On This Day

31st March 1871 - Maggie Sorley Beveridge, wife of William Lambie, is born in Calton, Glasgow.

31st March 1872 - Sarah Bridgeman, wife of William Lambie, is born in Gartsherrie, Lanarkshire.

31st March 1917 - John Weir scores in a 4-3 win over Ayr United at home for Third Lanark in front of 4000 fans.

31st March 1980 - Ambrose Percival Steinbeck, husband of Clara Lambie, dies and is buried at Fort Logan, Denver, USA. He is pictured below, courtesy of his US Navy WW1 file on Ancestry.com.

RAF Dinner 1944

This fabulous photo was taken around 1944 and features my maternal grandparents, Thomas D Ryan and Anni Lambie, 2nd & 3rd from left in the front row nearest the camera. Thomas was serving in the Meteorological Department of the RAFVR stationed at Sullom Voe and became a geography teacher post WW2.

On This Day

30th March 1888 - Claude Lambie (father of 'The Activist') marries Marion Leishman in Glasgow.

On This Day

29th March 1890 - Claude Lambie scores for Burnley at home in a 1-3 loss to Bolton Wanderers in a friendly match.

29th March 1930 - Claude Lambie (Father of 'The Activist') son of James and Jane Paterson, dies in Hillhead, Glasgow.

29th March 1944 - F/O TD Ryan is promoted to Flight Lieutenant in RAFVR.

29th March 1951 - Mary McGourty dies at 42 Merryland Street, Glasgow aged 64 years.

Patrick Boylan - Woolwich Arsenal FC

And amazingly ANOTHER photo of Patrick Boylan has appeared from the mists of time!! He is sitting second row, 2nd from the left. Woolwich Arsenal FC 1896/1897.

On This Day

28th March 1889 - James Lambie, son of Alexander and Janet Scott, marries 2nd wife Jessie Finlay in Glassford.

28th March 1937 - Linton Lloyd Williams, father of Davina Weir, is born in St. Thomas, Jamaica.

McTavish Family in WW1

Thanks to some excellent results from recent research I have been in regular contact with our extended MCTAVISH family. Thanks to Thomas McTavish for sending me this photo of his grandfather, THOMAS NELSON MACTAVISH. 

He had served in WW1 in the Argyle & Sutherland Highlanders, joining up at 14 and was wounded by gunshot to the wrist in 1917. Thomas says.."7 days a week Grandad used to walk from George Street to the War Memorial at Oban, to think of his friends on the memorial that he lost, he was a great man , he had his Highland character and was a strong highlander."

On This Day

27th March 1868 - Catherine Weir, daughter of John and Rachel Murphy, dies of TB in Airdrie, aged 19.

27th March 1903 - William Lambie, son of John and Elizabeth Ingram, marries Mary Kinloch in Calton, Glasgow.

27th March 1963 - Denise Andrea Lambie, daughter of Allan Lockhart and Jeanette Houldsworth, is born in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire.

27th March 1963 - Calvin Arthur Lambie, son of Arthur Sheldon and Marie Belanger, is born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada.

The Redcoat

This East Surrey regiment tunic has been in our family since the 1960s and have found a photo of a Cpt R.King in the same uniform from the 1890s! 

My Granny Anni Lambie would regale me with stories as a child about an ancient ancestor who had worn it and had served in the Crimean War. However my uncle Drew confirmed that it was left behind at a party he had in the house in the 1960s, by his friend Paul Wade. As there was a branch of the East Surreys stationed in Glasgow in the 1890s, one wonders

if this is where it originated? Sadly we may never know, but nonetheless it is a much travelled and much treasured Lambie family heirloom, regardless of how it got there!

On This Day

26th March 1878 - Jeanie Lambie, daughter of Robert Reid Lambie and Mary Best, is born in Chapelton.

Kingston Shipyard, Port Glasgow

Here's a clipping from The Greenock Telegraph from 04/03/1899 and Claude Lambie being awarded a medallion at The Kingston Shipyard...Interestingly his brother Alexander was a Shipyard Manager at the time and is also mentioned.

The Kingston yard is now long gone and lies buried underneath the B&Q Superstore in Port Glasgow, as shown by this photo from the http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3674163 website. Most of our BOYLAN and LAMBIE ancestors worked in the shipyards along the River Clyde, from Greenock, Port Glasgow, Govan, Clydebank and Yoker. 

On This Day

25th March 1910 - Mary Gilchrist Lambie, daughter of william and Ann Dunipace, marries William Law in Glasgow.

25th March 1938 - Alexander Lambie, son of John and Agnes Drummond, marries Elizabeth Pairman Georgeson in Hutchesontown.

