Contractor, sanitary inspector, son of Peter Symon and Margaret Watson Bruce, b. 21 Mar 1872 Errol, workers' cottages, Brick & Tile Works, Errol, Perthshire.  m. Isabella Bruce 29 Dec 1899 Inver (Birnam, Perthshire),  3 sons & 3 daurs. Died 28 Nov 1955, aged 83 years, Errol. Buried Errol. Named after the minister of Errol United Presbyterian Church, James Simpson Scotland. 

(It was not uncommon for Presbyerian families to name a child after their minister of religion, especially where it was the minister's first baptism.)  Went by "Scot" (with one "t": a contraction of "Scotland"). 

I have still to add a number of stories and more details about Scot Symon.

"Scot" Symon was born in a cottage at the Errol (Inchcoonans) Brick and Tile Works, probably one  in the row of three cottages in the foreground.  The photograph is a Valentine's postcard, in this case stamped on 12 August 1912.  Adjacent to the railway between Dundee and Perth, which opened in 1847, there had been a works on the site for several years before the land was sold, in 1855, by the Allen family of Errol estate to the works owner. The workers' cottages were already erected at the time of Scot's birth in 1872.

Religion was important in the lives of Scot and Bella Symon.  Pictured here is the old Free Kirk in Errol, latterly the United Free Church, in which Scot was an elder.  The church building was deconsecrated after the UFC united  with the established Church of Scotland and the congregation joined that of the latter in the building formerly known as the North Church. Pre-war Valentine's postcard, photographer unknown, from a picture lent by Mr Jim Farquharson, Horn farm, Errol.  The railings were removed during the 1939-1945 war.  After the war the building was a joiner's workshop, owned by David Thomson (senior) and specialised in making high-quality oak coffins, hence its local name "The Coffin Factory".  The business was sold to House of Fraser by Mr Thomson, and the premises were later closed.  A former employee, Mr Brian Reid (former scoutmaster of 63rd Perthshire Errol troop during the 1970s and 1980s), presently carries on a coffin making business in premises at Perth Aerodrome.

Fourth and youngest daur of John Bruce and Elizabeth Taylor, b. 21 Jul 1876 Dunfermline, m. James Simpson Scotland ("Scot") Symon, 29 Dec 1899 Inver, Perthshire.  3 sons & 3 daurs. Died 15 Feb 1940, aged 63 years, Errol. Buried Errol.

Born at the public slaughterhouse in Dunfermline, where her father was superintendent.  The family moved back to Perth shortly afterwards, where Bella attended school in Caledonian Road.  Her sister Elizabeth Robertson Bruce died of illness aged 16 in 1886.  In 1891 Bella's family were living in Shore Road in the household of her mother's brother, David Taylor, Perth harbourmaster.  By this time Bella (14) had left school and, with her sister Mary (18), was employed as a dyeworker, probably for Pullars.  In 1896 her two other sisters both got married.  Mary married railway worker and train driver James Simpson.  Ann, domestic servant, married Errol farm labourer John Smith and moved to Errol where, two and three generations later, several of her descendants are still living.  Bella too married an Errol man, in 1899, living in the village of Errol for the remaining 40 years of her life, where she raisied six of her own children (one of whom died in infancy) and also Melville Symon.

School teacher and registrar, son of William Linklater Swanney, grocer and merchant, and Betsy Wards, b. 7 Nov 1868, Leith, m. Catherine McDougall, 15 Nov 1895 Oban;  M.A. Edinburgh University 1893.  3 daurs & 3 sons. Taught at schools in: Bracadale, Skye, Inverness-shire; Pennan, Banff-shire; Daviot and Croy, both Inverness-shire.  Died 1947.  Buried in Croy graveyard.  Memorial stone.

Brought up in the household of his aunt Mary Swanney and her grocer husband John Tait after the death of his mother, Betsy Wards or Swanney, when he was 5 years old, my great grandfather Swanney lived with the Taits on Wellington Street, Kirkwall throughout his schooldays.  He probably went to a primary school in Kirkwall then probably, as an aspiring university entrant, to Kirkwall Grammar.  Around 1889, or perhaps a year or two earlier, he went to study in the Faculty of Arts at Edinburgh University although I do not know what subjects he took.  About his university career I only know that he graduated, M.A., in 1893, so presumably he commenced a four year course in 1889, when he would have been 20 going on 21 years old, somewhat older than the majority of the other students in his year. 

