You might not associate Andrew as a traditional Scottish name. However, Andrew is the patron Saint of Scotland. This is only because an English Bishop, a collector of religious relics, brought a kneecap, and finger bones, belonging to Andrew, to Fife about 1500 years ago. Andrew had been crucified in AD60, in the Greek city of Patras, on a cross known as a saltire, that is, not an upright cross but a cross that looks like an X. Those relics were taken to Fife and presumably gave birth to the town of St. Andrews. The relics are kept in St.Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh, the mother church of Caholicism in Scotland. The saltire became the national flag of Scotland.
Religious history often feels like a bag of bones. Family history is also a bit like discovering relics and bringing them to a new place.
Which brings me to another Andrew. This week’s post is all about Andrew Nicol, my wife’s grandfather. She knew him well up until the age of 11 because he, and his wife Rachel, lived in her family home for the last year of his life, in Gloucester, until he died in 1965.
Andrew was born in Stevenston in the family home of Peter and Elizabeth Nicol. Stevenston was adjacent to the Nobel Dynamite Factory. This gave employment to many Stevenston residents. Whole families were involved with jobs at the factory. One of Andrew’s older brothers travelled to South Africa to work in a branch of the Nobel Dynamite Factory. Nearly everyone in the Nicol family were connected by jobs or marriage to the factory.
The context for the Nicol’s arrival in Ayrshire has been described in another post. Briefly, Peter came to Ayrshire from Aberdeenshire to work in the iron ore mines in the Garnock Valley. He realised that there was work and prospects to start a family and so he returned to Aberdeenshire, married his sweetheart from a previous job, Elizabeth, and brought her to Kilwinning and then to Stevenston. Both these towns are steeped in the coal and iron ore mining traditions of that part of Ayrshire and when Alfred Nobel was offered the Ardeer peninsula which is surrounded on two coastal sides by sea and a river, by the government of the day, he created a massive production programme that at its height in the first half of the 20th Century, employed 15,000 men and women.
It is no wonder that the Nicol family flourished in this environment. Opportunities for employment for everyone in the local area.
Andrew at school in Stevenston, year unknown but early 20th Century. Andrew is sitting second row up, third from the right. The Langside address is that of the photographer, not the school. (photo from author’s collection).
When Peter left school in 1911, he did not go straight to the factory but started life as a Grocer’s Assistant. The Census return for 1911 offers an interesting social and historical background to Andrew’s early life. He and his family were living in Lucknow Cottages, probably a terrace, in Dynamite Road. His father was an Explosives Magazine Keeper. For this job there were a lot of safeguards to protect him and others from accidental explosions. There would have been strict guidelines for everyone working there. The factory had its own police force and Peter Nicol had started life there as a police officer. One of the tasks was to ensure that no one entered the site with matches or anything that would ignite the explosive materials. It should be noted that in nearly one hundred years there were only 100 deaths on the site, which although still high, reflects the health and safety with a working population of many thousand. A visit to the New Street Cemetery in Stevenston, (this is the old one, not to be confused with a newer cemetery on the high road) has a small number of headstones with stories about some of the townspeople who had lost their lives to explosions.
Andrew’s older brother, Edward, was working as an electrical engineer at the factory and his older sister, Elspeth was a Student School Teacher at the age of 20.
The road that they lived in was entirely designed to house workers in the Nobel factory. There were other cottages and then there were houses. The Nicol family had neighbours who were a Fireman, Wharf Master, a Blacksmith and Powder Worker, all at the factory.
Close to them was a house called Nobel House. Here was the small family of Frederic Nathan. He was a Works Manager at the factory. At the age of 50, he and his wife Adeline aged 45, had moved from England to work in the Nobel factory. They had a three-year-old son, Matthew. What interested me was who else lived there.
