The Jessies and their Legacy. The Cross Family Story.

 

 

James Cross     m          Jessie Smart     m           John Tennant    

1826 - 1884                      1830 - 1904

David Williamson Cross    Jessie Cross          James Cross             Unknown female

      1850 - 1918                         1852 - 1881        1855 1858.

m Elizabeth Steed                  m     James Francis Kerr

Early life – James Cross and Janet Smart AKA Jessie

Our Cross family originated from Burtonton, Perthshire. James Cross' life begins there.

My three times great-grandfather, James Cross, was born approximately 1826. Fast forward to the 1841 census he is boarding with the Taylors at age 15. At that young age he is a brewer of spirits. At the time, the spirit brewing operations were undergoing more formal regulation of the brewing distillery industry.

James Cross 1841 census

Brewing usually involved making whisky or beer. Around this time, they were now making whiskey  with grain rather than malt. These were the formative days of the grain whisky. Grain whiskey was a lighter and faster way to produce whiskey than malt whiskey. There were 280 breweries in Scotland.

At some stage, he was drawn to working in Edinburgh and probably ended at the Carlton Hill Brewery in Edinburgh. By the time of his marriage to Jesse Smart, he was living with his parents-in-law at 5 Amphion Place in Edinburgh.

Smart family 1841 census

The Carlton Hill Brewery was located in Amphion Place, so it is assumed James probably worked there, as did Jesse's father, Robert Smart, who was a cooper supplying barrels. Carlton Hill Brewery is on the north side of the north back of Cannon Gate. It was an extensive brewery at the eastern end of Amphion Place.

James and Jessie married in July 1850. They had had a son a few months before, little David Williamson Cross. 

James and Jessie 1851 census

In the 1851 census he is listed with his small son with Jessie a porter to a spirit merchant. Soon Jessie Cross was born in 1852. James Senior died of cholera on 14^th September 1854 at age 28 a victim of an outbreak that had swept through the area as is evidenced in the burial records.

James death from the Cemetary records

The following year, 1855 brought the birth of little James Cross He was born in 87 Kirkgate South. Under his father's name in the registration form it states that he has two girls and one boy alive. The birth certificate of James also shows Jessie as having her fourth child. So far, they had Jessie, David, and an unknown girl. The irony is that James was born seven and a half months after the death of his father on 1 March 1855. Tragically three little children in the household were fatherless. Presumably Jessie was able to call on her parents Robert and Janet (Jessie) Wilson for help. Alas young James Cross died on 14^th February 1858.

Another 2 months into 1858 saw Jessie’s father, Robert Smart, pass away also from chronic bronchitis. He was 64.

Later in the 1861 census we see Jessie,31 and her mother, 54 are living with her two surviving children, David and Jessie by then 11 and 9.  If you turn the page, John Tennant, aged 35, the widower of Elizabeth Hardy, is lodging with the family.

John works as a clockmaker. His motherless children, Jessie, aged five years, and Isabella 6 months, are with their grandparents in Banffshire. Out of love, necessity, convenience, financially or a combination, Jessie and John Tennant married later that year in October 1861 in Edinburgh according to the rites of the United Presbyterian Church.

Jessie and John marriage

The Family in Glasgow
After their marriage John's child from his previous marriage, Jessie Tennent lives with John and Jessie. Isabella does not live with them and it is unknown about her further life. By 1871, a decade after their marriage, they had all relocated to Glasgow after welcoming two more children to their family. These children were William, 8, and Robert Smart, 6. John's child from his previous marriage, Jessie, aged 15, was 15 by this stage. I estimate they moved to Glasgow sometime after the birth of Robert Smart in 1864 as Jessie’s mother Janet (Jessie) Smart nee Wilson died in Glasgow in July 1865.

After she made the move the tenement was crowded with Jessies- 4 in all. All the females in this household are called Jessie!  

Janet Jessie Smart died aged 77 in her daughter Jessie’s home in Crookston Street Tradeston of gangrene of the foot and leg possibly pointing to an underlying condition of severe diabetes or infection due to trauma.

During 1870, young Jessie Cross while working as a silk worker gave birth to an illegitimate daughter- another Jessie- Jessie Smart Cross. This little one died at age two months.

Yet again our Jessie, my 2 times great grandmother, was in the 1871 census as stepdaughter, Jessie Cross- mill worker. Also, in the tenement her mother Jessie is living with her second husband, John Tennant and her oldest son David. David had taken on his stepfather's profession as a clockmaker. John Tennant's daughter, Jessie, plus the two children from his second marriage, William and Robert Smart Tennant also live there.

Around this time Jessie had met a young man named James Francis Kerr a young Cab driver from Ireland and a courtship ensued.  

John Tennent death 

The Tennants continued to live in the same area in Glasgow with him working in the clockmaking field. Their young sons had by the 1881 census begun employment with William as a brass finisher and Robert Smart as an apprentice Engine turner. 

