The inaugural ceremony for Blantyre’s Stonefield Infant School occurred at 2pm on April 10, 1893. Attended by school board members and local families, the event featured hymns and speeches highlighting the school’s history, growth, and future. Architect Mr. Cullen designed the school to accommodate 200 children with modern amenities.
A sad tale next. My history colleague Robert Stewart recently messaged me reminding me that he had discovered 11 unknown persons interred in Blantyre Cemetery. Whilst doing some more cemetery research, Robert came across an interment of an unknown baby. He told me, “The entry in the records reads:- Newly born male child – found […]
Conditions in the mining towns of Lanarkshire in the immediate post WW1 years were about as bad as it could get. Infant mortality in Lanarkshire was astonishingly high with 22,000 children out of 188,000 born in 1918, dying before they even reached their first birthday! In Blantyre on average 143 babies out of every 1,000, […]
Warning: This story contains upsetting content. A tale of cruelty in High Blantyre in 1924 ended up being heard in court. James Glyn, a miner of Forrest Place, High Blantyre and his wife had an infant child who was very sickly and ill. Intervention from his parents was causing problems for his marriage with suggestions […]
A rather sad story for you now. In July 2014, Blantyre man Robert Stewart emailed me a list of people who were buried in unmarked graves in High Blantyre Cemetery. In all cases, no names were known. Robert, being knowledgeable in Blantyre’s Cemeteries told me that between 1875 and 1914, a total of eleven unknown […]
Janet Herbertson was born in Blantyre in 1818. As she entered her twenties, she married local man Andrew Jackson and they settled down at their family home at Spittal, on the outskirts of Bardykes, Blantyre. Like others of the time, they planned a large family. So, in 1846, at the age of 28, Janet fell […]