John Weir Of Carnwath - The Fugitive Covenanter

Recent research has now revealed the sad tale of JOHN WEIR of Carnwath and his trial for being a Covenanter in 1679. The records state:

Citied (with others) to compear at Glasgow 8-11 Oct 1679 to underlie the law for the cryme of heigh treason & perduellion for being in the late rebellion by Thomas Twaddell who left and affixit ane coppie of ther indytment with the names of ther assysers and witnesses upon the maist patent door of his dwelling house on the 18-22nd Sept 1679. 

 In "Ane Roll of the rebells in the Overwaird". Document has no date but is from JC26/50 1679. It appears to be a composite listing of those cited personally or at their dwellings to appear at the Glasgow Justice Aire of 8-11 Oct 1679. Described further as: Delinquent in Lanarkshire [The record is an undated list of names organised by parish with no indication of crime]. Indyted and accused of the cryme of heigh treason and perduellion and listed in the Porteous Roll and Traist Roll of the Shireffdom of Lanerk for the Justice Aire to be holdin at Glasgow 8-11 Oct 1679. 

He is then described as 'Fugitive in Lanark' in the Scottish Covenanters 1679 - 1688 Record set. In 1682 list of rebells withinin the shyre of Lenrick given up by Major White to the Justiciary Court to be insisted agst with such witnesses as can prove agst them. 

 The last record I can find at present states that he was: A Fugitive from the Justice Aire held at Glasgow the 8-11 Oct 1679. We wonder what happened to him...? Photo courtesy of www.sorbie.net

On This Day

24th March 1897 - Hugh Conlan, father of Rosena, dies of cancer at 24 West Campbell Street, aged 48.

24th March 1898 - Jean Campbell Stevenson Lambie, daughter of William and Margaret Johnston Stevenson, is born in Stewardton, Ayr.

24th March 1918 - Private William Anderson, husband of Robina Mair Lambie, is killed fighting at The Somme with the 1/8th Battlaion Princess Louise's Argyle & Sutherland Highlanders aged 34.

1646 - The Massacre Of THe Clan Lamont

Castle Toward Was The Clan Seat Of The Lamont Clan from whom our Lambie family are descended...

Most Scots today would have some knowledge of the Highland massacre of the MacDonalds in Glencoe by soldiers under the direction of Clan Campbell but few would have heard of a greater massacre carried out by the Campbells at Dunoon, on the very doorstep of Lowland Scotland....Sir John Lamont, 14th chief, who had been knighted by King Charles; was pressured into joining Argyll, the Campbell chief and his Covenanting army in opposition against the King during the 17th century wars of Montrose. After the defeat of Campbell forces at Inverlochy, Sir John was taken prisoner and later switched sides opting to support Montrose and his general, Alastair MacDonald (MacColla), a bitter enemy of the Campbells. MacDonald along with Highlanders and Irish mercenaries, crossed Loch Long in boats provided by the Lamonts and landed at the Point of Strone. After defeating a Campbell force, Macolla's army mustered at Toward and then descended on the Campbell lands. The Lamonts had their share in killing and plundering particularly in Strachur and Kilmun before returning home to Toward. In England the King surrendered and ordered his supporters to lay down their arms and cease hostilities. The Campbells took this opportunity to surround the Lamont castles of Toward and Ascog. Unable to withstand a long siege and with no hope of reprieve, Sir James surrendered the castles, having apparently reached honourable terms. 

The Campbells later ignored the terms of capitulation accusing the Lamonts of being traitors, unworthy of terms.The Lamonts where bound and kept within the castle, during this time several women were murdered. The survivors were taken by boats to Dunoon and in the church were sentenced to death. A large number of Lamont men, women and children, were shot or stabbed to death and they did ‘cause hang upon ane tree near the number of thirty six persons most of them being special gentlemen of the name of Lamont and vassals to Sir James’. the half-hanged men, both dead and dying were buried in pits. Sir James and his brothers were kept prisoner for five years and it would be 16 years before the ringleaders of the massacre were brought to justice and Sir Colin Campbell beheaded. The castle today has barely changed since the time of the massacre, hidden away in a small forest a few miles from Dunoon, there's certainly a 'feeling' about the place. A memorial marking the site of the massacre can be found in Dunoon itself.

On This Day

23rd March 1830 - Margaret Conlon, daughter of David and Margaret Judge, is born in Co.Armagh, Northern Ireland.

23rd March 1871 - George Lammie, son of Glaud and Janet Arneil, marries Janet Crawford in Calton, Glasgow.

On This Day

22nd March 1839 - Claud Lammie marries Anne Reid in Glassford, Lanark.

22nd March 1861 - John Lambie, son of James and Janet Spence McIntyre, dies in Campbell River, British Columbia, Canada.

