In the late 1970’s, before I met my wife, she was living in a flat in the West End of Glasgow. Not far from where she lived, in Dudley Drive, lived her Aunt Susie. The road that she lived in is made up of a row of Glasgow tenements, four stories high, and very typical of this 20th Century style of block of flats. My wife used to visit Aunt Susie occasionally, usually on a Sunday afternoon. She recalls a flat with a very old-fashioned scullery. Those visits were the last memories of her aunt and so there is very little first-hand information about her. The only other story the family has is regarding Aunt Susie’s funeral when her two cousins, Agnes and Martin, were following the hearse to the crematorium, only to discover that they were following the wrong hearse.
There are some records that help to paint a picture, but then that is also a limited view of her.
Aunt Susie was Susan Scott. She was born on 23 November 1894 in Albany Street, Bridgeton, in the East end of Glasgow, not far from Barrowfield and near Parkhead where Celtic Football Club have their ground. Susan’s parents were James Scott, a School Janitor and Sarah Hyslop. They were married in 1892 in Windsor Terrace in the Maryhill area of Glasgow. James, aged 30, was described as a Gentleman’s Attendant, Army Reserve Man. I have difficulty figuring that occupation out. Sarah was a Dressmaker.
By the time of Susan’s birth, the Scott’s had settled into family life in Albany Street where James had become a School Janitor. At that point in time, Janitors would have been living in a tied house on the school premises and so I am wondering if there was a school there. A look at the street view map on Google shows a street that has been completely redeveloped, there is also a school there but a new one. In fact, the 1901 Census return confirms that the family were living in a School House.
The Scott Family in 1901 (Census Return, NRO, 1901 via Scotlands People)
Susan was six years old and a scholar, probably in the school in whose grounds she lived. She had a big brother, James aged 8, and three sisters: Elizabeth aged 4, Christina, aged 2 and Ellen, aged 2 months.
At some point in her married life, Susan travelled to America. This is recorded by a passenger list in 1957 for arrivals from New York at Liverpool. I am not certain but Susan and Martin Welsh, who she had married in 1922, would not have been on a cruise as we know it today but would have been travelling to see somebody, before the advent of air travel. It is my guess that one of her family had left Scotland previously to live there. Yet more avenues of research to discover. The purpose of that trip may be be found in the Census return for 1911, because the size of the Scott family had grown.
I had not expected to find great changes in the family makeup but to my surprise there are now an additional four children. The Scott family now looks like this:
| James Scott | Head | 49 | School Janitor (School Board) |
| Sarah Scott | Wife | 45 | |
| James | Son | 18 | Clerk, Stockbrokers |
| Susan | Daughter | 16 | Machinist, Underclothing |
| Lizzie | Daughter | 15 | School |
| Christina | Daughter | 12 | School |
| Ellen | Daughter | 10 | School |
| Walter | Son | 8 | School |
| Robert B | Son | 6 | School |
| William W | Son | 3 | |
| George | Son | 1 |
Details from the 1911 Census Return
This is a family of considerable size. They have left Albany Street and their schoolhouse and have moved to Anderston which is that area of Glasgow to the north of the Clyde between Charing Cross and Kelvingrove. They live at 35 Houldsworth Street in what was probably an older Glasgow tenement building. The Scottish Census returns had a column for listing the number of rooms with a window in the house. The purpose of this was to assess the health and housing situation of the general population. One of those rooms would have been the kitchen/dining room, heated by a coal stove for cooking on. This would have left two rooms for the family to sleep in, although there would have been a box bed in the kitchen. James Scott was still a School Janitor but where it is not known. It is hard to imagine how large families like this were able to live, eat and sleep in such a small space.
Susan’s father, James Scott, died in 1921 at the age of 60, the same year of the Census return for 1921 and a year before Susan married Martin Welsh.
It is the occupations that have interested me. Susan’s older brother James, at the age of 18, was a clerk with a firm of Stockbrokers. In Glasgow city centre the building that was designed for the Exchange was a Gothic building on the corner of Buchanan Street, facing the Tron Church which is centred in Nelson Mandela Place. The building is now used for many high street clothing chains. The Exchange closed in the 1970’s when it merged with the London Stock Exchange.
