Our first Scottish Sproule family history on this blog! This piece written by Barry Sproull paints a wonderfully vivid and detailed picture of 19th century life in this part of Glasgow where Robert Sproul worked and lived.
Written by Barry Sproull
The legend goes that Mary Queen of Scots, before the Battle of Langside in 1568 which was to prove her undoing, consulted a fortune- teller to find out if her troops were going to be successful. The fortune-teller told her to “cross my palm”, or in the local dialect, “cross my loof”. The badge of the local curling club still displays a hand with a cross on it.
Nineteenth century Crossmyloof was a small
village of about 500 inhabitants, three miles south of Glasgow on the
Pollokshaws road. Its two principal
industries were the Cart Forge (named after the local river) which produced
axles for railway wagons, and the bakery established by the industrialist Neale
Thomson. Robert Sproul came to
Crossmyloof as a young man, after spending his early years in Carriage Hill
just outside the town of Paisley.
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| Robert Sproul |
Born to Matthew Sproul and Mary Crawford in 1823, Robert was the youngest child after his sisters Mary, Janet and Margaret. A deceased brother, who had died in 1820, was also named Robert. Matthew was a farmer, so young Robert would have been brought up on the farm. After settling in Crossmyloof, Robert met Bethia Richmond and they married on January 3rd, 1846, shortly before the Thomson bakery was established in 1847.
Thomson’s Crossmyloof bakery was the largest one in the Glasgow area, and Robert was one of sixty bakers who turned out 43,000 loaves per week from 26 ovens. Neale Thomson was a social reformer as well as an astute businessman. He provided terraced accommodation for his bakers in Crossmyloof Buildings, which were situated in Baker Street. He also introduced shorter working hours before the legislation had actually been passed, and encouraged his employees to save money by promising to match the amount in their pass books at the end of each year. Robert’s savings, probably a little less than five pounds, would have been doubled at the end of each year under Thomson’s scheme. Neale Thomson also gifted land for a church and established “a large and excellent school”, no doubt attended by some of the Sproul children. A twenty-first century bakery in Glasgow has paid homage to Neale Thomson by reviving his recipe and promoting sales of the “Crossmyloaf”.
The 1861 census records the Sproul family living in Thomson’s Crossmyloof Buildings with four children – Robert (13), John (11), Margaret (9) and Elizabeth (4). A daughter, Mary, had died in 1855 when only one year old. Infant deaths were not unusual; they accounted for twenty per cent of all Scottish deaths in the nineteenth century. During a period of ten years of ongoing employment with a benevolent employer Robert progressed from a “journeyman” (a skilled tradesman) to a “master baker” with the capacity to run his own business. However shortly after the census was taken further tragedy hit the family. His wife Bethia died of pulmonary congestion, a condition widespread in the industrial area south of Glasgow.
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| Mary Reddick |
On the last day of 1862 Robert married Mary Reddick, the 32 year old daughter of a deceased hand-loom weaver. The marriage took place in the Glasgow suburb of Anderston following banns – the public announcement of the proposed marriage - “according to the forms of the United Original Secession Church”. The “seceders” were a breakaway group from the Church of Scotland that had formed in 1842. They had protested against church abuses, such as leaders appointing friends or relatives to positions of power while ignoring the wishes of local congregation members. The history of the Church of Scotland follows a most complicated pattern, but it is safe to say that the seceders embraced many of the ideas of the original 17th century covenanters, who had refused to take an oath that the king was the head of the church. Robert took a leading role in this church later in his life.
Robert and Mary established a bakery in Main Street (now Shawbridge Street) Pollokshaws, a little closer to the city of Glasgow. Pollokshaws was an industrial hub – people were occupied in spinning yarn, weaving in homes and factories, and working in bleach and print fields, dyeworks, freestone quarries, and coal pits. The industrial revolution was in full swing in a community that boasted only eight weavers, a crofter, a cooper, a maltman, a cordiner and a mason just one hundred years earlier. The industry of cloth production in bleachfields and printfields had by the mid 1800s moved into coal powered factory buildings, even though the original names were still used. The air was filled with smoke from machinery in the quarries and coal pits.
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| Nineteenth century view of the area South of Glasgow |
Mary had begun her working life as a power loom weaver, accustomed to
working a twelve hour shift on a large factory floor surrounded by 200
machines. There was little wonder about
the high mortality rate maintaining
one’s health was a continual struggle.
