I have written about my great uncle James Brawley before in a short post but I discovered a newspaper article about him that’s really interesting so I thought it worth updating.

My maternal grandfather Hugh was one of 12 children born to Daniel Brawley and Ellen Keenan between 1887 and 1908. He was actually child number 7 and was born in 1899. James was born on 31 January 1891 and he number 2 in the family. His older brother Daniel was born in 1887 more than a year before his parents were married but that’s a whole other story.

He was born at home in the infamous Furnace Row in the village of Newmains, Lanarkshire. The row housing provided the homes of the workers at the Coltness Iron Works.

This photo was taken in 1910 and shows the conditions in which my family would have lived. Behind the houses runs a railway line which would not have been safely fenced off from the playing children. Look how small the houses are. Some big families lived together in horrendously cramped conditions. Giving birth in such a place doesn’t bear thinking about.

I very much doubt that my great grandfather would have witnessed the birth but it was he who registered his baby son and provided the time of birth as well as the date of his own marriage which, you will notice, took place far from Newmains in Scranton, Pennsylvania in the USA (part of the whole other story!).

On April 5 1891 the census for Scotland was taken. On this page we have Daniel and Ellen with their 2 sons and at the foot of the page we see Pat Keenan who was Ellen’s father. (Edward Cooper who was living at number 14 with his wife and family later became my granny’s stepfather)

By the time of the 1901 census the family had moved to 3 Main Street, Newmains. A daughter, Agnes had been born to the family in 1892 but, tragically, she died aged just 4 weeks. The cause of death was given as accidental suffocation “having been overlain while in bed with her father and mother”. Another daughter, Elizabeth died in 1900 having lived just 9 days. Perhaps it was due to the loss of 2 daughters or maybe just lack of space in the home that the second daughter, Sarah who was born in 1896 does not appear on the census and in fact never really lived with the family. She instead, was raised by her grandparents, James and Sarah Brawley who lived close by. Daniel and Ellen are recorded along with their 5 sons, Daniel, James, Patrick, John and Hugh. James and Patrick were attending school while Daniel had started work. At just 13 years of age he was employed as a miner and was contributing to the household income.

In 1911 the family, now complete, remained at the same address. The 3 older boys were now employed as steel workers while John, Hugh, Peter, Matthew and Michael were in school. Little Agnes remained at home with her mother.

Of course, having been born at the end of the 19th century it was inevitable that the family would be impacted by the Great War. Determined to do his part, James joined the Navy. In his enlistment papers he is described as 5″6 1/2″, with dark brown hair, blue eyes and a fresh complexion. My mother recalled a photo of James in his Naval uniform having pride of place at her grandparents’ house. I’d love to know if that picture is still in existence.

On 6 August 1915this article appeared in the local newspaper. James, wounded but apparently in good spirits, wrote to his parents to let them know he had not been too seriously injured and would soon be fighting fit. A “crushed stomach” does sound quite nasty I would say.

James remained in the navy until 1919. It would be impossible to go through war without being a changed man and, of course, his family and the village would have changed too.

Unemployment was high and opportunities were scarce. Like many former servicemen James made the decision to leave Scotland.

While the previous Brawley generation set their sights on America, James decided to create a new life for himself in Canada. At some point he would’ve had to explain his decision to his parents and I think it would have been especially difficult for his father to hear as he too had wanted to leave Newmains for good but circumstances had forced him back. Daniel was not an easy man to live with by all accounts. He liked a drink and his family suffered as a result. My grandfather chose never to drink alcohol having seen the example his father set.

During this period, the Canadian government actively encouraged emigration from Scotland promising jobs for ex-servicemen. James arrived in New Brunswick on 9 April 1920. It’s interesting he gave his mother has his closest relative. He’s also recorded as Protestant which is exactly there a mistake or maybe James thought it was better to say that. Certainly in Scotland there were fewer opportunities for Catholics at the time.

The Canada decision clearly also had something to do with a certain young lady. It was on 3 July 1920, in the parish of St Ignatius of Loyola in Montreal, that he married Elizabeth Sandford. The Sandford family were from Wishaw just a mile or so from Newmains. There is a record of Elizabeth working in Canada as early as 1916. Elizabeth’s brother, Matthew Sandford had married James’ sister, Sarah in 1916 in Newmains.

James and Elizabeth had a daughter, Mary who in 1921 and they returned to the same church to have her baptised.

Of the 10 surviving Brawley siblings, James was the first of 5 to emigrate to Canada – sister Sarah , who married Elizabeth’s brother Matthew Sandford, and brothers Patrick, John and Peter.

Peter Brawley left Scotland in September 1923 and spent two years in Canada before his death in November 1925. He was just 24. You can see that James and Patrick were both present at his funeral. I imagine it must have been one of the two brothers who would have had the difficult task of informing their parents of Peter’s tragic death.

I have searched records and newspapers trying to find out more about James’s life in Canada but I haven’t been very successful. There’s an article from 1932 where the flats the family were living in had to be evacuated. It doesn’t tell me much but it does provide their address for that time. 764-66 Queen Street East, Toronto was built in 1904.

In March 1935 James lost his father who died on 21 March aged 70. His mother passed away on 7 September 1941. I believe James was still in contact with his family in Newmains but there is nothing to suggest he was ever able to return to Scotland for a visit.

Weeks after his mother’s death the family had a more joyful occasion to celebrate when Mary married John Budway who was known as Jack. I love the details of the outfits in this newspaper announcement.

In 1943 James became a grandfather when Mary gave birth to twin boys, Gerald and Michael. This was wartime of course and Jack was overseas meaning Mary must have really leaned on her parents for support.

Baby Gerald died on Boxing Day that same year. James would have remembered the heartbreak in his family at the deaths of his young siblings and I am sure he would have done his best to comfort and support his daughter through this unimaginable loss.

Later in the 1940s I’ve found the family living at 57 MacIntosh Street. It’s here that I discover that James was working as a mechanic. Mary was also at the family home. Her marriage to Jack did not last. He remarried and had further children. On his death notice in the newspaper in 1992 his children are listed but there is no mention of Michael. Even when I was younger divorce wasn’t common and would have been very much frowned upon then never mind in the 1940s. Perhaps attitudes in Canada were different but I suspect this would have been a tough time for Mary and the family.

James lived in the same house until his death in 1956. His death notice mentions his siblings in Canada but not his sister and 4 brothers, including my grandfather, who remained in Scotland. I’ve been told that my grandfather considered emigrating but that my granny wanted to stay in Scotland. It’s another of those decisions made by ancestors that I have to be grateful for. If they had chosen differently I wouldn’t be here.

I was contacted recently by members of the Sandford family who told me that after they were widowed Elizabeth and her sisters lived together. I found them on the census record at the same address Elizabeth and James had shared.

I think about the times James lived through and the changes he would have seen. He was Scottish but his roots lay in Ireland. 3 of his 4 grandparents were born in Ireland. Grandfather James Brawley was born in Glasgow but his father was from Derry. In Newmains they lived among other Irish Catholic families and I think that would very much have been part of their identities.

During the war James saw a bit of the world and that must’ve changed him. His daughter was born in Canada and he lived the majority of his life there. Did he ever miss Scotland? I know that his brother Patrick returned to Newmains for a visit and said that if he’d known the positive changes that would happen after the war he would never have left.

I have never been to Canada but it is certainly on my list for the not too distant future. I would love to make the trip my granda wanted to but never got the chance.