Reference:
GB 0254 MS 82
Scope and Content
Papers,
photographs and correspondence of the Wilson family of Pollokshaws and Alva
(coopers, candlemakers and woollen manufacturers) 1771‑1989, including letters
from America 1815‑1829, letters, diary and photographs relating to service
during the First World War, especially with the French and British Red Cross
1916‑1918, letters relating to the rise of National Socialism in Austria and the
German-Austrian Anschluß 1933-1948, letters describing life in London and Alva
1883-1932, papers relating to the Incorporation of Bakers of Glasgow 1892-1941,
photographs c.1860-1986 and plans, including wartime maps of Belgium and France
1891-1916. Administrative/Biographical History
James Wilson (1756-1830) originally apprenticed to A. Murray, cooper of
Beith, between 1771 and 1774 was a cooper in Pollokshaws and later (possibly) a
farmer in Lochwinnoch, near Paisley. In 1782 he married Margaret Blackburn,
daughter of John Blackburn and Margaret Clark. They had ten children, the sixth
of whom, James Wilson (1794-1863), carried on the trade of cooper and in
1816 also entered into partnership with his elder brother John (1783-1834) as a
soap and candlemaker, continuing to pursue both trades in Pollokshaws. In 1825
he married Helen Primrose, the eldest of sixteen children of William Primrose
and Christian Brown.
James and Helen Wilson had ten children, two of whom - William Primrose
Wilson (1836-1926) and James Wilson (1848-1919) - formed the company
of Wilson Brothers to manufacture wool in Alva, Clackmannanshire. Both William
and James Wilson became members of the Bakers’ Incorporation of Glasgow in 1893
and Burgesses of the City of Glasgow in the same year. In 1878 James married
Margaret Steven, the second of seven children of Alexander Steven and Agnes Ann
McNeil. They moved down to London in 1893 where James Wilson looked after the
London end of the business and built it into a more successful concern. His
older brother was responsible for the company’s affairs in Alva. The family
moved back to Alva in 1908.
James and Margaret Wilson had four children: Alexander Steven Wilson
(1882-1976), Helen Primrose Wilson (1885-1958), James Blackburn Wilson
(1888-1961) and Agnes Ann McNeil [Nancy] (1894-1944).
Alexander Steven trained as an electrical engineer at Finsbury Technical College
and then worked with the German firm of Siemens Schukert Werke in Nürnberg and
with Siemens Brothers and Co Dynamo Works in London. The letters he received
from his family during this period give a fascinating glimpse of life in early
Edwardian London. In 1907 he was asked to help his father with the family’s
woollen manufacturing business in Alva, and he became a partner in 1908. James
Blackburn became a partner in 1922, along with their cousin A H W Forrest. The
family connection with Wilson Brothers was continued through Alexander Steven’s
son Peter Sidney Steven Wilson (1925-1992).
Helen Primrose
was a nurse during the Great War of 1914-1918, while James Blackburn Wilson
served with the French Red Cross, in the Verdun Sector, between February 1916
and April 1917, and later the British Army, between May 1917 and February 1919,
serving in both Britain and France. In 1922 he married Mary Taylor Watt, the
youngest of seven children of John Watt and Agnes Taylor Dickie, and a sister of
Professor Hugh Watt, sometime Moderator of the Church of Scotland. James Watt
Wilson, who gave the collection to the University, is the youngest of three
children of James Blackburn and Margaret Wilson, and was born in 1930.
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