In 1846 the practice of accessing water by sinking wells, a constant
source of disease, was replaced by the supply of piped water from a nearby
reservoir, but raw sewage continued to be dumped into the River Cart until 1910
when the first sewers were laid.
Emigration was seen as a practical solution to unemployment and economic depression, and many Scots left for New Zealand, Canada, Australia and USA in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in an attempt to improve their living standards. Alongside the more formal emigration societies supported by the government there were also some self-help groups who made plans for a new life in the colonies.
Robert and Mary had
been married in 1862 by James Milne Smith, a minister nicknamed “Brimstone
Jimmy” because of his hellfire and damnation preaching style. The following
year Smith recruited 100 of his flock to sail with him and other converts to
New Zealand on ”The Ganges”. Robert and
Mary would most likely have considered participating in the adventure, but they
didn’t take up the offer of 40 acres of land for the fifteen pounds fare. The Pollok Settlement, as it was called, was
established just south of Auckland as a self- contained and self sufficient
religious community, unlike most schemes where emigrants finished up on the
goldfields or on sheep runs. The community established in New Zealand reflected
the importance of a church-centred existence to the Scottish Presbyterian
friends of Robert and Mary. Settlers
adopted a charter of twenty rules including limiting the number of tradesmen to
two of each type (to keep prices down), prohibiting alcohol and extending suffrage
to women. The settlement closed when
the church burnt down and Smith, who had acted as both teacher and minister,
left.
Robert’s Pollokshaws bakery flourished in
the 1860s and 1870s, operating from two locations in Main Street. Yet the Sprouls continued to experience the
ill health which dogged Scottish industrial workers and their families. Robert’s sister Janet died in the Paisley
poorhouse in 1861 and three of his children died prematurely, including Matthew,
aged four, of hydrocephalus, and Janet of scarlet fever.
Robert had been obviously impressed by
James Milne’s successor, the Reverend William Bisset Gardiner, because in 1870
when his twin boys were born he called one William Gardiner Sproul. Unfortunately the baby died of pneumonia
within a month. Although tragic this
wasn’t regarded as unusual, since forty two per cent of Scottish deaths at this
time were of children under ten years of age.
Daughters Margaret and Elizabeth (from Robert’s first marriage)
continued to live with Robert and Mary until married, but Elizabeth died
prematurely at 22 years of age from puerperal mania, described at the time as
“an insanity caused by exhaustion in childbirth”.
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| Main Street, Pollokshaws in 1896. The Sproule bakeries were here in the 2nd half of the 19th Century |
The eldest son of Robert and Bethia, also
named Robert , worked with his father and at the time of his marriage to
Matilda Percy in 1867 had achieved the status of “journeyman baker”. His time in the bakery was relatively short
though, and in 1874 he migrated to Massachusetts. It is unclear what prompted the move, but
his young family followed him to the United States the following year. The decision that Matilda would bring five
of their children – Robert, Elizabeth, James, Matthew and Bethia – proved to
have severe consequences for the young mother. Perhaps she was overwhelmed by having to
look after such a young family. Matilda
gave birth to a son in Massachusetts, and was pregnant with another when she
returned with her children to Scotland in 1878.The following year she was
admitted to Paisley’s Craw Road asylum as a “pauper lunatic”. It was common for poor people to be housed
in asylums at the time, but Matilda was also suffering from a mental
illness. She was released to a special
licensed house in Lanark in seven years later, her condition being described by
the doctor as “relieved, but not recovered”.
Matilda’s illness had repercussions for the
young family, and also impacted on the lives of the paternal grandparents,
Robert and Mary. They took the oldest
child, 11 year old Robert, who was of similar age to their own two sons, Arthur
(13) and Andrew (11). Elizabeth went to
live with her grandmother, and James, Matthew and John were boarded in Pollokshaws
with the Mason family who were close friends.
Later Elizabeth, James and John moved to live with their aunts, Margaret
and Mary. In later adult life they moved even further apart – Elizabeth to
Canada, Bethia to England, John to New Hampshire, and William to New
Zealand. The younger Robert, under the
tutelage of his grandfather, became a master baker and president of a national
union called the Operative Bakers of Scotland, and James worked in Pollokshaws
as a cotton twister before eventually moving to the U.S. to join John. The descendants of Robert’s first family had
been spread far and wide.
