What Dunfermline Would Have Been (And May Become) Without Damask By Dr Jean Barclay The material for this item comes from an article entitled `Dunfermline and the damask trade` from The Weekly News of Saturday, November 4th, 1865, which was included in the Folio of Oddities, Volume 3, pp. 87-8 (see notes below). The article was written at a time when power-loom weaving was growing apace and, although some hand-looms were employed in the new factories, many weavers were experiencing great hardship and leaving the trade in large numbers. When times briefly looked more prosperous, there were no longer enough weavers to fulfil quotas and the future for the time-honoured damask industry looked dire. Dunfermline and the Damask Trade “The present rise in the wages of the weavers is, in no small degree, raising the hopes of that particular class, and almost alluring them to believe that, in a short time, their weekly earnings will be up to the average of the rest of the labouring community. If there is anything more certain than another, it is that if the wages, after a short feverish period of prosperity, sink down again to the low point around which they have been fluctuating for many years back, the damask weaving trade will very soon shake hands and bid farewell to Dunfermline. The present briskness has lifted up the veil of the future, and disclosed that inevitable issue as plainly as any coming event can be foreseen. There are not enough weavers to meet the present…
The Schweppes of Scotland?
Gilbert Rae’s Aereated Water Works Baldridge Works, Golfdrum Street, Dunfermline by George Beattie Gilbert Rae Gilbert Rae was born in 1841, at Marchwell Farm, Rullion Green, near Penicuik. He was the son of James Rae, who was then a tenant farmer, and his wife Rachel Martin. During Gilbert’s early childhood his father changed his profession to that of general merchant/grocer and moved to Edinburgh. It appears that young Gilbert was trained in his father’s shop and, according to family folklore, was given the sum of £100 by his father to go out into the world and set up in business for himself. It is not known why Gilbert came to choose Dunfermline for this venture but it is known that in 1867 he took over the ‘family grocery warehouse’ business of James Shearer, in the Maygate, Dunfermline. This shop was part of a three storey building located at the Kirkgate end of Maygate and was licensed to sell wines and spirits. These premises would later become, for over a century, the headquarters of the wholesale grocery firm of Fraser and Carmichael. An advertisement in the Dunfermline Press of that year intimates this move and details an extensive list of the products Gilbert could supply. These included fine wines, liquors, ales, porters, teas, coffees, eggs and butters. Gilbert Rae’s shop in Maygate, Dunfermline, with the Abbey in the background As will be seen from the bottle label below Gilbert Rae also sold ‘Fine Old Burntisland Whisky’. As with most grocers…
Reminiscences of Dunfermline – Pharmacy
In the next of his articles based on Alexander Stewart’s “Reminiscences of Dunfermline – Sixty Years Ago”, George Robertson FSA Scot describes the provision of pharmacy and medical care available in Dunfermline in the early years of the 19th Century. Old Fashioned Pharmacy Nowadays, when in need of some form of medication, we make our way to the doctor’s surgery where we are given a prescription for the appropriate tablet or, if we feel confident enough to deal with the matter personally, we visit the local pharmacy, where some appropriate item can be purchased over the counter without prescription. There is no doubt the National Health Service, which commenced in Scotland on 5th July, 1948, under the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1947, has been to our great advantage and has helped to improve the health of ourselves – and of the nation. This obviously did not apply during earlier times when people were left very much to their own devices to treat ailments and once again we turn to Alexander Stewart’s book Reminiscences of Dunfermline – Sixty Years Ago, in which we are given an idea of some of the home remedies our forebears were required to use – and a sight of some of the people who administered these remedies. Stewart recalls the names of medicines that used to be prescribed for ailments and diseases in those early days – “For pleurisy, take half a drachm (eighth of an ounce) of soot: for nettle rash, rub the parts with…
Peter Chalmers, minister and antiquary
The Dunfermline Historical Society recently received a portrait photograph of the Reverend Peter Chalmers, a minister of the Abbey Church, a local historian and an influential figure in Dunfermline life in the 19th Century. Jean Barclay has researched his life and in this article she summarises his achievements in education, charitable work and historical research and also his difficulties in coping with the Great Disruption of 1843. Reverend Doctor Peter Chalmers, 1790-1870 by Dr. Jean Barclay Peter Chalmers, minister of the Church of Scotland and local historian, was born in Glasgow on September 19th 1790 the only son of Alexander Chalmers, cloth merchant, and his wife Marion Bald. At the age of sixteen, having done well at school, he went to the University of Glasgow, gaining an MA (or AM) in 1808 and decided to enter the ministry. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Glasgow in September 1814 and became assistant to the well-known evangelist Rev. Thomas Chalmers (no relation) at St. George`s (Tron) Church. In July 1817 Peter Chalmers was ordained to the Second Charge (or ministry) at Dunfermline Abbey. He arrived just before the removal of the ruins of the old monastic church and the erection of the New Abbey Church on its site in 1818-21 and gave the last sermon in the Auld Kirk in the nave and the first in the New Church. In 1836, on the death of the Rev. Allan MacLean, Chalmers was promoted to the First Charge of the Abbey. On his promotion, Rev….
Erskine Beveridge’s Business Beginnings
Erskine Beveridge & Co. The Origins of a Famous Dunfermline Business by Donald Adamson Dunfermline in 1914 – A linen town At the outbreak of the First World War, Dunfermline had ten major damask linen mills. They employed over 7,000 people. Erskine Beveridge & Co had the largest factory with 1,000 looms at the St Leonard’s Works, and in addition had another 900 looms in Cowdenbeath, Ladybank and Dunshalt. The company, incorporated in 1893, also had warehousing operations in London, Manchester, New York and Montreal, as well as agencies all across the British Empire. Other notable companies in Dunfermline included Hay & Robertson, Andrew Reid & Co, Henry Reid & Son, Inglis & Co and J & T Alexander. In 1867, it was said that “Dunfermline is the chief seat of the manufacture of table linen in Britain – indeed, it may be said, the world.” The commencement of Erskine Beveridge & Co: retail draper Erskine Beveridge came from a family of trades people, long established in Dunfermline. His father was David Beveridge, master baker, deacon of the Dunfermline baxters, and in due course Convenor of Trades in Dunfermline. David married Margaret Thomson in 1794. They had five sons; John (born 1797), Henry (born 1799), David (born 1801), Erskine (born 1803) and Robert (born 1805). There was also one daughter, Elizabeth (born 1795), who married a wheelwright, James Adamson from Crossgates. Henry was the grandfather of Lord Beveridge, the author of the…