from the Illustrated Police Gazette for 17 January 1880

Your central girders would not have given way,

At least many sensible men do say,

Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,

At least many sensible men confesses,

For the stronger we our houses do build

The less chance we have of being killed.

 The Court of Inquiry presented its findings to parliament in June 1880.  The Court concluded that the bridge had been badly designed, badly constructed and badly maintained, but it could not explain what has happened on the night of the disaster.  Sir Thomas Bouch was held almost totally responsible for the disaster.

 Sir Thomas Bouch died on 30 October 1880 and was buried in Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh.

The Disaster Relief Fund totalled £6,527.  Small sums were distributed to the bereaved families, intended to provide immediate assistance rather than long-term support.  The final application to the fund was made, just before the Second World War, by Miss Janet Patterson Scott.  Her brother had been one of guards on the train.  Before the directors of Fund had reached a decision, Miss Scott died in St Andrews, aged 74.

The balance the Fund was ultimately transferred to the Piper Alpha Disaster Appeal and the Fund wound up in 1988.

The grave of Sir Thomas Bouch in Edinburgh's Dean Cemetery (photo by Kim Traynor)

from the Illustrated Police News for 17 January 1880

As soon as the catastrophe came to be known,

The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,

Over in Dundee, several groups of people who were watching the train cross the bridge saw its lights disappear.  In Tay Bridge Station, staff became increasingly worried; the train had not left the bridge and the telegraph was faulty.  Word spread rapidly.  The bridge was down.  A crowd started to gather outside the station and lights sprang from windows across the city as people opened their curtains to stare towards the bridge.  A ferryboat was sent to the bridge and put down a lifeboat to search for survivors.  Unsuccessful, they returned to the harbour about midnight.  Telegrams were sent, via Perth, to the North British Railway, to Sir Thomas Bouch and, from a reporter on the Dundee Advertiser, to the London press.  Few in Dundee slept that night.

On Monday, rumours spread and the crowd grew.  The news travelled across Britain by telegraph and all the later editions of the newspapers used the Tay Bridge disaster as their lead story.  Just before sunset, floating three miles downstream from the bridge, the first body was found.  By Wednesday, divers had found the train and its engine, but no more bodies.  Debris and personal effects started be washed up on the beach.  That evening, the Town Council called a public meeting and proposed that a disaster relief fund be set up.  They had already received £1,980 in donations, including £500 from the North British Railway, £500 from the directors of the company and £250 from Sir Thomas Bouch.

The week dragged on.  A Board of Trade Inquiry was convened.  No more bodies were found, but the crews of the whaling boats searching at the mouth of the river claimed that a drowned man would not rise to the surface until seven days had passed.

 On the Sunday, Sabbatarian ministers had a field day:

 “If there is one voice louder than others in this terrible event it is that o God! Determined to guard his Sabbath with jealous care.”

 “Is it not awful to think that they must have been carried away when many of them must have known that they were transgressing the lawof God?”

On Monday 5 January 1880, the eighth day after the disaster, a second body was found.

By the middle of the second week the bodies of 25 men, women and children had been recovered.  The search went on throughout January.  By the end of the month, 33 bodies had been found.  About four months after the disaster a body, identified as one of the passengers, was washed ashore in Caithness.

In total, 46 bodies were recovered.

from the Illustrated Police News for 17 January 1880

The wind it blew with all its might,

And the rain came pouring down,

December 1879 was a bad month all over Europe, with storms and frosts prevailing.  By about six o’clock on the evening of 28 December, the rain was torrential and an 80-mile-an-hour gale was blowing down the river.  Three railway wagons loaded with coal were blown 400 yards along the track at Tay Bridge Station before the wheels were chocked to prevent them from moving any further.

So the train mov’d slowly along the Bridge of Tay,

Until it was about midway,

Very few trains ran on Sundays in Scotland at that time, but one that did was the mail train between Dundee and Burntisland in Fife.

At 5.20 pm on that Sunday evening the mail train picked up ferry passengers from Edinburgh and set off on its journey north, stopping at Ladybank, Cupar and Leuchars to pick up additional passengers.  At 7.05 pm, the train arrived at St Fort, the final station before the bridge.  As was the custom, the station staff collected the tickets of all the passengers intending to get off the train at Dundee.  When they sorted the tickets, they had collected 57.  There had been two season-ticket holders, and the 10 or 11 passengers travelling on beyond Dundee still had their tickets.  There were five railway staff on the train.  Five minutes later, the engine reached Wormit signal box and the men on the footplate were given the baton or staff which was the driver’s authority to proceed along the track across the bridge

On the last Sabbath day of 1879

At approximately 7.20 pm on Sunday 28 December 1879, a 1,060 yard stretch of the longest railway bridge in the world collapsed, killing 75 men, women and children.  The Tay Bridge disaster sent shock waves through Victorian Britain, ended the career of its designer Sir Thomas Bouch and inspired William McGonnagal, Scotland’s worst poet, to write his famous poem The Tay Bridge Disaster.