(His eldest son remained in Boston after splitting with Matilda, and became involved in a range of activities in the community. He joined the Joseph Warren Lodge in 1881 and became a US citizen in 1883. He was also a leading figure in the Boston Caledonian Club, which promoted Scottish culture through highland games and Burns celebrations. In 1886 while practising recreational shooting with other members of the Harrison Shooting Club at Nantasket beach near Boston he was shot in the arm, and died as a result of the consequent amputation.)
In 1871 Scottish communities were concerned
with the passage of the Scotch Education Bill, and a number of town hall
meetings were held to discuss its pros and cons. Robert attended and spoke at the Pollokshaws
meeting, supporting the idea of a secular and non-sectarian national system of
education. Then, as now, the separation
of church and state education was a hot topic.
However he also maintained that the draft bill should be amended to
secure a place for bible instruction, an absolute necessity in his
opinion. He added that a teacher’s
annual salary should be raised from 30 to 50 pounds.
Street level politics in Pollokshaws was a
form of open-air entertainment in a town dominated by churches and pubs. Political campaigners, religious revivalists
and people who spoke urgently about the perils of alcohol were constantly seen
holding court in the streets.
Church-going was considered a serious business; Robert’s family attended
three church services each Sunday as well as participating in the various
activities of the Original Secession Church, which in some instances reached
the level of high drama, as the following report from the Glasgow Herald
indicates:
Robert gave evidence at the hearing,
claiming that Munro had also forced his way into the elders’ meeting and had
refused to leave. The ban was rejected
after four court sessions spanning nine months.
The Original Secession Magazine for 1890
mentions aspects of Robert’s continuing involvement with the congregation. There are several references to his role as
senior elder and his representation of the Pollokshaws congregation at the 1890
Synod. His main responsibility was coordinating
the Synod’s Home Mission and Congregational Work Committee, which oversaw the
administration of the Sabbath (Sunday) schools. In 1890 the Pollokshaws school
had 262 students. Younger Sproul family
members also took part in the Sunday School administration, and in the
publication Andrew, James and Robert Junior are mentioned for receiving awards
for “secretarial and librarianship support”.
There are also many references to the close relationship between the
elder Robert Sproul and William B. Gardiner, the minister who succeeded James
Smith in the Pollokshaws parish. Gardiner
had a long term as minister, and on his twenty fifth anniversary Robert made a
“most felicitous address” and presented Gardiner with a gift of 160 pounds from the congregation.
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| The Elders of the Pollokshaws Original Secession Church. Robert Sproule is second from the left in the front Row |
Robert maintained his bakery in Main Street
until 1901 when he retired at the age of 78, three years after Mary’s
death. The business was listed under
“Sproul brothers” in the 1901 Glasgow Directory, and became “Andrew Sproull
Baker and Purveyor” when Arthur left the next year. Robert continued to live with Andrew and his
family until his death in 1904.
In 1957 Pollokshaws was proposed as a
Comprehensive Development Area in Glasgow, and was demolished. The large tower blocks built in the 1960s to
replace the demolished living space were also demolished between 2008 and 2016.
The popular ballad “The Queer Folk of the Shaws” sheds some light on the type of community in which the family had lived:
Ma mither tel’t me tae beware
An’ mind what I was aboot
“For mind” she says “there’s queer folk there
An’ that you’ll soon find oot.
They’ll pick the siller oot yer pooch
An’ tear yir Sunday braws
I’ve kent them dae the like afore
The queer folk o’ the Shaws.
The folks are green, it’s aft been said
Of this you’ll find no trace –
There’s seasoned wood in every head
And brass in every face.
Look smart an’ keep yer eyes aboot
Their tricks will make you grin.
The Barrhead bus will tak you oot-
The folks will tak you in.
Sources:
- Boston Daily Globe 1884 - 1886
- Census (Scotland) 1841 - 1901
- Gibson, Jack “Pollokshaws: a Brief History”
- Glasgow Post Office directories, 1901-3
- Mitchell Library Glasgow - Craw Road (Paisley) Asylum Records
- Original Secession Magazine, 1887-8 and 1889-90
- Register of Marriages (Scotland)
- Rountree, George “Bygone Pollokshaws” (Stenlake Publishing)
- www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk - statutory births, deaths and marriages
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