On the night of the 16th of April 1907, two tragic deaths happened at Ferniegair, these deaths were not connected to one another, but both very tragic & unfortunate.
David Barrie who was only age 15 and was employed at Allanton Colliery as a Haulage man had not long finished his shift and was heading out to play a game of football with his friends.
At the time of David’s death, he lived at 11 Allanton Terrace in Ferniegair and had he was killed only yards from his front door. Crossing the Lesmahagow branch line of the Caledonian Railway, he crossed at the section between Allanton & Hamilton Rows to get to the football field where he was struck by a passenger train and he was killed instantly.
David was said to have been a very bright and kind pleasant boy and his parents were said to have been totally grief stricken.
Entrance to Allanton & Hamilton Rows.
His mother later wrote a notice of thanks in the Hamilton Advertiser for the many bunches of flowers sent to the family. Hamilton & Allanton Row’s have long been demolished and the area where they once stood has been reclaimed by woodland, the Lesmahagow branch of Caledonian railway was closed to passengers on the 4th of October 1965 and was reopened 40 years later as the Larkhall to Hamilton branch on the 9th of December 2005.
The second death to occur on that same night was that of John Nisbet age 38.
John Nisbet, also, of Ferniegair was a brushing contractor working at Ross Colliery. He and another workman had been working deep underground in the pit when he set 3 charges of dynamite for the purpose of blasting.
Having fired the fuse, they both ran off to a safe distance to wait on the charges going off and having what they mistakenly thought was 3 charges detonating, it unfortunately turned out to be only two, one of the charges must have caused an echo.
John went to proceed and check that his work had been successfully completed and went forward to examine the section of the mine when the third explosion detonated late. John’s head was completely blown off.
In 1907, accidents were frequent in Hamilton’s coal mines and only 4 days prior to this, another man was killed at the same colliery.
Both David Barrie & John Nisbet are buried at the Bent Cemetery side by side each other, one notable feature of the headstones is that John’s still looks good to this day and David’s has been weathered away. This tells us that John being killed while at work likely had his headstone paid for by the Ross colliery and David’s would have been paid for by the family.
Hamilton objects are scattered all across the world and that’s a fact! They turn up everywhere and I was delighted when a lady named Kim got in touch with me and told me that an old food jar had turned up at her charity shop in Dumfries.
Kim was looking to put a value on the old Hamilton Jar and as I collect anything that’s old and comes from Hamilton, I offered to buy the jar from the charity shop, so the next Saturday after I spoke with Kim, I got in my car and did the one-hour drive down to Dumfries to collect this old relic of Hamilton.
Hamilton during the 19th century had its fair share of grocers, none more popular or larger than Keith’s, who was the largest of them all and William Cowan was one of the smaller local Hamilton grocers but I have to say, William Cowan’s grocery shop was a shop that I have never heard of, so I decided to find out who William Cowan was.
I found that William was actually born in 1848 at Moffat in Dumfriesshire, just up the road from where the jar was donated to the charity shop. William lived here with his parents until his father got a job as a railway porter in Hamilton.
William, born on the 19th of July 1848 at a place called Middlegill near Moffat, Dumfriesshire to parents Hope Johnstone Cowan & Janet McCaughie, his father was a railway porter, and his mother was the home maker.
By 1851 William is living with his mother and siblings in Moffat, however, on that day that the census was taken, his father does not seem to be living with them. I did find a man called Johnson Cowan working as a farm laborer living and working at Whitecastles Farm in Dumfriesshire, however, I can’t confirm if this is the same person as Hope Johnson Cowan.
The family made the move to Hamilton between 1850 & 1853 and we next find the Cowan family on the 1861 census where the family are living at Burnbank Road, the Cowan family had grown, and William had eight siblings two of them were twins.
At this time, William, aged 12 had left school and is working as a grocer’s message boy, and we find his dad working locally as a railway porter. Burnbank at this time was not yet joined to the wider Hamilton but was more of a rural community, this was before the three large coal pits were opened at Greenfield, Earnock & Clyde which changed Burnbank forever.
At some point between 1861 & 1871, William is living away from his family at Beith in Ayrshire, and it is possible that he has found himself an apprenticeship with a local grocers merchant and it is sometime around 1871 that he meets a local Hamilton girl called Jessie Hamilton.