Susan went into the drapery industry, which was a large and well established, clothing trade in the City.
It is the 1921 Census return that establishes the clothing manufacturing trade as the work of choice for Susan and her sisters.
Excerpt from the 1921 Census Return (NRO via Scotlands People)
This is page one of the 1921 Census return which shows Susan, Ellen and Christina and their occupations and employers. Susan’s siblings will be on the next page. I was interested in the sisters here because of their employers. They were each employed in the drapery / garment trades that were abundant in Glasgow at that time. I could find no information about the two employers that Ellen and Christina were engaged with, but I had an interesting result for my search on J.Inglis, Draper where Susan was employed as a Blouse Machinist.
James Inglis was a successful Draper who built up a large business and property portfolio that enabled him to become a charitable entrepreneur. He gifted a lot of property to the Trades House in Glasgow to set up what became the Drapers Fund to support carers of adopted children. The backbone of this part of the story comes from a genealogical report commissioned by the Trades House in 2021.
James Inglis was born on 15th March 1856 at 431 Argyle Street, Glasgow. By 1861 his family has moved to 24 Wilson Street, which is in the heart of Merchant City. I get the feeling that Argyle Street and Wilson Street were also James Inglis parents business premises. In 1871 the family were living in 363 Rutherglen Road which was the Inglis family home while Wilson Street was the business premises. At this point, James, aged 25, was described as a drapery salesman while his father was described as a master draper employing two males and thirteen females. In the 1891 Census return the family had moved to Elmbank, Prospect Avenue, Cambuslang, which was just outside the city boundary. James’s father died in 1885 and the 1891 Census described James as the head of the household. Only his mother and sisters, Ellen and Jessie were living at home, the other siblings had gone their own way. The Inglis wholesale drapery business was being conducted in Argyle Street and 133 Crown Street. By 1911, James’s mother had died and he and his two sisters had moved to 12 Milbrae Crescent, the famous Greek Thomson terrace of houses beside the River Cart in Langside, directly opposite to the back of my own house.
It was at this point, with a significant portfolio of business, shop and domestic properties that James approached the Trades House with proposals to create what was to become ‘The Adoption Portion of the Drapers Fund’. This was established in 1918. He gifted several properties and their feu duties (rental income) to establish the fund from which applicants would receive small financial gifts to recognise their dedication to adopting an orphan. At this time there were many orphans in Glasgow partially due to the effects of deaths caused during World War 1. In 1918 there was no national adoption support in place with adoption and fostering often being done in a casual way, by doctors and ministers.
James Inglis died at home on 24th December 1933 at home in Milbrae Crescent.
There is a portrait of James Inglis hanging in the Trade House.
Whether Susan Scott met and knew James Inglis, we shall never know, however I am certain that he would have been a hands-on manager and would have been interviewing and appointing his staff. The business was big and successful but not that big that he would not have had detailed interest in his employees. I would like to think the Susan had a part to play in his success. She had no family to care for during her life, and I wonder if she continued working for J.Inglis, Draper, for many more years.
Toward the end of preparing this piece, I was sent a copy of a family photo. In the middle is Martin Welsh with his younger sister Rachel on his right. Beside Martin to his left is his wife, Susan Scott. This photo was taken at the wedding of Rachel’s daughter’s wedding, Agnes Nicol and John McKie, in 1953.
Rachel Nicol, nee Welsh, Martin Welsh and Susan Scott, 1953
My wife recalls Susan wearing those glasses and living alone after her husband’s death in 1963. She had no television in the house but listened to the radio. She was proud to declare that her tenement flat was still a rented property unlike the pattern of the rest of the street which was slowly being privately owned.
I wrote that Susan and Martin had travelled to America in the 1950’s. Here is an image of their entry in the return passenger list.
I cannot be certain, but I get the feeling that they had been to America to visit a relative. Given the size of Susan’s family, it would not surprise me if she had a sister or brother living there and that there may be other photos and records available to add to this story.
James Inglis and the Drapers Fund, The Trades House (Glasgow 2021)