Graham-Greenshields-Ormiston Family History: April 2013

Agnes Ormiston Graham (1878-1972)


1911 at Burnside Cottage, Broughton, Peeblesshire, Scotland

Agnes (Nan) is the second child of John Ormiston Graham and Catherine Greenshields Graham. She was born in St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland in 1878.

The 1881 census shows that she and her parents lived at 2 Murdoch Terrace, St. Cuthbert's parish, in Edinburgh, with older sister Catherine Smith Graham and younger sister Jane Greenshields Graham. Her mother's younger brother, George Watson Greenshields, age 20, was also living with the family as he worked as a grocer's clerk. Her father was a joiner--a carpenter, in modern American parlance.

2 Murdoch Terrace, Midlothian, Edinburgh today

Ten years later, in the 1891 census, Agnes' father, John Ormiston Graham, has become a foreman joiner, and his household has grown with the birth of three sons--Walter Graham, Gavin Greenshields Graham, and James Ormiston Graham. Nephew George Greenshields has left to become a railway signalman in Lanarkshire, no doubt an employee of the expanding railway system. The family--parents and five children--resides in the Newington district of Edinburgh at 4 Thistle Place.


4 Thistle Place, Newington, Edinburgh today

In 1901, at age 22, Agnes is working as a milliner, living with her family in the Morningside parish of Newington, Edinburgh, along with her parents and two more siblings, Catherine Elizabeth Smith Graham and Ellen George Joan Graham.

86 Montpelier Park, Newington, Edinburgh today

The fact that the Grahams moved three times in as many decades may attest to the social mobility available to John Ormiston Graham, moving from a laborer to foreman. But by 1901, John Ormiston Graham is listed only as a joiner again, not a foreman. The change in domiciles may be attributed to the fact that the family simply has more income earners by this point. Oldest daughter Janet is employed as a dressmaker in 1901, Agnes a milliner, 18-year-old Walter a chemist (pharmacist), and 15-year-old Gavin Greenshields Graham a bookseller's clerk.

While Scotland's overall economy during this period is stable, its working class is paid less than counterparts in England. Consequently, lots of Scots left the country looking for greater opportunities elsewhere. According to historian T.M Devine (The Scottish Nation, 1700-2007), 2 million Scots emigrated between 1830 and 1914. Among them was Agnes to Natal, her aunt and uncle David Graham and Helen Watson Greenshields Graham (South Dakota), and her uncle James Thomas Greenshields (Cape Colony).

South Africa

Agnes seems to have lived a large and far-reaching life. In 1904, she leaves her family and home in Edinburgh aboard the ship Goorkha headed for Natal, a British colony that was part of the "customs union" of South Africa as of 1898, but it is not until 1910 that Natal would become one of the provinces of the newly created Union of South Africa. A coastal province, Zulu chieftains permitted the British colonial presence after the Boers retreated from the area in 1846.

Nan seems to have been part of a large contingent of Scots to travel to, serve, and settle the area. Apparently, a large number of Scots--many of them members of the Free Church of Scotland--signed as missionaries to India and Africa. But it doesn't appear that Nan traveled in this capacity. She may simply have envisioned more for herself than would be provided by living with her parents and siblings and working as a milliner in Newington. In fact, the ship's passenger list of 1911 still lists her occupation as "milliner." However, by 1921, Nan's occupation is listed as a teacher. And so she embarked on a several decades' long adventure in Africa with periodic returns to Scotland.

Natal in 1904 was not a primitive outpost in the wilds of Africa. In fact, as the photos below reveal, it is very possible that Nan continued her vocation as a milliner in the shops of Durban during the first decades of the 20th century. However, the effects of the Second Boer War, having ended only two years earlier, must have been strongly evident.


Downtown Durban, Natal, in 1900


West Street, Durban, Natal, around 1900

Many of the photographs in this post were taken in 1911, part of an album belonging to Agnes' brother Gavin "Guy" Graham, who would later emigrate first to Canada and then to Gardner, Massachusetts, USA. Copies were also found in a collection belonging to Cath Graham and left to Agnes Greenshields Kane. Guy Greenshields noted that the occasion for the family gathering was Nan's furlough from South Africa. Uncle James Thomas Greenshields--a teacher in Capetown--is also home from his posting in South Africa and attends the reunion. She arrived in Southampton on 3 May 1911 and departed from Glasgow on 19 August 1911.


John Ormiston Graham (father), Agnes Ormiston Graham, Catherine Smith Graham (sister), and Mary Clarkson (daughter of Margaret Greenshields Clarkson, sister of Catherine Greenshields Graham)

Here are additional photos of the 1911 family reunion in Broughton.

Walter Graham (brother) and Agnes Ormiston Graham


Catherine Smith Graham and Agnes Ormiston Graham

Voyages

We have evidence of Nan's many transatlantic voyages while she was employed in Natal and afterwards, in the 1940s and 1950s, to visit her brother Guy's family in Massachusetts accompanied by her younger sister Catherine (Cathie) Smith Graham. In the 19th century, a trip across the Atlantic took as long as six weeks. By the end of the century, that trip was cut to one week. The Mauretania, one of the ships on which Nan sailed, achieved a record-breaking time from Southampton to New York in four days and eleven hours. From New York to Capetown would take perhaps another week.

9 April 1904    From Southampton, England to Natal aboard the Goorkha

3 May 1911     From Port Elizabeth/Capetown to Southampton aboard Garth Castle/Union Castle Mail Steamship

15 June 1912   From Natal to Southampton aboard the Briton/Union-Castle Mail Steamship (name on passenger list is "Lady A Graham"

9 Dec. 1914 From Durban/Port Elizabeth [Algoa Bay} and Capetown to London by way of East London and Plymouth aboard the Saxon/Union Castle Mail Steamship

22 July 1921    From Southampton to Natal aboard Balmoral Castle/Union Castle Mail Steamship

Nan and her sister Catherine also traveled to visit family in the U.S.:

25 July 1947    From Southampton to New York aboard the Queen Elizabeth/Cunard White Star Line
8 Oct. 1947    From New York to Southampton aboard the Queen Elizabeth/Cunard White Star Line
27 June 1952 From Southampton to New York aboard the Mauretania/Cunard White Star Line
18 May 1957 From Glasgow to Montreal, Quebec aboard the Laurentia/Donaldson Line
3 Oct. 1957    From Montreal, Quebec to Glasgow aboard Laurentia/Donaldson Line

Life in Edinburgh

108 Colinton Road

What exactly Agnes did after returning to Edinburgh from South Africa isn't clear. I am not even sure yet when she returned. But it is clear that she lived in the 1940s until her death at this address in the Morningside section of Edinburgh, within a short walking distance of what is currently Napier College-Morningside but what formerly Craiglockhart Hospital (where Wilfred Owen met Siegfried Sassoon while both recuperated from their experiences in the Great War). Agnes spent the rest of her life with her sister Cath, a schoolteacher, with whom she traveled. It also appears that their mother, Catherine Greenshields Graham, lived with Agnes and Cath for some period until her death in 1943.