Siblings

I have mentioned my paternal grandmother’s eleven siblings several times now, so I think it is time to introduce them. To recap: they are the children of John Clark and Barbara Ann McDonald, and all of them were born in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire apart from my grandmother, Flora, who was born in Maryhill.

Although John and Barbara’s ancestors never moved far from a tight ring of parishes surrounding Peterhead, the pattern of their children’s lives is very different as only one remained in Aberdeenshire and six left Scotland altogether. In common with many families at the time, two of their sons did not survive childhood, one dying at just two months old and the other at the age of three.

The first to leave Peterhead appears to have been eldest daughter, Barbara Jane, who is recorded in the 1881 census as an 18 year-old cook working in the household of the Minister at Garelochead in Dunbartonshire. Her sister, Christina, may also have left the family home by then as she is listed as an unemployed domestic servant visiting a friend in Aberdeen.

The pivotal moment in the family’s story comes in 1889 when my great grandparents move to Maryhill with their five youngest children. As I have explained elsewhere, this was almost certainly due to the sharp decline of the whaling industry in Peterhead, which John had relied on for work. By this time, Barbara Jane and Christina are both married and living elsewhere and John chooses to remain in Aberdeenshire. Thomas William also eventually ended up in Maryhill, but he may have moved there later than the rest of his family as he is living in Montrose in 1891. 

Sadly, the siblings were to face an even greater upheaval just two years later with the death of their mother in 1891. The five eldest were adults able to make their own choices, but this was not the case for their younger siblings and, aged between six months and 12 years, they were sent to live with relatives or, in the case of my grandmother, a foster family. I will recount their stories in more detail in later chapters.

I have frequently been guilty of pouring scorn on the melodramatic reactions of those faced with a sad story in programmes such as “Who Do You Think You Are ?”, but I find it impossible to ignore the trauma these young children and their father must have experienced as their family was split up, and I confess that I have often shed tears for them.

Barbara Jane Clark Born: 12 July 1863 Occupation: cook Married: William Hamilton in 1887, seven children Death: 1 May 1924 in Garelochhead (aged 60)

Christina Clark Born: 27 March 1865 Occupation: domestic servant Married: George Emslie Fowler in 1886, two children Death: unknown, probably in Australia

John Clark Born: 12 September 1867 Occupation: cooper Married: Jessie Tait in 1893, ten children Death: 5 October 1952 in Fraserburgh (aged 85)

Thomas William Clark Born: 6 November 1869 Occupation: cooper Married: Annie Munroe in 1893, six children Death: 22 Dec 1923 in Glasgow (aged 54)

Duncan Clark Born: 28 October 1871 Death: 24 December 1871 in Peterhead (aged 2 months, cause unknown)

Helen Ann Clark Born: 13 August 1873 Occupation: domestic servant Married: William McCulloch in 1896, six children Death: 6 December 1936 in Maryhill (aged 63)

James George Clark Born: 22 September 1875 Death: 12 March 1879 in Peterhead (aged 3, whooping cough)

Mary Hay Clark Born: 25 July 1878 Occupation: dressmaker Death: 13 August 1962 in New York, USA (aged 84)

William Stephen Clark Born: 15 June 1881 Occupation: factory machinist Married : Ada Gladys Chandler in 1909, two children Death: 9 October 1973 in California, USA (aged 92)

Harry Bivar Clark Born: 16 June 1884 Occupation: railway locomotive fireman Death: 25 October 1906 in Ontario, Canada (aged 22)

Arthur Clark Born: 7 August 1886 Death: unknown

Flora Clark Born: 28 November 1890 in Maryhill Occupation: nurse Married: Frederick Maitland in 1919, two children Death: 27 November 1930 in Portsmouth (aged 39)