Can ye direct me tae Willie Law’s tannery?

On Ancestry the other day, I came across a page of Pigot’s Directory 1825-26 for Linlithgow which relates to some of my folk. Apart from name-spotting, it’s a fascinating social document. Linlithgow was a bustling town in the 1820s, although the leather and shoe industry that had brought prosperity to its denizens was well on the decline. The centre of the town was the High Street, off which were Vennels and Wynds. The kirk of St Michael’s, in whose kirkyard many of my ancestors lie, was situated just off  High Street and behind it, facing the Loch, was the ancient remains of Linlithgow Palace.

The town layout today isn’t so very different and, coincidentally, in The Vennel, one of the lanes snuggling behind the High Street, a cousin of mine has one of her florist shops.

The first name to jump off the page is a Tanner. William Law Jnr has a tannery in High Street.  This is almost certainly William Law, born in 1806, who is carrying on the family trade.  He described himself on his grandparents’ tombstone as feuer Glasgow & burgess here, apparently owning land in both Linlithgow and the expanding city of Glasgow. William’s grandfather married a Spence and his father a Stanners and these three families remain tightly interwoven in the burgh for over a hundred years. Also listed as tanners are Alex. Spence & Co and Robert Spence – both cousins to William. I wonder if his full name was kept for Sundays and to impress – did everyone know him instead as Willie or Wullie?

Further along the High Street there’s a watchmaker named William Law – this could be William of the older generation who married Elizabeth Stanners, drawing the families closer.

There are some surprises in the second column – two teachers called William Hastie and George Stanners.  To my knowledge, there weren’t any dominies in the family, but they were undoubtedly related to us in the wider sense.

The final column of Pigot’s entry is a fascinating glimpse into the travel infrastructure of nineteenth century Scotland. And among the carriers, plying their trade between Linlithgow and Edinburgh, is John Thom, who is a rather inglorious part of my family’s history.  A Stanners girl had two children by him but he was married to another woman all the while. I had understood that he was an exciseman – were the two occupations of carrier and exciseman compatible? Travelling from Linlithgow to the larger towns of Glasgow and Edinburgh was possible every lawful day (meaning Monday-Friday) although to catch the Passage Boat to Edinburgh involved getting up at cock craw, for the boat left at 4.15am.