The Taits were always thought to have moved to Leith with my great grandpa Swanney, who was thought to have been brought up there by them.  But when he went to university my great grandfather apparently did not live with his aunt and uncle.  He was certainly not well-off.  At the time of the 1891 Census he was lodging, aged 22 years, with a young couple named Smith and their two small sons, in what was probably a single end (one room flat) at 6 Springfield Street, Leith (a street leading west off the lower part of Leith Walk, near Pilrig Park).   He would probably have been in the second year of his course at that time. It looks as though the Taits may have moved to Edinburgh some time between 1891 and 1900, as the first record so far discovered is the death of John Tait at 13 Union Street (a street running west off the top of Leith Walk) on 29 July 1900.  His widow, my great grandfather's aunt Mary, died at 15 Leopold Place, the other side of Leith Walk from Union Street, being the section of London Road facing south over the western entrance to Royal Terrace, on 22 January 1909. She had been ill for five years.  Her sister, Margaret Swanney, who was unmarried, was living with her at the time of Mary's death and she herself died shortly after, on 12 March 1909, of pneumonia. 

Incidentally, my great grandfather Swanney was a pioneer, a first generation higher education student. Although students named Swanney are listed in the matriculation rolls of the old Scottish Universities (St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh) I have found none so before the date of his matriculation, suggesting that he was the first university student in Scotland to bear the family name Swanney. 

In November 1933, after some 40 years of teaching, of which almost 30 years at Croy, he purchased a quarter of an acre of the Croy glebe, on Gollanfield Road,  from the trustees of the Church of Scotland (whose lawyers ensured that the Trustees reserved the mineral rights) and had a house built on it, which he and Kate named Marybank.  In his later years he was bedbound.  My mother remembers that he had a tray on a wooden support over his bed on which to place the book he was reading. William died on 10 Jan 1947, aged 78 years, Northern Infirmary, Inverness.  He left the house at Marybank to his widow, Kate, along with personal estate of £1216:19:2 also left to his widow in a mutual settlement made between them. 

On the subject of inheritances, Kate McDougall or Swanney apparently used to complain that her father-in-law, William Linklater Swanney, whose moveable estate was confirmed as worth £2,288-0s-3d in 1913, had not left any money to his eldest son, Kate's husband, William Swanney.   Had William senior however contributed to his first son's financial support as a schoolboy and university student? 

My great grandfather was, like the majority of country school headmasters, also registrar for the parish, in this case, Croy and Dalcross, a post he held for many years and which must have brought a small and welcome extra income into the household.  Parishioners calling at Marybank to register births or deaths (not sure about marriages, which would probably have been done at the kirk) would be ushered with solemnity into the "good room" (parlour) in which the details would be registered.  William had, tragically, to record the death of his own daughter, Mary ("Maimie"), who died of tuberculosis. 

As his portrait, by an anonymous photographer, suggests, great grandfather Swanney was an amiable and generous man, "a peacemaker", according to my mother.  Another person who met and remembered him recalls that he would quip "I'm Swanney from Swannay", even though he knew fine that his roots lay not on the northern coast of Mainland in Orkney (where the place Swannay is found), but in Leith (home of many an exiled Orcadian), on Eday and, particularly, on North Ronaldsay.  In the 1911 Census there were 24 William Swanneys in the whole of Scotland, of whom 12 were on North Ronaldsay, and a good deal of the others were elsewhere in Orkney or in Croy!  Probably all were related to each other, and certainly included three generations of my ancestors.  

Below are recent pictures of Marybank and of the Croy school.   Marybank has not changed much but the original school building seems to have been swallowed up by a large modern extension. 

Headmaster's wife.  Daur of Malcolm (Callum) McDougall, crofter, and Isabella McLean, b. 5 Feb 1875, Heanish, Tiree, Argyll; m. William Swanney, 15 Nov 1895 Oban;  3 daurs & 3 sons. Died 6 Feb 1959, aged  84 years, Marybank, Gollanfield Road, Croy, Inverness-shire. Buried Croy.  Memorial.

Catherine, who went by Kate, was a very good cook.  Her son Jack would send money to his parents with instructions to them to buy certain things but they would bank the money for their daughter Ella, who was unmarried and who was their housekeeper.  When Jack came to visit he would buy them whatever it was that they were supposed to have bought with the money he sent.  After she was widowed, Kate lived with her spinster daughter Ella in Marybank.  A few years after her mother died, Ella sold Marybank to a Mr and Mrs Macdonald from Inverness (October 1963) and bought a house in St Madoes, where her brother Willie was village schoolmaster.  She bought the house before telling Willie and Meg what she had done! 

