Shale miners

By Scott Daily

James "Paraffin" Young

After receiving a patent for producing paraffin oil (often referred to as kerosene in many parts of the world) James Young established a refining factory in Addieswell, West Lothian around 1865. To quote from West Lothian Shale Trail "At the start Young’s refinery produced oil for lighting, and also developed new types of light which gave better light. This was much better and cheaper than whale oil, and burnt cleaner. But the increasing popularity of cars meant that the West Lothian refineries produced petrol and diesel fuel. Paraffin wax was used to make candles, and a by-product of the retort process was ammonium sulphate fertiliser." At the same time many areas of Scotland and Ireland were suffering financially and so many were looking for work. As more and more shale mines opened in West Lothian, people began to move from Ayrshire to West Lothian to work. 

There wasn’t much shale mining in Ayrshire but there was a short lived oil works at Kilwinning from 1865 to not long after the 1871 census which showed William Gorman working there as a shale miner. William was born in 1844 in Londonderry, Ireland

There was another short lived oil works at Lanemark in New Cumnock 1864-1867. Most were in West Lothian.

As shown in the Cumnock Connections tree, some who came to West Lothian from other parts either married people originally from Cumnock or moved to the area after working for a time in the slate industry. 

One example of someone who married into a Cumnock family, and whose offspring seemed to have settled for a time in the Cumnock area, is James Baird who was born in West Lothian (to a family who had previously been in Lugar) and is listed in a 1891 census as living in Uphall, West Lothian employed as a shale miner. He had married Catherine Hutchison who was born in Cumnock. Their three children listed in the census were stated to be born in Lugar, Ayrshire. In the baptism records for their daughter Marion Marshall Baird (who later emigrated to Manhattan, New York) it states that James' occupation was "char filler". James is recorded as passing away at the age of 40 (from heart disease) back in West Lothian. 

A second example of a Cumnock woman who married a West Lothian shale miner was Jane Murdoch Price who was born in Cumnock. Jane married William Wardrop who is listed in a 1911 census as a shale miner living in West Lothian.  The Wardrops had also lived in Cumnock in 1875-8 at Glengyron Row.

To give an example of someone orginally from Ireland who came to Scotland to work  and married and settled in Ayrshire, we have William Gorman who was born in Londonderry. He married Catherine Shirkie from Kilwinning. They were married in Old Cumnock in 1864 and in the 1871 he was living in High Doura, Kilwinning and working as a shale miner. in the 1881 census, where William is listed as working as a coal miner, they are shown to have four children, Edward (listed as a coal miner, age 13); William, age 7; Stewart, age 4; and Janet, age 1. The family would later move to Irvine. It would seem the William had various legal problems as there is record of him spending time in prison in Ayr in 1889. He died at  Cunningham Combination Poorhouse in Irvine in 1891.

Allan Cameron had been an iron miner in Cumnock in 1871 and 1881 was a shale miner in Lasswade, Midlothian by the 1891 census.

Alexander Gemmell Prospers in England

Alexander Gemmell, Benefactor who never forgot his Cumnock roots.

Link to him on Cumnock Connections tree

By Joanne Ferguson, Kay McMeekin and the late Bobby Grierson

Alexander Gemmell

Alexander Gemmell was born in 1850 when his parents were living at The Green in Cumnock. This is now the area of the staff car park behind the Tanyard Medical Practice and directly behind the Box Church at the Dub.

His father, John, was a Stonecutter Quarryman who married Elizabeth Andrew in Cumnock in 1834. They had 8 children – 3 girls and 5 boys with Alexander being the youngest son. His mother, father and some siblings are buried in Cumnock old cemetery on Barrhill Road.

Alexander married Margaret Murdoch in 1873 at Crossriggs Cottage in Cumnock which is now Crossriggs Veterinary practice. They had six children – 3 boys and 3 girls.