Jessie Hamilton was five years older than William and at the age of 30 when she married him and at the time this was quite the age, William five years younger at twenty-five was also considered to be married at an older age, perhaps they both had concentrated on building their businesses and time had simply just drifted by.
Jessie Hamilton was the daughter of shop keeper, her father was James Hamilton, and he was a Master Baker employing 3 men & 2 boys and one of these boys was none other than William Cowan’s wee brother Hope Cowan who was employed as an apprentice baker. There is a possibility that this is how William & Jessie met.
The Hamilton family lived at 89 Townhead Street and were wealthy enough to have a servant and all of Jessie’s siblings whose ages ranged between the mid-twenties to the mid-thirties.
On the twenty fourth of August 1872 tragedy struck William Cowan’s family when his mum passed away at the age of 54. She had been suffering from an illness for the past eight years and had succumbed to it. William’s father had also recently become a Goods Agent for the Caledonian Railway Company, so it was bittersweet times for the family. William, who was still living at Beith travelled up to Hamilton and he was the person who registered his mother’s death.
William’s father remarried on the twenty fourth of November 1875 when he met a woman from Partick in Glasgow, her name was Margaret McKay, and there is a possibility that none of his kids had attended the wedding as none appeared to have been witnesses recorded on the marriage certificate.
By 1875 William & Jessie had returned from Beith and back to Hamilton, they had started their own family, and they now had little James, Margaret & Jessie and it’s in these names that I suspect that William did not have a great relationship with his father.
The first-born son usually takes the name of the fathers’ father; however, James was named after Jessies dad. The second daughter Margaret was named after Jessie’s mother and the third daughter named Jessie, possibly after William’s mum, or could it have been named after his wife Jessie? There could be another possibility that Jessie was the boss in the house, and she decided on the names of the children. Back in these days it was typically the man who named the newborn.
When William and Jessie arrived in Hamilton they rented at a house in Miller Street, where they lived and grew their family and William opened his first shop with its own cellar at 2 Duke Street in Hamilton’s New Cross (Which later became the Royal Hotel) where the popularity of his choice of foods allowed him to then expand and have another outlet at Low Waters which would have been a small outlet but nonetheless, Low Waters was a long walk down to Hamilton Town Centre, so he brought the shop to the people that lived a more rural life up the hill.
William’s life away from his work, he was an ardent gospel-temperance worker and a well-known figure on the evangelistic platform and was a member of St. John’s Church and he eventually was appointed to eldership and did great work in various capacities for the St, John’s congregation.
On two occasions William sought to enter the Town Council as a temperance candidate, but was unsuccessful on both occasions, however still wanting to do good for Hamilton, he was made Justice of the Peace for Lanarkshire and notability he was appointed to take evidence in the famous Coatbridge Case.
William Cowan’s shop was known for providing quality foods, locally sourced and some imported, he sold items such as Tea, Sugar, Corn flour, Barley Rice & Peas, Irish Butter, Ham, Smoked Hams, Jellies & Marmalades & Biscuits and households who placed orders and lived a bit further away could have their provisions delivered by William Cowans very own horse & carts.
William Cowan had firmly established his new business in Hamilton and by 1878 he lived at 99 Quarry Street, he was a popular Grocer & Provision Merchant, and he must have been doing well as he employed two men & 2 boys, he even had a servant living with the family named Grace Cross.
Number 99 Quarry Street today is used as an office building for a lawyer, but back in William’s day, it was a two-story charming townhouse, and it had enough space for his family & servants.
Tragedy was to strike the family again when on the 8th of November 1878 William & Jessie’s son William died at the house on 99 Quarry Street. The poor boy was only five years, six months old when he died of diarrhea.
By June 1887, Quarry Street had a new modern building constructed and to commemorate the coronation of Queen Victoria, this new building was given the appropriate name of Victoria Buildings.
There was quite a number of established businesses who quickly made the move into the new grand Victoria Buildings and William Cowan was one of the first. He rented two units which were 25 & 27 Quarry Street and the move to the busy bottom cross was underway.
