Some good old fashioned ancestry research today.
Brian Wilson messaged me saying, “My cousin and I have been doing some family tree research and it would appear that our great grandmother Margaret Bryan nee Reid died in Stonehouse Sanitorium in 1917 her normal residence being “Thornlea”, Blantyre. We have had a look online for Thornlea, Blantyre without success and wondered if the Blantyre Project had any images or information held in their archive.
My cousin and I have been unable to track down a gravesite for our great grandmother (or for her son James Bryan (born in Canada in 1914, died in 3 George Street, Burnbank, Hamilton in 1916)) any advice with regards to records held by the Blantyre Project that may be of assistance would be gratefully received as would any information with regards to Margarets husband James Bryan senior who had returned to Blantyre during the Great War in order to return to his original occupation of miner and “do his bit” for the war effort.”
I was able to reply with:
Thanks for your interesting email. The Bryan family lived at “Thornlie Cottage, Blantyre”, rather than Thornlea which may have simply been a mistake or slack recording of details on the death certificate. However, I believe the two names are interchangeable as confirmed in various census and valuation rolls.
Thornlie Cottage had an address of 50 Auchinraith Road and is sadly no longer there. (Note be careful when researching postal addresses in Lanarkshire as after 1928, many numbers were changed to accommodate a more detailed postal system). Thornlie Cottage was stone built with a slate roof and was sizeable, having 4 rooms with windows. Today, Thornlie Cottage looks like this, simply a wooded embankment at the side of the East Kilbride A725 Expressway.
Now the hard part. Untangling the people. I wasn’t able to find out where Margaret or her son were buried, despite extensive search in Blantyre and Hamilton. However, it is worth exploring that there are possibly errors in the research done to date. I wouldn’t get hung up on the word sanatorium. This did not necessarily mean losing one’s mind. These were facilities for the treatment of tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases, and people passing aware there were typically buried according to local customs and regulations.
In many cases, individuals who died in sanatoriums were likely buried in local cemeteries near the facility. The exact burial practices would have varied depending on factors such as the country, region, religious beliefs, and individual circumstances.
From what I can gather from Valuation records and census information:
James Bryan Junior in 1901 was 19 years old, noted then as being single. He was the eldest of the 7 children of James Bryan Senior and Mary Ann. James I believe married in Canada in 1912 to Margaret Reid and as you mentioned, had a son who passed away as an infant.
From as early as 1905, his father James Bryan Senior lived and owned at 50 Auchinraith Street, which was only a short walk away from nearby Auchinraith Colliery owned by Messrs Merry & Cunningham. He was a shoemaker and had been living in Blantyre for some time having moved from Glasgow Road with his family. He was married to Mary Ann, not Margaret. A successful merchant, it is likely how he could have afforded a nice, detached home.
In 1911 according to the Blantyre census, James was 64 living at 50 Auchinraith Road with his wife Mary Ann 53, their sons Norman 24, Walter 20, Robert 18 and granddaughter little Margaret 11 months.
James Senior still owned the cottage and lived there in 1914.. Things changed after 1916 following the death of James on November 16th, 1916, aged 69. The house was left to his widow Mary Bryan who rented it out to her son Walter Bryan, as confirmed in the 1920 valuation roll.
The line is complicated with at least 3 generations of James Bryan known, and I’ve not investigated the international travel, but I hope this helps a little.