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Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Renfrewshire => Topic started by: Maggiemck on Thursday 27 August 09 12:16 BST (UK)
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I've got another request please......
Does anyone know if any information survives relating to the 'Ragged' or Industrial School which was on Captain Street in Greenock or the Bank Street Boys Home?
My grandfather (mentioned in a previous post) was known for part of his life as Joe Grant (born Angus John Grant) and he spent time in one or both of these institutions.
I can find general information on the internet about Industrial Schools but nothing specific. Watt Library don't have anything on either of them which i was surprised about. Anyone come across anything on either of these places?
Maggie
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Hi maggie
Is this the sort of stuff you want?
The Greenock Ragged and Industrial School was administered by the Greenock Ragged School Association:
"It is the object of the Association to reclaim the neglected and destitute children of Greenock by affording them the benefit of a good common and Christian education, and training them to the habits of regular industry so as to enable them to earn an honest livliehood and fit them for the duties of life. The plan upon which the school is conducted is as follows: The children receive an allowance of food for their daily support; are instructed in reading, writing and arithmetic; trained to industry by employing them daily in such work as is suited to their years; and taught the truths of the Gospel, making the children receive suitable religious teaching".
Hibee
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Yes, that's interesting and pretty much what I thought it would be about. Read somewhere about the rules and regulations of the institution!!
I was hoping that somewhere some records might exist of the poor souls who attended such places. Do you know if anything survives? Probably not, no-one seems to have been concerned about preserving the details of the lives of Greenock's poor destitute kids.
M
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Hi Maggie
do you have info that your grandfather spent time in the ragged school
the reason I ask is
on Inverclyde council website
there are a Grant family living at 24 Bank street
http://www.inverclyde.gov.uk/GetAsset.aspx?id=fAA1ADYANQA1AHwAfABGAGEAbABzAGUAfAB8ADAAfAA1
if you scroll down to page 130 there are a couple of births
and further down a death of a Nellie
Elaine
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oh that's interesting thanks. Will have a look at that. I have no dates sadly. Am trying to piece together his early days. I only know his adopted father died 1907. He would only have been 4 then and I don't know if at that point he went back to his mother's family but think that might be what happened.
I'll have a look at that site and let you know if it looks like them. Thanks for looking for me.
Maggie
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I saw that on there, it's worth looking at. But more interesting is that on the same page there's a daughter born to a John Grant and his wife who live at Cathcart Street. That was one of the streets I was told he may have lived on.
Is there any free access you know of to the 1891 census or is it just pay per view Scotland's people?
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they might be able to be found on one of the transcribed censuses
but Scotlands People hold the original
it could possibly be the same family Cathcart street is at the bottom of Bank street
Elaine
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thanks Elaine, do you know of anywhere I can look at the transcribed cenus material?
I've got a lot of Grants that I'd need to look through so too much to do it on Scotland's people.
thanks for your reply
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sorry Maggie
I usually have to get some help on here for that ???
you could maybe post a request asking for someone to look them up
or go to a library that subscribes to Ancestry Library edition
Elaine
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thanks for that Elaine might just do that - put a posting on I mean.
Thank you for your replies. Much appreciated.
Maggie ;D
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Good Luck :)
if I come across anything I will let you know
Elaine
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Many thanks Elaine, it's very difficult to find anything. Don't really have enough information on my Grants and it's obviously a pretty common name in Scotland and Ireland so they're proving very tricky!
Have just discovered these chat rooms though and have got some good feedback from them so that's encouraging.
By the way, I should just mention there may be a link to Port Glasgow too.....just in case.....you never know who might pop into a post!
Maggie
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Maggie
have you had a look at these births on IGI
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Search/frameset_search.asp
Elaine
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hi Elaine, have found Patrick Joseph on there, Julia and Angus John. Are there any others I may have missed? Hopefully you've found something I've missed.
:)
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also found marriage for Owen Grant and Anne Carroll who were married Dublin 1876 it's on there too.
M
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My great grandfather was an inmate at the Captain Street facility. He shows up there under his step father's name on the 1891 census. Our family was shocked to discover this. We knew he had a very rough childhood and emigrated to Canada in 1906, but we had no idea he'd ended up in a ragged school. Given that his step father only had two children to support, things must have been bad.
At that point, about 100 children, all boys. Youngest was 7. Most of them are 11-15 or so.
M.
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thank you for your response Mary. Have been trying in vain to find any information relating to the school and everything seems to have been destroyed. I always thought that my grandfather must have been about that age when he attended that school but can find little or nothing about his early life.