22nd March 1944 - Sgt John M Weir has first training flight in a Lancaster, W4241 at LFS Hemswell. (Photo courtesy of www.sonsofdamien.co.uk)

22nd March 1945 - Janet Spence Lambie, daughter of James and Janet Spence McIntyre, dies in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

BOYLAN - A History...

A wee history of the Boylans...There are references in Irish annals in the 11th and 12th centuries to the Ui Bhaoigheallán (O'Boylans) as lords (tigherna) of Dartraige (see below). In 1297 the sub-chiefs of the Airgíalla included the lord of Dartraighe, named as the king's brother Roalbh Mac Mathghamhna. The Ui Bhaoigheallán never recovered control of Dartraighe hereafter.[4] It was held by the Mac Mathghamhna (MacMahons) of Airgíalla. The O'Boylan (O'Baoigheallain, in Irish) or O'Boyland sept came from Airgíalla, having their principal stronghold in the barony of Dartrey in County Monaghan. They soon spread to reach eastern County Fermanagh across County Monaghan and southern County Armagh into the northern part of County Louth. They also established themselves to the south of their original territory, in County Cavan and County Meath. The name is still found most frequently in those areas, but invariably with the prefix O.

From the 8th century, The O'Boylan (O'Baoigheallain) sept are cited as early kings of Dartraige in present-day Monaghan. The territory of the O'Baoigheallain during early medieval times stretched from Fermanagh to Louth before being reduced to the region of Dartry by the MacMahons after the Norman invasion. They did, however, remain powerful, and in O'Dugan's fourteenth-century "Topographical Poem" they are called "the bold kings of Dartry," and are praised for their horsemanship ..."

Our own maternal line descends from County Antrim, most probably around Red Bay, Cushendall. the family moved to Mullabrack, Armagh to work in the limestone quarry, before emigrating to Greenock, Scotland and marrying into the Lambie family.

On This Day

21st March 1820 - John Weir, son of James and Catherine Brown, is born in Carnwath.

21st March 1961 - Sarah Kinsella, wife of Alexander Lambie, dies in Vancouver, Canada.

Latest Press

Yet more football reports from Patrick's early Arsenal matches! 
'A clever pass from Boylan" setting up the final goal!'

London Evening Standard 13/10/1896

On This Day...

20th March 1877 - Fanny Margaret Blake, daughter of Joseph and Mary Eaton, is born in Castlefin, Donegal.

20th March 1897 - Patrick Boylan plays for Woolwich Arsenal reserves v St Mary Grays in the Kent League.

On This Day...

A new section now for our wee family history blog! I have been collating dates into a family calendar and will post daily updates as we go along. Starting today, Sunday 19th March 2017...!

19th March 1887 - Peter McGourty, father of Nora, is pensioned off from the Royal Irish Constabulary.

19th March 1913 - Kurt Pauli, uncle of Ursula Piech, is born in Boblingen, Germany.

19th March 1930 - Christina Campbell, wife of Captain John McTavish, dies in Roseneath, aged 75.

Latest Press

Here's a match report from the 01/04/1897 match between Rest Of Kent v Woolwich Arsenal, featuring our very own Patrick Boylan.

Reproduced here courtesy of The Sporting Life, published on the 2nd of April 1897.

The Conlon Family in Edinburgh

On our paternal side, we have the CONLON family living at 67 Leith Wynd, Edinburgh. Son David is born there on the 4th January 1864 to Hugh Conlon and Helen Connolly. On looking into this street I found this from Angus McDiarmid on Flickr...

A reeking slum filled with prostitutes and thieves or an ugly car park and rear-end of a train station. The area around the bottom of Calton hill hasn't ever been a salubrious area, but at least the scene on the left is sort of pretty.

 

The pictures show the foot of Leith Wynd in 1818 and 2010. The only surviving features are the wall of the Old Calton burial ground and the monument to David Hume that sticks up above it—the neighbourhood in the valley was demolished when the railway went in.

 

Leith Wynd was a steep, narrow street of tenements that ran from the top of the Canongate to Leith Street—starting at the crossroads just below the Netherbow (where the World’s End pub is) and progressing under the Regent Bridge that joins Waterloo Place to Calton hill.

 

Here’s a description of the street from a letter to The Scotsman in 1850:

 

“From a precipitous, narrow, and filthy close, you look up to the heights of huge mansions, honeycombed into the receptacles of a hundred inhabitants; and at a height which it makes the head giddy to look up to or to look down from, you see two or three heads of children projecting, or the filthy and squalid figures of their mothers, or of the other female inmates.

