irene frances jenner - memoir publishing · irene frances jenner 2 copy of baptismal certifi cate...

Irene Frances Jenner

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Coalfin, Kintyre Way in Skipness by Tarbert, Argyll, Scotland

Do Not Forget Your Loved Ones – Ne Obliviscaris

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Introduction

Coalfin

The old farmhouse has been renovated, and is now a holiday lodging, sleeping ten people. The original building is still intact but it’s been extended. At one

end is a recreational room including a television, and at the other end is extra accommodation. Feeling rather overwhelmed but very pleased with the outcome I spent the rest of the day wandering around Tarbert, and reflecting on the life of Alexander Campbell.


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Portrait of Alexander Campbell, 1796-1870. ‘A Socialist Co-operative Pioneer’, from Glasgow Museum.

His story is the basis of this book


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Chapter 1

My great, great grandfather, Alexander Campbell, (1796 – 1870) was the first of twin sons born to Mary (McConachy) and Archibald Campbell, in

the parish of Skipness & Saddell.

Here I was, two hundred years on, standing in the very spot where my great, great grandfather, Alexander Campbell, was baptised on 12th July 1796, and had lived as a young boy! I could not quite believe how all this had fallen into place. Could I be dreaming?

This story, which commenced in the old stone farm house “Coalfin” (Caolfin to the locals) high on a hill above Skipness, Scotland, is not only that of the life and times of my ancestors, the Clan Campbell, it is also the story of my own journey of discovery. What a journey it has been!!


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Copy of baptismal certifi cate of alexander campbell. Coalfi n,12th july, 1796. Parents - Archibald campbell and Mary McConachy

For many years I had been researching my Family Pedigree. I have written one book already. Th ey Let Th eir Light Shine is the history of William Weeks, his son John Charles Weeks (my paternal grandfather) and my own father Frank Alexander Weeks. Now I was on a mission to discover all I could about John Charles Weeks’ wife Frances Annie (Campbell), and her grandfather, Alexander Campbell, who was renowned for his work with the trade unions in Glasgow in the 1800’s.

To assist me with my research I had joined the Glasgow & West of Scotland Family History Society (GWSFHS) and at one stage I belonged to four ancestral research organisations. I’d receive their monthly newsletters, then would pick up a clue or see that someone else was researching the same ancestor. I would immediately send a letter off , then back would come the response – “No, I am doing a diff erent line” – so I would cancel that line of enquiry and try another. Th ere were guest speakers at the meetings I attended. Th ey would show slides and photos, and also taught us what each birth certifi cate should include. From that birth certifi cate they would identify how to fi nd another clue. I just got sucked into it all and enjoyed it so much. Th at’s why I have so many fi les and have kept so much detail.


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The GWSFHS was particularly good value. Through this organisation I found out all kinds of information about my ancestral heritage and I also made some very good friends! I found a distant relative on the Campbell side, Jan Stewart, who lives far up in the fishing village of Ullapool, on the north-west coast of Scotland. When Jan knew I was visiting Scotland in 2009, she invited me to stay in her home. We had such a lot of family history to talk about and we discovered we had a common ancestor.

I also made one particularly good friend, Sheila Duffy, editor of the GWSFHS newsletter. It was thanks to Sheila that I was now standing in this very place.

Irene with Sheila Duffy from the Glasgow & West of Scotland Family History Society


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During a conversation with Sheila I happened to mention that I had an address to follow up in Skipness, where Alexander Campbell had been baptised. Sheila became very excited as she knew Mr Duncan Henderson, the local postman in Tarbert, which is very close to Skipness. She rang him straight away. In addition to running the local post office, Mr Henderson also ran the school bus and the local taxi service, so he’s a busy man!

Tarbert - Mr Duncan Henderson in his post office with Irene Jenner and Ian Jenner just arrived from Glasgow and Australia

Mr Henderson suggested I catch a coach to Tarbert, on Loch Fyne, and meet him there for the Skipness route. I was told to call in at the Post Office to visit him. I think he may have wanted to see what I was like, as he may not have wanted to commit himself to carting me around without meeting me.