William regularly advertises the move of his business all the way up to November that year, so perhaps his decision to move premises further down the road was not working out for him. Why did he need to put out so many adverts in the Hamilton Advertiser, did his custom not follow him, or was he just not getting enough customers through the door to sustain the high rents that he was paying.
By 1891, we next find that William & Jessie have moved out of their central townhouse on Quarry Street and they have moved to Fernlea on Park Road and this is when the family go through some tough times that begin with his wife Jessie passing away of breast cancer.
Jessies was 51 years old and she had been suffering the illness for the past year. She died on the 26th of August 1892 at Fernlea and this was just the beginning of Williams grief when William’s father Hope later died on the 20th May 1895 at 13 John Street and William is the person who registers the death.
Tragically, William’s youngest daughter Agnes Marie dies 1st May 1901 at Fernlea, she had been suffering from tuberculosis, the past 10 years had been relentless for William.
William did find love again and eventually remarried three years after his wife’s passing. He met a woman from East Bowhill Farm in Cummertrees, Cumnock called Barbara Rae, who was a farmer’s daughter. Barbara was fifteen years younger than William and she lived quite far away from Hamilton, so it is a possibility that her father was a supplier of dairy products to William and this is how they met. They went on to have two sons, one called William-Rae and the other Fergus. On the day that Fergus was born the 1901 census of Hamilton was being taken and the enumerator recording the 1901 Census had knocked on the family’s door when the baby boy was only 6 hours old, he was yet to be named.
William & Barbara decided to leave Park Road and Hamilton for good, they sold up their properties and left for Canada, William would never return to Hamilton, nor Scotland again. He had members of his family who had previously emigrated to Canada and were very successful which may have been some of his siblings and this may have been why William made the decision to emigrate.
Barbara starts the journey to Canada and she leaves on a ship called the SS Corinthian which sails from Greenock to Montreal, Quebec and it arrives 7th of June 1904, accompanying her on the journey are their kids James, Margaret, Rae & Fergus. Jessie stays behind with her father to help wind up their properties & businesses. In late August 1904 William and Jessie boarded the SS Pretorian and they arrive at Montreal, Qubec Canada on the 5th of September of that year, they would never return to Hamilton.
William Cowan settled in Canada very quickly and he became embedded in the community and I never seen any evidence that he stayed in the business of being a Grocer & Tea Merchant but when he arrived in Toronto, he worked for the Toronto Pharmacal Co. He was prominently known in church circles and was a member of the parochial board which administered the poor law.
William seen out his last days in Toronto, Canada and on the 28th of December 1910 he was struck down with a urinary tract infection, he passed away at his home, 216 Cottingham Street. He was laid to rest at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto which was only a short walk from his house.
William’s second wife Barbara was devoted to William and before her death, she did return to Scotland in May 1932 and arrives at Greenock, she has her son William Rae Cowan, who is now 33 and is working as an engineer, she is now 69 years of age.
The last trace that I found of Barbara and her son William was in July 1934 when we see them returning back to Canada on a ship called the SS Duchess of York that sailed from Greenock.
During WW2 the SS Dutchess of York was recommissioned by the Royal Navy as a troopship and used early in the war to transport Canadian soldiers to Britan, returning to Canada carrying RAF crew & German prisoners of war. In 1943 she was attacked by enemy aircraft and all but 27 people were saved, the ship burning and badly damaged the ship was sunk by the Royal Navy the next day, she now lies at the bottom of the ocean.
Barbara returned from Scotland to the family home of 216 Cottingham Street, Toronto after being in Scotland for the past two years, she died in 1939 and is buried alongside William, along with their daughter Jessie & son James.
Today the grand large house of 216 Cottingham Street still stands and thanks to Google Maps, we can see the last residence of William Cowan, Hamilton’s Family Grocer & Tea Merchant.
On Saturday the 29th of November 1930, Mr Thomas Mason of Burnbank appeared in the Hamilton Advertiser.
This was a special picture, as there were 4 generations that appeared alongside him. Mr Mason had resided in Burnbank for over 60 years and pictured with him was his daughter Mrs Love, who was the mother to her two married daughters, Mrs Frew & Mrs Edgar. Also appearing in the picture was Mr Mason’s grandchildren, they all resided in Burnbank.
