My Kerr family came to Scotland from Ireland sometime before 1871. It was after the Great Famine as the children Elizabeth (Lizzy) Kerr 3x great Aunt and James Francis Kerr 2x great grandfather were born in 1854 and 1851 in County Antrim. Elizabeth was baptised on 15/2/1854 in Loughguile Diocese of Down and Connor, County of Antrim. There is no record of them in the Scottish 1861 Census. They first appear in the 1871 census living in Glasgow with mother Ann Francis, father James Kerr a van man. By then Lizzie Kerr is 17 and a mill worker while her brother James is a (horse drawn) cab driver. A number of her father’s siblings had come to Scotland in the 1850s and found work around Glasgow in iron and mining industries. I don’t think they arrived as part of the exodus from Ireland from the great famine but more because of family connections and the exodus of Plantation People(See Kerr story link)
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| Kerr family in 1871 census plus Charles Revington |
Glasgow in the late 1800s was one of the largest cities in the world rivaling Liverpool and Dublin. Shipbuilding on the Clyde was rapidly replacing wooden sailing vessels. Many of our relatives were also employed in the textile industry, linen mills, carpet manufacture and cotton processing. These manufactured goods were exported around the world. Around Lanarkshire coal and iron also provided jobs for Glasgow's industrial city.
Coincidentally Lizzie’s future husband Charles Revington, a 26-year-old Slater was a boarder in the Kerr household in 1871. Lizzie married him in the High Church Glasgow in April 1874 six months before their first child little Annie Irvine Revington was born. Brother James and sister-in-law Jessie were witnesses at the wedding as she was at theirs.
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| Elizabeth Kerr m Charles Revington 1874 |
Next, we hear is that Lizzy struggled to take care of Annie as she was estranged from Charles when they parted about 1876. The Poor Law records (1880) where her mother Anne was interviewed for assistance showed little Annie living with her grandmother while her mother Elizabeth lived in Nuneaton Street while working at the West Street mill. The record tells that Lizzie was giving two shillings from her wages for support of Annie to her mother. All support of this working single mother would have ceased with the death of her mother in 1884. Poor Anne Francis was also living with and assisting her son and children after the death of his wife in 1881.
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| Elizabeth and the girls 1891 census |
I then found Lizzy in the 1891 census with two children besides Annie. The second child Maggie was born in 1884 and registered as Maggie Kerr or Revington. with Lizzie claiming on the birth registration that Charles was not the father of the child and that she had not had any personal communication with him since they ceased to live together eight years before. Similarly, the new born Jeannie was three months old was registered as Kerr or Revington with a similar comment that Charles was not the father and that she had not had any personal communication with him since they parted. Sadly, she died later in the year.
Despite the economic expansion of Glasgow there was squalor and poverty. Gloomy tenements became overcrowded and cramped. They lined the streets of Glasgow. This overcrowding caused problems with sanitation and water supply. Coincidentally newly introduced registration of birth deaths and marriages in 1855 led to the capture of information about the cause of deaths. Conditions were causing spread of disease. New sanitation schemes eased the problem. During the 1890s one in seven babies died in Glasgow from common diseases of diarrhoea, measles and lung infections. Jeannie had died of infection of the lungs.
However, something made me look at the gaps between the children’s births and this investigation revealed that Elizabeth had actually given birth to 9 children by 1891- Janet, William, James, Jeannie (1) Rosina, Alice as well as Margaret, Annie and Jeannie (2) Most of the children had died within their first year with little James making it to age 5 and the first Jeannie to age 3. Again, each child was registered as Kerr or Revington with the disclaimer that Charles was not he father and that she hadn’t seen him since their separation.
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| Another child registered as Kerr or Revington with declaration as to parentage |
Only a year later Charles Revington died in August 1892 as a result of falling off the roof during demolition. Elizabeth must have been told of the accident while he lingered for five days dying from his fractured skull. She was the informant widow on his death certificate! A fellow Irishman from Ballintaggart Armagh lived in the same tenement at 5 Ritchie Lane. Edward Tinman Edward was a 34 year-old Carter. They married a couple of months after Revington‘s death in November 1892according to the forms of the Church of Scotland.