 

“You ascend through dirt and darkness, stair after stair, every stair leading you in succession to a floor in which every miserable room contains a household, and where, by opening doors and barring up doors, and from the absence of sufficient light even in the day time, you hardly know when you turn yourself whether you are coming or going out of or going farther into the labyrinth. Into these places, parties in recent times have been dragged, forcibly stripped of their clothes, and flung out again; and innumerable crimes have been committed of which the world remains in ignorance.”

 

Wait—if the world remains in ignorance of these innumerable crimes, how come this letter-writer knows about them? Never mind; you get the point. The street was horrible, like the rest of the old town at that time. Leith Wynd was held to be worse than the rest of the streets off the Royal Mile, though, as it contained three notorious towers of vice: the Holy Land, the Happy Land and the Just Land, which are described in “An Enquiry Into Destitution, Prostitution and Crime in Edinburgh”, published in 1851 by A Medical Gentleman.

 

“On the east side of the wynd … there are three tenements, we may say, wholly tenanted by prostitutes and thieves. These tenements are known to the initiated as the Holy, Happy and Just Lands, the inhabitants of the last styling it simply “No.24”. The Holy and Happy Lands closely resemble each other, and are tenanted by prostitutes and their fancy-men [pimps], there being about one man to every two or three women, to all of whom he is useful when any robbery is “up,” either by frightening the victim or, perhaps, by absolutely choking him, to keep him from crying out, or by making off with and planting the stolen goods in some safe place.

 

“‘No.24’, on the other hand, got its soubriquet of the Just Land on account of the supposed greater honesty of the girls, who professed to live by prostitution, but not by robbery; and the name we may remark, was given as a term of reproach or contempt by the denizens of the Holy and Happy Lands. In the Just Land, there are no fancy-men, or perhaps we should say, none who regularly stay with the girls and live on plunder.

 

“The girls in the Just Land, complain bitterly that in consequence of the immense number of robberies committed in the Holy and Happy Lands, it is now almost impossible to get any gentlemen home with them, and the consequence is that they have to go to one of the brothels in the New Town, and thus the girl loses both “the price of the room” and the profit on the drink—this is a very considerable source of profit, the charge for all sorts of liquors being at least 100 per cent above the cost price.

 

“All these lands or tenements are sub-let to the girls, mostly in single rooms. We were surprised to find cases of sisters living together, and together plying their filthy trade. But shocked as we were at this, it apparently was looked on quite as a matter of course by their neighbours, who quickly enumerated three or four similar cases, and mentioned, in particular, one where the mother and two daughters, all prostitutes, lived together and walked the streets together!

 

“In the Holy and Happy Lands, the stairs are steep and narrow, and in a ruinous condition, gradually becoming worse the higher you ascend. Almost all the doors are split and broken, which they accounted for by saying, ‘O, Jack came home the other night drunk and kicked it in,’ or, ‘I lost the key when I was out drinking and had to break it open.’ Often, too, the officers of police, in search of suspected persons, burst open these doors, and that without the slightest ceremony.

 

“In one of the rooms, a girl insisted on our drinking a glass of whisky, and on our refusing, roundly swore that we should before we got out. Another, however, interfered, saying that perhaps we were a teetotaller, but on our confessing that we were not, only that we never drink in the forenoon, the whole three in the room joined against us, and we were told that we were ‘too proud’, that they supposed we were ‘too good to drink with the like of them.’ However, we regained our lost ground with them by taking a cup of tea.

 

“We found the greatest difficulty in getting them to speak seriously on any subject, but happening to mention emigration, they all in a breath declared that they should so like to emigrate, and they mentioned several of their class who had already done so.”

 

And from www.rebridgethegap.org I found the above map and this description..

Before the draining of the Nor Loch and the development of the New Town, the primary route from Edinburgh to Leith was to exit the burgh via the eastern Nether Bow Gate and turn left down Leith Wynd. You can see Leith Wynd on the right side of the map below, just north of the Nether Bow. This led to Calton Road, noted on the map below as ‘The Western Road to Leith,’ which proceeded down to Leith roughly along the route of the current Leith Walk. There were no routes from Edinburgh to Leith further west as the Nor Loch prevented crossing from Edinburgh to the land that was to become the New Town.

On Edgar’s 1742 map below, generally agreed to be the first accurate scale map of Edinburgh, you can see that St Mary’s Street (St Mary’s Wynd in 1742), the High Street, and the Canongate are all in the same place as they are today. Calton Road roughly follows the same route as today though it was moved slightly to be closer to the crags during Waverley’s redevelopment in the 1890s.

You can also see Trinity College Hospital & Church (including the Orphan Hospital) which was demolished, along with its physic garden, and partially moved when the original Waverley Station was built in the 1840s.