When I looked further to see what became of Mr Mason, I found that he died only a year later on the 3rd of December 1931. He was born at Shettleston and when he lived in Burnbank, he resided at 6 Crawford Street.
Mr. Mason was married three times in his life. His wives were called Agnes Smith, Rachael Allan or Chapman & Jeanie McPherson.
Do you think that you are related to any of the people mentioned? If you do, please let us know what became of the family.
Five years ago today, the Hamilton Advertiser covered the story of Historic Hamilton. It was my 1 year anniversary of setting up the Facebook page & website and to celebrate, I put together a small video to showcase all of the fantastic pictures that you all had sent in over the first 12 months.
Back then, when the Advertiser asked to write my story, for me it was a proud moment as I had always backed the Hamilton Advertiser and I loved the fact that our town had its very open newspaper based in Hamilton that brought us all the local weekly news of the area.
Since then Historic Hamilton has brought to you hundreds of of old forgotten Hamilton stories. All of the things that I write about tells you about Hamilton’s past, good & bad! I have researched many people’s family history and reunited people who lost touch many years ago. I have told you about old Hamilton Buildings long gone and today we have readers from all over the world who frequently come to my Website & Facebook page.
For those who never managed to read the story, the Advertiser hosted it on their parent company, the Daily Record website (Link Below). Perhaps it’s time to make another short video and share the memories that Historic Hamilton has brought you all over the past six years. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the Facebook page over the last six years and to all who have sent me their old pictures. I have a long term plan to run the website and everything that is sent to me is hosted for future generations to see.
Garry McGowan sent us this snapshot in time of the Milton Terrace swing Park. For those who don’t know, Milton Terrace is a street in the Jungle in Burnbank. The picture was taken in the 1960’s.
Do you have an old Hamilton picture that you would like to share? If you do, then please send them over to us and I will share your picture on the Historic Hamilton Facebook Page and Website.
Garry McGowan sent us this fantastic picture of the Burnbank Windsor Social Club members. Garry told us: “This is a photo taken possibly in the late thirties of the Burnbank Windsor Social Club,centre in the white T-Shirt is Tam McGowan (Joe Gans),Walter McGowan the boxers dad. Three boys in the front seated are my dad Bill McGowan (at right) and his brothers Hughie and Tommy McGowan”.
James Mason went on to tell us that this picture was actually taken at the Caledonia Pub at Montrose in 1937. This pub still stands today and i have attached a recent picture.
Caledonia Bar in Montrose.
Do you have an old Hamilton picture that you would like to share with us? If you do, then please send them in.
Tracey Tomlinson got in touch as she was trying to do some family research for a friend, and she asked:
“Hi Garry, please could you advise me I am trying to help a lady from Lithuania trace her ancestry graves and any history. I have names and believe they lived in Burnbank. Any advice would be much appreciated.
The Information the lady gave me is as follows. Burnbank near Hamilton family Vincas Jankauskas: Scottish names 3 brothers William, Anthony and yosef. And she only knows that there is a death in 1902. This I’m afraid is all she has; I would be most grateful of any help. Regards Tracey.”
HI Tracey,
So, unfortunately, I never found any trace if this family living in Burnbank or Hamilton, so I cannot give you any help with narrowing down a Burnbank-Hamilton connection. The name Jankauskas is not a common one in the area and I did find some connections with this family name! Here is what I found.
In 1911, there was three Russian families living at 7 & 8 Monkey Rows in Hollytown/Carnbroe. The family with the Jankauskas surname was Evea (25), Antanas (31) & Tonas (20). The other families living here went by the names of Granas? & Orbanawwich? I put question marks next to these names as I am uncertain of the correct spelling.
In 1906, I found the death of a 1-year-old girl, who was called Ona Jankauskas and her father was called Autauas? (could be the same person from the 1911 Census). This wee girl died at 71 Whifflet Street in Coatbridge.
I then found a 71-year-old man who went by the name of Francius Jankauskas who died at 48 Wingate Street in Wishaw in 1947.
Other names with the surname of Jankauskas that I found in Scotland are as follows:
Magdalene Jankauskas Married John Maczulaitis in Kilbirnie 1900.
ANNA JANKAUSKAS Married HUGH HERON Glasgow 1982.
