Hairs Millers and McKerrows to Australia

By Kay McMeekin

The extended family of Hair/McKerrow/Miller left on three different sailings to Alberton near Melbourne in Australia over 4 years.

William Hair, a muslin weaver, and several of his children left Cumnock for Australia in the 1850s.  Weaving was in decline in Scotland at this time. 

First to go in 1853 were two related families: Miller brothers one of whom was married to a daughter of William Hair. Cumnock weaver  John Miller 1814-1896 and his wife Jean Ronald and 5 children  sailed from Wemyss in Fife on the Fortune. An infant daughter Janet died on the journey. They arrived on 2nd May 1853 and settled in Scone, New South Wales where they had 2 more children.His younger brother Andrew Miller, 29 his wife Jane Hair and their 2 small children Helen  4 and William 2 sailed with them. .  John paid £8 for him and his family for the voyage and Andrew paid £5, They were assisted passages. The Millers changed the spelling of their name to Millar in Australia.

Next in 1854 were  three of Jane Hair's brothers  emigrated on the Hilton: John Hair his wife Helen MacDonald and their daughter Jane. They sailed on the Hilton out of Liverpool and were engaged by J S Carey in Alberton for 6 months. They arrived  in Melbourne on 7 July 1854. John Hair married Helen MacDonald in 1841 and they had two daughters. In the 1851 census they were living at Elbow Lane with 8 lodgers. Maybe they were running a lodging house as there were several in Elbow Lane. He was a labourer and chimney cleaner.  The younger daughter Agnes must have died soon after as she didn't go with them to Australia in 1854.

On the same sailing were his younger brother Robert Hair, a farm labourer,  and his new wife Christina Lees. They were also going to Alberton but it's not clear who engaged them.

The Hilton which arrived on 7 Jul 1854 had 481 government assisted places as reported in the Argus

Skip to 1857 and father William Hair, the third brother William McMillan Hair and his new wife Jane Muir, sister Margaret and her husband George McKerrow all sailed on the Black Eagle leaving Liverpool on 1 March 1857  and arriving 6 Jun 1857, a journey of over 3 months. William and Jane don't appear to have had any children.

Also Robert Girvan  and Agnes McMillan (niece of William Hair's wife Jean McMillan) emigrated to Australia on the Emma in arriving in Port Jackson, Sydney on 31 Jan 1857. Their daughter Agnes died on the journey.  They went to New South Wales.

William McMillan Hair seems to have done well for himself. He had an estate of £13,000 and  he left £500 to the church, £1000 to William McKerrow and amounts of £100-£300 to various relations in Scotland and Australia.

Several members of the family moved to Kalgoorlie in Western Australia after gold was found there in 1893. Robert Lees Hair found success there. He was an auctioneer, estate agent, gold prospector and the first chairman of Kalgoorlie stock exchange.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_West_Australia/Robert_Lees_Hair

The Lodging Houses of Elbow Lane 1900s - Bryan

By Elaine Corbett

 David Bryan was a carter by trade, and by 1901 he was running a lodging house with his wife Martha Brown Bryson Bryan. Martha was a widow, her first husband died at 39 from a heart condition. The household in 1901 shows David, Martha, five of Martha's children, and Marion 9 months old, and David and Martha's daughter. 

Along with family members there were 12 boarders.

Name	Age	Place of Birth	Occupation
Agnes Murray	26	Moffat	Servant
Sabina Jane Cameron	18	Durham	Servant
Thomas Green	62	Longford, Ireland	Plasterers Labourer
Joseoh Murray	36	Lough, Ireland	General Labourer
John Kelly	33	Staffordshire	General Labourer
Robert Benner	35	Yorkshire	General Labourer
Patrick Mooney	37	Glasgow	General Labourer
James Sullivan	46	Dublin	General Labourer
Alexander Brown	60	Dumfries	Gardener
Jonathan Walker	63	Chapelhall, Lanarkshire	Joiner
William Murray	36	Dumfries	General Labourer
William King	64	Co.Antrim, Ireland	General Labourer

By 1911 the Bryan family had moved to Lugar St. and David was a shopkeeper/confectioner. At the time of his death he was in Ayr, proprietor of a temperance hotel on Kyle Street, along with a shop.

more to follow.

