The Penders
Chapter One / The Penders
John Pender (25) met and married Mary Crosbie (19) in Glasgow in about 1850. Mary's parents lived in 54 Main Street, in the Parish of St Marks, Anderston, Barony, Glasgow. At least they did in 1841 according to the census of that year. Mary's father James was a smith, that is a metal worker possibly but not necessarily a blacksmith. Whereabouts in Glasgow John's parents were living at that time I haven't yet been able to determine; though we do know that his father James was a flax dresser, whatever that was. I found Mary's parents only by pure chance when surfing the 1841 Census according to which the family consisted of:
| Name | Age | Occupation | |
| James | Crosbie | 35 | Smith |
| Sarah | “ | 35 | |
| Jane | “ | 15 | |
| Mary | “ | 10 | |
| Robert | “ | 6 | |
| James | “ | 4 | |
| Sarah | “ | 8 mos. |
John may have been an only child as far as I can gather though that seems unlikely at that time in history. (He may of course have been the only child to survive of the marriage of James Pender and Jessie Mitchell who were married in Glasgow in 1823.)
By 1855 John and Mary were living in Mill-land, Underwood, Paisley where John was employed as the Twisting Master in the Underwood Thread Mill. Their first-born was a son called James born in 1851 in Glasgow. The second was John, born in 1853, who died in 1856 at 13 Underwood of Scarlet Fever. Their third son Robert (of whom more later) lived to the ripe old age of 60. Apart from their last born Alexander who died aged 21 in February 1881, they had three other children who died in infancy, another also called John born in Underwood in Dec 1857 who died in 1859 also of Scarlet Fever. The family moved to 23 Glen Street round about '62 where Mary herself died aged 35 on 22nd April 1866 of Consumption within months of her two youngest children, Mary Crosbie Pender born September 1864, who died in October 1865 of acute Hydrocephalous and John Mitchell Pender born 1852 who died in November 1865 Of Pneumonia.
John was thus left a widower with three sons aged 15, 12 & 6. Did James and Robert keep house while father John continued his work in the thread mill, or was Robert the householder and babysitter to his wee brother Alexander? We'll never know. What we do know is that John shortly became acquainted with a young power loom weaver called Maria Gardner, (nee Buchanan) a widow with four children. It seemed the acquaintanceship blossomed because John, by this time living at 19 Wellmeadow Street and Maria living at 5 Albion Street were married on the 1st of April 1859.
They moved into 34 Gauze Street, and their first-born John, my grandfather, happened along on 10th September of that same year. Ann Buchanan Pender came along in 1871 and Angus Mitchell Pender in 1873. 'What a household' "your weans, ma weans and oor weans".
I doubt if 34 Gauze Street, like most tenement buildings, was more than just a Kitchen and Scullery with a Front Parlour. The children must have been sleeping head-to-tail because there would have been only two box beds in the Kitchen and, possibly, one box bed in the Front Room; one of the box beds in the Kitchen would have accommodated the parents with perhaps the youngest child. The other children would be split among the other beds. One possibility is that those children who lost out on the lottery for the box beds slept in truckle beds or 'hurleys'; low beds (shorter than the box-beds and therefore suitable only for the weans) on castors which were pushed under the box beds when not in use, behind the bed-pawn, a curtain drawn across between the bed and the floor.
The eldest son James married Jane Millar of 8 Wardrop Street in 1873 and his brother, Robert, married Jane Allan of 18 Incle Street in 1880. (Jane Allan's father John was a Weaver's Flower lasher, a highly complicated job determining the patterns of the Paisley Harness Loom Weave by manually sorting out the threads on the loom.)
In February 1881 Alexander McIntyre Pender who was a ship's steward died in the Western Infirmary Glasgow of Consumption and amputation of the thigh.
On 4th April 1881 the census gave the inhabitants of 24 Lawn Street, Paisley as:
| Name | Relationship | M/U | age | Occupation | Parish of Birth | |
| John | Pender | Head | M | 56 | Twisting Master in Power Loom Factory | Glasgow |
| Maria | “ | Wife | M | Paisley | ||
| John | “ | Son | 12 | Scholar | “ | |
| Ann B | “ | Dau | 10 | “ | “ | |
| Agnes N | “ | Son | 8 | “ | “ | |
| Walter B | Gardner | Stepson | U | 23 | Power Loom Beamer | “ |
| William | " | “ | U | 19 | " | “ |
| Margaret B | " | Stepdau | U | 25 | Cotton Weaver | “ |
| Janet McB | " | " | U | 17 | “ | “ |
N.B. The census taker changed poor Angus Mitchell's sex
“M”= Married
“U” = Unmarried
James Pender's occupation was given as Merchant seaman on his marriage certificate in 1873, but it appears he came ashore when he got married and took up a job with the railways. His occupation was given as Railway Brakesman when he died in 1891 in Hay street, Greenock of Haemoptysis leaving Jane a widow with at least one son also called James.
John and Maria lived out their married lives in 22 Well Street where in September 1903 John died of "senile decay" on the 2nd and Maria survived him by only 28 days, dying on the 30th of "valvular disease of the heart". A more romantically inclined doctor might have put it that she died of "a broken heart".
