Thomas Paterson, my great-great-great-grandfather, was born on 8 June 1806 in Galston, Ayrshire, to George (41) and Margaret (36). He married on 7 January 1840 in South Leith, Midlothian. They had six children over 15 years. Thomas Paterson died in 1883 at 77.
At the start of the 19th century, Galston was a thriving textile and agricultural centre, but it developed into a major coal-mining district over the century. Its early economy was centred on blanket weaving from local wool, later shifting to lawn and gauze weaving with imported cotton. New pits opened around the parish as demand for coal increased, and the arrival of the railway from Kilmarnock in 1848 accelerated this shift by making it easier to move coal out of the Irvine Valley.
Thomas travelled from Ayrshire to Leith, where he found work as a wood sawyer. By the mid-1800s, Leith was a key importer of Baltic and North American timber, much of which arrived as squared logs processed in local sawmills. As shown on the map, there was a Timber Yard next to Merilees Close; perhaps Thomas worked there.
Thomas married Janet Drysdale on 7th January 1840 at Spence Place (now part of Bonnington Road). By this time, the couple already had four children, and the 1841 census shows them living in Meriless Close: Thomas (34), Janet (40), Georgina (8), Andrew (5), Robert (3), and Thomas (2). Their second daughter, Margaret, was born in April 1841. Meriless Close was part of the maze of closes and wynds clustered around Bernard Street and the Old Harbour, an area that by the 1840s–50s was densely built-up and fairly crowded. Residents were typically dock-related workers—ship labourers, stevedores, coal-heavers, carpenters, and joiners—as well as shopkeepers and small-scale artisans common in a port town.
On 25th January, Thomas’s wife Janet died, and he moved from the Port of Leith to Carrubber’s Close on the High Street in Edinburgh’s Old Town. The 1851 Census shows him living at 14 Carrubber’s Close with his sisters Anne and Isabella, and he is now working as a Painter Journeyman. In the mid‑19th century, Carrubbers Close was a narrow, crowded venel running off the High Street to Jeffrey Street in Edinburgh’s Old Town, lodging a mix of poor residents, small workshops, and a lively religious and charitable scene centred around what became the Carrubbers Close Mission.
Thomas died in 1883 at the age of 77.
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