My title comes from an unusual find in the 1891 Census return when I was searching for one of my wife’s Great Uncles.
Alexander McKie (1873 – 1951) was the younger brother of Andrew, my wife’s Grandfather. He was born in Kirkinner, Wigtownshire, as were all his siblings. In later life I tracked him down to the Bridge of Weir and finally to Pollokshaws in Glasgow where he died in 1952.
Tracking him on the Census has been reasonably successful. In 1881 at the age of seven he was at home with his brothers and was a scholar.
Then ten years later at the age of 18 Alexander has left home and is living in Glasserton.
This is a small parish steeped in ancient religious history relating to St. Ninian. It is south west of the village of Whithorn and Glasserton Park in the 19th Century was on the sharp corner of the current A746 between Monreith and Whithorn.
Not only is he living in the parish but he is accommodated in a bothy on the Glasserton Park Estate where he is an Apprentice Gardener. He is one of an army of Domestic Servants in the household of the Johnston Stewarts. That is what the Enumerator described Alexander and his colleagues as, Domestic Servants.
In the1891 Census return, Alexander is one of four men in the Gardener’s Bothy. The Census Enumerator has taken each building in Glasserton Park as a separate house. In the Gardener’s Bothy there are four men so the Enumerator has listed the eldest as the Head. He is 26 years old and is described as a Gardener, as are the other three except Alexander who is also described as Apprentice. All four have the other description of Domestic Servant against their name. Above them in a separate Glasserton Gardener’s House is the Head Gardener himself. He and his wife live here with their seven children, plus an aging retired aunt and the Gardener’s sister who is a visiting Nurse.
But next we come to Glasserton House itself.
It must have been a beautiful mansion in its heyday. Partly designed by Robert Adam, it was completely demolished in 1948 after a fire.
This is where I discover that on this day of the Census in 1891, the head of the house is Anne Johnston Stewart and she is described as Wife aged 54 and her occupation is described as Landed Proprietor Wife. I could have guessed this description of Landed Proprietor but I researched it further. It is a popular clue among Scottish crossword setters and the answer is Laird. Anne is the Laird’s wife. The Laird himself is away. He was Admiral Robert Hathorn Johnston Stewart of Physgill. The latter was his other estate adjacent to Glasserton. The Admiral was born in 1824 and died in 1899.
In Glasserton House that day of the Census, the Laird’s Wife had her five children in residence as well as her Sister in Law and her three children. Followed by eleven Domestic Servants and a Housekeeper. Then came the Governess, Bertha Leibius from Bavaria (although she was additionally described as Domestic Servant). Not to forget the Lady’s Maid, two Footmen, a Coachman and Groom.
In the Scottish Census there was a column at the end of the record that records the number of rooms with one or more windows. Glasserton House has 54 rooms with one or more windows. I have often wondered what the objective for this was. It had nothing to do with the window tax. I found this reasoning from the University of Glasgow website:
To satisfy the desire of social and sanitary reformers for statistics showing the number of persons to each room, and the extent of ventilation in Scottish homes, the 1861 census schedule required each householder to state the number of windowed rooms in their dwelling. There was much confusion about how to reckon this figure, and some people probably wrote down the total number of windows, instead of the number of rooms with windows. Several registrars queried the very definition of a window, particularly where Highland cottages were concerned. The registrar of Kirkton, near Thurso, wrote to Pitt Dundas:
‘In this District there are many of the Straw Thatched Houses of the small Tenants & others, lighted only by a small sky light with only one pane of glass, and many others have only a very small window-frame in the wall, without any glass, but fitted with a Board or Boards Opening on hinges. Are these to be reckoned as windows in the sense of the Act?’
The official response to these and similar queries was that an aperture had to be glazed to qualify as a window, and not, as the Registrar General emphasized, ‘a mere hole in the wall.’
The enumerator completely missed out the windows for the Gardener’s House and the Bothy.
This was a considerable country estate and mansion. The Glasserton Park was the centre of the operation. The estate had a number of farms stretched across 5552 acres. It provided an income of nearly £8000 per annum in the latter part of the 19th Century. That would have been not far off one million pounds today. There is a transcription of an interview between the Whithorn ethnologist, Julia Muir-Watt, and Cathie Miller who lived her entire life on a farm on the Glasserton Estate. She recalls how all tenants and staff were required to attend the Glasserton Church on Sunday, failure to do so would have the Bailiff at your door to fine you a penny.
Glasserton Church that was adjacent to the mansion house. All the Johnston Stewart family in the 19th Century were baptised here, as presumably were members of the tenant farmers families.
And here was my wife’s Great Uncle Alexander, not long after his Father had died, his Mother still being supported by the Kirkinner parish to bring up her other children. Like all of them, Alexander left home and went into an apprenticed occupation that was treated as something you had to learn and practice before becoming a journeyman or a practitioner in their own right. A Gardener was a learned occupation that provided apprenticeships and probably a lot of work during the 19th Century and way into the last Century. Although Gardening is still a qualified trade that many people train and get good recognition for, I doubt if it is as well populated a trade as it was then.
Alexander married Elizabeth Laird on 26 May 1899 in Bridge of Weir, Alexander was aged 25 and he was a Gardener. In the 1901 Census return they have a son, John, aged 1 and Alexander was described as a Jobbing Gardener.
It would appear that he remained in this work until retirement because he was described as a Gardener on his death certificate. He died in Pollock, Glasgow on 20 January 1952. His death was reported by Charles McGinley, son in law, showing that Alexander and Elizabeth had at least one child.
I can find no records for his wife’s death. Elizabeth is recorded in only two records that I can find. Charles McGinley is the son in law but I have no idea who Alexander’s daughter was. But then, that will be another story to research.