John Bruce

A Perthshire shoemaker in Tamworth

John Bruce was born in September 1846 in Perthshire, Scotland, and baptised on 2 October. His parents, John Bruce and Elizabeth Robertson, had married at Caputh on 15 November 1841, and the 1851 census finds the family at Caputh. Later censuses give John's trade as cordwainer, a shoemaker.

By 1871 he was in Tamworth, Staffordshire. That year's census shows Mary Callaghan, 20, born in Ireland and working as a machine seamstress, living in Freeman's Yard with her married sister Ann and Ann's husband Patrick Farrell. John and Mary married there in October 1871.

They had four children: John in 1873, Joseph in 1876, Anne in early 1879 and Thomas in 1880. Mary died in March 1885, in her thirties. John married again, to Emma, who was born at Bath, and he died at Blackburn, Lancashire, in August 1893, aged about 50. The 1901 census shows Emma there as a widow.

Their son Joseph also settled in Blackburn. When his sister Anne sailed for America in 1907 with her own young family, it was Joseph she named as her contact at home.

How we know

• 1851 census, Caputh, Perthshire, and marriage record of John Bruce and Elizabeth Robertson, 1841
• 1871 census, Freeman's Yard, Tamworth
• General Register Office marriage and death indexes, 1871 and 1893
• 1901 census, Blackburn
• Passenger list, 1907

Confidence: probable – the family story is well documented, but John's 1893 death is matched to him through his widow in the 1901 census, and Mary Callaghan's parents and birthplace in Ireland are not yet known

Timeline

1. 1846Born in Caputh, perth
2. 1846Baptized in Montrose,Angus,Scotland
3. 1851Lived in Caputh, Perthshire, Scotland
4. 1861Lived in Caputh, Perthshire, Scotland
5. 1871Married in Tamworth, Staffordshire, United Kingdom
6. 1881Lived in Bolehall and Glascote, Warwickshire, England
7. 1891Lived in Winton, Christchurch, Barton upon Irwell, Lancashire, England
8. 1893Died in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom
9. UndatedLived in Tamworth, Stafford, England