Highland Council Archive

1 L/D73: MacColl papers RECORDS’ IDENTITY STATEMENT Reference number: GB3218/L/D73 Alternative reference number: N/A Title: MacColl papers Dates: 1811-1974 Level of description: Fonds Extent: 16 linear metres Format: Paper, photographs, wooden objects RECORDS’ CONTEXT Names of creators: Hugh Geoffrey MacColl and his ancestors and family; Clan MacColl Society Administrative history: Hugh MacColl, tailor in Glasgow (1813- 1882), whose family were originally from Mull, married in 1849 Janet Roberton (1826-1871) whose sister was Mary Christie, nee Roberton. Their children were Agnes MacColl (1852-1924), Mary Paterson MacColl (b. 1854); James Roberton MacColl (b. 1856), who emigrated to the USA, Rev. John MacColl, (b. 1863); whose sons were Dr Hugh Ernest MacColl (b. 1893) and Dr Robert Balderston MacColl (b. 1896); Rev. Alexander MacColl, (b. 1866) who also emigrated to the USA and became minister of the 2nd Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in 1911; Jane Wilson MacColl (b. 1859) and Hugh MacColl (1861-1915). Hugh MacColl (1861-1915) was born in Glasgow on 30 June 1861 and became an apprentice engineer at Robert Napier & Sons on the Clyde in 1876. While employed here as a draftsman, he pursued further technical studies at Anderson’s College (now the University of Strathclyde). After GB3218/ 08/12/08 2 this, he became a draftsman at the Central Marine Engine Works at Hartlepool, and then at Harland & Wolff in Belfast, before returning to Glasgow as chief draftsman with James Howden & Co. In 1889, he was appointed technical manager of the engineering works of Portilla, White & Co., in Seville in Spain, where he was known as ‘Don Hugo’ and where he remained until 1895, when he returned to Britain and founded the Wreath Quay Engineering Works in Sunderland, later known as MacColl & Pollock. He was a member of the Institution of Naval Architects, the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders, and the North-East Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders. In 1901 he married Maude McCarthy (1868-1920), daughter of the ship owner George Eugene McCarthy and granddaughter of the comedian and Drury Lane actor-manager Eugene McCarthy. The couple had two children, Hugh Geoffrey MacColl (1902-1947, see below) and James Eugene MacColl (1908-1971), who became a barrister of the Inner Temple in 1933, was Mayor of Paddington from 1947 to 1949, Labour MP for Widnes from 1950 to 1971 and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Housing and Local Government from 1964 to 1969. Hugh MacColl died in Glasgow on 31 August 1915. (See Hugh MacColl: Biographical Sketch and Letters, privately printed Glasgow 1915) Hugh Geoffrey MacColl (1902-1947) was born in Sunderland on 20 March 1902, and served an apprenticeship as a marine engine builder while studying at Sunderland Technical College, before going to to Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he took the Natural Science Tripos. In 1927, he joined the British Aluminium Company at their Warrington Rolling Mills, and two years later he was transferred to the Company’s Kinlochleven works as head of the GB3218/ 08/12/08 3 Metallurgical Department and later as manager of the Kinlochleven and Lochaber Laboratories. In 1945, he went to Falkirk as Chief Technical Officer at the new rolling mills there. While employed in the aluminium industry, he was responsible for many scientific improvements in aluminium production. On his leaving Kinlochleven after sixteen years there, the Kinlochleven and Lochaber Laboratories and Works collected a sum of money for a presentation and asked him in what form he would like it. For some time he had had in mind the desirability of binding the notebooks in which he made the original recordings of all his MacColl researches (apart from correspondence), as the material in them represents twenty-five years of research and a great deal of it could not be re-obtained at any cost and so he had fifty-two of his sixty notebooks bound into twenty-four volumes in green cloth emblazoned in gold with the MacColl Society's Coat of Arms—the MacColl Notes notebooks in this collection. In 1929, he bought Craigrannoch, Appin and Lismore, in the country from which his MacColl ancestors had originally come, and shortly before the war he also acquired Achnacon and Leacantuim farms in Glencoe. He married Marjorie Gwilym-James in the summer of 1935, and the