After an exciting and wonderful visit to GWSFHS and leaving Sheila with a copy of “They Let Their Light Shine”, I set off


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on my next adventure. I enjoyed quite a long and picturesque coach trip from Glasgow before finally arriving at the Tarbert Post Office. The journey also included a stop at Inveraray, where the magnificent Castle is the ancestral home of the Dukes of Argyll and the seat of the Clan Campbell.

Mr Henderson met me and said, “Oh good, now go down to the water’s edge of Loch Fyne, have a coffee and come back in half an hour!”. When I came back, Mr Henderson had his car out, and after handing management of the Post Office to his wife, he said, “Let’s go.” After a 30 minute 12 mile drive from Tarbert, down around the Mull of Kintyre, we arrived at Skipness, a small town on the beautiful Sound of Kilbrannan. After Mr Henderson had shown me the old Skipness Castle (which dates back to the 13th century) and some other ruins, I mentioned to him that I had Alexander Campbell’s 1796 baptismal certificate which referred to “Coalfin”.

“Oh,” he said, “See that house up there? That’s it. That’s “Coalfin Farm House”. He was so excited and drove me straight up the hill to the stone built farmhouse, sitting on its own, overlooking Skipness, as well as the sandy beaches of the Sound of Kilbrannan, and with a magnificent view of the Isle of Arran, (also known as ‘Scotland in Miniature’). Mr Henderson explained enthusiastically to Mike, the man who answered the door at “Coalfin”, that he must show me the building.

I found it hard to believe. Here I was at “Coalfin Farm House” on the Kintyre Peninsula – the very place where Alexander Campbell had been baptised. In that moment I decided that I must return to the old farmhouse one day!!

1795 Archibald Campbell – Mary McConachyWay back on 9th September 1795 in Killean, Argyll, Scotland, Archibald Campbell married Mary McConachy (aka McConnachie). Both the Campbells and the McConachys were important family names in the Argyll community, where they


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lived at that time. McConachy was a popular name in the south – around Campbelltown.

It was not long before they moved to Skipness where on 12 July 1796, Mary gave birth to my great, great grandfather, Alexander Campbell.


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Chapter 2

1700 – Scottish History

During the 1700s the two main industries in Scotland were farming and linen manufacturing. Many people lived in the countryside, growing crops and

looking after animals. They spun woollen yarn on spinning wheels, and wove cloth on handlooms in their cottages. Other people worked in the linen industry. Many of them worked in their own homes too. At this time, the two main materials for making clothes were wool from sheep and linen from the flax plant.

Around 20 years before Alexander was born, bales of cotton appeared in Britain for the first time. This new fibre became more popular than linen for making material and clothing. Cotton fibres could be turned into thread more quickly and cheaply than linen, thanks to the invention of new spinning machines.


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1800 – Scottish HistoryBy the 1800s, Scotland was fast becoming a hive of new industry. In Glasgow industries producing cotton and textiles, chemicals, glass, paper and soap grew very quickly. Primarily due to the Highland Clearances which commenced around 1780, many Highlanders and Irish immigrants moved to the southern cities in search of work. In 1846, the spread of the potato famine and the Clearances were still occurring. It was a hard time.

A large number of factory workers were children, some as young as four or five years. They worked long hours in unhealthy and dangerous working conditions, such as farms, coal mines and even in chimneys and were often ill-treated by the supervisors. Their income was pitiful, but what little they did earn, even a few pence, would be enough to buy food and help the family.

It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution was well under way (1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840) that the majority of workers gained some rights and protection from exploitation. In the mid 1800’s Alexander Campbell played a very important part in this outcome.

Many mill owners often took in orphans, as cheap labour. These pauper apprentices lived and worked at the mill until their teens. Not all mill owners were so exploitative. Robert Owen at New Lanark, who had a huge influence on Alexander as he grew up, revolutionised children’s and workers’ lives, creating an employment model that was based on fairness and compassion. It would take many, many years for the majority of Scottish nationals to accept that it was wrong to send children to work at such a young age. In the meantime the children were exposed to severe health risks and were deprived of an education. It was only when the 1872 Education Act was passed that education became compulsory.

