5th Great Grandfather

9th Generation

Born - Abt 1814 - British Subject, Portugal

James’s father, also James Madden was a soldier from Ireland – He was from Dublin and signed up to fight for the British Army in Belfast in 1807. He was only 14 and didn’t even need to lie about his age to join the army, in the late 1700s they recruited from the age of 14.

His father’s enlistment record below :-

James always recorded himself as Irish, even though he was born in Portugal. He would have been born a British Subject to Irish parents during the Peninsular War (1808-1814). During the Napoleonic wars, and this time in history, the women travelled with their husband’s to war, hence her giving birth in Portugal. The women never knew how many years their husbands would be gone for making it easier to go with them. This is a time when wars were fought on a battlefield and there was no way of getting word back to your family on your whereabouts or whether you were still alive

In 1836 James married his wife Margaret Colville, he was now 22 and living in Glasgow. The Madden family may never have returned to Ireland after the war, James’s father was most likely posted to Scotland after the Napoleonic wars and where James met Margaret.

The first record I have for James is in the 1841 census and he and Margaret have 2 young children and are living with another Irish couple.

The 1851 census above confirms that James was born in Portugal and that he was living in Glasgow as a Hand Loom Weaver. This was the beginning Industrial Revolution and the need for handloom weavers was slowing dying. His trade was dying off which would have made life very difficult for him.

A handloom consisted of four wooden uprights joined at top and bottom to form a box-like framework. There were wooden rollers between both pair of uprights, one for the warp and one to collect the cloth. The weaving operation consisted of sending the shuttle containing the weft back and forth through the threads of the warp. A device operated by a treadle lifted and lowered alternate threads and a lathe hung from the top of the loom enabled the weaver to push each thread of weft up against the cloth already woven.

I have beun able to find any further records of James. Records show that his wife, a widow, remarried in 1868. James most likely died in Glasgow when he was still in his 40s.

Wife – Margaret Colville

Daughter – Elizabeth Madden