Lodging Houses of Elbow Lane 1900s - Muirhead

Elaine Corbett 

Elizabeth Muirhead was the mistress of the lodging house in 1901. Her son William was also involved in the running. 

In the post relating to the Lowther family, the Muirheads are described as coming from Cumberland and making a crossover between travelling folk and miners. Note in the list of residents below  how many pedlars there are.

Between them they housed thirty-five people. The 1901 census gives their occupations mainly as General Labourers.

 

Name	Age	Place of Birth	Occupation
Robert McGregor	64	Edinburgh	Pedlar
Anne McGregor	74	England
Thomas Smith	54	England	General Labourer
Rpbert Toole	42	England	General Labourer
Philip Colin	73	Ireland	General Labourer
John Campbell	41	Banfshire	General Labourer
John Higgins	25	Ireland	General Labourer
John Dunn	25	England	General Labourer
John Girvan	54	Ireland	General Labourer
John Clark	55	Ireland	Pedlar
Eliza Clark	55	Perth	Pedlar
John Smith	75	Ireland	Coal Miner
Andrew Johnstone	47	Kilmarnock	Masons Labourer
Samuel Shanes	24	Stewart Newtown	General Labourer
James Mitchell	30	Dumfries	General Labourer
Michael Carrick	87	Ireland	General Labourer
James Connor	41	England	Coal Miner
James Larkin	45	Ireland	General Labourer
Robert Kennedy	28	Ireland	General Labourer
John Neil	65	Renfrew	General Labourer
John Thomson	48	England	General Labourer
Robert Feasie	42	Ireland	Cork Cutter
John Wilson	32	England	General Labourer
James Robinson	50	Dundee	Shoemaker
Robert Lawson	52	Eaglesham	General Labourer
William Taylor	46	England	Pedlar
John Roberts	37	Wales	General Labourer
John Daly	27	England	General Labourer
Thomas McLean	47	Wigtownshire	Pedlar
Mary McClean	50	Wigtownshire
Patrick Dugan	24	Lanarkshire	Coal Miner
Maggie Dugan	26	Lanarkshire
Robert McEwing	60	Perth	Pedlar
Margaret McEwing	66	Ireland	Pedlar
William Fitzsimmons	62	Ireland	Pedlar

 

Lodging Houses of Elbow Lane 1900s

 Elaine Corbett

Link to the Cumnock History Group page

Detail showing the De’ils Elbow

In researching the life of Francis Carter it became clear that his was not the only boarding house in Elbow Lane. An extract from John Strawhorn’s New History of Cumnock.

The condition of them came under the scrutiny of the Burgh because of the outbreaks of Typhoid, and the general state of cleanliness that should be maintained with such a large number of people and the provision of sanitation that they required for good health. Around 1890, laws were passed intended to regulate the standards of lodging houses in the UK and the Burgh was tasked with their policing. Piped water had been supplied, and connections were made to sewers, but there was no obligation for any resident to connect a flushing lavatory unless there was a complaint of nuisance.

The eight lodging houses above were researched through the 1901 census. None of the lodgers appear to have stayed in the Cumnock area for very long. 

There remains many unanswered questions about these places; 

Did the lady of the house provide meals? If so, they would have to be high in calories to sustain the hard physical labour that her lodgers undertook at the mine.

Where did the returning miners get a bath? There was no provision at the pit head, and home baths would need a lot of hot water for all the menfolk. The houses in Old Cumnock would have had piped water by the 1860s but whether this included flushing lavatories is yet another question. The Sanitation Inspector notes in his report found on the Francis Carter post how the ash pits were in somewhat of a poor state.

The miners rows, as reported in 1913, had shared privies. Often several households shared one facility, and it seems to have usually been in a disgusting condition according to our modern niceties. Was it much the same in Elbow Lane?

Looking at the profiles of the people staying in the lodging houses, it becomes apparant that these people were very much an itinerant workforce. Few, if any seem to have set down roots. They were also predominantly single men, some getting on in years, and came from far and wide - and some as far as Auchinleck! (See individual posts for details)

1901 saw a lot of disparity in the miners’ wages across all parts of Britain, and it is easy to assume that these workmen felt no loyalty to a particular region, and would leave for better wages elsewhere either at home in the UK, or abroad.