William McLaren

William McLaren was born in Parson Street, Glasgow to parents James McLaren and Ann Faichney who had obviously been drawn to the city to join in the new prosperity the Industrial Revolution was creating.  Of course it created untold wealth for some while others found themselves exploited or crowded together in slums so it was no surprise when the family moved back out of the city to Alva.

However, it wasn't just William McLaren who was born in Parson Street in 1868.  So was Charles Rennie Mackintosh!  He was the fourth of eleven children but from a more middle-class family and he went to the right schools and had the opportunity to express himself in an artistic way and did so to such effect that he is seen as one of Glasgow's favourite sons.  It's unknown whether they played football together in the street.  Somehow I don't think CRM would have played the game which was taking Glasgow by storm at the time.

One of Mackintoshes first designs was for the Martyr's School in the same Parson Street and it still stands today although the street is completely different in every other way.  It was lined with four-storey tenements and the street was much longer than the short fragment which remains.  This webpage tells us that -

Townhead soon became one of the most densely populated areas in Europe. Its tenements became overcrowded with workers and their families, and the buildings themselves were now blackened by the grime of the many industrial processes taking place within the city, which was now being seen as the 'Second City of the Empire'. Within a small area there were chemical works,foundries, clay pipe makers, locomotive builders, glass makers, timber yards, potters, distillers, coopers, haulage contractors, railways, as well as shops selling food, drink, clothing and everything else a busy community needs. In general, the area had become one of the poorer areas in the city, but there were some professional people living here, and they could easily walk into their offices in the city centre. Charles Rennie Mackintosh was born into the Townhead community on 7 June 1868. His father, William, was born in Ireland and he worked in the Central Police Office, effectively as personal manager to the Chief Constable. 

In fact there would have been no chance to kick Mackintosh as the McLarens had moved to another poor area, Calton, although I can't quite locate Richard Street where they lived.  That census tells me, through children's birth places, that they had moved from Tillicoultry to Paisley before Glasgow, obviously chasing the work.  It also tells me that William's father had gone, never to return.  He simply disappeared.  I can find no sign of him in any of the censuses but having a name like James McLaren makes it really difficult to distinguish one individual especially if he isn't with others we can identify.  I also can't locate James's death but maybe I've been looking in the wrong years, based on William's mother Ann being listed as married in the 1871 and 1881 censuses but a widow in 1891.

Whatever the case, William's trajectory didn't match Charles Rennie Mackintosh's and he became a farm servant while his mother had to go out working as a washer then a wool winder.  That job was also known as a birler, a great Scottish word, as seen by his elder sister's occupations in 1881 and 1891.  His sister was an unmarried mother and just to continue this behaviour, William got Janet Martin pregnant.  Maybe the lack of a father figure was instrumental in his behaviour but it turns even stranger when the 1911 census sees him aged 42 with a 22 year old wife.  They had married in 1905, making her 16 and him 36.

Sandra's Auntie Mary once told a story of a stranger turning up at the house of Sandra's granny Lena Brown, who had become Mrs Brember and then Mrs Todd.  This stranger had introduced himself as the real father of Lena's first husband Albert Brember who had died in WWI.  It seems he was an unwelcome visitor but the inconsiderate nature of the visit would seem to be consistent with his other strange behaviour.  He ended up a burgh roadman, having married a second time.