James Masterton 1866–1954 and Agnes Cecillia Inglis 1867–1952
My great grandparents
James Masterton was born on the 17th of November 1866 in Earlsferry, Fife, he was the ninth of eleven children. His father was a hand loom weaver called David Masterton and his mother was Janet Proudfoot Scott. James was born twenty years into the marriage of his parents.
Agnes Cecilia Inglis was born on the 10th of April 1867 at 100 High Street, Portobello, Edinburgh. She was the fourth of nine children of a journeyman joiner called William Inglis and his wife Margaret Crawford Johnson.
In the May of 1868, two of Agnes’s older sisters died of scarlet fever, they were three and four years old. Two months later her parents had their fifth baby.
When James was two years old, his brother John got married. The following year saw the births of both John’s first child another sibling for James.
When the 1871 census was recorded James was four years old and living in Kilconquhar, Earlsferry with his parents. His father David was forty seven years old and was working as a linen weaver, his mother Janet was forty four and his siblings who were living at home were George, Philip, Elizabeth, David and Isabella.
In 1871 Agnes was also four years old, she was living with her parents at 108 Causewayside, Edinburgh. Her parents were both fifty one years old and she had two surviving siblings, Jane and James.
When the census was recorded in 1871 James’s brother John was living in Dundee and his sisters Ann (aka Agnes), and Christina were working as general servants in Edinburgh. His brother Andrew had died in 1858 so that left five children at home with their parents.
Later in 1871, Agnes’s parents had twins who were born in Portobello and the following year, James’s parents had their eleventh and final child in Kilconquhar.
In 1873 Agnes’s parents lost another baby, she lived for just over two weeks but presumably wasn’t expected to live because she wasn’t given a name.
Two years later James’s brother George got married.
The 1875 Valuation Rolls show that James’s family were living in Earlsferry on the High Street in a weavers house.
At this time I think that Agnes and her parents were living in Portobello, I can’t identify where they lived beyond doubt because William and his father had the same name but I think that both were recorded at different locations in Portobello.
In 1877 Agnes’s sister Catherine was born, she was the nineth and final child in the family.
The following year James’s sister Christina got married but it was also the year when their father died, James was only twelve years old. His father was fifty four and the cause of death was rheumatic fever, the witness was his son George. James’s mother Janet was left on her own with eight children, the youngest of whom was only six years old.
When the 1881 census was recorded James was living on the High Street, Kilconquhar, he was fourteen and was employed as a ‘message boy’, the word message in this context means groceries. His siblings Ann, Isabella and Alexander were the only other children now left in the family home. His mother was a fifty six year old widow working as a grocer, she was presumably caring for her twenty nine year old daughter Ann who had returned home unemployed and ill.
In 1881 Agnes was fourteen years old, she was working as a general servant and messenger girl at 192 High Street, Portobello which was the home of her aunt and uncle. Her sister Jane was living and working with their grandparents two doors away. Agnes’s parents appear to have separated, her mother was working as a laundress, living at 9 Brand Place, Edinburgh with four children but her father was in lodgings at a different address in Edinburgh.
By 1881 more of James’s older brothers and sisters were leaving home. His sister Elizabeth was a servant in the house of the landscape artist William Eden in Toxteth, England, she got married later in the same year. James’s brother John was a ‘commercial traveller for tea’ living in Brotty Ferry, Philip was in Pitweem working as a baker and David was an apprentice gardener in Elie. Christina was living with her husband in Crail and George was living at in Edinburgh where he was working as a stone mason.
Four years later in 1885 the Valuation Rolls showed James’s mother still working as a grocer and living at North Side, High Street, Earlsferry. I am assuming that James was living there as well, I have looked for him on other records in 1885 and not found him.
The following year in 1886 James’s mother died of gastroenteritis at the age age of fifty eight, James was the witness and present at the death, he was twenty years old. There were still some of his siblings living at home with his mother, Alexander was just fourteen and Isabella was sixteen. At this time the whereabouts of Ann is uncertain, after the 1881 census I have been unnable to trace what happened to her. Following her mother’s death Isabella went to live in Crail near her sister Christina and in 1893 Alexander joined the Navy.
In 1886 and 1890 Agnes’s sister Jane and brother James got married and in 1888 James’s brother Philip was also married.
In 1891 when the census was recorded James was living in Main’s Garden Bothy, Milngavie, age twenty four years old working as a gardener, the Mains Estate was the home of the Douglas family. There is no way to find out when James started work at Mains because the rental ledgers for this period are missing.•1.
In 1891 Agnes was twenty four and was working as an attendant in the Royal Asylum for the insane in Edinburgh.
