John Mackenzie, Earlston Banker & A Man of Many Parts

" A man of high character as  a man of business, of  cultivated intellect,  and of literary tastes and aptitude"  - these were the words that described  Earlston banker John Mackenzie  In a tribute dinner in 1891.   

But who was John Mackenzie?  George Birbeck of Earlston Chess Club looked  to find out about this possible founder member of the Club,  and  his research forms the basis of this article.  

For in 1889  "The Chess Players Annual  and Club Directory" listed among 34 Scottish entries the Earlston entry, noting it had   12 members, and met in members' houses, with John Mackenzie, President.  (He was also  thought to be a founder member).

The census of 1881 lists three entries for the name John McKenzie/MacKenzie/Mackenzie  living in Earlston parish,

• John Mackenzie, aged 45, a farm servant of Cowdenknowes Mains Cottage, with his 15 year old son, of the same name, also a farm servant.
  
  Attention focused, however, on the third entry.

• John MacKenzie, aged 34, born in Inverness, writer and bank agent of Commercial Bank House, High Street, Earlston.   He was in a large household of nine that included his wife, Jane, two young sons, William, aged 4 and Alan  1, widowed mother aged 59, unmarried sister Isabella, unmarried sister in law, Ellen  McPherson, a cook and a housemaid. 
  
  High Street looking east, with the  Bank and Courthouse on the right. 
  The bunting could have been for the visit of Prime Minister Asquith in 1908. 

Ten years on in the 1891 census, it was a depleted family, with just John, Jane, 11 year old Alan, 9 year old Eleanor, plus two servants. 

The Royal Bank of Scotland Archives (successor to the Commercial Bank of Scotland)  confirmed that John Mackenzie  joined the bank in 1861 and  and was first listed as Manager in Earlston  in the 1881 Bank Directory,

A range of records showed that John quickly involved himself in the local community.  

"Slater's Royal National Directory of Scotland for 1882"  listed,  under the Earlston entry,  John Mackenzie, bank agent to the Commercial Royal Bank, but also:  

• Clerk to the Earlston School Board
• Secretary to Earlston Corn Exchange Company
• Treasurer of Earlston Curling Club 

 "The Southern Reporter" : 29th April 1880

Contemporary press cuttings in "The Southern Reporter" and "The Berwickshire News"  further testified to his involvement with:

• Earlston Reading Room 
• Earlston Volunteer Company
• Earlston Bowling Club  of which he was one of the early  presidents.  whose term of office was distinguished by the club's greatest success - the winning  first place in the Borders Bowling Tournament.
• Berwickshire Naturalists Club which was founded in 1831 to study the natural history and antiquities of the county. 
• Lauder Games in the role of Hon. Secretary   

"The Southern  Reporter" of June 11th 1891 featured a lengthy report on a "Complimentary dinner to Mr Mackenzie" on the occasion of his transfer back to Inverness, with fifty  gentlemen sitting  down to a meal at Newton's Hotel (the current Red Lion)   The chairman Colonel Hope of Cowdenknowes, proposed the toast, describing Mr Mackenzie as:

" A man of high character as  a man of business, of  cultivated intellect,  and of literary tastes and aptitude.  .........Mr Mackenzie had performed the duties of his office with great ability and unfailing courtesy and  had secured the respect and esteem of the community, gave much of his spare time to the promotion of all schemes for the public good". 

John Mackenzie died in Inverness in 1898, at 52 years of age. He spent only around eleven  years  in Earlston, but in that time he made his mark locally and can be well described as "A Man of Many Parts".   

But one puzzle remains,  despite intensive research, only one record has been found to confirm that John Mackenzie was President of Earlston Chess Club - and we can only make a fair assumption that that was John Mackenzie,  banker.

*********** 

Auld Earlston would be delighted to feature further articles on the village's past  from other contributors.  Please contact:  auldearlston@aol.com  

Life in Earlston in the1830's

We have a contemporary account of life in Earlston in the 1830's written  by the local Minister Rev. David William Gordon for  "The New Statistical Account of Scotland".  This was a project of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, whereby each parish minister was asked to write a chapter on his parish.  A similar project had taken place in the 1790's.  