Alexander started his working life as a bank accountant with the Royal Bank of Scotland, Glaisnock Street in Cumnock. Around 1877 he moved to Keighley, Yorkshire, where he was appointed branch manager of Bradford Old Bank. After a succession of mergers and further appointments the bank became United Counties which was then acquired by Barclay and Co Ltd in 1916 when Alexander was appointed branch manager of the Bradford group.

in 1903 Alexander chaired the annual Glasgow-Cumnock Reunion at the Trades Hall in Glasgow. This caricature accompanied the report in the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald - Friday 27 February 1903.

In 1916 Cumnock celebrated the 50th anniversary of Cumnock becoming a Police Burgh in 1886. To mark this Alexander came back to Cumnock and presented the gold chain and badge of office to the Provost James Richmond in his term of office. The chain is 42 inches long and made of enamel and 15 ct gold.

 

The provost’s badge and chain are on display in the Baird Institute Museum in Cumnock.

Post WW1 he provided the Cumnock Parish Medal made of silver and enamel. They were individually inscribed with the soldier’s name and with “In grateful remembrance or for services” and presented to the soldiers or their families at the welcome Home Dance in Cumnock .

Alexander Gemmell died on 13 January 1923 in Bradford, Yorkshire, at the age of 73 and his will reveals he had effects of £20,552.

In 1925 Cumnock Town Council completed a scheme of houses to the south of the town hall and one of the streets, Gemmell Avenue was named in Alexander’s honour.

Ministers (and their families) immigrating to the Dunedin area of New Zealand in the mid 1800's

 By Scott Daily

Through the years many have moved from East Ayrshire to New Zealand, quite a large number of these settled in the Otago region, especially in what became the city of Dunedin. To quote directly from Tearra, the “Encyclopedia of New Zealand” website , “With clear rivers and brisk frosts reminiscent of home, Otago was where a group of Free Church Scots founded their ‘new Edinburgh’, Dunedin, in 1848. They had high moral values, and a belief in hard work and the value of education. Today, clans and tartans, Burns night celebrations, and tossing the caber, are part of a lasting legacy." 

Established in 1845, the Otago Association was founded by the Free Church of Scotland to set up a colony in New Zealand. By the 1850s over 12,000 people immigrated from the United Kingdom to the area around Dunedin. Among these immigrants were several ministers who were born in Ayrshire.

Perhaps the best known of these was Thomas Burns, nephew of Robert Burns. Thomas was born in 1796 in Mauchline. After graduating from University of Edinburgh, with a degree in theology, he was ordained as a minister to the parish of Ballantrae, later transferring to Monkton, both in South Ayrshire. In 1843, during the Disruption of Church of Scotland, Burns left the established church and joined the Free Church of Scotland. 

In 1847 he, and his family (his wife, 5 daughters and one son) set sail for New Zealand on board the Philip Laing one of the first ships chartered by the Otago Association. For a time Burns functioned as the only minister for the area; later when other Free Church ministers arrived a Presbytery of Otago was formed, with Burns elected the first Moderator. Burns passed away in 1871, and is buried in Dunedin, where there is also a monument to him for his service to the community.

grave of Thomas Burns in Dunedin

Besides members of the Free Church, many other religious Scots immigrated to the area. Thomas Burns recorded 1,000 Presbyterians, 250 Anglicans, 61 independent church members, and 11 Catholics, living in Dunedin in 1856. 

Of special relevance to this page about Cumnock immigration is David Johnstone who was born in Old Cumnock in 1822, and went on to become a pastor in Dunedin.  Johnstone (sometimes spelt Johnston) had first served in the 1850s as pastor of an Indepedent church or chapel on Great Hamilton Street, Glasgow. In 1866 his wife, Jessie, passed away. By 1869 Johnstone had moved with his children to New Zealand, as he is recorded as serving as the pastor of the Congregational church located at the corner of Vine Street and Moray Place in Dunedin. Johnstone only served at the Moray Place church for a year before he began to hold services in the Oddfellows’ Hall George Street, before having a new Congregational church built on Leith Street and becoming its first pastor. see-congregationhistory 

Johnstone is recorded in various New Zealand census and electoral rolls as serving as clergyman in Dunedin for many years, evetually dying in 1896 still in Dunedin. A number of his at least 6 children married New Zealanders and stayed in the area with families of their own.

