E is for Events: A-Z Challenge 2020

My Theme

Family History Meets Local History - 

Sources and Stories from England & Scotland 

E if for EVENTS  - Our ancestors did not exist in a vacuum  and to me it is important to put  their lives in the context of what  was going on around them at a local, national and international level.  My father was often  called a "Titanic" baby - not that he was on the ill fated  ship, but for the fact he was born 15th April 1912, the night the Titanic sank.  

For major events, date reference books can help, but local newspapers and local histories are invaluable sources of information.     For assistance:

• Was your ancestor alive when there was the threat of a Napoleonic invasion with towns and villages ready to light beacons to warn of the French attack?  The main advertisement on the front page of  "The  Kelso Chronicle" of 1804 warns its readers to be prepared.
• Might your ancestors have seen the Jacobite army marching through Scotland and the north of England  in 1745  as Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) attempted  to take the Hanoverian throne.
• Might your female ancestors have seen suffragettes campaigning  locally?  We tend to be most aware of militant demonstration in the cities, but newspapers in the Scottish Borders reported  on local  protests  and demonstrations and a visit from their leader Emmeline Pankhurst - in the photogaph below.
  

                               A suffragette meeting,  in Hawick in the Scottish Borders, 1909.

                 Note - the number of men in the crowd. 

Photograph by permission of Scottish Borders Council Museum & Gallery Service

• What about the impact of the invention of the sewing machine  on the task of making a family's clothes?   

• When was your local cottage hospital built, or the local football  club formed?
• How did your  ancestral town or village mark the death of Queen Victoria in 1901?  Or  the coronation of her successors;  or Armistice Day in 1918: V.E. Day and V.J. Day in 1945; local gala days, pageants, Christmas and New Year.
• The coming of the railway to a community must have been a thrilling event to witness, with local newspapers giving extensive coverage of the excitement generated.  The cutting of the first sod for the Berwickshire Railway extension to  Earlston  met with a day of celebration - as given in this colourful and entertaining account  in "The Southern Reporter":  23rd October 1862

  "Villagers were put on the "qui vive" by the arrival of the brass band of the 2nd Selkirkshire Volunteers who reached here between 8 and 9 o'clock, and after partaking of refreshments and discoursing several spirit stirring tunes, proceeded onwards to the centre of attraction.

  They were quickly followed by the majority of our male population in carriages, gigs and omnibus, and not a few in long carts - the occupants making every village and farmstead they passed resound with their oft repeated and hearty "hurrahs".

  The whole of our sightseers arrived home between 6 and 7 o'clock in the evening, all highly gratified by the proceedings.  The commencement of the railway will open up a ready means of communication in every direction. 

  The Messrs Wilson,tweed manufacturers, not only closed their factory, and placed their horses and carts at the disposal of their employees, but forwarded a liberal supply of refreshments".

  
  

                    Earlston Railway Station staff and visitors c.1920

  Photograph courtesy of Auld Earlston Group  
   
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The possibilities are endless for adding colour to a family story...........

 

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