The population of the parish was noted as 1710, with Earlston 847, Fans 147, Redpath 114, Mellerstain 202 and the country area 400. There were 357 families in the parish with 136 employed in agriculture.
 
The chief landowners were George Baillie Esq. of Jerviswood, Dr. James Home of Cowdenknowes, Captain Brown of Park and James Home Esq. of Carolside.
 
The wages of married farm labourers spanned £25 to £30 per annum. An unmarried male servant in the house received £9-£11, a female about £7. The current wage of women working in the field was 10d per day in summer and 8d in winter, whilst a man received 1s.8d and 1s.6d in winter. The chief kind of stock were Leicester sheep and short horned cattle. Land crops were principally oats, turnips, and barley.

There were two "manufactories" in the village.   Miss Whales and Company produced ginghams, merino,  shawls, muslins, furniture stripes, and shirtings,     All were wrought by hand loom weaving, affording employment to 50 weavers, with additional 16 posts to women and children. 

Upwards of 40 were employed at Mr Wilson's "manufactory", where  plaidings, blankets and flannels were made.  Men   earned 12s per week, and  children 2s.6d.  They worked eleven hours per day and "as yet no bad effect has appeared amongst the health and the morals of the workmen".

[Note:  1 shilling is equivalent to 5p today]

Three schools in the parish included Mellerstain where the teacher received a salary of £5 from Mr Baillie of Mellerstain House;  and the parochial school where the teacher's salary was £28.  Branches of instruction taught were extensive and spanned "English, reading, grammar, writing, arithmetic, practical mathematics, algebra,geometry, spherical trigonometry.   Latin, Greek, and French".  

Rev. Gordon noted that

The people are alive to the benefits of education and I know of no family in the village  from 6 to 15 years old who have not been taught to read".

The Parish Church at this time was undergoing repairs with seating envisaged for 650. The Manse had been built in 1814 and repaired in 1824. The numbers regularly attending the church was 400, and the average collection per year was £22. 

An illustration of the Parish Church, demolished in 1891.
From the collection of Auld Earlston. 

There were also two dissenting chapels in the parish.   

Among other institutions in the village were a subscription library, a Friendly Society for "affording relief to its sick members"  and a Saving Bank "for the lower classes of people", with about £100 in it.  

34 people were receiving parochial aid, with the average sum paid of 8s per month. 

Village benefactors included the \ate Mrs Baillie of Jerviswood who gave £30 for the "more frequent dispensation of our Lord's supper", £284 pounds from Mr Tod of Kirklands and an anonymous donor for the distribution of coal to the poor;  and from Mr. J. Wilson, Esq., surgeon  of Bombay £600 for the benefit of  the parochial school, and  £30 for teaching the children of the enrolled poor.   

Earlston was served by a Post Office and daily coach in each direction  between Edinburgh and Kelso.  The principal  fuel was coal brought in from Dalkeith some 20miles  away at the cost of 1shilling per hundredweight.  

For leisure time there were four  inns in Earlston and six other houses where ale and spirits  were sold.  

It was noted that "The climate ,,,,is universally acknowledged to be mild and thus, with a dry atmosphere  contributes to bestow upon the people considerable exemption from disease. Scarlet fever has appeared but seldom  since 1820."  

What was happening around Earlston and the World Outside in the 1830's ?

• IIn the 1830's a new turnpike road was completed - New Road (the present Thorn Street). 
• In 1832 Earlston Gas Works was built, with gas street lighting introduced in the village in 1838.  
• In 1832 Sir Walter Scott died, buried in Dryburgh Abbey.  
• Also in 1832 the newspaper "The Kelso Chronicle" was launched bringing "National, Foreign and Local Intelligence" to its readers.  
• William IV was King, with the young 18 year old Queen Victoria to succeed him in  1837.  
• 1834 was a turbulent year for government with three Prime Ministers - Lord Grey, Lord Melbourne, and Robert Peel. 
• The Scottish Reform Act of 1832 made wide ranging changes in election laws and mirrored a similar act for England and Wales. For the first time it extended the vote to men over 21 years old who met property qualification and increased the electorate from 5000 to 65,000 voters. 
• Slavery was abolished in most of the British Empire in an Act of 1832. 
• The first inter city rail line opened between Liverpool and Manchester - it was to be another 33 years before the railway arrived in Earlston.
• The first shipment of tea direct from India arrived in Glasgow.