One final example of a minister orginally from East Ayrshire is the Rev. James Kirkland, who was born in Stewarton in 1832.  Though the region of Otago was intially extremely Presbyterian, the discovery of gold in the area in the 1860s resulted in a gold rush with so many moving to the area from places such as Australia that soon there was a shortage of Presbyterian ministers, and so a call went out for more ministers. James Kirkland was one of those who answered the call. He and his family (wife Mary, and 3 children) moved first to Inch Clutha in 1863, where James served as the minister until 1872. After serving for a few years in Hokitika, James would be called to serve at West Taieri near Dunedin. He would remain the minister there for over 20 years. At least 3 more children were born to family in New Zealand, the notice of his death (pictured below) states that he had 9 children, one of the sons would also become a minister in the area. James was honoured for his long service to the Synod of Otago and Southland. His gravestone, in Dunedin, states he served as a minister in New Zealand for 39 years. 

Rev James Kirkland's grave, Dunedin

Notice of Rev Kirkland's death

Cornish tin, copper and lead miners

By Kay McMeekin

Miners from Cornwall

(Compare with Staffordshire miners)  https://langscotsmilecumnock.blogspot.com/2023/09/1870s-influx-of-miners.html

Cornish miners first came to Ayrshire around 1866 - 1867

 3rd Statistical account of Scotland: Ayrshire by John Strawhorn and William Boyd 1951 page 523

"In the 1860s there arrived in Galston a group of Cornish tin-miners as strikebreakers including Chynoweths, Burleys and Lukes, who still figure among the local families. Some of these were Methodists and held meetings which attracted some following. The original Methodist groups has not survived but a group which hived off from them formed themselves in 1871 into a company of Open Brethren whose present day successors number about 60."

I haven't found any other evidence of strike breaking. 

But I did find an article in the Glasgow Herald 12th November 1866 that  Baird of Gartsherrie  was recruiting miners from Cornwall to come to work in mines in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire. There was a local shortage of miners and many had gone (to West Lothian) to be shale miners, whereas in Cornwall there were many out of work (tin and copper) miners. They were offered an engagement of 12 months and accommodation. But for every married couple, they had take two single men as lodgers as accommodation was in short supply. The wages were favourable compared to Cornwall and some 6-700 men had arrived in the last fortnight.  Hurlford Colliery was the only Ayrshire place mentioned in the article. It does mention that they were Wesleyans and most had brought a large family bible with them. (Were these same conditions offered to to West Midlands miners?)

In Ayrshire,  the first of the Cornish miners were in Loudoun and Galston  parishes. 

Examples:

James Phillips a lead miner from Illogan and his wife  Catherine Bunney were in Loudoun (Galston) Ayrshire by March 1867 but in 1881 census they had returned to Cornwall where he was working as a tin miner with 6 children aged 1 to 14. What a journey that must have been. They weren't there for long as James was born in Ayrshire about 1882. In 1888 they were in Skares Row, Cumnock. James was mining coal. He remained in Skares until his death in 1924.

Burley siblings in Loudoun rows, Galston by the early 1870s. Some of these families moved on to Cumnock.  eg Arthur Burley 

Hancocks from Cornwall arrived in Cumnock 1872/3

The parents James Hancock and Eleanor Deeble were in Glengyron Row by August 1873 (death of their youngest daughter Jane).

They had been married in 1848 in Callington, Cornwall and they were in Caldbeck, Cumberland in the 1871 census. 

Some of the Cornish miners stopped off in the north of England or moved back and forth as can be seen by the birthplaces of their children. 

eg Richard Penrose and his family were in Durham in 1880, New Cumnock in 1882,  Durham in 1884,  Cumnock in 1886 and 1888, Durham 1890, Northumberland  in 1895 and 1897, Cumnock in 1899 - 1905. He died in 1918 in Durham and his wife Kate Jose in Cumnock  in 1926. What a lot of upheaval and with kids in tow!

