Gem From The Archive
Wiebke McGhee, an archivist at North Lanarkshire Archives, shares a notebook filled with stories about a Scottish walking club and the activities of its members
Ramblers’ minute book, 1881–1882
When gazing at a solemn blackand-white photograph, it’s sometimes easy to forget that – just like us – our ancestors likely had hobbies or interests that they enjoyed pursuing in their spare time. Whether they belonged to a village cricket team or spent their evenings playing the piano, there’s a wide variety of pastimes in which they could have indulged.
While finding concrete evidence of such passions is tricky, many archives around the UK hold records relating to the administration of local clubs and societies. One fascinating example can be found at North Lanarkshire Archives, as archivist Wiebke McGhee explains…
What Have You Chosen As Your Gem?
I have chosen The Town and Country Ramblers’ Minute Book and Roll for the Year 1881. This minute book was kept by the secretary of the Town and Country Ramblers’ Association – a men’s club that organised walks all around the central belt of Scotland, or anywhere easily reached by train.
The book comprises 153 pages of handwritten text, containing various lists of members and reports of the trips that they went on. Despite being labelled 1881, the book also covers events that took place in 1882.
What Does The Minute Book Reveal About The Ramblers’ Activities?
The accounts of the ramblers’ trips are very detailed. They would usually start off by meeting up at a local railway station, before collecting other members at stops along the way.
Most of the time they combined their rambles with visits to beauty spots and other places of interest. For example, on one occasion they travel to Dalzell Steel Works in Motherwell and get shown how steel is made (a very new process in the 1880s), while on another trip they visit Caldercruix near Airdrie, which was home to a world-famous paper mill known for its blotting paper.
However, you not only learn about the types of locations that they enjoyed visiting, but the sorts of pastimes they liked to get up to along the way – making up songs, telling stories and playing games.
There’s even a description of a tug-of-war match between the ‘townies’ in the club who lived in Glasgow, and the ‘country’ people who hailed from places such as Airdrie, Coatbridge and Wishaw. The rope kept on splitting, so they ended up having to hold lots of smaller competitions with the different pieces!
What Do You Like Most About The Book?
What makes the book a ‘gem’ is the style in which it’s written – it’s a joy to read. There’s quite a lot of serious discussion in the minutes, but you do end up wondering whether it was mostly tongue in cheek.
For example, members were required to bring a walking stick along to the rambles, which acted as their badge – if they didn’t have it, they got fined. However, there’s a whole section in which they argue whether a “respectable umbrella” could count as someone’s badge instead. The tone of the debate appears to be quite light-hearted, so you get the impression it was all part of the game of being in the club.
Elsewhere, there’s an amusing account of a visit to the Drumpellier Estate near Coatbridge. Typically, when visiting such a location, the ramblers would contact the landowners in advance and get treated to a tour of the gardens. However, when they turned up at Drumpellier, they were simply marched from one gate to another and quickly dispatched with! They weren’t best pleased with the way they were treated, yet they still remained polite.
How Can The Book Help Family Historians?
There are several members’ rolls included throughout the
book, containing their full names and addresses, as well as the number of excursions they attended. In some cases, it also includes their occupation – the example currently in front of me lists a plumber, a painter, an engineer and a joiner.
Interestingly, the secretary who wrote the minute book was an architect named James Davidson. At the time he was a ‘measurer and master of work’, but I carried out some further research and it turns out that he was the same James Davidson who later went on to design quite a few famous buildings in the Lanarkshire area, as well as the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh.
Aside from being a really lovely item to read, I also think that the minute book could help researchers learn more about the social circles in which their ancestors moved, and the ways in which they networked. Could making a new connection through the Town and Country Ramblers’ Association have been the reason that a forebear changed professions, for instance? These sorts of clubs tended to work in that way – a bit like groups of people who play golf together now!
Tell Us More About Your Collections…
North Lanarkshire Archives was created in 1996 after the last local government reorganisation here in Scotland. Whereas the country once had several large regional archives, it
The book could help researchers learn about ancestors’ social circles
now has a different archive service for each authority. As a result, our collections contain records from several previous administrations, including the old burghs of Airdrie, Coatbridge, Kilsyth, Motherwell and Wishaw.
Although some of our most popular records (such as Poor Law applications and electoral registers) have been published on Ancestry ( ancestry.co.uk), we have plenty of family history sources that aren’t currently online, such as cemetery books, police court records and material relating to North Lanarkshire schools.
Also, some of the more unique collections we hold include those relating to local structural-engineering firms like Alexander Findlay, which helped build the White City Stadium for the 1908 London Olympics. We’re also the custodians of the NHS Lanarkshire Archives, including records of the former Hartwood Asylum.