Open Book

It is common knowledge that Australia was originally treated as a penal colony by the British Empire. In May 1787 the first fleet of convict ships set sail from England and arrived in Botany Bay some 8 months later in January 1788.

As a punishment for persistent offenders – most commonly crimes of housebreaking, theft or forgery – it is estimated that between 1787 and 1868, 160,000 convicts were transported to Australia. A mere 5% of these were Scottish, nearly 7600 people. However this first transportation would later hinder the settlement of Australia by free men and their families, as in the early years convicts greatly outnumbered free settlers.

The large number of convicts, along with other disincentives – such as the long and hazardous journey, the extreme expense, and the unknown nature of Australia to those in Scotland – meant that it was difficult to break the long tradition of Scottish emigration to Canada. However, Australia was in desperate need of labour and it quickly became clear that only through some form of assisted emigration, that this demand would be met.

This demand for labour, coinciding with political unrest in Canada, resulted in Scots being squeezed out of the home labour market by industrial or agricultural improvement, and the development of societies and schemes to aid with emigration, helped to turn the tide. Encouraged by the lure of higher wages, better working conditions and the prospect of marriage or of owning land, many Scots decided to make the long journey to Australia as economic migrants.

The McCrackens

Robert McCracken (born March 1813) and his brother Peter (born Feb 1818) were members of  a large family of seven brothers and three sisters whose descendants had moved to Ayrshire in the southwest of Scotland from the parish of New Luce, Galloway in the 18th century. Their father Robert (1770-1831), was the tenant farmer of Ardwell, and his brother William farmed a few miles away at Auchencrosh near Ballantrae.

The McCrackens had benefitted from an ongoing process, discernible throughout the Scottish Lowlands from the 1760s, in the emergence of larger, economically more effective farms. But this resulted in a decline in the number of available tenancies, thus increasing the likelihood that several of the next generation of the McCrackens would have to seek employment elsewhere.

Among the National Records of Scotland’s (NRS) collections are papers relating to the McCracken family, GD533, which include Peter McCracken’s journal detailing the voyage to Australia and genealogical research by Coiler McCracken (Peter McCracken’s son). Through these papers we have a unique insight into members of the McCracken family’s experience of travelling, and of the situation in the Australian colony.

“I attended school for several years at Girvan and then went for 7 months to Ayr Academy. On returning from which in 1835 I filled my brother Robert’s place…on the farm, and remained with the family, sometimes doing a little in cattle and now and again offering for a farm none of which I was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to get. In 1839 I began to think of going out to Australia but my mother being much against it, it got no further than talk.

…on the 11th Feb[ruar]y our dear mother and only parent was dangerously struck with paralysis from which she never recovered…

Immediately after the death of my mother I began to think seriously of starting for Australia – and during the Spring leaving made up my mind to go. I wrote to brother Robert (who was in Manchester) regarding a passage & he not being in good health resolved to go along with me.”

(Extract from ‘Events in the Life of Peter McCracken and of the family to which he belonged – copied from his own writing by his son Coiler McCracken on September 1st 1888. GD533/4/12)

Peter McCracken made the long trip to Australia to seek his fortune. Through Robert McCracken’s journal we get a colourful insight into the difficulties of the journey.

“We had plenty to eat although not of the finest quality. It is no easy matter to chew sea biscuit for four months yet still I got quite stout on it. We had also plenty to drink, except water.

There was a strange medley of passengers, and nearly all of them towns people. They were mostly proud enough, but I believe also mostly poor enough…

There was a great deal of drinking on board, and in our mess there were three confirmed drunkards. One Sabbath afternoon there were no fewer than six drunk, one of them a woman, she and one of the men fell down the companion ladder, which helped to sober them a little, and where there is drinking there is sure to be quarrelling. Sometimes they were for Pistolling each other but they could never screw their courage to the point. Peter and I managed to keep friends with them all, but were often troubled with arbitrations, which was far from pleasant.”

(Extract from Robert McCracken’s journal of the voyage from Liverpool to Victoria, Australia, on board the ‘Nimrod’, 1840-1841. GD533/4/4)

Peter and Robert arrived in Melbourne in January 1841. They were not the only emigrants from their family. Their younger brother, Alexander Earle, followed in 1850, although he returned to Scotland several years later. Initially, the McCracken brothers barely made ends meet, however they persisted with their endeavour. The brothers, in partnership with their brother-in-law, James Robertson, went on to establish a brewery. The initial yield of this brewery, was small, making only 4 barrels of beer per brew. However, good business acumen and a willingness to embrace new methods and techniques led to the company’s success.

Robert ‘tied’ publicans to his brewery, securing a guaranteed buyer for their beer. This coupled with the steady improvement of the product, the regular provision of their beer accompanied by large quantities of wine, tobacco and sweets at a discount, made them a reliable supplier that could meet the demand of thirsty settlers.

By 1861 James Robertson was able to retire a wealthy man, after which the brewery traded as R. McCracken and Co, until 8 May 1907 when it became part of Carlton and United Breweries.

Education Workshops

The remarkable story of the McCracken family held in our records has formed the basis for one of our educational workshops, led by our new Head of Learning Tessa Spencer.

Recently NRS was delighted to welcome a Higher History class from Webster’s High School into New Register House for a workshop on ‘Migration and the Empire’. This learning activity looked at both primary and secondary sources, and explored the McCracken correspondence and journals alongside published accounts of their lives. We asked the students to examine what the information presented revealed about the McCrackens’ experience  and to consider the push and pull factors of emigration, the development of the colony on Australia, and the different perspectives offered by personal and published accounts.

For more information about NRS’ education workshops please see the ‘Services for Schools’ section of our website.

