nothing leaves the works of this house that is not fully competent to uphold its well-known reputation. The trade of Messrs. R. Laidlaw & Son has a wide range, having its connections among gas and water companies and municipal corporations, as well as the general trades in all quarters of the globe. The administration of this house has from the very first been characterised by a more than ordinary degree of vigorous and progressive enterprise, and this commendable managerial policy is consistently pursued by the present partners.

However much of a slog it is to get through that description, it reminds us of a time when British manufacturing was riding high and when Edinburgh was a city that supported a wide range of industries. A book entitled Industrial Edinburgh, published by a local association to promote trades in the capital in the census year of 1921, is rather optimistic when it states:  Little wonder that with all its great attractions and advantages Edinburgh has become an important industrial centre, which, although not yet of first magnitude, is of considerable importance, and in the not far distant future will develop into one of the most important in the United Kingdom. A list of the burgeoning industries from a century ago reads like a roll call of some of the most environmentally unsustainable practices, including developing new coalfields, and expanding the production of fertilisers and industrial chemicals.

I have not been able to discover how long Laidlaw and Sons survived the technological changes of the 20th century, but their focus on supplying meters &C. for the gas industry does beg the question: what did the company do when electricity began to take over as the dominant source of energy? It must have been strange for my great-grandfather to have his new son-in-law electrify the family’s Edinburgh tenement flat in the early 1930s – perhaps a similar situation today would be a younger relative setting up the internet or a smart gadget  in an elderly person’s household.

My grandfather (far left) working on electrifying tenements c1940

And so it seems that the pattern of our working is constantly in flux. New technologies replace old, and skills become outdated, often leading to mature workers being superannuated. Younger managers come along, keen to reinvent the wheel with their new management jargon, while experienced employees may struggle to stay relevant, despite having amassed a lifetime of skills that cannot easily be replicated through reading books and manuals or attending courses.

My mother was once an excellent touch typist with a fast speed and an ability to take down notes in shorthand equally quickly. She has a number of certificates to prove it, and growing up I was always finding bizarre notes in the house written in a strange set of characters. There were shopping lists, phone messages, even the John Craven’s Newsround headlines were jotted down in this impenetrable code when it was my turn to start the school morning by telling the rest of class the main news events from the previous evening.

My mother at work in The Ministry of Aviation, Edinburgh c1959

I do remember that when dictaphones and word processors came along in the eighties, most of my mother’s secretarial skills eventually became redundant. How superior I felt at times when explaining to her that she did not have to double-space between sentences or indent every paragraph when typing on a computer. Yet I am now at that same ‘dangerous age’ and often struggling to see the usefulness of integrating new technology into my teaching when I have been able to teach effectively for years without it. And just as my mother had to witness that mysterious language she learned become obsolete, the advent of mass produced clothing meant experienced dressmakers like my grandmother and her sister had few outlets for their skills beyond the domestic sphere.

Printers and Brass Finishers, Dressmakers and Envelope Folders they are all gone under the hill as T.S. Eliot ominously said in East Coker (along with the The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters, The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers, Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees, Industrial lords and petty contractors) . As we will too, with our petty work squabbles and Zoom meetings and PowerPoint presentations.  It is a salutary reminder that we’re all just bit players in the theatre of work who have only a short time to tread the boards before a disembodied voice shouts from the wings: Exit! Stage Left! Now!

Yet perhaps we could view this as a wake-up call, reminding us that we are so much more than just the sum of our paid employment. The legacy that most of us leave behind is rarely one associated with our roles at work.

The Incidental Genealogist, February 2023

 

A Glasgow Boy: Part 2

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Like most children, I believed my grandfather had been put on this earth solely for my pleasure and had arrived in the world possessing white hair, false teeth, horn-rimmed spectacles and a thickening waist. The idea that he was once a boy or a young man was impossible to countenance. Even the fact that he was my mother’s father was a struggle to imagine, although in my mind I managed this great leap by picturing him as looking and acting the same, only behaving much more strictly. I knew that he had not indulged my mother as much as he did her children because I was always being told how lucky I was that I could get up to much more nonsense yet not be scolded. However, my mother also said that in relation to my grandmother her father had always been more easy going as a parent, and so it was not so difficult for him to segue into the archetypal grandfather role. 

My Grandparents with my mother, holidaying in Dunoon, c1946

Yet now I can see from the photographs of my grandfather as my mother’s father that his physical change over the decades was actually more of a gradual one. In the above image, he is clearly at the half-way stage between the young man of his courting days and the elderly one who crawled around on all fours, imitating a bear and allowing me to ride on his back (until my mother put an end to the game for fear of Grandad ‘doing himself a mischief’). 

Although my grandfather was often in a playful mood when he assumed the role of Grandad, I was aware from an early age that he liked order too, keeping busy in the house and garden in an attempt to maintain this. Once when I was about seven I designed a series of  illustrations focusing on different facets of my grandfather’s life which I stuck to the door of the living room press (a Scottish recessed cupboard) like a prototype of a poster presentation. Only one of these pictures survived the post-childhood cull of our drawings, and was recently found among the family photographs, and an embarrassing reminder of how rudimentary my writing skills once were.