During the 1850s and 1860s, the Caledonian Railway and the North British Railway were locked in a bitter struggle for dominance of Scottish railway industry.  The 64-mile journey from Edinburgh to Dundee took three hours and 12 minutes to complete: by train from Edinburgh to Granton on Forth, by ferry to Burntisland, train to Tayport, another boat to Broughty Ferry then a third train to Dundee.  Thomas Bouch had long dreamed of bridging the River Tay, and the North British Railway, which dominated in the east of Scotland, could see the commercial advantages.  After much opposition and politicking, the idea of a bridge over the Tay caught the public’s imagination and the parliamentary bill authorising the construction of Thomas Bouch’s bridge received royal assent on 15 July 1870.  The foundation stone of the new bridge was laid at Wormit, on the south bank of the Tay, on Saturday 22 July 1871.  The river at this point was one mile wide.  However, the line’s route at an angle across the river, and the bends necessary at either end, meant that the bridge would be almost two miles long.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!

The men employed to build the bridge worked 12 hours a day and were paid up to 10d per hour (about 4p in today’s currency).  The developing bridge became a tourist attraction and was visited by many professional engineers.  The most famous visitor was General Ulysses S Grant, former president of the United States, who inspected the work in September 1877.

The bridge took 600 workmen six years to build and cost £300,000 and 20 lives.  The inauguration of a passenger service took place on Friday 31 May 1878.  It was a memorable day: the sun shone, flags flew, bands played, the militia marched, toasts and speeches were made and children lined the street cheering and sucking Tay Bridge rock.

The bridge was a success: the journey time to Edinburgh was cut by an hour, land values on the south bank of the river rose rapidly and the North British Railway Company now dominated the railways in the north of Scotland.  In late June of 1879 Queen Victoria, on her way back from Balmoral, stopped briefly at the new Tay Bridge Station in Dundee and then crossed the bridge.  Thomas Bouch received a knighthood.

Some harboured doubts about the bridge, however.  Regular travellers complained that they could see the girders moving and that trains were exceeding the speed limit.  Maintenance men found bolts that had fallen out and bolts that had rusted through, and there were holes in the girders.

From the Illustrated Police News for 10 January 1880

On Sunday 28 December 1879, a 1,060 yard stretch of the Tay Bridge, the longest railway bridge in the world, collapsed killing 75 men, women and children.

The UK TV series Find My Past featured a programme about the disaster which prompted me to dust off this research which I carried out several years ago and post it here together with a short series of posts telling the story of the disaster.

Sixty victims were identified but only 45 victims’ bodies were recovered.  The known victims are listed below – where no town is given in the address then the victim lived in Dundee.

I’ve been invited to speak at the Third Australasian Scottish Genealogy Conference which is taking place in Melbourne this weekend.

I’m giving four talks in total, two on the Saturday about researching army ancestors using online and LDS resources and about Scottish handloom weavers.  Of the two talks on the Sunday, one is about agricultural labourers and the other one is called “Picture the Past”

If you’ll be in Melbourne this weekend do go over to the conference page on the Genealogical Society of Victoria’s website at http://www.gsv.org.au/component/content/article/47-discussion/197-sag-conf to find out more – and do come along.  I understand there’s still a few places left!

St Monans - a typical Fife fishing village

Herring has always formed an important part of Scotland’s economy and many of us have both male and female ancestors who were part of the herring trade.

What became known as the “Scotch cure” was reputedly invented by a Dutchman at the end of the 14th century and involved gutting and removing the gills of the fish which were then packed “sardine fashion” in barrels, their tails towards the centre, with a layer of salt between each layer of fish.

Herring is a seasonal fish and many fishermen tried to extend the season by following the shoals from the east coast of Scotland in winter and spring, to the west coast in early summer, round the Shetlands in mid-summer, down the north-east coast in late summer through autumn and ending up in England off the coast of East Anglia in December.

Uniquely to the Scottish herring trade, armies of young girls followed the fishing fleet to provide the seasonal labour needed to deal with the catches.

By the middle of the 19th century the major commercial markets were overseas in Germany, Poland and Russia; in Scotland herring (“silver darlings”) was regarded as a poor man’s food.