When the 1891 census was recorded Agnes’s father William was a lodger in Edinburgh and her mother was living at a different address at 3 Abbey Street, Edinburgh working as a charwoman and looking after Clarence, Grace and Catherine.•2. Agnes’s brother James and sister Jane were living next door to each other in Lyne Street, Edinburgh.
The 1891 census shows that James’s siblings were dispersed over a wide area, George was living in Edinburgh but John was in Dundee, Philip was in Midcalder, Elizabeth was in Toxteth, David was in Ardarroch and Isabella was in Crail. I am assuming that Christina was also in Crail but have been unable to find the census for her.
James and Agnes got married in 1891 on the 10th of November at Milton Street Hall, Edinburgh.•3. James was a gardener living at the Mains Estate, Milngavie and Agnes was a domestic servant living at 2 Abbey Street, Edinburgh, they were both twenty four years old. They were married in the Free Church, by the ‘forms of the Evangelical Union Churches’. There was a witness from each of the families, James’s brother David was one and the other one was Marian Forfar. Marion’s brother William was married to Agnes’s sister Jane.
Between the tenth of November 1891 when they got married and the 25th of August the following year when their first child was born they left the Mains Estate and moved seventeen miles away to Coatbridge in Lanarkshire. Their first baby was born there at Hanson Place•4. they called him James.
It isn’t possible to be precise about where James senior was working, Hanson’s Place was near Drumpellier House and gardens and this was owned by the Colonel Carrick Buchanan. This family were James’s employers in 1894 but Hanson’s Place was also close to Craigend, another of the gardens that James worked in, it was owned by another member of the same family, Sir James Buchanan.
In 1892 James’s brother David got married and a year later Agnes’s sister Grace also got married.
In 1894 James and Agnes had moved again and were living in Craigend Gardens. On the 17th of May of that year their second child, my grandmother, Margaret was born.
A year later on the first of May 1895 their third child Janet was born, also at Craigend Gardens.
In 1895 and 1896 there were two more marriages in the family, James’s brother Alexander and Agnes’s brother Clarence got married.
At this time the family remained in the same place and in 1895 the valuation rolls showed that James was still a gardener at Craigend Gardens.
On the twenty fifth of January 1897 their fourth child Agnes was born at Craigend Gardens.
After five years working at Craigend the family moved three miles away to the Rocholes Estate and their fifth child Catherine was born there on the seventeenth of May 1899. This was the home of Sir Montagu Gerard.
The 1901 census show James, Agnes and their five children still living at the Rochsoles Estate, New Monkland, Airdrie.
When the 1901 census was recorded James’s brother George was living in Edinburgh, John (now living apart from his wife) was in Banffshire, Philip was in Dunbar, Elizabeth, Alexander and David were in England and Christina and Isabella waere in Fife.
All of Agnes’s family were living in Edinburgh, her father was still living in lodgings, and her brother Clarence who had been widowed and lost his baby daughter had moved back in with their mother.
In 1902 James’s youngest sister Isabella got married and Agnes’s father died in his lodgings of a heart attack, the witness was Agnes’s brother in law rather than any members of his immediate family. The same year saw the death of James’s brother George.
Two years later in 1904 Agnes’s sister Jane died of complications in childbirth and their widowed brother Clarence got married for a second time.
James worked at Rochsoles for two years and then between the 1901 census and the birth of Louisa in 1902 the family moved to Hamilton in South Lanarkshire where James worked as a gardener on the Barncluith Estate, the home of Lord Ruthven.
The 1905 Valuation Rolls showed the family still living at Barncluith in the grounds of the Mansion House. This is the last paperwork to show the family at this location.
In 1905 Lord Ruthven was involved in a court case against his son, he left Barncluith and moved to a new property in Newland (aka Newlandburn), Borthwick. It appears that James and his family moved with him and in 1907 their son Clarence was born in Newland Lodge, Borthwick (Gorebridge) where James was now foreman gardener. When Lord Ruthven moved to Newland he employed Gertude Jekyll to design the gardens.
In 1907 Agnes’s sister Catherine got married and the following year James’s brother John died.
Two years later in 1909 James was still working for Lord Ruthven and he and Agnes had a son called Alexander who was born at Newland Lodge where James was the head gardener.
The 1911 census showed the family still living at Newland Lodge, James was forty four, working as a domestic gardener, Agnes was forty two and they had five children living at home. Their eldest son James had left to be a gardener in Edinburgh at Westerlea House, their daughter Margaret was also in Edinburgh at 2 Marchhall Road, working as a cook •5. and Janet was sixteen working as a servant in the home of the Estate Factor of Preston Hall, Cranston.
Agnes’s mother was living with her daughter Catherine (aka Kate) in Edinburgh, her son James was also living in Edinburgh but Clarence and Grace were in Glasgow.