For more information about records relating to migration held in NRS and other archives see our ‘Emigration Records’.

Jocelyn Grant

Archivist

National Records of Scotland

Further Reading

The Emigrants. Historical background, list of documents, extracts and facsimiles, National Archives of Scotland, History at Source, 1994

The Scots in Australia. Historical background, list of documents, extracts and facsimile, National Archives of Scotland, History at Source, 1994

Australian Dictionary of Biography, McCracken, Robert (1813-1885)

National Records of Scotland holds a wealth of military records from many conflicts dating back to the start of the seventeenth century. As these records sometimes reach us in a disorganised state, our archivists catalogue them to make them more accessible to the public.

We recently began a project to catalogue First World War Pensions Appeal records. This project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, will catalogue and conserve fascinating documents that have until now been an untapped resource for many genealogists, medical historians and other researchers.

This series contains the pension appeal applications for around thirty thousand Scottish servicemen who suffered from injuries sustained during the war, or who died afterwards from associated illnesses and conditions.

Before cataloguing began, searching these records was very difficult. The appeals are organised in 288 boxes, arranged alphabetically by month from November 1919 to December 1932. This means that, in order to locate records, you must first know when a claim was heard by the Appeals Tribunal. As this information wasn’t recorded anywhere, researchers have had to trawl through hundreds of records!

We began cataloguing work before Christmas and have now reached the milestone of 1000 records. Over the next two years, we’ll add these records to a custom-built, publicly accessible database. We’ll also re-house them in specially designed folders and boxes, and will highlight conservation issues.

Once completed, our new database will make searching the Tribunal records much easier, as it is searchable across all the fields, including those listed below:

• Name
• Address
• Age
• Service Number
• Regiment and Rank
• Medical Conditions
• Notes of interest

We’ll also add Medical Subject Heading Codes to each record to describe the medical history of each applicant. These are commonly used by medical historians, as they standardise terminology.

Although we’ve so far only dipped a toe in these records, we’ve already uncovered some visceral and poignant personal stories.

The records are currently closed to the public for cataloguing but we hope that after the project is complete, we can help to ensure that the stories and sacrifices of Scotland’s First World War servicemen are not forgotten.

Lynn Bruce & Olivia Howarth

Project cataloguers, WW1 Pension Appeals Project

National Records of Scotland

In December, the Keeper of the Records of Scotland (the Keeper) agreed the Records Management Plan (RMP) of Food Standards Scotland.

This was the 207^th RMP to be agreed by the Keeper but more significantly, it was the first RMP agreed for an authority which didn’t appear on the original Schedule of the Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011.

The Act, which came into force on 1 January 2013, requires public authorities listed on the Schedule to create a RMP detailing the records management arrangements within those authorities.

Records management is the systematic control of an organisation’s records, throughout their life cycle, in order to meet operational business needs, statutory and fiscal requirements, and community expectations.

Effective management of corporate information allows fast, accurate and reliable access to records, ensuring the timely destruction of redundant information and the identification and protection of vital and historically important records.

Food Standards Scotland was established by the Food (Scotland) Act 2015 to make sure that food is safe to eat, to ensure consumers know what they are eating and to improve nutrition.

Elspeth Macdonald, Deputy Chief Executive at Food Standards Scotland said:

“Food Standards Scotland is pleased that the Keeper of the Records of Scotland has agreed our Records Management Plan. It was a real team effort within the organisation in developing the RMP, which demonstrates we have the necessary arrangements in place to efficiently manage information and records.

“As a relatively new organisation, we’re delighted to have achieved this. We’re committed to ensuring everyone plays their part in carrying out the plan across the organisation”.

You can find out more about how NRS helps public authorities to manage their records at our website.

 

 

This Saturday, 3^rd February, legal students from the Universities of Aberdeen and Dundee will be delving almost 130 years into the past and, using High Court and Crown Office archive records held by the NRS, will stage a mock trial of a notorious Dundee crime which resulted in the city’s last ever execution.

William Bury was accused of the brutal murder of his wife, Ellen, and the trial was heavily reliant on the medical evidence presented by both prosecution and defence. This evidence, which is preserved in the trial papers, resulted in the jury returning a somewhat reluctant and controversial guilty verdict.

 

One important point of distinction centred around whether Ellen had taken her own life and her husband had concealed the body out of fear of being accused of the act, or whether William Bury had strangled Ellen and then concealed the body. The medical evidence was presented with markedly different interpretations by the doctors who examined the body.  Two of them determined that Ellen had been murdered.  However, a third doctor claimed, in a 14-page report, that the evidence pointed to Ellen having taken her own life.

As well as being the last man hanged in Dundee, Bury has the dubious notoriety of also

being a suspect in the ‘Jack the Ripper’ murders, although the murder of his wife was the only conviction brought against him.

 

Professor Dame Sue Black, Director of the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at the University of Dundee, said that the event would have been impossible to stage without the records preserved here in the archives.   These records, along with contemporary newspaper reports, will allow students from Aberdeen University (for the defence) to re-examine the medical evidence, and seek to persuade a new jury that today’s forensic science standards may justify a different verdict.

The event will be held at Dundee Sheriff Court and will be live-streamed on Dan Snow’s HistoryHit TV online History Channel. Live tweets will also keep interested members of the public up to date on the trial as it progresses.  It will be fascinating to see whether 130 year old medical evidence will still ‘stand up in court’ after all this time.

The mock trial is being staged as part of the celebrations to mark the 130^th anniversary of the establishment of the Cox Chair of Anatomy at the University of Dundee and more details about the event can be found on their website.

 

Kirsteen Mulhern, Archivist