3rd Great Grandfather
7th Generation
Born - 23 December 1854 - Aberdeen, Scotland
Died - 28 March 1900 - Aberdeen, ScotlandWilliam is the first Catholic in this story, he was baptised on the 4th January 1855 in St Mary’s with St. Peter’s R.C. Church in Aberdeen. Aberdeen had had an influx of poor Catholics at this time which led to the cathedral being built in 1860 as the church was “bursting at the seems”.
William was only 6 in the 1861 census and was a night lodger at Aberdeen House of Industry and Refuge. The House of Refuge provided shelter for homeless adult wanderers, and the necessitous who, being able-bodied, could not be relieved by the Parochial Board. In the year ending October 1896, 6,344 ‘casual’ inmates passed through the Night Shelter, an average of 17 per night.
William was there with his mother and sisters Elsie and Mary Ann. His father was living in Victoria lodging House which was the then public lodging house for the city’s poor.
The image on the left was taken in 1857, Aberdeen House of Industry and Refuge (I do not own the rights to the photo)
The next record I can find of William is his marriage in 1877. He marries Agnes Brown in the RC Church, Shotts. The church they were married in is no longer a catholic church. The Kirk O’ Shotts, or the more affectionate title “The M8 Church” for its location on a hillock alongside the busy M8 motorway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, was formerly a Catholic place of worship under the name Saint Catherine’s Chapel. The current churches in Shotts and Harthill were not completed until 1905 and 1925.
The records below are also from 1877, it’s an application that William made for poor relief when he was ill.
We seen in Mary Ann’s story that William was living with his inlaws in Shotts just 4 years later in 1881. From what we can see above he was not always working, it may well be that Agnes went back to her parents as they couldn’t afford the rent in Harthill.
Whilst looking through the poor relief records for this family (there is a lot) I came across this find in William’s daughter’s records – “The father was involved in a murder at Bo’ness”
Then after some digging into old newspaper’s I found on the 5th July 1886 the Dundee Evening Telegraph print below (first image) and the 4th August 1886 the Edinburgh Evening News print below (second image).
Then on the 23rd August the Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser posted the vertict!
6 months!!! I’m not sure what I am more surprised at – that there is a murderer in my family tree or that William only served 6 months for killing someone!
This family has a surprise at every corner as Agnes and William are together again! They had another child together, Thomas, in England in 1888. Did they move down south for a fresh start or did they move to Jarrow for work as this time William is a labourer in the shipyard (A much healthier job than coalmining!!)?
Whatever the reason they did not stay together as Agnes had moved back to Scotland by the 1891 census and William is still down South.
The next set of records below are from 1894 and William is again requesting poor relief for his family, they are back together AGAIN!! This time William has asthma (once a diagnosis of asthma was established, the number of effective treatments was quite limited; inhalation of smoke from burning Datura stramonium was probably the best).
Then in 1897 William was sent, by train, back to Aberdeen! He was no longer able to work due to his asthma and because he was born in Aberdeen and he needed to be cared for by the workhouse so he would go back to the parish he was born in, Aberdeen.
William died in the poor house 3 years later, he was a pedlar in the end (a person who goes from place to place selling small items) Hence the amount of addresses above. Details of the poor house below
William came into this world poor and left poor – life was not kind to him. He was only 45 years old when he died.
Marie's Genealogy 