Below is an old postcard of the "Promoters" of the Croy Bazaar in 1907, not long after Willie and Kate Swanney moved into the schoolhouse.  That's Willie, sitting crossarmed, next to Reverend Fraser in the middle of the front row.  Behind him stands Kate, we think, the one with the extremely ostentatious light floral hat... But then most of the ladies appear to be wearing one rather similar.   The postcard was lent by Mrs Joan White, Perth, whose mother was taught in Croy school by Willie Swanney.

Shepherd, son of John Smith & Ann McBean, b. 16 Apr 1857, Lynrich, Dunlichity, Inverness-shire, m. Margaret Reid 27 Jul 1883 Moy, Inverness-shire, 5 sons & 3 daurs. Died 17 Oct 1907, aged 50 years, Kincraig, Alvie. Buried Alvie churchyard. Memorial. 

Brought up in a Gaelic-speaking household, Hugh's mother tongue was probably Gaelic, and he was recorded as a Gaelic speaker in the 1901 Census.  His mother, Annie, died of tuberculosis when he was 15.  Following in his father's footsteps as a shepherd, on the large sheepwalks that most of the Highlands had become in the last half century, Hugh's early career included a spell as shepherd at Tomnabrilach, a small farm on the Hills of Cromdale in Banffshire, with 50 arable acres and a further 50 acres of upland grazing, boarding in the farmhouse with the young farmer's family (1881 Census: farmer's widowed mother and sister and another farm servant, from Kincardineshire).   Aged 26, married Maggie Reid, whose father was gamekeeper for The Macintosh at Moy.  From then until his death, 24 years later, Hugh worked as shepherd at Kincraig, also part of the Macintosh of Macintosh's extensive landholdings.  During his time at Kincraig Hugh worked for only two tenant farmers, first Roderick Macgregor, then Farquhar Macbain, who may have been a tenant at Coulintyre before moving to Kincraig.  Kincraig was a large farm, 2,165 acres according to the Valuation Office survey in the 1910s, with housing provided for two shepherds, a grieve, cattleman, ploughman and farm labourer (1905-06 valuation roll). The rent in 1885/86 was £400.  Kincraig village was beginning to be built, after the opening of the Highland Railway Company's station at Boat of Insch. 

Hugh and Maggie's house was a cruck-framed cottage, known as Battan cottage.  After Hugh's death, Maggie and her children moved out.  By ten years later or so, the Valuation Office survey described it briefly as: "Shepherds House:- Stone & C.I. [corrugated iron] roof in fair repair; 2 rooms & closet." (NAS IRS 68/5, Entry 59), as part of the field notebook entry for Kincraig (farm) (no details provided of the occupier). 

For details of Hugh and Maggie's children see the entry on the latter.  The story goes that Hugh was dying of cancer at the time of my grandmothers' birth.  His instruction to his wife was "Ca' her Maggie".  And so my grandmother was named Maggie Smith and that is what appears on her birth certificate.  She later used Meg or, when required to write it down, Margaret.  The story must be true but it is also true that Maggie was a not uncommon girl's name in Scotland around the time she was born.  

Daughter of David Reid, gamekeeper, Moy, Inverness-shire and Catherine Mackenzie; b. 12 Nov 1865 Moy & Dalarossie, Inverness-shire, m. Hugh Smith 27 Jul 1883 Moy, Inverness-shire, 5 sons & 3 daurs. Died 21 May 1949, aged 74 years, Meadowside, Alvie. Buried Alvie. Memorial.

After being widowed by the death of her husband Hugh in 1907, Maggie Smith moved to a roadside cottage owned by The Mackintosh of Moy Hall, on the old A9, at the settlement known as Coulintyre on the floodplain of the Spey, beneath the Inverness-shire County Council Infectious Diseases Hospital at Meadowside (the hospital was later demolished and the land used as a depot for the lorries of the County Council roads department, and was later developed, with the area of land around it, as the Highland Wildlfife Park).  The farmer with the tenancy of Kincraig at the time of her husband's death appears to have previously had the tenancy of Coulintyre, which may partly explain why the family moved to the house, which was known to the family as "Meadowside".  Here she did a lot of washing for people in the area of Meadowside, taking in laundry which she washed, drawing water from the burn behind the house, and heating it in a tub on a fire she lit on Mondays.  She also knitted socks and kilt hose, my mother thinks, for, probably Alfred Donald Mackintosh of Mackintosh (died 1938), of whom she had a large framed picture on the wall at Meadowside.