In time the children Jessie, David, William and Robert moved on, married and started their own families. Sadly in 1894, John died of paralysis apoplexy leaving his daughter Jessie and wife Jessie to continue living together.

Jumping ahead to the 1901 census, Jessie Tennant, (John's daughter), is now aged 45 and living with her stepmother Jessie, who is now 70. My three times great-grandmother, Jessie nee Smart, previously Cross and then Tennant, lived a grand old life, dying in 1904 at age 74. She had been living with her stepdaughter, Jessie, who was the witness on her death certificate. Her cause of death was senile debility.

Jessie Smart Cross Tennent death 

The Next Generation

In 1873 young Jessie Cross had married James Francis Kerr who was living in Shuttle Street Glasgow. James had come from Ireland and was working as a cabman for Mr. Aiken, a cab proprietor in Bridgeton.

By 1881, he had started up his own business as a cab proprietor, and they were living in a tenement with two rooms or more, with one or more windows. They had three children. James Francis Kerr, born 1873 and died 1874 of measles. James Cross Kerr, 1876, my great-grandfather, and another Jessie -Jessie Smart Kerr was born 1878.

Another child, John Kerr, was born in 1880 but died in 1881. James's lovely wife Jessie died in October 1881 because of severe vomiting in pregnancy. A little over a month later, their one-year-old son John died of convulsions.

Jessie Kerr nee Cross death

David Williamson Cross married Elizabeth Steed also in 1873. After having 2 children he moved to live in England as a mechanic with the postal service where he had 6 more children. He eventually retired and moved in with his daughter and son-in-law as a retired superannuated GPO mechanic following the passing of his in 1898. He died in 1918.

Half-brother Robert Smart Tennant married Sarah Mulholland in 1887. They had a son and a daughter in Glasgow. He died in1890 aged 25 of erysipelas -strep infection while working as an iron turner. They lived in 265 Crookston St Glasgow.

Older half-brother William who married Margaret Moore in 1885 was a brass finisher who had died before 1911 census. Here the family of two sons John and Thomas and daughters Margaret and Elizabeth are shown living with widowed mother Margaret and none other than a sister Jessies daughter Jessie Smart Gallagher nee Kerr who was herself a young widow.   

The Legacy

So, what became of the family? James Francis Kerr went on to become an entrepreneur cab proprietor of mixed fortunes. He later remarried Agnes Yuill, and most of his children were employed in his business until this horse-drawn business declined around World War I.

Two of his children, by Jessie Cross, James Cross Kerr (my great grandfather) and Jessie Smart Kerr, came to Australia post-war and made their homes in Sydney.

James had 3 children after marrying Mary Ann Murphy -James (my grandfather) and Alfred. Stephen deceased. He served in the First World War. Jessie travelled to Australia, met and married Ernest Rayner living out her days in Bondi after running the successful Rayner’s Cafe. She probably kept the Cross Tennent story alive though her nephews James and Alf and continued to write to her aunt and her daughter Peggy Allisson, Tommie etc.

Jessie Smart Kerr  wedding?

Jessie and her Kerr nephews Alf top and James below with little Jean

This is the story of the Cross family, of the move from Perthshire to Edinburgh to Glasgow and Newcastle and ultimately Australia. Facts along the way highlight the hardships of the times, despite solid employment, and death from now-eradicated diseases and the trials of pregnancy abound in 19th-century Scotland.

I knew about my 2x great grandmother Jessie Cross from early on, or at least that that was her name. My great-uncle Alf used to talk about her as if he knew her. Her name had been included in my great-grandfather's name, James Cross Kerr. Cross had the misfortune of being recorded as CROFS in Old English for SS. That confused some relatives, particularly those who came from the step-siblings of James Cross Kerr and Jessie Smart Kerr.

Lack of social security for women and the need for someone to housekeep, cook, etc., in families saw many men and women remarry and consequent blended families for genealogists to find. Add a few illegitimate children, and a story where everyone is called Jessie results to distort the DNA and confuse the researcher. At last count there were 6 and I haven’t even mentioned Jean my aunt who died as a child who was named as a derivative of Janet or Jessie.

Along the way, more of the story of the Scottish relatives is revealed. They didn't all come from Glasgow after all. Our relationship with the Tennants continued with Aunty Jessie Smart Kerr, previously Gallagher, living with Maggie, who was the widow from William Tennant. Jessie continued to write to her once in Australia. See photo postcard. We also have a Bible gifted from Tommy Tennant before her trip abroard on the 1910s.

The Cross family’s story is one of resilience and adaptation, shaped by the challenges and opportunities of 19^th Century Scotland. From James Cross’ early days as a brewer to the migration to Glasgow and eventually Australia their legacy lives on through the generations. It’s a testament to the power of family and the stories we inherit.

Note: At some point Tennant became Tennent in the records or was used inter changeably .

DNA matches  

Some of the connections can be verified via DNA. So far I have confirmed matches with two of the of the offspring of David Williamson Cross and one of the offspring of half sibling William Tennant.