Cotton mills employed almost a third of Glasgow’s workforce,


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although the city was to become most famous in time, for its heavy industries such as shipbuilding.

Shipbuilding and engineering soon replaced the cotton industry. The channel was deepened in the Clyde River, allowing the shipbuilding industry to flourish, and Glasgow to develop into a major seaport.

The deepening of the River Clyde and the Forth Clyde Canal helped to make the city of Glasgow one of the richest and finest port in Europe, in Victorian times. Some of the world’s most famous ships came from Scotland, including the “Comet’, the “QE2” and the “Queen Mary”. These have the reputation of being some of the finest steamships ever built. The “Omrah”, also built here, was used in World War 1 to take soldiers from Australia to Gallipoli. My father mentioned this in his war diary.

Like many other cities during the Industrial Revolution, the number of people and new industry created unbearable living and working conditions. Poverty was rife and many people lived in overcrowded slum areas with much crime and disease.

According to discussions with some Scottish friends, who were born in Glasgow, and also my own internet research, a whole family would live in just one room. Sometimes there could be up to 20 people living in a room - one family would live at one end, the other family at the opposite end.

At this time, many children born in Glasgow were smaller and shorter because of the malnutrition, and overcrowded living conditions.

In photos I’ve seen there is what appears to be a long wooden box. This box looks like a square coffin and was used as a table during the day, and became the family bed at night. All the family possessions were kept in this box. At night time the mother would clear the table and the family would sleep in it, fully clothed.


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There were public privy locations around the village. As far as bathing, usually a splash of water and a wipe with a rag was most convenient. If the working family was to have a bath this would usually be in a wooden barrel with the whole family sharing the bath water. This would occur weekly and is probably where the saying “Friday night bath night” came from!

1832 – Cholera

1837 to 1847- TyphusAppalling diseases hit the city population. The first cholera outbreak happened in 1832 in Scotland and killed 10,000 people. There were also serious typhus epidemics in the city in 1837 and 1847.

All the while, thanks to the efforts of people like Alexander Campbell, on behalf of his fellow man, important changes and improvements were occurring.


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Chapter 3

Alexander Campbell – Mary Ferguson 1816

Mary Ferguson married Alexander Campbell on 6th December 1816 in Glasgow. Alexander was just 21 when his wife gave birth to the first of their five

children, a daughter Mary, born on 30th April 1817. Catherine was next born, on 29 February 1820, and Elizabeth on 27 May 1822. Alexander followed on 17 January 1824 and Archibald on 4th March 1826. All were born in Gorbals, Glasgow. Alexander’s occupations were: 1820 Wright, and from 1822 Newspaper Printer/Publisher.

A ‘Wright’ was a skilled worker in various materials such as glass, in construction, wheelwright and shipwright.

W.Hamish Fraser – Alexander Campbell 1822In his book the Second City of The Empire: 1830s to 1914, W Hamish Fraser tells us a little about the work of Alexander Campbell’s work.


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In 1822, at the age of 26, the young Alexander, who had been apprenticed as a joiner, became treasurer of one of the early co-operative societies, in Bridgeton, a suburb of Glasgow. The idea was to buy goods in bulk and to share the profits among the members of the society. He saw co-operation as an alternative to the competition of the capitalist system. In this he was influenced by the ideas of Robert Owen of New Lanark. In 1825, he became a member of the Owenite community at Orbiston, near Motherwell (just south of Glasgow), whose members aimed to live together in co-operative harmony.

Several hundred persons including Alexander Campbell took up residence at Orbiston (Bellshill, Glasgow). Alexander, who was soon to be an outstanding figure in the Scottish Trade Union and Co-operative Movements, was largely responsible for running the iron foundry which was the most successful industrial part of the establishment. After initial teething troubles had been overcome, the Community seemed for a time to be doing well.

