The Stevensons and the Reynolds - Chapter 1
Chapter One
Thomas Stevenson, a handloom Weaver, was born in Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire in 1803. In or about 1832 he met and married Ellen Martin who had been born in 1805, in Ireland, the daughter of Edward Martin, a House Proprietor and Helen McCartney. Thomas and Ellen brought up their family in Love St Paisley, from where most of their children were married. Their fourth son, Daniel who had been born in 1838 met and married, in 1859, Ann Smith whose father, Robert was a mill tenter in Paisley, and whose mother was Mary Carmichael. Robert had been born in 1801 to John Smith, a Shawl Weaver and Janet Hodgart. Mary's parents were Archibald Carmichael, a Cow Feeder of Paisley and Catherine Taylor
Daniel and Ann were married in 13 Thread St (Ann's parents' house), and set up home in 6 Glen Street, Paisley according to the 1861 census. They moved to the Milngavie area in late 1870. Actually the 1871 census has them living in Old Town, New Kilpatrick with six children; a further child Ann was born in Milngavie. 1893 saw a family tragedy. On the 9th of September Daniel didn't arrive home from work to 10 Main Street Milngavie. One can only imagine the panic that went through the whole family. Were they all out hunting for Father that evening? Anyway a fatal accident inquiry is quoted later as saying that the next morning he was "found drowned in a pond situated 80 yards or thereby in a westerly direction from Burnbank dyeworks in East Kilpatrick" The Sheriff's verdict was that the cause of death was "Drowning -accidental or suicide". His wife survived him by only two months. She died on the 27th of November; the cause of her death was given as "Bronchitis of 21 days duration". A more romantic explanation might be that she died of a broken heart!
Their third child Daniel met Janet Robertson, a threadmill worker, of Paisley, (at the time living at Stewart's Land, Elderslie) and they were married in the Good Templars Halls in Paisley, on January 2nd 1888. How they met remains a mystery because though Daniel was born in Paisley he would have been living over in Milngavie with his parents since about 1871 when he was nine years old, though having said that, he was not in fact registered as living with his parents in the census of 1881 so he may have been living and working as a dyer at this time in Paisley. (All pure conjecture of course!) However they seem to have almost immediately gone to live in Kilpatrick or Milngavie where presumably young Daniel worked alongside his father as a dyer. Janet though, seems to have come back to be with her mother in Elderslie for the birth of her first-born, Daniel (the third). The 1891 census has them living in 42 Main Street Milngavie with two children Daniel and Rachel and Janet's mother Mary Muir nee Reynolds. The family stayed in Milngavie until sometime after 1900 when they moved to Rutherglen. A better job? or just another job, we'll never know now! They had two more children in Rutherglen, Robert and Josephina. Sometime between 1905 and 1912 the family moved again, this time to The Concrete Buildings in Penicuik, where the family finally put down roots.
Mary Reynolds had a very adventurous life. She was brought over, by her parents Hugh Reynolds and Rachel (nee White) at the age of nine from Limavady in Ireland to Dalry in Ayrshire, presumably to escape from the potato famine, in 1848. Hugh brought over with him four sons by his first wife, Janet White (possibly Rachel's sister?) and five children by Rachel. A further son Samuel was born in Dalry in 1849. When she was about 23 Mary had a liaison with a young Irish mining labourer called Hugh Robertson and fell pregnant. To give the child a name and to get Hugh to finance the child's upbringing she took him to the Sheriff Court in Kilmarnock. The Sheriff accepted proof that Hugh was the father and ruled that Hugh would pay "one pound ten shillings sterling (£1.50) of lying-in expenses attending the birth of said child. Interest thereof at the rate of 5% per annum from the birth of the said child till payment. The sum of £5 yearly for nursing, clothing and alimenting said child payable quarterly and in advance beginning the first quarter's payment of said aliment as on the birth date of the child thereafter and so forth quarterly and in advance until said child shall attain the age of 10 years complete". (Presumably from the age of 10 years the child was expected to be able to go out to work and earn sufficient to keep herself!).
How much of his debts Hugh paid we don't know, but certainly Mary managed to bring up her wean successfully, so all was well that ended well! In 1880 Mary was in Paisley working in one of the threadmills. On the 16th of July that year she got married to William Muir a coal merchant of Paterson Street, Motherwell. Mary's address was given as 16 Ferguslie and her daughter (aged 17) acted as her best maid. We don't know how long the marriage lasted but certainly William appears to have died sometime before the fifth of April 1891 when she turns up living with her daughter and son-in-law in Milngavie. However she may only have been visiting, because next we find her in 1892 back in Elderslie getting married at Burnside, Elderslie to one Love Irvine a bargeman on the Glasgow Paisley and Ardrossan Canal, (Love was 44 at the time and though Mary was born in 1839 she gave her age as 49, A lady's privilege! The witnesses this time were her brother and sister-in-law, Frederick and Jeanie Reynolds (nee Smith) who were away from Dalry by this time and were running a wee sweetie shop on the Main Street, Elderslie. They eventually expanded the shop into a small grocery store and seemed to make a reasonable living until 1907 when Frederick died aged 70, in Keith's Land Elderslie. Jeannie lived on to 78 when she died in November 1916 at 15 West Campbell Street, Paisley, where she appeared to have been living with her niece Martha Taylor.