**************

For more information on the Statistical Accounts of Scotland, click  HERE

In Case You Missed:  Click On:
Life in Earlston in the 1790's  
Life in Earlston in the Late 19th Century 

Auld Earlston would be delighted to feature short articles from contributors  on memories of the village's past.    

Please contact:  auldearlston@aol.com   

 

The Earlston Hospital that Never Treated a Patient.

Many hospitals in the Borders closed their doors after many years of service to the public. One thinks of  Peel, of  Dingleton, of Sister Margaret Cottage Hospital in Jedburgh, of Gordon Fever Hospital and many more.  

But one Border hospital,  four miles from Earlston,  

 closed without ever having had a patient through its doors. 

                       Not surprisingly, few people know much about it today.

A hundred years ago, “infectious diseases” were a special problem, and the Borders had several Fever Hospitals where patients with illnesses like diphtheria or typhoid could be admitted. There were fever hospitals  at Gordon, at Newstead, at Kelso, at Selkirk, at Millerhill (near Ayton), and at Meigle, Galashiels.

The most feared infectious disease was smallpox, which needed specialist isolation nursing, and the Public Health (Scotland) Act of 1897 allowed rural counties to group together to provide smallpox facilities. The cities could create special hospital facilities as part of their fever hospitals, but in rural areas transport was a problem. A horse and cart had to be used, since the railways refused to carry infectious patients (or so the Medical Officer of Health for Berwickshire said in his 1894 annual report.)

And so in 1906,  several local authorities combined to establish the “Border Combination Smallpox Hospital”. The town councils of Kelso, Lauder, Melrose, Duns and Coldstream and the West and Middle districts of Berwickshire were involved. Four acres of land “at or near Brotherstone Moor” were leased from Lord Polwarth. Other people referred to “Marchfield, near Smailholm,” and to "Boghouse".   If, instead of turning left on to the Mellerstain straight, you go to the right and walk down the farm lane, Boghouse is at the end of that lane.

 The site of the hospital today 

The Minute of Agreement setting up the hospital covered the building of “a house of reception for convalescents from smallpox”, and the appointment of a Medical Officer, a Clerk and Treasurer, “and others as necessary” to be paid “salaries as the board think proper”. (The 1908 accounts allowed £100 for a nurse, a doctor and a servant.) It made orders for “the destruction and disinfection of articles such as bedding and clothing”, and the “horsage” of an ambulance. 

It carefully worked out the costs of the enterprise – half to be paid by the local authority admitting the patient, and half to be paid by all the authorities on the basis of their populations. In the days when all other hospitals were run on a charity basis, it was important to establish who paid for what.

All the facts so far quoted are to be found in the archives at  the Heritage Hub at Hawick, as are rental bills for the hospital from 1919 to 1924. Beyond that, little is known for sure. I am told (but cannot be certain) that no patient was ever admitted to the hospital. When Earlston's Dr John Young was responsible for the establishment,  he would make regular visits, often taking his family for a summer country picnic there!

There is nothing in the records about a similar smallpox hospital for the counties of Selkirkshire and Peeblesshire;  there is nothing to confirm the rumour that the hospital was never used, and there is no indication of when the ghost hospital closed.

The World Health Organisation declared smallpox extinct in 1979.

Another view of the hospital site today.

With thanks to  Dr. John Burns of Earlston, who contributed this article.  

Auld Earlston would be delighted to feature further articles on the village's past  from other contributors.  Please contact:  auldearlston@aol.com   

***********


  

Earlston's "Gingham Tam" - Thomas Gray

Gingham manufacturer,  renowned antiquarian and a popular Border fiddler - all the accomplishments of Thomas Gray. of Earlston, known  in his day variously as  "Gingham Tam",  "Tam of Earlston",  "Earlstoun Tommy",  and "A Modern  Thomas of Ercildoune".

