Week 4: Education #52Ancestorsin52weeks

Nowadays education is seen as being for everyone, no matter their sex, background or age and is something we take for granted. But, of course, it hasn’t always been like that.

Looking at the 1851 census for William Johnston, one of my great grandfathers, who in 1841 had been a grocer, I find he is now a stonebreaker. A bit of a job change there – but what is possibly more surprising to us nowadays, is that his 11 year old son William is also a stonebreaker!

His 14 year old son is an apprentice shoemaker. Both boys are still attending Sunday School as they are also described as ‘Sabbath Scholars’. Their younger brother Thomas, aged 8, is both a Day and a Sabbath scholar. It was not until that Education (Scotland) Act of 1872, that school became compulsory for all 5-13 year olds. Thomas seems to have been fortunate in attending day school and seems to have been in the minority of children in my family tree at that time, who were not listed as scholars of any kind. Below we can see James Young (13) and his younger sister Janet (10), my 2 x great uncle and 2 x great aunt were employed as weavers in a cotton mill. I wonder if they had any sort of schooling at all.

(from Ancestry.co.uk)

We cannot imagine sending our young children out to work nowadays. In those days, it was a necessity.

Comments

2024 Week 19: Preserve #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

A few years ago, I came into the possession of a family bible. It was the family bible of my paternal grandparents, John McAra and Christina Walker. Until her death in 2018, the bible had been in the hands of my Aunt Inez, widow of my Uncle Will McAra. When I started enquiring as to its whereabouts, I found that it was her grandson, John, who now had it. John himself had no real interest in it at all, so he was quite happy to hand it over to me. However, it was, to say the least, in a bit of a state. The front cover was completely detached and there were many loose pages as the spine of the book was also damaged and detached. I had no choice but to take it to a book repairer in Glasgow, where it was repaired as best it could be. The bible itself had been originally published in Glasgow in the late 19th century. In Victorian times it was common for Christian families to have such a large bible in which they could record events such as births, marriages and deaths. The one I have al...

2026 Week 2: A record which adds colour #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

My husband's paternal grandmother, Janina Ciupka, was born in 1902 in a small town, Nieszawa, north of Warsaw, Poland, on the banks of the River Vistula. She was the youngest of 12 children, only 8 of whom survived to adulthood. At this time Poland had been occupied by their three neighbours, Germany, Russia and Austria and Warsaw was under Russian control. Her family were very wealthy, owning granaries, bakeries, brick factories and carriage factories and they also bred white horses for the Russian Tzars. As with her elder siblings, Janina was taught by a private governess and the family had many servants, including cooks and cleaners. She obviously was leading a very privileged life. There was little known about the period of her life from about 1909-1919, The family had moved south eastwards to Haczow around 1909. The reasons for the move seems to have been a combination of business and politics, as Haczow was under Austrian rule, considered more liberal than that of the ...

2026 Week 1: An ancestor I admire #52Ancestorsin52weeks

My mum, Helen Young Anderson was born on the 27th of June 1915, the second eldest daughter of John Anderson and Margaret Keir Adams. Her father John had originally worked as a tinsmith and was a steelworker at the time of my mum's birth, an occupation that had exempted him from serving in WW1. John and Margaret had only married four months before my mum was born and their ceremony, conducted at Hope Street Registry Office in Glasgow was an 'irregular marriage', one not conducted by a church minister (and therefore not approved by the Church) but one the Church accepted as alternative to a couple 'living in sin'. The reason for this probably being that Margaret was already pregnant with my mum and had already had another child by John, my aunt Meg, who by this time was six years old, being brought up by Margaret's parents, my great grandparents, James Adams and Margaret Keir. John and Margaret went on to have three more children over the next eight years - Anne,...

Roots, shoots and stories

Search This Blog