Blantyre Project reader, David used the free ancestry request service on my website to ask, “Please can you help find out things about my family? My great, grandfather’s name was Archibald McCartney Baillie. My grandfather’s name was Andrew Walker Baillie his D.O.B was 10/02/1911″
If it’s got a Blantyre connection, I’m always happy to research on YOUR behalf at my time and cost, in return for adding it to the growing archive here on and offline.
Archibald McCartney Baillie was born in 1872. Coming to Blantyre by 1895, he was a blacksmith living at Hunthill Road, High Blantyre. He rented a small house that year for £4 5 s from his employer, Robert Nicol, also a blacksmith.
This was a family home as Archibald had married on 2nd June 1893, just a couple of years before to Isabella Hobbs.
He may have been offered work from nearby Dixon’s Collieries and certainly in the 1890’s there would have been a great need for blacksmiths in Blantyre.
With Dixon’s owning a pit at Larkfield too, this may have been the reason for moving home to 103 Stonefield Road. It was at this address that son, Andrew Walker Baillie was born on 10th February 1911.
Archibald McCartney Baillie died on 24th March 1937, age 65. Who knows, perhaps he knew these balcksmiths or was even pictured amongst them?
Son Andrew, died on 1st June 1977 having lived at the Village, Blantyre for a good part of his life.
The name Archibald Baillie is associated also with coal-merchants of Craig Street, Blantyre during the 1940s, but i’m unsure if they were related.