2024 Week 6: Earning a living #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

There is a history of metal working and mining running through both sides of my family. My 3 x great grandfather, Alexander McAra, his brothers as well as his father and uncles, worked in the iron mills in Cramond, Midlothian. Cramond was an important industrial centre in the 1700s and 1800s. In 1799, when Alexander was 20, Cramond had three iron furnaces, two steel furnaces and three water powered rolling mills. Alexander worked in one of the iron furnaces, until his untimely demise. (See https://rootsshootsandstories.blogspot.com/2023/02/ancestors-in-52-weeks-week-6-social.html)

At some point after Alexander's death, his son John, my 2 x great grandfather, and at least two of John's brothers moved through to Lanarkshire, where they continued to work in the iron trade, John being employed as a hammerman at Moffat Forge in New Monklands.

Source: https://www.tradeshouse.org.uk/crafts-hammermen/

John's son, my 2 x great grandfather carried on the family tradition of metal working. During his lifetime he moved from being a labourer and iron puddler to being overseer, then supervisor at the Monkland Iron and Steel Company. In the publication "The Builder" Vol 5 p112 he is credited with supervising the making of "the heaviest shaft ever made in Scotland."

My grandfather, his son John, for whatever reason, did not follow in his forefathers' footsteps, but instead joined many who became coalminers in the late 19th century. He was a 'hewer' so worked in awful conditions at the coalface all of his working life. Three of his sons followed him down the pit. One of them, my Uncle James, died in a roof collapse at Kingshill No. 2 Colliery in 1940. The other two changed 'careers' and became poultry farmers.

My dad, the youngest, became a civil engineer - so according to the definition given previously, may also belong to the 'Hammermen'.

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