A search for physical traces on London streets

1825 map showing the streets to be demolished to make way for the St Katherine Docks*

One of the best ways to gain an understanding of the people who have gone before us is to walk a mile in their shoes. Just getting the lie of the land can help to piece their story together. If the places where they lived are still standing, so much the better. The outsides of the buildings show what they came home to and there may even be a chance to look inside if the current residents agree.

I went on such a quest in the early 2000s. My hopes were high that the pub my grandparents had once run and raised their family in was still standing. But it was too late. The pub was gone, pulled down and another building erected in its place. But that is the problem with many cities including London, land is precious and progress often demands that it be repurposed. 

My visit did help to get a better idea of the East End street where the pub used to be and the proximity to the dock yard which probably provided the majority of their clientele although that dock yard no longer serves the great cargo ships as it once did. That day I couldn't get a closer look at what remained of St Katherine Docks because the London Marathon was running along Upper East Smithfield which was at the end of the street where the pub had once been. Maybe next time I should check an event calendar as well. 

Although a search for physical traces didn't yield much useful information for my ancestor search, I ended up with a better idea of the area. That will be of help when I try to reconstruct their lives and times through the written sources. 

 Dock Street, the Cable & Wireless building is where the pub used to stand

Image:

By St. Katharine Dock Company - Unknown, Public Domain,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7203365 

 

Looking in London

Italian Garden, Hyde Park, London

London is a top vacation spot. The city teems with tourists most days of the year and there appears to be no off season. It offers much to see and do for people with many different interests. One of my favourite spots in the city is Hyde Park; a glimpse of country in a city of concrete and brick. Of course, there many other places to visit, like the theatres and museums and the British Library, to name a few.

What really strikes me about the city, however, are its layers. They are visible in the skyline, the London Eye and buildings like the Gherkin standing out against more aged facades. These modern new structures have been added on top of a cityscape that reaches far back into history. So far back that archeologists are called in before the digging starts to put up new structures because they never know what priceless pieces of the historical record will be buried at the site. 

A view of the London Eye, Boudicca's statue and tourists

 

My London ancestral hunt may not go as far back as those archeological treasures, at least to my current knowledge, but given the sheer volume of people and the patchiness of the records to be searched, it is not a hunt to be undertaken lightly. I need luck on my side as I work my way back through the history of my London ancestors. 

 

 

Those Left Behind: The effects of war on a Scottish island

War memorial at Port Ellen, Islay

 

When we think of war and loss the tendency is to think of the fighting men and women who died or whose lives were altered by their experiences, not those who are safely left behind to their normal everyday lives. But there were also losses for those who stayed behind as well as the very real possibility that the family member who had gone off to war would not return.

 

The Hunter family of Glenegedale farm had one son to give to the war effort and one to stay and work the farm. John Hunter signed up on December 11, 1915. His older brother, Lachlan, stayed behind on the farm with their mother and sisters.

 

The Hunters were long term tenants at Glenegedale. Typical of the Scottish system of land holding, those who owned the land let it out to tenant farmers. Landlords generally owned huge swathes of land and tenancies were handed down through families. Lachlan and John's father, Ronald, had bequeathed his interest in the lease of Glenegedale to his wife, Mary and his two sons, Lachlan and John. Handing down of the lease must have been going on for generations as I found rental lists for Glenegedale farm back to 1733. There were Hunters on the rental list for the farm since that date.

 

So, a settled life, almost as good as owning the land although there was no room for expansion. Many heeded the call of immigration. But there was a core line of the Hunter family that got to stay on Islay at Glenegedale farm. 

 

Change came to the Hunter family with WWI when John Hunter enlisted in 1915. He was killed in action in August, 1918, a corporal in the Princess Louise's, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Sadly, he predeceased his mother, Mary. She died in 1919 and left Lachlan as the sole tenant of the Hunter portion of Glenegedale farm.

 

Perhaps Lachlan would have stayed a farmer at Glenegedale for all his days but for the progress of the 20th century spurred on by another war. When it was determined that an airport was needed on Islay, it was opened at Glenegedale in 1935. At first planes landed on the grass but improvements were needed when troops moved on to Islay during WWII. Paved runways were laid down. 

 

The valuation rolls show that Lachlan Hunter was still a tenant at Glenegedale farm in 1941 but a fellow tenant was Western Isles Airways Ltd. That doesn't seem like a comfortable fit for a traditional farm, does it? From what I could see, there is no traditional farming done at Glenegedale farm at the present time. I have the feeling that Lachlan was gradually muscled off of the land - a further casualty of war and change. 

 

 A view of  Glenegedale Airport

 

Sources:

 

Ancestry.com, British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

 

Islay Airport History https://www.islayinfo.com/islay-airport.html

Valuation Rolls, Museum of Islay Life, Port Charlotte, Islay