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| Marriage to Edward Tinman |
Imagine Elizabeth’s joy when not long later she could finally register a baby as legitimate. Little Thomas Tinman her 10th child was born in 1894. Whether it was financial security, improved sanitation and hygiene conditions imagine her further joy when she saw him grow to a young man.
In the 1901 census they are still living in the 5 Ritchie Lane tenement and Thomas is now seven his half big sister Annie is working as a cotton winder and Maggie as a wool weaver.
The 1911 census records that Edward and Lizzy have been married 18 years with only the one child in that marriage. They are still living at 5 Ritchie Lane with her husband still a contractor Carter. Son Thomas is a lorry boy and oldest daughter Annie a jute winder at a carpet factory. Maggie had married William Hutchison Burbidge in 1907 and made Elizabeth a grandmother of two children by then.
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| Tinman family 1911 census |
Sadly, War had broken out and on the day of her last birthday 15 February 1915 she farewelled her son who had enlisted. Elizabeth died in late 1915. They had moved to 269 Abercrombie Street Glasgow and when she died of Morbid Cardio Bronchitis Asphyxia on that cold 4th December morning Edward was her informant. He lived in the Hutchestown house until he died in 1931.
What became of those she left behind?
Maggie as I mentioned had married in 1907 with Annie as her witness. She went on to have six children in all. Elizabeth, William Helen (Nellie), Margaret (Greta), Edward (Teddy) and Jean (Jeannie) Burbidge. She died of heart failure at the age of 53 having outlived her husband who died in 1932.
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| Maggie and William Burbidge - courtesy of the Burbidge family |
Annie remained unmarried and childless until her death in 1931 at age 56. For most of her life she was a mill worker. She and her stepdad Edward died in the same year.
Thomas was the product of the long marriage of Elizabeth and Edward Tinmen enlisted in 1915 and began duties with the 2nd Cameron Highlanders (Queen’s Own) the day after Elizabeth’s birthday. He was at home until June and then left for France until late November 1915 He probably saw action in the Western Theatre perhaps being too late for action in St Eloi and the 2nd Battle of Ypres. The Second battalion of the Cameron highlanders was moved to Salonika in December 1915 where they were involved in various actions against the Bulgarian Army including in 1916 the capture of Karajakois, the capture of Yenikoi and the battle of Tumbitza Farm. Later in 1917 they were engaged in the capture of Homondos and in 1918 the capture of the Roche Noir Salient, the passage of the Vardar river and the pursuit to the Strumica Valley. At the end of November 1918, they ended the war at Izlis, Macedonia.
Sadly, Thomas would never see his mother again as she died in December 1915. He was returned to Scotland on a disability pension and discharged on 11 March 1919. Nearly 10 years later he married Agnes Mullen in 1928 and had four children Edward James, Donald Ernest, Agnes Mullen and Joyce Innes. He died in 1974 in Glasgow outliving Agnes who died in 1961.
Since beginning my family history journey I always felt for Elizabeth (Lizzy) Kerr my three times great aunt. I’ve written about her brother James Francis Kerr the Irish Scott who made me laugh with all the things I discovered about him, his two wives, his businesses and bankruptcies, the horseracing and training, his many children and their escapades. The discovery of Elizabeth’s 10 children has highlighted another side of life in Glasgow. Lack of support for unmarried women and deserted wives made life tough. It seems to me that something was missing in Lizzy’s life until she married Edward Tinman. Certainly, she had sought out male companionship or was she more than a mill worker to make ends meet? To lose baby after baby (more than the average 1 in 10 deaths of the times) indicates hard times for mothers who lacked contraception, basic sanitation, financial support and access to medicines we take for granted 140 years later. Thank goodness for Edward and his steady job. It looks like he scooped up Lizzy at her lowest point and provided health and happiness for many years to come.
In the past and more recently I been in contact with the extended family of Maggie Revington. They have been welcoming and helpful and interested in continuing their family history. They have passed on stories and photos. What more could you expect from a family descending from the Kerrs?
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| Maggie Burbidge with her two oldest Scott boy Grandchildren |