I will have to wait til the next census comes online to find where my grandfather was in 1911. Am quite shocked that Greenock seems to have destroyed all those old records. Such a disregard for the history of the poor in that region. And I think that even the next census might not tell me all that much. My grandfather would have been 8 years old in 1911 so I really don't know where he would have been. Do you know if the school was a residential school? Think it probably was.
Maggie
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I'm certain it was residential - the census certainly seems to indicate the boys were living there as inmates.
What little I know is that my great grandfather was born on the "wrong side of the blanket" in Ireland. When he was less than a year old, his mother came to Greenock and married a widower, James Cassidy, who by that point, only had one other child at home (out of the four he appears to have had with his first wife). James was a sugarhouse laborer. I don't know if he was a drunk - but I do know from some family stories that he was very cruel to Tom and that my great grandfather hated him.
Net result was that Tom ended up in the ragged school, which seems to have done him some good, in terms of keeping him alive, fed and at least given basic care - and getting him a bit of an education - he could read and write, which HIS parents couldn't. Somehow he even came away able to play the organ well enough to be the substitute organist at his church in Canada. In the 1891 census, his age is given as 15, but he was actually 17, so doubtless small enough to get away with fibbing about his age so to keep a roof over his head a bit longer.
He must have been terribly starved and neglected as a child - both he and my great grandmother who came from a similar deprived background were very small - he was less than 5' 3" as a man and all of his children towered over him by many inches, so you know poor diet must have been the culprit. I have his WWI service records (he signed up in his 40's when he was the father of 6 as an ambulence driver), and he apparently had foot problems occasioned by improper footwear as a child (the medical records make mention of his foot deformities due to ill fitted shoes and that he couldn't walk far or march).
And for all of that, he ended up as just a lovely sweet man, father of 9, and very gentle, kind and even tempered.
I just can't imagine the poverty. I have a picture taken in Greenock of a school class in 1911 - my great grandmother's first child is in the picture. This little girl was left behind when my great grandmother went to Canada. What is remarkable about the picture is how ragged and dirty all the children are. Most of them look very thin and worn, many are quite dirty, clothing ill fitting, worn, patched and ragged - most of the boys look like they are wearing items made from worn out adult clothing. All of the little boys in the front are barefoot, although it is clearly NOT warm or dry.
It's like something out of a Dicken's novel.
M.
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oh isn't that sad. It's remarkable how well people turned out despite these circumstances isn't it? My grandfather spent some period of his life there and I've been trying to find out when he went there and what the circumstances were but it's a part of Greenock's history which I fear has been lost to us. But he had a similar story to your great grandfather I guess.
I'm glad to say, like your ancestor, my grandfather turned out a decent man in spite of his difficult early years. He had a long standing naval career and served in the Royal Navy during the second world war and was rewarded with medals for his time spent in service. He married my grandmother and they had 10 children together and he was a good family man. It's heartwarming to know that something good can come out of such a horrible start in life. I think they had to be tough in those days to deal with what life threw at them.
:)
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Mary G
is there any chance you could post the picture on here
and the Greenock telegraph is always printing old pictures of the area
it would be nice and you never know you may get some names for the
children in the picture
Elaine
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My great grandfather, Thomas Leitch White (1874-1967) spent several years as an inmate in the Ragged school on Captain Street. He was born in Ireland to Mary Leitch in 1874, and his unmarried mother brought him to Greenock when he was a year old. She married a widower named James Cassidy, who was a sugar house worker, and apparently unemployed frequently. I know from family stories, he was a drinker and abusive. During parts of his childhood, my great grandfather used the surname Cassidy. He shows up on the 1891 census living at the school, although he is then 15 and supposedly over the allowable age. He was very tiny from his poor diet as a child. For him, the Ragged School was a haven compared to his home. He got fed, he wasn't beaten or neglected or abused. They taught him to read, play the organ (!), and I truly believe saved his life. James Cassidy had four children from his first marriage and they all died young. Seems odd to look at a street view of Wellington and Captain and see an apartment complex on the site where there must have been so much young misery and heart break.
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It's good to add this comment Mary, we all tend to think of the negative side of these institutions but I feel sure they were truly a life saver for many children who faced a worse life at home. I'm glad that some people had positive memories of the institution.
My mother now lives in one of the new build houses on Wellington Street which would have been part of the site of the old poorhouse site. I think of it every time I go there to visit her.