To find out more about the herring trade, try some of these links:

Modern fishing boats being repaired in Gamrie, Banffshire

• The history of the east coast herring industry: http://sites.scran.ac.uk/secf_final/silver/index.php
• The Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther: http://www.scotfishmuseum.org/index.html
• Stornoway Herring Girls from the Virtual Hebrides: http://www.virtualheb.co.uk/the-herring-girls-stornoway-western-isles.html
• The Stonehaven Fishing History: http://www.mearns.org.uk/stonehaven/fishing.htm
• The Angus Macleod Archive: http://www.angusmacleodarchive.org.uk/browse/index.php?path=%252F7.%2BFishing
• Fishing boat registration letters: http://www.denholma.freeserve.co.uk/fish/fishingports.htm
• Indexes to Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, Stranraer & Wigtown shipping registers: http://www.dgcommunity.net/historicalindexes/default.aspx
• Ships built in Aberdeen since 1811: http://www.aberdeenships.com/
• Lists of fishing boats built by W R McIntosh of Buckie: http://glennmci.brinkster.net/mcibb/listcomp.html
• The Herring Fisheries of Scotland – published in 1883: http://www.archive.org/details/herringfisheries00duffiala
• Down to the Sea and account of life in the fishing villages of Hilton, Balintore & Shandwick from the Ross and Cromarty Heritage Society:  http://www.rchs.uhi.ac.uk/communit/p37/ht/hy/DTTS/Cover.html
• The Herring, its natural history and national importance by John M Mitchell, published in 1876: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3Iw-AAAAcAAJ&dq=The%20Herring%2C%20its%20natural%20history%20and%20national%20importance&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false
• The Transport and Society Network list of online resources: http://transportandsociety.com/routine.html

Sheena

The collection includes books, photographs, paintings, drawings and websites covering such diverse subjects as

• Aberdeen-built ships
• Ayrshire working lives photographs
• Hand drawn maps of Cawdor parish dating from 1782
• The Dictionary of Scottish Architects
• Architectural plans and drawings
• Photographs of Glasgow people and places
• More maps than you can shake a stick at

and much much more!

Go and have a look at http://scone.strath.ac.uk/sddl/index.cfm – I’m sure you’ll find something relevant to your own family history.

Sheena

From their announcement:

Familyrelatives is proud to announce the addition of over a quarter of a million Victorian Scottish Trade Directory records online.

Familyrelatives.com continues to add to its collection of Trade directories by releasing Trade and individual records dedicated to Scotland.

Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory is an impressive record of all aspects of life in Scotland in 1889. Apart from Topographical and Postal Information it contains lists of professionals, landowners, Gentry, farmers, factors, London and Provincial Bankers and a fascinating array of advertisements at the time accompanies the text.

The Slater’s Directories form a unique collection of 35 Scottish Counties with invaluable occupational and commercial information for 1889 at the peak of Victoria ‘s reign. The directories with over a quarter of a million entries contain all the major professions, trades and occupations including taverns and public houses as well as the nobility, gentry and clergy. Even the addresses are identified….

Towns and parishes are detailed for each area and the introduction contains key information including the number of inhabitants (taken from the 1871 census) with a geographical and topographical description and the local history. A description of the main trades, produce, manufacturers and industries of the area or town are also covered.

These directories are part of their subscription service and are not available to pay-per-view users.  The subscription service costs £30 (50 USD) per year and covers all their records; pay-per-view costs £6 (10 USD) per 60 units valid for 90 days or £12 (20 USD) per 150 units also valid for 90 days.

For a comparison of the records covered by the two different payment options go to http://www.familyrelatives.com/

Sheena

Apparently Edinburgh Town Council issued passports, or certificates of good character, to its inhabitants from at least the 17th century. They were issued by the Lord Provost under his authority as Admiral of the Firth of Forth.

The idea of a compulsory identity document which had to be carried by all travellers was first introduced in 1792 in revolutionary France where all travellers had to carry state-issued identity documents with them ¹

Britain required travellers to have a passport to enter or travel in the country from 1793 to 1826.

From 1794 to 1858 all British passports were issued by the Secretary of State and were only issued to friends and acquaintances, or to someone recommended by a London banker ².

At this time the more important the passport looked, the more important it was considered to be; wax seals and fancy lettering with a long list of titles which stressed the importance of the official who issued the passport all added to this impression.   In 1850 a British Treasury official commented that those that came closest to the ideal were issued by the “Civic Chief” of Edinburgh ³

The Illustrated London News puts it nicely:

It seems that the municipal head of “Auld Reekie” rejoices in a vast multiplicity of obsolete titles – “Lord High Admiral if the Firth of Forth” is one of the smallest, but all of which are stated at most imposing length in the passport, the effect being to inspire all manners of frontier officials with a deep and pervading awe for this dreadful potentate, and a corresponding degree of civility towards the lucky personages armed with his most imperial mandate. Add to these characteristics a number of vast seals of antique and venerable aspect, and nearly as big as saucers, and the charm is complete. ⁴

No wonder, in 1855, the Edinburgh Christian Magazine writes:

To peep across the Channel you need not obtain through Lee the bookseller or Coutts the banker in the Strand any passport from the Foreign Office… The passport of the Lord High Admiral of the Firth of Forth known commonly amongst us in Scotland as the Provost of Edinburgh we have always found quite sufficient for such short excursions and is moreover a few shillings cheaper than any other. ⁵

Seemingly Edinburgh continued to issue its own passports to at least 1913.

I’d love to see one of these impressive documents – I don’t suppose any of you have come across one?

Sheena