James’s siblings continued to move around, his brother George was still living in Edinburgh but Philip was in Dunbar, Elizabeth and David were in England, Isabella in Stirlingshire, Alexander was aboard a Naval ship and Christina and her husband had emigrated to Australia in 1910.
In 1912 James and Agnes had their nineth and final child, his name was Ronald and he was born in Borthwick at Newland Lodge.
James had worked for Lord Ruthvern for over ten years but sometime between 1912 and 1915 he and Agnes left Newland Lodge and moved back to Milngavie to work at a newly built property called Baldernock House. The house was owned by an engineer called Harold Drinkwater Jackson and the Valuation Rolls for 1915 show James working there as a gardener.
Two years into the first world war their eldest son James died, it was on the third of November 1915 at the Battle of Gallipoli, he was twenty three years old and a private in the Scottish Horse. At the time of his death his parents were living at The Firs Cottage, Baldernock, Milngavie. (Newspaper articles in 1912 give the resident of The Firs as RH Hendry esq and in February 1918 puts a Miss H Hendry at The Firs. RH’s widow died in 1834 )
His name is recorded on the war memorial in Milngavie
A year after his death his parents inserted this brief note in the Scotsman (Edinburgh) on the third of November 1916
The first of Agnes and James’s children to get married was Janet. She married John Duncan Cameron in Partick, Glasgow on the 11th of July 1918. Janet was a baker’s assistant and John was a journeyman joiner.
In 1919 James’s youngest sister Isabella died of cancer age forty nine.
In 1920 Agnes’s brother Clarence emigrated to Canada with his second wife and her daughter.
1920 was also the year that Agnes and James’s daughter Janet became a mother making them grandparents.
The Valuation Rolls of 1920 show that James and Agnes were still living at West Lodge, Baldernock House, Milngavie.
When the national census was taken in 1921 the family were living in Firs Cottage Milngavie. This must have been the cottage on the Baldernock estate.
The 1921 census for Janet and her husband John Cameron in Kilpatrick showed that Catherine was living with her sister and brother in law. Catherine was working for herself as a laundress. In 1923 Catherine gave birth to a baby boy, Catherine wasn’t married and no father was recorded on the birth certificate• 6.
1923 saw the death of James’s sister Christina in Australia and in the same year James and Agnes’s daughter Agnes left home and went to train as a nurse in Staincliffe Infirmary in West Yorkshire.
The following year their daughter Louisa left home to train to be a nurse at the Union Infirmary in Coventry, England.
In 1925 on the 3rd of March their eldest daughter Margaret married Douglas Hepburn, these were my grandparents. They started married life in Pollokshaw Road, Glasgow running a fruit shop. Margaret gave ‘Victoria Place, Milngavie’ as her address on the marriage certificate which was different from the address where her parents were living, this means that it was probably a work address.
On the 13th of August 1925 Margaret and Douglas had their first child, a baby girl called Agnes Margaret.
The 1925 Valuation Rolls show that James was still working as a gardener but he and Agnes were now living at 5 Devon Street, Govan. He may have worked at Glasgow Green or Queens Park, these parks were on either side of the road.
The domestic address for James and Agnes in 1925 was at 5 Devon Street but Agnes was running a fruit shop three miles away at 136 Henderson Street, she had grown up in a family that had owned several shops, including a dairy and grocers in Portobello. My father remembers a photograph of a fruit shop with a family member, possible his mother bending over the fruit trays that were stacked in the window on a slope towards the glass. Sadly that photograph is no longer in existence. By 1925 James and Agnes’s daughter Margaret was also running a fruit shop with her husband Douglas Hepburn, their shop was nearby at 39 Hydepark Street.
In 1926 their daughter Agnes married Albison Hird in Staffordshire, England, Albison was a marine engineer.
In the following year on the 31st of December daughter Margaret and Douglas had their second child, this was my father John James Hepburn who was born at 146 Pollockshaws Road in Glasgow.
Two years later in 1929 Agnes’s brother James emigrated to America and the following year James’s brother Philip died in Dunbar.
The 1930 Valuation Rolls show that James and Agnes were living at 18 Cavendish Place, Glasgow, a short walk round the corner from their previous address.
By 1932 James and Agnes had moved to 65 St Andrews Road and still had Alexander and Clarence living with them.
In 1933 their son Alexander got married in Pollockshields Parish Church, his wife was Eva O’Donnell, the daughter of a local wine and spirit merchant. They went on to have three children, Cecilia was born in 1934, James in 1935, and Alistair in 1938. Alexander worked as a chauffeur and gave the address of 65 St Andrews Road on his marriage certificate, his father was described as a jobbing gardener. The 1934 electoral register showed that Alexander and Eva started married life living with James and Agnes.
James and Agnes appear to have been uprooted quite a few times at this period in their lives, in 1934 they were living at 8 Elizabeth Street with Clarence, Ronald, Alexander and Eva.
