She Was Aye Workin’

Poet Liz Berry speaks of the universality of motherhood. Being a mother is challenging in any circumstance but our foremothers did an amazing job in harder times.

I wanted to know what it was like for the women in the family, when they had lots of children to raise and not much money coming in. The thousands of workers who came to the cities from the countryside in the 1800s started off in crowded tenements in the heart of town near the docks and factories and gradually moved outwards as new housing was built to accommodate them.

“*My mother was always washing’, always cleaning’, she was aye working’. She never got anywhere. That was her life.*” Flora McDonald

For this book Helen Clark and Elizabeth Carnegie captured the memories of women, focusing on Edinburgh and Glasgow, which had the largest number of tenements. Tenement life involved living closely with your neighbors and sharing cleaning responsibilities, joys, and heartaches.

A tenement is just a multi-occupancy dwelling. The first ones were built in Edinburgh in the 17C after the Union with England when trade took off. They got a bad name when they became overcrowded and turned into unhealthy slums, as in Glasgow’s infamous Gorbals.

Leith’s overcrowded tenements were in South Leith, east of the harbor. The Robertsons, Hunters, McCabes, Smiths, and Greenans lived here from the 1850s until the mid 1880s.

Wee History (Leith)

1811 Population 20,000

1840 Population 40,000

1920 Population 80,000

These photographs of Leith were taken just before the old tenements were demolished and don’t show the teeming life of the streets. Our families would have lived in one or two rooms in these buildings. We know how many people were in a building from Census records which show the number of people in a family, and from Valuation records, which show the number of tenants in a building.

There were no indoor toilets until 1892 when the Burgh Police Act made them compulsory. WC stacks or “cludgies” were built at the backs of the tenements and were shared by several families.

Floor plan of one floor of an address in a tenement ***after*** improvements…

The diagram above shows eight homes on one floor at one tenement address. People shared a common outdoor stairway. Each home had a sink by a window - before that people would have to use an outdoor faucet in the courtyard to draw (cold) water for cooking and washing. There would be a built in bed alcove.

In 1861 Charles and Elizabeth Hunter lived at Binnies Close in the Yardheads with their six children aged from 1 month to 13 years. Their daughter Elizabeth Ann Hunter 1859 married William Robertson 1856 and they lived at Brickwork Close in the Yardheads until about 1890 when they moved to new housing in North Leith.

The Yardheads, Leith c 1880
Brickwork Close is bottom right

Elizabeth Ann and her daughter-in-law Matilda Workman were laundresses - they worked at a communal wash house or “steamie” where women could go and do their laundry for a fee. There was hot water and women would help each other and watch each other’s kids while they talked.

Phil and Jenny Greenan had three boys and three girls born between 1911 and 1925. My nana Georgina was the oldest. They probably followed the pattern of the once-a-week bath. Water was heated on the stove and put in a tin bath. When it was the girls’ turn the boys would be sent out and vice versa. There were lots of community activities that children could go to, organized by the churches or local groups.

My nana’s family moved out to Lochend to new housing in 1925 to a 2 bedroom flat with a bathroom, which was a huge upgrade. The girls slept in one bedroom, the boys in another, and Jenny and Phil in a four poster bed in the living room.

Leith had an exceptional school system compared to other cities - boys were educated free from 1550 and girls from 1820. They went until age 13 when they would be expected to go to work. When they were not in school they played outside, summer or winter.

Babies were born at home until the 1950s. I was the first one in our family to be born in a hospital (Barshaw Park Hospital in Paisley).

Leith had a free hospital from 1852 supported by the city and by local businesses, who sponsored individual beds. Before that there were dispensaries (pharmacies) with some medical staff and one or two beds. If people needed a hospital stay they went to Edinburgh.

Mothers used home remedies, not all of which were useful. Nana used to take my mum and her brothers to local roadworks to smell the tar if they were congested.

Children had paraffin rubbed on their heads to prevent lice. Grandmas pulled decayed teeth out with their bare hands. Heating pads for aches and pains were made with coarse salt heated on the fire in a shovel and put in a sock.

Janet Chapman 1843, wife of blacksmith George Gordon Smith Monro, had 12 children and died of cancer of the vulva at age 68. I wonder if she used a home made remedy that may have been carcinogenic?

With no refrigeration or storage space people shopped every day for groceries. Meals were simple and people had to stretch the budget to last the week until payday. Mothers made soup from bones and made it last. They ate porridge for breakfast.

The men (and some women) worked six days a week. Christmas Day wasn’t a holiday until after WWII.

Wee History (Leith)

1833 The first public transportation is horse pulled buses

1852 Leith Hospital opens

1880 Artisans and Laborers Dwelling Act - slums start to be demolished

1892 Indoor toilets compulsory in Leith

1905 First electric tram

1911 Leith Provident Co-op opens*

1924 More slum demolition

1938 First cinema opens

1948 National Health Service passed into law, offering free care to all.

*The Co-op or “Provie” was a life saver for working class families. It was a co-operative department store that paid out dividends to regular customers, allowing women to save up for special treats.

**Queens of the Republic of Motherhood:**
L to R: Janet “**Jenny**” Munro; Georgina “**Jean**” Greenan; Janet “**Nettie”** Robertson (baby); Georgina “**Jane**” McCabe [photo c. 1931]

This is a favorite song of my kids that was passed down through the McCabe/Greenan/Robertsons. It was written in the 1870s by Robert Coultart, a candy maker in Galashiels as a marketing tool.

Clan Moffat

The Workmans of Antrim