In August I related the story of my Wife’s Great Uncle Alexander who was a Gardener by trade all of his life. I have also described the background history to her Great Aunt Louisa who became a Domestic Servant in Bournemouth before marrying the licensee of a pub in Irvine, Ayrshire. I have also described the history of her Grandfather, Andrew McKie. There were six children in Agnes and John McKie’s family and this week I am concentrating on William Cumming McKie. Although he was not the next in line of my research, it is an interesting story from a research angle.
First it might be a good idea to recap on the McKie family children that started life in the hamlet of Braehead close to Kirkinner in Wigtownshire.
| Louisa Wood McKie | 1870 – 1954 |
| Andrew McKie | 1872 – 1951 |
| Alexander McKie | 1873 – 1952 |
| John McKie | b. 1875 |
| William Cumming McKie | 1877 – 1903 |
| Robert McKie | b. 1879 |
William had as his middle name, Cumming. This was his Grandmother’s maiden name and it was common for families in Scotland to include their maiden names in their children’s naming to ensure that the history of the ancestry was kept going. This is not so common now and it would be difficult to triangulate and confirm registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths in the future if those maiden names are not included. William’s name is unique and it helped me to confirm that John McKie’s Parish Registration of Birth was correct because John’s Mother’s maiden name is written there.
The Parish Clerk mis spelt Jane Cumming’s name and it is recorded as Skimming. This is an extract from the Kirkinner Parish Register before formal registration began by statute.
William was born in Braehead at Newton Cottages on the 17th February 1877. His father John is described as a Master Mason. I am not reproducing the birth registration in this post because it is not a clear scan and will not reproduce well. The contents of the registration are fascination because it is a researchers dream to have so much information. We have William’s middle name which confirms his Grand parentage and then John’s wife Agnes has her maiden name, McKean (although the Registrar did not spell it accurately and wrote McKeaned if I can read it correctly, and you will find review suggestions for her under that name when using Ancestry.Co. But it is incorrect). Agnes confirms her surname in many other registration documents so I am certain that she is a McKean. In 1877 it was the requirement to also have the date of marriage of the parents and where they were married. John and Agnes were married on 3rd June 1870 in the hamlet of Anworth. Then we see John McKie’s own signature in the registration book. It took place on 22nd February in Kirkinner.
In this short amount of information a lot of additional clues can be found to help research facts. The names of Agnes McKie and John McKie for example are popular in Scotland and without addition information about dates and places, it can be a costly exercise to prove the facts.
The first mention of William at home after his birth is the 1881 Census return. In this record can be found the McKie family without John who died a couple of years earlier. William is aged four years and he would have no real memory of his father. Agnes was bringing up six children alone with the help of the Parish from whom she was receiving weekly Poor Law allowances. She was described as a Dressmaker and therefore had taken up work from home to help feed her children. Louisa and Andrew, the eldest at 10 and 9, were scholars. It would be five years before they could start to find employment and bring some money into the house themselves.
The 1891 Census return shows William still at home, aged 14 and he was a scholar, shortly himself to go out to work. His big sister had left home and his older brothers, Andrew and John were working as agricultural Labourers. Unless they were connected to a farmer in some way, they may well have been employed under the short term six month fee via a Hiring Fair in the village. Through this they would have been made a bid for at a fixed six month wage by a farmer who naturally would have the upper hand in the bidding.
By the time he was 20 years old, William was living and working in Whiteinch, in Glasgow as a joiner. Whiteinch is a small area of Glasgow to the west of the city close to the River Clyde and was part of the famous shipbuilding industry. William has possibly learned his trade here if he had to go out to work at the age of 15. What intrigues me next is how he met his wife.
The next record that I find to tell me William’s story is his marriage certificate. William, it tells me, was a Joiner living at 15 George Street in Whiteinch. I have searched for this street but it is non-existent. This is because it was either destroyed in the Second World War bombings, or renamed because the Post Office was getting fed up with confusion with George Street in the City centre and had applied for it to be renamed. William was getting married to Agnes Hume who lived in the hamlet of Anworth close to Gatehouse of Fleet in Kirkcudbrightshire. There is an address but the Census enumerator was not at all clear in his writing. As with all Certificates like this, Agnes was only described as a Spinster. What she did for a living we shall never know. I don’t want to automatically assume Domestic Service but I suspect so.