My ‘poster presentation’ on Alex McKay cleaning shoes (no. 5)

Cleaning everyone’s shoes was a job that Grandad took seriously and there was a low wooden stool in the kitchenette used for this task (which I’ve obviously illustrated in the above drawing). This little green chair was like a link to another imagined world inhabited by tiny people and was a complete contrast to the new, mid-century modern furniture in my parents’ house. Along with Grandma’s mincer and a small, blue tray, it was one of my grandparents’ household items I loved the most and sought out soon after our arrival on each holiday at their house. I wonder now if Grandad enjoyed this weekly shoe cleaning task because it was a link to his own Glasgow boyhood when his father used to line up the children on the coalbunker and polish their boots while they were wearing them.

Alexander McKay in the Boys Brigade, 1915

The McKays were a tightknit, relatively religious family and all were involved actively with the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. My father and his younger brother (who eventually became an ordained minister) were also keen members of the popular Boys Brigade, a Christian organisation based on semi-military lines whose use of dummy rifles seems rather incongruous today. However, it is telling to note that, as my Grandfather was born in May 1901, the above photograph – styled like the images of new recruits before they went to the front – must have been taken in March 1915, only a few months into the First World War.

The McKays were also part of the Scottish Temperance Movement and for that reason they rarely drank. As I child I remember being surprised that my grandfather only allowed himself a small glass of sweet sherry or an Advocaat on holidays and high days. I found this habit rather unmanly as I associated such ‘disgusting’ drinks with my elderly female relatives and considered beer and whisky to be the choice alcoholic drink for men. This was probably because my father drank both of these in moderation and scoffed at the sickly drinks my grandparents kept in their sideboard. The religious side to my grandfather also explained why swearing was not allowed in the house and why (in the manner of the UK parliament) even the word ‘liar’ was banned, as I once discovered to my chagrin.

Alexander McKay’s School Leaving Certificate, 1915

My grandfather left Oatlands Secondary School at 14, shortly after the Boys Brigade photograph was taken, and took up a five-year apprenticeship to become an electrician. This was a job  which suited his pedantic nature, even though it was not one he chose for himself, but was a position his mother saw advertised in the local newspaper which she applied for on behalf of her son. Grandad’s school leaving certificate is very vague about his academic achievements, putting more emphasis on his attendance than the subjects he studied, and has the ominous line Alec McKay has attended this school for one year and was studying in the supplementary class when he left. However, I feel sure this is more of a reflection on the public education system for working class boys than any indictment on my grandfather’s prowess. Years later he told my mother that he had not particularly excelled at school but had loved to tell and write stories and had been especially interested in history for that reason.

From what I gather, Grandad never questioned his mother’s choice of apprenticeship and just knuckled down to doing what was expected of him for the next five years. When he finally became a journeyman in early 1921, I was heartened to note that his Apprentice Discharge Certificate (below) from Anderson and Munro described him as Thoroughly satisfactory and reliable. I would not have expected anything less!

Alex McKay’s Apprentice’s Discharge Certificate

Grandad presumably would have felt lucky to have been kept on by such a prestigious company, which by the 1920s was the oldest firm of electrical engineers and contractors in the United Kingdom. The 1921 census shows that he was still living at home and working for Anderson and Munro at a time of high unemployment. A glance through the census records shows many men out of work, including electrical engineers (electricians), although by 1922 the economy had begun to pick up, ushering in the ‘roaring twenties‘. It was around about that time that my grandfather moved to Edinburgh for work, lodging with his maternal aunt, Mary Ann Garvie in Cumberland Street, where he was to remain until he married my grandmother in 1931.

Alexander McKay c1921

The Garvies were used to having a full house: the 1921 census shows them living with four of their children, ranging from 20-30, as well as two paying boarders (apprentice horticulturalists from the nearby Royal Botanic Gardens). So the arrangement was possibly a very practical one, with both parties benefiting. This was also during the period when my grandfather’s uncle had a breakdown and had to spend time in an asylum, so having another family member in the house may have been some support during this period. My mother tells me that this sad state of affairs came about when Alexander Garvie was no longer able to carry his work out as a bookbinder satisfactorily due to an increased tremor in his hand that prevented him from applying the gold leaf accurately. 

My Grandparents’ Wedding in 1931

In 1931, at the age of thirty, my grandfather married my twenty-five year old grandmother, Catherine Neilson, after eight years of ‘courting’. He was finally able to move out of his aunt’s house – much depleted of family by then – and into a nearby rented flat with his new bride. However, he would never return to live in Glasgow again, despite having dreams of retiring to his home city.

As a child, my grandfather never let me forget that he was proud to be both Scottish and a Glaswegian, and when my grandparents visited us in Ayr, trips to the Gaiety Theatre to see the Alexander Brothers were a staple of my 1970s childhood. Yet, as much as he was happy and settled in his adopted city of Edinburgh, like me, my grandfather always harboured the belief that west is best.

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year!

The Incidental Genealogist, January 2023