John McMeekin 1932 - 2012

This is my dear brother-in-law Jock who died earlier this year just a few weeks short of his 80th birthday.

He was born in Glengyron Row where the family lived until 1939 when they moved down to Cumnock.

On leaving school he served in the army in Malaya and Singapore and carried some photos from that time in his wallet. He never went abroad again!

He married Margaret on 6th June 1952 when they were both 20 and they went on to have 8 children.

He was a skilled bricklayer and generally very good with his hands.  

with his mother Bel circa 1980

For a while he drove a baker's van and his wee brother was his van boy. David recalls how well he dealt with his customers.

He was a wonderful family man investing in a minibus for outings. The family grew as the children married and gave him 19 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren. The family home was never empty for long.  However they were chased home on Sunday evening as that was the night he and Margaret would head for the Juniors Club for some R and R.

The annual family bash on the 2nd January was legendary. Jock would sit in his armchair like the ayatollah as food and drink were delivered to him. He would dispense balloons and pennies and hugs and kisses to the wee ones. He was a truly lovely man and had time for everyone.

Cornish miners in Loudoun parish, Ayrshire

Ladyton Loch near Loudoun Kirk

I'm related to these people by marriage but I got interested in them because of the similarities with my miners from the Black Country and because Loudoun parish is my home patch.

One of my Price descendants married a Burley in 1900. William Burley, a miner, was born in Loudoun, lived in Glengyron Row, Cumnock, where both my ancestors and David's lived. Further research, back a generation, finds his parents Thomas Burley and Amelia Clary marrying in October 1872 in Loudoun parish. They lived in Loudoun Rows just outside Galston. His father Arthur Burley was a copper miner. Witnesses on the certificate were James Phillips and Ellen Burley.

It seems that tin and copper miner families including Burley, Phillips, Chynoweth, Harris, Luke, Bunney, Mudge and Toy all emanated from Cornwall and moved to Loudoun from around 1867. I think they were brought in because of a strike* but they went on strike too.

On 26 July 1872,  3 related couples got married in Loudoun Parish. There must have been some party that night!

Arthur Burley married Ellen Jane Phillips
Elizabeth Ann Burley married James Chynoweth
Elizabeth Ann Chynoweth married Edwin Harris

Initially it seems they stuck together with their Cornish countrymen. I try to imagine how hard it would be for the locals to understand them and vice versa.

I found a much later link though. McMeekin descendant John Murdoch McMeekin married a Luke/Bunney grand-daughter Elizabeth Ann Bunney McHoull in 1914.

Burleys here
Chynoweths here
Phillips here

* 3rd Statistical account of Scotland: Ayrshire by John Strawhorn and William Boyd 1951 page 523

"In the 1860s there arrived in Galston a group of Cornish tin-miners as strikebreakers including Chynoweths, Burleys and Lukes, who still figure among the local families, Some of these were Methodists and held meetings which attracted some following. The original Methodist groups has not survived but a group which hived off from them formed themselves in 1871 into a company of Open Brethren whose present day successors number about 60."

Update August 2022

I haven't found any other evidence of strike breaking. But I did find an article in the Glasgow Herald 12th November 1866 that  Baird of Gartsherrie  was recruiting miners from Cornwall to come to work in mines in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire. There was a local shortage of miners and many had gone to be shale miners, whereas in Cornwall there were many out of work (tin and copper) miners. They were offered an engagement of 12  months and accommodation. But for every married couple, there had to be two single men as accommodation was in short supply. The wages were favourable compared to Cornwall and some 6-700 men had arrived in the last fortnight.  Hurlford Colliery was the only Ayrshire place mentioned in the article. It does mention that were were Wesleyans and most had brought a large family bible with them.

Rolinson - Miners from the Black Country

All I knew about my grandfather James Ball Rolinson's origins was that he was born in Yorkshire that his mother was Emma and that they lived in Calderbank in Lanarkshire.

I found the family very quickly in the 1881 census. Good gracious, they are in Cumnock in the same miners' row that my husband's family lived in, Glengyron Row. I think that is what got me hooked on this genealogy.

Three generations of Rolinsons are there in Glengyron Row in 2 houses next door to each other. My great grandparents James Rolinson and Emma Ball and 3 daughters (my grandfather is still to come), the gg grandparents John Rolinson and Jane (Holmes), their son Matthew Rolinson who is married but with no wife present and a lodger. Next door is son Emmanuel Rolinson and wife  Hannah (Jones) 4 sons and 3 adult male lodgers. So 8 in one house and 9 in the other. These houses had 2 rooms! All of them are born in England except for 2 of the children who were born in Cumnock. They are all from Walsall or Tipton in Staffordshire.

Of course, I had to investigate the lodgers too. With Emmanuel and Hannah are Zachariah Jones and James Jones who turn out to be Hannah's brothers and one Charles Dickens (no, not that one) who later marries into the family, Fanny Price a cousin.

The other lodger Joseph Hunt also later marries into the family, Louisa Yates a cousin. They certainly stuck together.

10 years earlier they are in Cumnock too, at another address. I reckon Glengyron Row was built about 1873 to house the influx of miners, so it probably was the height of luxury, as it was at the time and a way of attracting miners to the area!

I find Matthew Rolinson with his wife Mary Ann Price who also turns out to be his cousin. More of her another time.

Although they are in Cumnock in these 2 census it seems they have gone back to England between censuses judging by the birthplaces of the children. I can only suppose they went where there was work.

In 1891 I find James and Emma in Calderbank, as expected, with widowed mother Jane and Matthew nearby. But between 1881 and 1891 they were in Yorkshire where indeed my grandfather was born. They stayed put in Calderbank and there are still some Rolinsons there.

Although my direct line is no longer in Cumnock others, Yates and Price, stayed on in Cumnock, Auchinleck and Dalmellington. I had no idea I had any connection to Ayrshire where I have lived since 1973.

My grandfather was a miner in the 1901 census but by 1906 he was driving the first public transport bus service in Edinburgh. In 1913 he was a chauffeur in Dollar. He worked for Anderson's in Newton Mearns and also Rosslea Motors and in 1935 he opened his own garage business in the Gallowgate in Glasgow. My father and his brothers also joined the firm and it went on until about 1980.

Papa at the wheel of a Maudsley bus of the Scottish Motor Transport Group, Edinburgh 1906

Link to the Rolinsons on my tree