Meanwhile Mary's mother, Rachel had also moved away from Dalry after the death of her husband Hugh who died of bronchitis in Burn Row, Dalry, where he appeared to have lived since he brought his family over from Ireland some 20 years before. Hugh was 71 years old. A few years ago Joyce and I found the grave where Hugh and Rachel were buried in Dalry cemetery. Two lairs had been bought by Mrs F.Reynolds of Eastland by Elderslie (obviously Jeanie). Others of the family buried there were Samuel Reynolds aged 24 died 7th May 1873, John L Reynolds aged 3 months died 7th August 1891, and Frederick Reynolds aged 73 died 23rd October 1907. There was however no headstone).
Rachel was, I think, living with Joseph, her son, and his unmarried sister Margaret in West Candren (a farm at that time) or perhaps Inkerman just to the north of Paisley. Rachel outlived her husband by 29 years eventually dying in West Candren of "senile debility" in 1896 at the age of 93! Maggie worked on at West Candren till December 1912 when she died of erysipelas at the age of 68, at 109 Inkerman. (I assume she was still working as her occupation on her death certificate was given as farm worker). Joseph outlived his sister by only five months when he died of "Senility" at the age of 79. His address at death was given as 186 Main Street, Elderslie. (When Joyce's sister Jean and her husband Peter Sharpe were over from New Zealand in 1991, we went over to Paisley and found Maggie and Joseph's grave and headstone in Hawkhead cemetery).
Mary Reynolds stayed in Elderslie until Love Irvine died in 1910 of kidney trouble at which time it appears she came through to 44 Bridge Street, Penicuik (the Concrete Buildings), where she lived till 1917 with her daughter and son-in-law and her eight grand weans. It would appear she saw two of her great grand weans Daniel the fourth, (who still lives in Penicuik) and Janet (Jenny Thomson/Rodgers of Corstorphine) who died in September 1997.
Mary died of bowel cancer at the age of 78. A real link with the historical past!
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(Joyce suggested I add a little more. - When my mother was a wee girl in Elderslie, where she was born and brought up, she was given to running messages for the neighbours, for which she might be given a penny or still better a farthing (a penny she was made to put in her piggy bank but a farthing she was allowed to spend on herself! A farthing was 1/960th part of a pound sterling) She used to tell me how she would go down to the wee sweetie shop and spend her farthing on broken candy. Now in Edwardian times Elderslie was not much more than a few houses bordering the Paisley-Johnstone Turnpike so there couldn't have been many shops far less many sweetie shops. I, therefore, have this mental picture of my mother buying sweets from my wife's great-great uncle. And when you consider that I was born and brought up in Elderslie while Joyce was born and brought in the south of England, and we actually met in Aden; I reckon if you had read that in a Catherine Cookson story you might have suggested that she was stretching coincidence just a bit too far.)
Frederick Smith Reynolds Stevenson, Daniel and Janet's second son, was born on the 16th of July 1895 in 10 Main Street, Milngavie. Somewhen between 1905 and 1912 the family moved to Penicuik to 44 Bridge Street, The Concrete Buildings. On leaving school he took up work in a grocer's shop. However within a week of the outbreak of the First War Freddie, all five foot one and three-quarters of him enlisted in the Royal Highlanders Army Reserve for six years service (this is information from the Ministry of Defence Records). It is more likely that he enlisted at Glencorse Barracks in Penicuik in the Royal Scots and was posted to the 3rd Battalion. On the 31st of October he was posted to the 11th Battalion, which would appear to have been held in reserve. On the 1st of January 1916 Freddie was transferred to the Machine Gun Corps, (was he hoping for some action?) The following month (24th) he was posted to 62 Company and the same day sailed for Le Havre. If he thought he was going to see some action then it appears he was disappointed because it was not until 26th February l917 that he attended a course at the Machine Gun School. The trouble is that the MOD records give very little detail so we just don't know what his war adventures were. After the Armistice he was demobilised on l9th January 1919 and went home to Penicuik.
Either he couldn't get himself a decent job or he still had itchy marching feet, anyway the MOD records tell us that on the 3rd of November 1919 he had re-enlisted at Edinburgh in the Machine Gun Corps Infantry, and come the 27th April 1920 he embarked at Devonport en route for Bombay where he landed on the 24th March. Five months later he sailed for Iraq where he served with the Armoured Car Company, with which he was appointed to the rank of Lance Corporal, until embarking for UK on the 4th of November 1924. He was discharged on the 28th of the same month. Family stories tell us that he was wounded during his time in the East with a bullet in his back and it was this, which eventually led to his being semi-paralysed and bed-ridden. MOD records however give no indication of any wound to his back or elsewhere. So, is it the Family or the MOD who have got it wrong? One thing I do know is that my father Corporal John Pender was wounded twice in the war and there is no mention of these in the MOD records. (Having said that, the majority of the records for soldiers who served 1914-20 were destroyed by enemy air action in 1940. It is estimated that less than 40% now survive but of those many are in a very poor condition having been damaged by fire and water. Cpl Pender's MOD records amount to just half a page; Freddie's MOD information stretches to two A4 sheets.) Freddie was awarded the Indian General Service Medal with the Waziristan 1921-24 clasp. This would suggest that he served on the North-west Frontier as well as Iraq during his time out East, but again the MOD records do not mention any NW Frontier service.