In 1935-1936 James and Agnes were recorded at yet another new address, they were living at 17 Broomloan Place, Alexander and Eva had left but Ronald and Clarence were recorded as living with them.
By 1939 James and Agnes had returned to St Andrews Road and were living at number 105 where they remained for the rest of their lives.
On the 7th of April 1939 Ronald married Isabella Hutton, the daughter of a jeweller at Regents Place Church. Ronald worked as a goldsmith and gave his address as 105 St Andrew’s Road.
In 1940 Ronald and Isabella had a daughter called Elizabeth and two years later their second daughter, Margaret was born.
1940 was also the year when James’s brother Clarence died in Canada and in 1942 Agnes’s brother James died in San Fransisco.
James and Agnes’s son Ronald was taken prisoner in the second World War and kept in the Stalag X111B camp until the end of the war.
In 1950 James’s sister Elizabeth died in England
On the the 15th of September 1952 Agnes died at 105 St Andrew’s Road, she was eighty five. The cause of death was myocarditis for one and a half years, the witness was her son Clarence Inglis Masterton.
The following year in 1953 James’s sister Grace died in Edinburgh and in 1954 James’s brother David died in Cheshire
A year later on the 10th of December 1954 James died, he was eighty eight and he was also shown as living at 105 St Andrew’s Road, Glasgow. He died of General Advanced Arterio-sclerosis Gangrene Left Leg: Urinary retention and Honemia Amputation.
The witness on the death certificate was Clarence who was still living with James.
James and Agnes are both buried in the Linn Section of Cathcart Cemetery. Lair 2B 2001.
James and Agnes were outlived by all but one of their children, their son James died in the war.
The lives of the other eight went as follows
Margaret and Douglas had two children and moved to England where Douglas worked for ICI in Billlingham. They lived there for the rest of their lives until after Margaret was widowed when she moved to Hertfordshire to live with her son and his family.
Two of Agnes and James’s daughters became nurses, one was Louisa who stayed single and worked as a nurse for the rest of her life. She trained in England and then lived near to Margaret in Teeside but eventually moved back to Scotland and according to her niece she lived in the homes of her patients as a carer. Agnes nursed from 1924 until at least 1951, she and Albison didn’t have any children but travelled the world together and after Albison retired they ran a post office and retired in Dewsbury.
Janet and her husband John Cameron had one son and lived in Bearsden where John worked as a joiner. John died in Dunoon and Janet died eight years later in Milngavie near her son’s family.
Catherine went on to have three more children with her partner William Kerr but they didn’t get married and so it is a bit more difficult to get information about her life.
Clarence continued to live with his parents until their death. His nieces and nephew remember him as a man who needed the continuing support of his parents.
Alexander and Eva had three children, their youngest died in an accident when he was just twenty. Alexander was a motor mechanic and died at fifty four, Eva preceeded him by seven years, both my father and his cousin remember Eva as having health problems and often being in her bed.
Their youngest child Ronald and his wife Isabella had two daughters without whose help I wouldn’t have been able to put all of this information together - thank you Elizabeth and Margaret. Ronald continued to work as a watchmaker and jeweller.
- 1. A document describing the Mains Estate https://www.eastdunbarton.gov.uk/residents/planning/planning-policy/natural-and-historic-environment/survey-historic-gardens-and
The estate papers for the Mains Estate are held at the Mitchell in Glasgow. The rent ledgers for 1883 and 1893 are missing and so they cannot confirm when James arrived or left Mains.
- 2. There was a twenty one year old man in the house who was recorded as her adopted son and a visitor with the surname Inglis but I haven’t been able to pin down who these people were.
- 3. There is no evidence of how they met, James lived in Glasgow and Agnes in Edinburgh. My current theory is that they met through James’s brother George, there are two occassions where he was living at addresses connected to Agnes and her family. George was living at 55 Causewayside where in 1871 Agnes’s family were living establishing a possibly link between the families. 1878 George lived at 9 Newport Street, Edinburgh, another address that connects the families, Agnes was living at the same address in 1865)
- 4. Hanson Place is listed on the census return for 1891 but on no other census and on no maps.
- 5. The house was owned by the daughter of an officer from the Napoleonic wars. She was the widow of a preacher called Michael Stewart Johnstone, who, despite the surname doesn’t appear to be related.
- 6. This story was the catalyst that started me researching. My father told me that an aunt had been listed on a solicitor’s document after the death of his uncle Clarence. Dad had never heard of this aunt before despite knowing all of the rest of his mother’s siblings but he thought he remembered a rumour about his mother’s sister getting pregnant. Catherine seems to have lost contact with most members of her family at this time althoug I have subsequently found out that she remained in touch with both Clarence and Ronald.