Other Cornish names in Ayrshire include: Fisher, Folley, Luke, Moyle, Pooley, Sheer, Smetherhem, Trembath

1870s Influx of Miners

By Kay McMeekin

There was a great increase of miners in Cumnock in the late 1860s and 1870s. This is tied in to the fortunes of Bairds of Gartsherrie who opened Lugar Iron Works and required ironstone. They also owned coal mines. More research to be done on this.

We know miners moved in from the north of England, Cumbria, Durham, the West Midlands - Wolverhampton area and Cornwall at this time.

1870 miners from the West Midlands - these are the ancestors of CHG Chair Kay McMeekin

Price, Rolinson and Yates, related families from the West Midlands came to Cumnock, to work as miners. Some stayed for generations, others for just a while and went south again or moved on to Lanarkshire or Kirkintilloch in Dunbartonshire.  They were all Holmes descendants.

First came Mary Ann Holmes and husband Joseph Price to North Ayrshire by 1851.

By 1871 her sister Jane Holmes and her husband John Rolinson, 2 sons and a lodger were in Kilnholm Place, Cumnock a couple of doors away from her sister Mary Ann Price. Jane’s son Matthew Rolinson had just married Mary Ann’s daughter Mary Ann Price (so they were first cousins) and they also were living next to the Prices. That marriage didn’t last, but that’s another story!

	Aaron Holmes		John Rolinson
Mary Ann Holmes &Joseph Price	Sisters	Jane Holmes & John Roilinson	Brother and sister	Ann Rolinson & Abraham Yates
Mary Ann Price m cousin Matthew Rolinson		brothers: James &  Matthew   Rolinson		Ben Yates & Sam Yates

In 1881 The Rolinsons were at 8 Glengyron Row in Cumnock but births of children in England in the intervening years showed they had gone back south. Son James Rolinson had married Emma Ball in in Dudley in 1873 and their first 2 children were born in that area in 1874 and 1877. In 1880, though, the wonderfully named Delilah Rolinson was born in Glengyron Row, Cumnock. By 1883 they were in Rotherham, Yorkshire (birth of my grandfather James) and by 1890 they were in Lanarkshire where they settled. The parents John Rolinson and Jane Holmes moved with them as far as I can see. Next door in 7 Glengyron Row were John and Jane’s son Emmanuel Rolinson with his wife, 4 children, a lodger Charles Dickens and brother-in-law Zechariah Jones age 17. Emmanuel and his wife and children returned to Walsall but Charles Dickens who married Fanny Price in 1883 and Zechariah Jones remained in Auchinleck.

Mrs Rolinson about 1890

The Prices were in Auchinleck. But John Rolinson’s sister Ann Rolinson and her husband Abraham Yates had also moved to Cumnock by 1873. They also lived in Glengyron Row which was a row of 44 houses up the Skares road built for miners about 1872 by Bairds. ( More about Glengyron Row here) I can only assume the promise of work and a house was what lured them all north.

They came mob-handed with friends and relations. Early marriages were from the within the larger group.  Gradually they integrated with neighbours, many of whom were incomers such as James Hancock from Cornwall who married Margaret Price in 1875.

There remain some unanswered questions.

How did they communicate with each other living hundreds of miles apart as the older generation were illiterate. Did they get someone to write on their behalf eg a teacher or minister? 

Did the mine owners have a recruitment drive in the West Midlands?

How did they manage to travel so far with small children? You hear of people walking hundreds of miles to find work.

There was a railway line that passed in front of Glengyron row.  Did they travel by train? Was there a halt there? The nearest station was the Dumfries House Station.

Most of the Prices stayed in the area. The Yates family too. One son Benjamin Yates moved to the mining village of Benwhat, above Dalmellington. Most were in Auchinleck.

There are parallels with the Cornish miners who arrived in Ayrshire late 1860s.