William would only have been 15 years old and John had said that he started working on farms when he was 11. The older children must also have been working by this time.
B&B IN MILLPORT CUMBRAE PLUS
How might a young widow make a living on this tiny island in the 1800’s? The 1841 census gives a cryptic clue by listing her occupation as "flower"! The census also shows that there was another family living in the same house plus two young men so it might have been a boarding house. Margaret doesn’t show up in the digitalised poor-relief records so it looks like she might have found a way to survive on her own. This left his wife, Margaret, a 44 year old widow with 10 children, the youngest being 2 years old. Then we know from John’s interview that she lost her husband in about 1836 when John was 6 years old. If we allow a conservative year before the birth of her first child then she probably married about 1815 when she was about 23 years old. Of course, not without raising further questions! Margaret’s story: Margaret was born on the island of Cumbrae on 30 April 1792 to Robert Wright and Janet Gillies. Margaret’s story, however, became clearer. Samuel remained rather elusive with no trace of birth or death records. All of their 10 children were born at Millport: Janet 1816, Mary 1818, Robert 1820, Margaret 1822, Peter 1824, William 1826, Susanna 1828, John 1830, Samuel 1832, and James 1834. He probably came 2 Photo from Claeys Antique sometime before 1816 and married a local girl, Margaret Wright. Have you seen the film "Once Were Warriers"? Well, I guess we once were quarriers!Īccording to the census records from the 1800s, "Ford" was not a common name on the island and it looks like John’s father, Samuel, might have been the first "Ford" on Cumbrae. (John’s Millport trail ended here as by the next census he had already left for Australia.) Then Margaret’s death certificate revealed that the name of her husband and my great-great-great grandfather was Samuel and that he was a Millport quarryman. Her life at Millport began to unfold from her birth to her death and along with it some insight into the identities and lives of John’s "two younger …and seven senior" siblings. I was, of course, then eager to learn more about Margaret and was lucky that she had left quite a good paper trail. Amazingly it seemed the street and houses had resisted change and modernisation since the 1800’s. Pretty sure that this was our John so it was a magical moment when I first read the name of my great-great-great grandmother, Margaret Ford, and of course I immediately google-earthed "Stuart Street". The Ford Family of Millport The first stroke of luck was finding proof in the 1841 Census that there was an 11 year old John Ford living in Stuart Street, Millport with his mother and three of his siblings. It took a few years longer, some help from a Scottish genealogist, Marie Dougan, and a trip to the Edinburgh and Ayrshire archives to collect and collate the rest of these puzzle pieces. Thanks to Google Earth it didn’t take long to unravel the mystery of Millport and the Clyde. Where were Millport and "the Clyde", who were his parents, and all those brothers and sisters and what happened to them all? Although frustrated at what had not been said, he had left tantalising clues about his roots that begged to be explored. Then I took to the sea." The Register (Adelaide, South Australian Newspaper) Wednesday, page 9 "Looking Back at Eighty." Stumbling across this passage from my great-great grandfather, John Ford’s, recollections of his long and adventurous life as an early South Australian settler set me off on my own long journey of discovery. Stuck to that for three years, and learnt something that came in handy when I had to cook for myself. When I was 11 I went on a farm at Millport, stayed a year or two, and got to the baking trade. There were two younger in the family than I, and seven my senior. My father died when I was six years of age. John Ford, 1909, South Australia Corinne Fordschmid (nee Ford) Aug 2012, Switzerland "I was born on the island of Millport, at the mouth of the Clyde, on May 16, 1830, … I had to start very early in life to make my own way in the world.
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