That was, until the founder, Abram Combe, suddenly died in August 1827. Soon afterwards his brother, William, who was left in charge, evicted all the colonists and ordered the whole place to be sold by public auction. Those who had invested their savings in it were left destitute; some, including Alexander, found themselves in prison for debts incurred on its behalf. William Combe’s action is said to have been due to pressure from creditors; the whole of Abram Combe’s fortune (he was a wealthy tanner in Edinburgh) had been lost in the enterprise.

So ended this Co-operative Community; but the promoters were undeterred and Alexander Campbell remained an enthusiastic Owenite.

1829In 1829, Alexander returned to Glasgow and formed the Glasgow Co-operative Society in London Street. He held a strong belief in the importance of trade unions and, for a time


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in the 1830s, he took on the responsibilities of secretary of the Glasgow Trades’ Committee.

Alexander, through his long career, remained staunch to the teachings of Robert Owen. After the failure of the Orbiston settlement, he devoted himself for a time to organising trade unions, apparently with a view to their transformation into societies for co-operative production. The most grandiose effort in this line was the “Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for the Protection of Labour,” of the One Big Union type, with sub-divisions for each craft (1831). This soon collapsed, but a Union of Carpenters (Campbell’s own trade) survived until 1838.

A notable feature of the 1830’s was the beginning of the local joint organisation, presumably under the influence of Owenite ideas. Encouraged also by the political interests of the time a United Committee of Trades Delegates met weekly in Glasgow in the Trades Hall, Hanover Street. It was particularly concerned with the agitation for Parliamentary reform, but was in frequent dispute with other reforming factions of a more “bourgeois” character. Its activities are known in some detail from the rather unfriendly accounts in the “Loyal Reformers’ Gazette” of Peter Mackenzie, the spokesman of a rival sect. The Committee set up its own organ, the “Herald to the Trades’ Advocate,” which ran from September, 1830, to March, 1831, and was apparently edited by Alexander Campbell. Some copies survive. It also produced a number of other short-lived newspapers, “The Herald”, “The Trades’ Advocate”, “The Scottish Trades Union Gazette” and the “Tradesman”. Campbell contributed to all of these and was owner and editor of the last, the “Tradesman”, at the age of 38 years (1834).

Of this later venture, only the name is known; but Campbell published on his own account several issues of the monthly “Tradesman” (1833-34), which earned him prosecution under the “Stamp Act” for issuing an unlicensed periodical.


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Social MissionaryFor the next few years, Campbell became what was called a “social missionary”, spreading the ideas of Robert Owen, and co-operation throughout the country.

In 1843, Alexander, Mary and three of their five children joined the “Ham Common Concordian Community” at Alcott House on Ham Common in London, England. Established by “sacred socialist” and mystic James Pierrepont Greaves in 1838, the “Ham Common Concordium” consisted of a working mixed cooperative community and a progressive free school for children.

The community was dedicated to a regime of spiritual development and purification, in the words of Greaves, aiming to produce the “most loveful, intelligent and efficient conditions for divine progress in humanity”. To this end the members submitted to an austere regime of early rising, strict vegetarianism, (usually raw food), no stimulants, celibacy, and simple living, and experimented with various practices such as astrology, hydrotherapy, mesmerism (the therapeutic system of hypnosis devised by Austrian physician of Franz Anton Mesmer) and phrenology (the study of the shape and protuberances of the skull, based on the now discredited belief that they reveal character and mental capacity). The men grew their hair and beards long and wore loose fitting clothes, while the women defied convention by not wearing the traditional, restrictive corset.

Alcott House school was open to children from both inside and outside the community - the latter usually from radical parents who sympathised with its progressive educational stance.

The curriculum emphasised moral education and the development of the child’s innate spiritual gifts, teaching practical skills such as gardening and cookery as well as book learning. Punishment was frowned upon and education aimed


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to produce “integral men and women”, able to live in a truly cooperative society and not simply playing traditional roles.