Janet Blain was a Domestic Housemaid, aged 34, she was born in Wigton, Galloway. She was working with Martha Davidson, aged 36, a Cook, who was born in Cumnock, Ayrshire. With this team were Elizabeth Payne, a Table Maid, aged 30, and she was born in Sauchie, Clackmannanshire. Also, Margaret Wallace, a Kitchen Maid, aged 20, was born in Dreghorn, Ayrshire. Lastly, born in Glasgow, Margaret Young aged 30, was the Nurse.
I get the feeling that Frederic Nathan was not just any Works Manager, but maybe the Works Manager With a team of five domestic servants, this really was an interesting household, and young Matthew would want for nothing when it came to attention and play.
They were living just a few houses down from the Nicol family. I’m certain that Andrew Nicol had a pretty good childhood with his family too. Andrew was 15 in 1911. I’m not certain when he joined the Nobel factory, but he was taken on as an Apprentice Electrical Engineer. Three years later the First World War started. The Nobel Factory had their own regiment of men who were reserves in training. When skilled servicemen were required, they were transferred and posted to wherever they were needed. In Andrew’s case, he was sent to Blandford Camp in Dorset to serve with the newly formed Royal Flying Corps where he was an aircraft fitter. I presume he prepared and repaired aircraft for action. They were flying across the channel for reconnaissance purposes.
Andrew’s Attestation 1917 (accessed from Ancestry.com)
There is something a little enigmatic about Andrew’s attestation certificate when he signed up to the Territorial Force, in 1917. He claims to be aged 17. I know that he was born in 1896 and that in the 1911 Census he is aged 15. So, by my reckoning he should have been aged 21. This doesn’t seem to be an administrative error, Andrew had to sign this attestation in front of a magistrate, stating that all the information was correct. Whatever the reason for this error, Andrew was called to serve with the RFC.
In 1918 he returned to Saltcoats to marry Rachel Welsh. She was a Dynamite Worker at the Nobel Factory. He was 22 and she was 24. Andrew returned to Blandford Camp. He did not see active service but was responsible for an important part of defending France from invasion.
Andrew and Rachel Nicol on their wedding day 1918 (from the author’s collection)
The Nobel factory was the mainstay of their lives, providing them with the employment that enabled them to live successfully in their community. When Andrew returned to his wife from Blandford Camp, at the end of the war, he moved to Kilbirnie, where his daughter Agnes was born in 1920. They were living in a post war prefab estate known as Garden City. This was housing erected by David Colville and Sons, the famous Scottish iron foundry entrepreneurs. Colville was responsible for the iron works in the Glengarnock valley, and they employed many workers. The garden city principle was based upon the idea that employers invested in their workforce with housing that offered space, and a good environment for living and growing up. There is now no footprint left of this housing estate.
The 1921 Census return then shows that the Nicol family had left Garden City and moved to 61, Dalry Road where they lived in social housing. It was the end of a cottage style row of three houses.
At some point, Andrew moved his family to Saltcoats. I can find no records of when this happened and for what reason. At this point in the century most people moved because of employment and did now want to travel long distances to their work unless they were close to a good railway link. Andrew, I am presuming, left David Colville and Sons in the Glengarnock Valley and took up other employment closer to Saltcoats. Where and what, I cannot find information to.
Andrew, Rachel and their daughter Agnes, remained in the same house in Saltcoats until the 1950’s, when Agnes left to marry John McKie. Andrew and Rachel stayed on until the 1960’s when, due to ill health, Agnes came by train to bring them down to Gloucester where she and John were living with their family.
Their lives were instrumental in the generation that I am now a part of. My children are their great grandchildren.
Andrew died in Gloucester in May, 1965.
So, this was not a bag of bones. These are no relics. This was a life close to us, remembered by some, recalled especially by his two grandchildren and recorded here for everyone to celebrate. Andrew was born 128 years ago and lived a useful life shaped by his upbringing in a family steeped in Scottish working-class tradition.
Rachel and Andrew (from the author’s collection)