Walter Beaton 1852

The Beatons are an interesting branch of the tree.  From his grandfather William through his father Walter to young Walter himself the family passed through Dunbar, Leith, Prestonpans, Ayr, Kilmarnock, Leith again then Uphall, Linlithgow, Bathgate and Dalkeith, Walter ending his days in the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh.  Those older two have their own pages here.

Walter started life somewhere in Ayrshire, probably Kilmarnock or Troon, according to his given birthplace in census records, although his birth record hasn't been located, if it ever existed.  His brothers were born in Kilmarnock and Ayr so we can assume that they are the most likely locations.

He did appear in the 1861 census aged 9, suggesting a birth year of 1851 or 1852 but his marriage and one of the censuses suggest 1850.  We aren't helped either by his disappearance from the 1871 census when, as a steamboat stoker, there is every chance he was at sea.  They were supposed to register as well but many didn't bother or they may have been in England or even over on the continent.  What it means to us though is that there is only one document we have relating to him until he married in the Kirkgate in Leith.  At that stage he was living in Queens Street, basically a lane down near the docks, next door to his parents, and his wife Rachel was living with her parents in the Kirkgate, once a main street in Leith but now swallowed up by new developments.  The route of the Kirkgate can still be followed but apart from two old buildings the character has totally gone. 

Walter and his wife Rachel returned to both of those locations to be with their families.  In the 1881 census they were next door to his mother-in-law in the Kirkgate but in the 1885 Valuation Roll they were listed next door to his father in Queens Street.  Previously his daughter had been born in Cable's Wynd, another old street in Leith which in more modern times replaced old slums with new slums.

Cables Wynd as it was with barefoot children.

This is what they replaced it with, the "banana flats", namechecked in Trainspotting and, unbelievably, now Category A listed buildings because of their iconic status due to their appearance in the movie.

Having been a stoker or fireman on steamers he was then listed as an engine keeper (which may have been more-or-less the same thing with a fancier title) but then he became a boilermaker suggesting that maybe he had progressed in some way.  For some reason, maybe connected with this new job, he had moved out to Uphall then to Linlithgow then to some country cottages outside Bathgate in 1991 (the birthplaces of his children mapping the trail for us) yet four years later, at his untimely death aged 44 he was an estate worker living in Dalkeith.  I'd have thought we had the wrong man if it hadn't been quite clear from other information that it was definitely him, such as the identification of his father as a railway engine driver.  Of course, we can clearly see the father to son linkage of train driver to steamboat stoker and it's good to see a connection with the Industrial Revolution which "stoked" or "drove" Britain's success during the Victorian era.

There is however, a dodgy side to Walter.  Firstly, in the Fife Free Press of Saturday 14 October 1871 we find a story about a brush with the law.

Unfortunately, I don't know how this all worked out but I can't see it would be a happy ending.

I also came across this story from the Falkirk Herald of Saturday 9 July 1887 when he was probably staying either at Bridgend or Kingscavil. 

I have a feeling this was not a case of "home schooling" and it suggests that it wasn't just a day off here and there.  It is definitely him as he had four daughters of school age at the time.