Working People

A Family through Three Centuries

Stonemasons, quarriers, seamen, steam laundry workers, crofters, calico packers, power loom weavers, tinsmiths, gamekeepers, carters, shepherds, coachmen, nav-vies, domestic servants. These are some of the working people whose lives are uncovered by historian James Hunter when he sets out to explore his own and his wife Evelyns family background.

Stonemasons, quarriers, seamen, steam laundry workers, crofters, calico packers, power loom weavers, tinsmiths, gamekeepers, carters, shepherds, coachmen, navvies, domestic servants. These are some of the working people whose lives are uncovered by historian James Hunter when he sets out to explore his own and his wife Evelyns family background. It is a quest that spans three centuries and much of Scotland.

Many of the lives encountered bring into stark relief the hardship of daily life in times gone by the women who raise ten or more children; t