Anworth is a very small hamlet connected to Gatehouse of Fleet. Early OS maps show that it had its own church, manse and school. Its claim to fame in the twentieth century is that it gets a mention in the Dorothy L Sayers crime book, ‘Five Red Herrings’. This was a novel that had a plot dependant upon the timings of the local train timetable. Anworth was also a location in the film, ‘The Wicker Man’.
In the Marriage Certificate, William described his father as Building Contractor (Deceased). This is interesting because everything else points to John McKie being a Mason, then a Master Mason. Presumably that was the natural progression, employing tradesmen to build bespoke houses.
Both William and Agnes were 20 years old when they married on 21st July 1897. Agnes’s parents were both deceased, George Hume had been a Builder. Her mother, Also Agnes Hume, was Agnes Gordon by birth.
The question that intrigued me was how they met. Then I looked at the Witnesses. One of them was big brother Andrew McKie, my wife’s Grandfather. The other was Eleanor McKean. I presume this to be Agnes McKie’s sister. The McKean family originated from Anworth. Was she still living in Anworth ? And was there some match making going on ?
Of course, the wedding took place in Anworth at the address where Agnes Hume was living, and possibly working. It was quite common for marriages to take place in a house to cut costs, but to make it morally acceptable, it would be after Banns, according to the forms of the Church of Scotland.
Their lives after their marriage and searches for records have been a challenge. I automatically went to the 1901 Census return After four years of marriage I was expecting to find them in Glasgow perhaps.
William, in 1901 was living with his mother in Kirkinner, but alone. There were only three people recorded in the return, Agnes McKie aged 50 and described a as a Boarding “House Keeper”, William who was described as a Carpenter and married, plus an older lady described as a Boarder Pauper. It is quite possible that William’s wife Agnes was away on the day of the count. I have searched for her by name age and place of birth but there is no obvious record turning up. Inevitably in any Census count there will be people missing for a number of reasons.
It would have been nice to relate more details of their lives together from the records.
Sadly, William’s life was cut short.
William died in December 1903. He was 26 years old. The doctor certifying his death said the cause of death was first, Pleurisy which he had suffered from for four months, second, Displacement of the Heart and Syncope which means that he passed out when his blood ceased to flow. He died in George’s Square, Queen Street, Newton Stewart, not far from Kirkinner and Anworth. His wife Agnes was the informant. To pre decease your parent is a great sadness and Agnes McKie, William’s mother, included him in a memorial stone that she erected in 1928 in the churchyard at Kirkinner Parish Church that was devoted to her husband and parents.
Photo of the memorial stone erected by Agnes McKie to remember her husband, parents and William (photo by the author)
Erected by
Agnes McKean
in memory of her husband JOHN MCKIE
who was drowned at
PortWilliam 15 December 1879
aged 32 years
WILLIAM, her 4th son who died
at N. Stewart 16th December 1903
aged 26 years
Also her mother, MINA MARTIN
relick of the late JOHN MCKEAN
Gatehouse, who died
at Braehead 12th Jan 1892
aged 78 years
Also the above AGNES MCKIE
who died at Irvine, Ayrshire
10th January 1928 aged 77 years
(Memorial stone transcription)
I could not leave the story there. I was interested to see if William and Agnes had any children. This was too challenging. However, by chance I came across a death certificate that gave me some answers to what happened to Agnes.
Agnes McKie, nee Hume, remarried. She married a Police Constable and lived in a suburb of Glasgow a short way from where I live, in Windhill Crescent. In her status column is listed the two husbands that she was a Widow to. John McKie and Adam (indecipherable surname). The death was informed by her son Thomas who was also living his mother’s house.
Agnes died at the age of 75 in 1952.
(National Records of Scotland via Scotlands People 2023)
Any further research is dependent on finding out the actual name of her second husband. If any readers of this post can decipher Adam and Thomas’s surname, you can leave a comment for me.