Alexander Campbell 1848 to 1856In 1848, the community came to an end and the house was purchased by John Minter Morgan to provide an orphanage, though still run along vegetarian lines. In 1856 the foundation stone of a new building was laid on the site to be known as South Lodge, which exists to this day. The new building has been converted to flats and the grounds have been developed as Bishops Close.

1856I cannot find any information about the next eight years but in 1856, Alexander Campbell returned to Glasgow and joined the staff on the “Glasgow Sentinel”, in which his son-in-law, William Love, held part ownership. It was with his encouragement that a number of trade unions came together to form the Glasgow Trades Council in May 1858. The jubilee was celebrated in 1908.

1861 CensusIn the 1861 census for Laurieston, Govan, Alexander and Mary Campbell lived in North Coburg Street with their daughter Catherine, aged 41 years. Alexander’s occupation was Printer, Publisher and Reporter.

Alexander Campbell 1864At every opportunity Alexander advocated co-operation and, in 1864, played a major part in the launch of the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society.

He participated in the campaign to get the vote for working men (and, he hoped, for women) in 1866-67, and urged the new voters to put up a working man as a candidate.


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To the end of his days Alexander remained an active campaigner for co-operation, trade unions and socialism.

Joint national action was pioneered on the initiative of Glasgow, when a Committee for the Repeal of the Master and Servant Act was formed at a conference in April 1864, with Campbell as Chairman, and George Newton, a potter and officeholder in the Council, as Secretary.

This is also the epoch of the firm establishment of retail cooperation. Though the productive ideal was again proclaimed by such enthusiasts as Campbell, only a few Societies, such as the Paisley Manufacturing (1862) survived on this basis. The success of the “Rochdale Pioneers,” whose expedient of “dividend on purchase,” Campbell claimed to have originated, was followed in numerous cases in Scotland (over 30 between 1857 and 1865). Of note were St. Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh (1859), Paisley Equitable, Glasgow Eastern. The great manufacturing enterprise of the Scottish Wholesale, under the control of the local societies, was inaugurated in September 1868.

W Hamish Fraser has also written a book titled: Alexander Campbell and the Search for Socialism 1999 - 2000:

The following is from an introduction to that book.

“Dear old Sandy Campbell’ lived to greet the Second Reform Act and the enfranchisement of his urban artisan order before he died. By then he had participation in the Orbiston Community, the Owenite co-operative which briefly flourished near Motherwell in the early 1830’s, service as an Owenite, co-operator. Educationalist and journalist in England and Scotland, and latterly an important role as campaigner along with Alexander MacDonald for trade union freedoms and electoral reform.

“Searching” would describe most of the enterprises in which Campbell was involved (he even seems to anticipate George


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Orwell’s denunciation of socialists as dotty food freaks), but he was as unsinkable an enthusiast as Robert Owen himself, without any of the latter’s financial resources. Ultimately he saw the co-operative movement in Glasgow itself turn the corner and begin to become the fortress of the late Victorian working class. Hamish Fraser deserves our gratitude for this exemplary work of research in a wide variety of resources, which has reanimated a most attractive figure.”

Research by the late Mr J. McCullochAs I mentioned I commenced the family research about 20 years ago. I joined many historical societies but when it became too difficult, because of distance, or just drawing a blank, in 1995 I asked the late Mr John McCulloch, who then lived in Glasgow, to help me. He visited the Glasgow, or the national archives, where the information was stored, and then posted it to me. He was fantastic – and only wanted a pittance for his work. When you get on a roll of family history, you can’t stop and Mr McCulloch got on a roll! He explained, “Sorry I didn’t send you a proper letter with the “Sentinel” obituary, I’m sure that you would wish to get that type of information ASAP as I mentioned in the short note. We’ll need to get larger copies of the paper”. And this is what he did, explaining to me “It took 12 hours with a magnifying glass. I have seen the Penny Post and the Glasgow Times in the Glasgow University. In fact I found the information at the Mitchell Library. I was lucky that from Monday 22nd March, it was possible for members of the public to visit the University for the next four weeks.” Mr McCulloch told me that the Penny Post consisted of four pages, as did the Glasgow Times, of print so small that the paper could possibly make up 10 or 20 pages of today’s normal paper print size!