couple had two children, Hugh Solamh James MacColl (b. 1938) and Eugene Diarshula MacColl (b. 1940). Hugh Geoffrey became interested in MacColl genealogy at an early age. This led him to establish the Clan MacColl History and Genealogy Committee, which in 1931 became the more formally organised Clan MacColl Society or Comunn Chloinn Cholla, of which was Treasurer until his death. The Hon. Secretary of the Society for most of its existence was his third cousin, GB3218/ 08/12/08 4 Mrs Margaret MacColl McCowan. Hugh Geoffrey died in Stirling on 15 April 1947, after a road accident the previous day. (See obituary of Hugh Geoffrey MacColl in Cuairtear Chloinn Cholla Vol. 11, no. 32, May 1947). Custodial history: Kept by family of the late Hugh Geoffrey MacColl, Treasurer of the MacColl Society, before being deposited with the Lochaber Archive Centre on 17 February 2010 RECORDS’ CONTENT Description: MacColl family papers and papers of the MacColl Society, 1811-1974 Appraisal: Multiple duplicate copies of the MacColl Society magazine Cuairtear Clan Cholla removed and destroyed Accruals: Not expected CONDITIONS OF ACCESS Access: Open Closed until: N/A Access conditions: Open Copying: Allowed Finding aids: List in Lochaber Archive Centre search room ALLIED MATERIALS Related material: GB0097 MACCOLL: Papers of James Eugene MacColl c 1930-1971, London School of Economics Library Publication: N/A Notes: N/A Date of catalogue: 13/08/2010 GB3218/ 08/12/08 5 L/D73/1 MacColl family papers 1824-1974 L/D73/1/1 MacColl family papers: Hugh MacColl, Janet 1824-1898 Roberton and family L/D73/1/1/1 Hugh MacColl and Janet Roberton—file marked 1824-1898 ‘The contents of this packet should be carefully preserved and on no account destroyed’, signed ‘H. G. MacColl’ L/D73/1/1/1/1 Hugh MacColl and Janet Roberton, ‘Packet 1’ 1848-1869 L/D73/1/1/1/1/1 No. 1: Letter from Janet Roberton, Gorbals, to ‘My n. d. Dear Friend’ L/D73/1/1/1/1/2 No. 2: Janet Roberton, Recollections of the last 19/02/1851 days of her father James Roberton, who died 19th November 1868 L/D73/1/1/1/1/3 No. 3: Letter to Janet Roberton from her mother 19/02/1851 Janet Roberton, Dunoon L/D73/1/1/1/1/4 No. 4: Verses written by Janet Roberton on the 14/12/1848 occasion of her brother John’s 11th birthday L/D73/1/1/1/1/5 No. 5: Copy of verses written by Janet Roberton on n. d. the occasion of her brother John’s 11th birthday [L/D73/1/1/1/1/4], by Agnes MacColl, her daughter L/D73/1/1/1/1/6 No. 6: original of verses written by Janet Roberton 14/12/1848 on the occasion of her brother John’s 11th birthday, in letter addressed to Master John Roberton L/D73/1/1/1/1/7 No. 7: 3 religious verses by Janet Roberton n. d. L/D73/1/1/1/2 Hugh MacColl and Janet Roberton, ‘Packet 2’ c 1849 L/D73/1/1/1/2/1 Marriage Certificate, Hugh MacColl and Janet 13/09/1849 Roberton, Glasgow L/D73/1/1/1/2/2 2 letters from Hugh MacColl to Janet Roberton, n. d. before their marriage L/D73/1/1/1/3 Hugh MacColl and Janet Roberton, ‘Packet 3’ 1859-1870 GB3218/ 08/12/08 6 L/D73/1/1/1/3/1 4 letters from Janet MacColl nee Roberton to her 1863-1870 daughter Agnes MacColl L/D73/1/1/1/3/2 2 letters from Hugh MacColl to his daughter Agnes c 1859 MacColl L/D73/1/1/1/3/3 Letter to Agnes MacColl from her aunt Mary 24/09/1861 Christie, nee Roberton L/D73/1/1/1/3/4 Letter from Janet MacColl nee Roberton to her 10/10/1868 father James Roberton L/D73/1/1/1/4 Hugh MacColl and Janet Roberton, ‘Packet 4’ c 1872-1882 L/D73/1/1/1/4/1 Account by Hugh MacColl of the death of his wife 20/01/1872 Janet MacColl nee Roberton L/D73/1/1/1/4/2 Account by Agnes MacColl of the death of her c 1872 mother Janet MacColl, nee Roberton; incomplete L/D73/1/1/1/4/3 Account by Agnes MacColl of the death of her c 1882 father Hugh MacColl L/D73/1/1/1/5 Hugh MacColl and Janet Roberton, ‘Packet 5’ c 1850-1897 L/D73/1/1/1/5/1 Obituary notice of Hugh MacColl by Andrew Aird; 1883 reprint from The Glasgow Sabbath School Magazine of February 1883 L/D73/1/1/1/5/2 Letter to Agnes MacColl from Pollokshields U. P. 28/12/1882 Church, condolences on the death of her father Hugh MacColl, who was their Session Clerk L/D73/1/1/1/5/3 Newspaper cutting regarding Lylesland U. P. 1897 Church L/D73/1/1/1/5/4 Newspaper cutting regarding death of Hugh 18/12/1882 MacColl L/D73/1/1/1/5/5 2 sheets from a diary kept by Hugh MacColl 1850 L/D73/1/1/1/6 Hugh MacColl and Janet Roberton, ‘Packet 6’ 1871 L/D73/1/1/1/6/1 2 letters from Rev.

Load more