LAURA JANKAUSKAS Married MARK ANDREW Perth 2011.
RIMA JANKAUSKAS Married BALLAV KARKI in Gretna 2012.
RASA JANKAUSKAS Married MUHAMMAD MUDASS BEGUM Gretna 2019.
RASA JANKAUSKAS Married MUHAMMAD MUDASS FAROOQI in Gretna 2019.
These are the names of Jankauskas that are closest to Hamilton and it could lead you to another clue with your research, however, as I cannot find a link to Hamilton, then I will have to leave my research at this point. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch and let me know if you find any other hard evidence of the family living in Hamilton and once again, thank you for your donation to the page.
Shannon Broughton from Toronto in Canada got in touch and asked:
“Hi Garry, I’ve been looking into our family history for my grandmother, and I’ve hit a block with her grandfather. His name was Peter McKie, and the only clue I have is that he lived at 14 Grammar School Square in Hamilton in 1921 when his daughter was born. Is there anything you can tell me about that address that might help me find out more about him? Thank you!.”
Hi Shannon, So, here is what I can tell you about Grammar School Square. If you have researched your family History and if some of your ancestors were living at Grammar School Square or Portwell, during the census, then this is how some of the houses & buildings at the auld toon would have looked between 1841 & 1901.
The Old Town of Hamilton, or better known to us locals as the ‘Auld Toon’ was an area built up on higher ground just up the road from the Hamilton Palace. Grammar School Square took its name form the old Grammar School that was built in 1714.
THE OLD GRAMMAR SCHOOL 1714-1848
THE OLD GRAMMAR SCHOOL 1714-1848
The old Grammar school No longer existing as an independent institution, Hamilton Academy had a history going back to 1588 when it was endowed by Lord John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Hamilton.
The school, then known as the Old Grammar School of Hamilton (not to be confused with the present Hamilton Grammar School) stood near the churchyard adjoining Hamilton Palace until in 1714 Anne Hamilton, 3rd Duchess of Hamilton, great-granddaughter of the Founder, re-located the school to a new building on the newly named Grammar School Square also in the lower part of the town, and presented this to the Town Council of Hamilton.
The Statistical Account of Lanarkshire of 1835 notes of this school building that it “is a venerable pile, near the centre of the town, containing a long-wainscoted hall, emblazoned with the names of former scholars, cut out in the wood, as at Harrow.
The old school building of 1714–1848 In 1847 this old school building on Grammar School Square was sold for £253 and survived until its demolition in 1932. So, this building would have been familiar to your 2 x great grandparents.
A plaque commemorating the site of the Old Grammar School of Hamilton (which was renamed Hamilton Academy in 1848) was commissioned by pupils of Hamilton Academy and unveiled by the Academy’s rector, David Anderson MC, on 21 March 1932 at a public ceremony in the presence of Academy pupils and teaching staff: the Provost and members of the Town Council, and members of Hamilton Civic Society.
Also, in the year 1885, 14 Grammar School Square was owned by his Grace, the Duke of Hamilton and the first tenants of the building was a man named Bernard MacCusker. At the rear of the building there was a man named John Robertson who owned a Bark Mill & Drying Shed.
I did have a look to see if I could find Peter in between censuses, however, the name appears in quite a few places. Can I ask was he a Hawker by Trade? During the time when Peter lived at Grammar School Square, it was a real poor place to live, it was damp, and people lived in cramped conditions and sometimes you would have 13 people in a family sharing the one room.
I myself had many family members who lived in Grammar School Square during this time and my family would have probably known your family.
When doing family research, we often hit what is called a “brick wall” and sometimes no matter how much you search, you will never find the people who you are looking for and the reason for this is because we have to rely on information provided in census returns, newspaper advertisements and so on and if the information is not there, then as we only go on facts, we hit the old brick wall.
Shannon, if I could give you any advice to track down your ancestor, it would be to expand your search and not get too hung up on the family living at Grammar School Square. In some instances, people lived at one address for a week and then in a house around the corner for a month two days later. This happened in my family and I sometimes found it hard to pin them down to one location.
Good luck with your family research and if you do see what become of the family, then let me know. And once again, thank you for your donation to Historic Hamilton, its much appreciated.