Mr McCulloch provided me with Alexander Campbell’s Obituary (d.10 February 1870), and also sent me a letter stating


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that “Mr Campbell’s will does not appear to have been recorded in the records” before he himself died, some years ago.

Alexander Campbell: Obituary…1870I discovered such a lot from my great, great grandfather’s obituary - the kind of man he was. When he was a young man the conditions for the workers in Scotland were not good. Alexander Campbell was an activist for trade unions and succeeded in obtaining better conditions for the workers, and fewer hours. He also campaigned to prevent children going down into the mines. He was involved with the initiative to have small homes built near the mines so the people who worked there could have a house nearby, instead of living cramped in a room with others. His generosity and passion was well known and respected. Alexander did much good work in the community right up until the end. He died of an enlarged liver at the age of 74 on 10th February 1870 and was buried at the Southern Necropolis, Glasgow in an unmarked grave. His wife Mary (Ferguson) had died on 26 June 1866 in Glasgow at 11 Coburg St, aged 74 years.

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Glasgow Sentinel, February 12th, 1870, page 2

Death of Mr. Alex Campbell 1796 - 1870

Mr Alexander Campbell, a name familiar to the readers of the Sentinel, has gone to his rest, having expired early on Thursday morning, Mr Campbell has for nearly a year been in bad health, and for the last four or five months had been confined to the house, but up to a short time before his death his friends had hopes of his ultimate recovery.


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These hopes, however, were not destined to be realised, for he gradually sank, and on Thursday morning last, at half-past six, he passed peacefully away. Mr Campbell took a prominent part in social and political movements for the last forty years, and next week we will give some particulars of his eventful life, dwelling more fully on the part he took in the working-class movement.

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Glasgow Weekly Herald, 12th, February, 1870, page 5Births, Marriages & Deaths Column

At 11, North Coburg Street, on the 10th Instant, Mr Alex Campbell, Aged 74 Years.

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Obituary The Glasgow Sentinel,

February, 19th, 1870, page 2

The Late Mr. Alexander Campbella Veteran Philanthropist

“On the afternoon of Monday last was laid in the dust the body of one man, whose name will bear affectionate remembrances through the long years to come.

Mr Alex. Campbell has been known for at least half a century as the unwavering advocate of a long series of reforms, by which working men have been relieved from an enslaved thraldom, the afflictions of which the present generation can barely estimate.


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The name of our old friend and colleague upon this journal has been identified with almost every effort made to emancipate the poor and the troubled from the chaos that accompanies every step of civilisation.

Mr Alexander Campbell had gifted to him the earnest belief that lay with him in the absence of others less anxious to accept the work; the ceaseless toil of urging the rights of the downtrodden and the oppressed. Believing, as all thoughtful men do, that society means nothing more than an assemblage the strong to protect the weak, Mr Campbell wrought with something of the zealot’s faith to soften the incongruities of life and bring to every human pilgrim such wayside joys as make the earth a habitation.

Born upon the shores of Kintyre, somewhere near the Point of Skipness, Mr Campbell had grafted upon a clannish feeling that never forsook him; a love for all his race. The surge of the sea had swayed his young spirit to a peaceful rest, and full of a contentment the foolish might marvel at, he wandered out into the world to do beneficent offices for all mankind. In other ages, so did the saints, and the monks, and those whom believed they possessed the voice of the Eternal; but our old friend was contented with his own utterance and with the honesty of his own convictions.

In early years he did business in our own city, and pursued it with a success which might have left him the possessor of heritages; but he chose another life. He waited no bidding to give all that he possessed to the poor. He adopted a life that would bring him neither honours nor gain. He chose to battle for those who were not able to fight for themselves, and he has gone to his

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