The photograph above  from  the Auld Earlston collection is captioned:  
"Thomas Gray, (1856-1910), Manufacturer of Gingham - a cotton fabric originally made in India Gray.  He  lived in Earlston and was a well-known Border fiddler"

Often mentioned in connection with gingham production in Earlston are the Whale sisters, Christian and Marion, whilst  Thomas Gray  is a much less well-known figure.

Who was Thomas Gray?   
The dates in the photograph caption  posed an immediate question, as no record could be found on the standard ancestry research websites of a Thomas Gray with those dates, and the conclusion is drawn that they must be incorrect.  

The first record which offered some clue was an entry in the 1881 census which listed a Thomas Gray, a gingham manufacturer born in Earlston, unmarried,  and  living on his own at Kilnknowe Head, Earlston,  aged 85, so born c.1796. 

Given Thomas's  late age, his death was soon traced and newspaper articles gave an indication of  his life and character.

The Berwickshire News of 8th January 1884 announced: 

 

The death certificate was traced on the ScotlandsPeople website and gave the information that:  Thomas Gray, gingham manufacturer died on 5th January 1884 at Salt Green, Eyemouth, following a fall;   aged 88, son of Thomas Gray weaver and Margaret Runciman;  the informant was his nephew William Brown of Earlston. 

An obituary in "The Kelso Chronicle:  1st February 1884 gave the fullest account of his life - in an article that first appeared in  " The Haddingtonshire Courier." 

"With the passing away of his life,  this "ancient man"  and finely curious character, another link past and present  is severed;   and notably figures ceases from the round to long and faithfully trodden........ The family of which he was the last survivor  had some note in their day,  as manufacturers, in a small way, of ginghams;  and Thomas's chosen part was to traverse  the country distributing these wares. His beat at one time was quite an extensive one  embracing customers in the three Lothians as well as the counties on both sides of the Borders....mostly on foot,  he did not disdain a lift by rail.......His well known antique figure with a pack behind and the fiddle slung in front, was a familiar object in our streets....and his appearance never failed to excite interest."  

Further research in the census returns, confirmed Thomas's itinerant lifestyle, as he was a frequent visitor to Haddingtonshire [East Lothian], described in every case  as a manufacturer of Earlston.    In 1851 he was visiting Margaret Nisbet, a 66 year old baker,  in Tranent';   in 1861 a retired farmer and his cousin at Long Yester, Gifford Farm House,   and ten years later in 1871  he was with a young couple Robert and Emily Brotherstone at Gifford.  The Brotherstone name  was well known  as blacksmiths. in Earlston and nearby Redpath. 


Thomas was also listed as a gingham manufacturer in "Rutherfurd's Southern Counties Register  & Directory,published  in 1866, and in Slater's Directory of 1882.
Following Thomas's death, local newspapers threw further light on his interests, with references to the sale of his books and antiquities which took place in February 1884. 

 In July the same year, his property on Kirkgate was sold.  

Fourteen years later, in  "The Border Magazine" of 1898, Robert Anderson of Edinburgh  wrote a tribute to Thomas Gray.

 The author wrote that  Thomas went on

"his regular rounds with his pack and his fiddle to dispose of his ginghams, the quality of which was proverbial........Many a lady of high degree  did not think it beneath her to purchase a dress piece from the old worthy and to get in return a blessing and tune on his fiddle.

With only the early education which the parish school of that day afforded, he managed by diligent application to cultivate his intellect to such an extent that he became known in his own neighbourhood and far remote for his learning and intimate knowledge of  of the leaders in literature. He possessed upwards of 2000 books. .......His capacious pockets used to hold at least two or three favourite volumes,  on which he might be seen poring over  while resting by the way."

                                 ,,, 




            

An Earlston street name sign reminds us of the village's past, in which

                                Thomas Gray  
          "this remarkable man and grand old Borderer"  
                                 played a part. 

*********

In Case You Missed: Click Below: 

The Textile Mills of Earlston

*********

Note:

Much of this information was traced using standard reference material of census returns and directories, conducting a Google search and accessing searchable British Newspapers that are available online and feature Border titles:   

• British Newspaper Archive
  
• Find My Past
  
• Genes Reunited
  

The Heritage Hub at Hawick holds microfilm copies of old Border newspapers.  However these are not indexed and you do need to have a good idea of a date to search for a specific item i.e. month and year. 

***********