Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

This post details the details of Flora and John’s life together since they got married in 1915.

1883: Flora Campbell’s Birth Certificate

Flora was born February 11^th, 1883, Galmisdale. In 1915, she got married to John McKinnon. He was 47 years old, and a widower. She was 32 years old, so she was no spring chicken! They both worked on Kildonnan Farm, Flora as a domestic servant, and John as a ploughman. John would later become grieve of Kildonnan Farm (see 1921 census). They were married at the farm.

My mother dated ‘John MacKinnon’s’ sons, Ian (born 1914) and Dugald (born 1912). This gets very complicated. Because this is not the same John MacKinnon that is married first to Mary MacKay, and then to my mother’s Auntie Flora, but a John MacKinnon that is married to Kate MacDonald. However, Ian and Dugald were most likely second cousins of my mother.

John MacKinnon’s first wife Mary MacKay died in 1913. It was hard work tracking down John MacKinnon’s marriage to Mary MacKay, because they were married in Glasgow (Blythswood), although they lived on Eigg. This is also of interest, because this was the area where my mother’s family later moved to (Scotia Street). It is also worth mentioning that Mary MacKay may have been related to my great grandmother’s (Sarah Campbell m.s. MacKay) mother who was also named Mary MacKay (I haven’t researched this).

Moreover, Mary MacKay lived at Cuagach, where my great grandfather Roderick Campbell also lived. The MacKays (my great grandmother’s family) were ‘moved’ from Galmisdale to new crofts at Cuagach built by Laird Thompson. So it is fairly likely that these MacKays were related in some way or other to the Campbells or the MacKinnons. In conclusion, it is perhaps impossible (in the nineteenth and early twentieth century) to find anyone who hadn’t married a second cousin on the Isle of Eigg!

So the Eigg islanders were very much like European royalty who often preferred to marry their first and second cousins. Perhaps ‘prefer’ is the wrong word – it was more the case that the Eigg islanders, like European royalty, had limited choice!

1915: Marriage of Flora Campbell and John MacKinnon

Photo of Flora peeling potatoes at Cuagach

The cottage at Cuagach was perhaps an improvement on the cottage at Galmisdale (see Dressler, 2007: 100). The walls are covered in wood panelling, which probably represented an improvement. However, the basin suggests there was no running water. The diverse utensils hanging on hooks on the wall, and the small, plain mirror hanging on the wall, all seem to suggest that the Eigg islanders lived a simple life. Flora McKinnon preparing potatoes in her home at Cuagach, probably in 1940s. The photo is taken from An Island and its People: Eigg. 2005, p. 87. Isle of Eigg History Society.

“Me and Aunty Flora in Eigg in 1940”

My mother has written on the back of the photo below: “Me and Aunty Flora in Eigg in 1940.” In other words, this photograph shows my mother, Rhoda Campbell Harkness, nee MacGillivray, visiting her Aunty Flora (Flora MacKinnon, nee Campbell) on Eigg in 1940. This was not long before she got married in October, 1940. The photo shows them outside the Cuagach house. In other words, this must have been the ‘last time’ my mother visited Eigg during this period. Although, she mentioned in a conversation that she also visited Eigg on one occasion with her husband, Alex; there is no documentation showing this, however.

This photo can also help explain why she received so many ‘wedding telegrams’ from Eigg; she still had close relations with her friends and family on Eigg. Perhaps she also visited all her girlfriends on Eigg in the summer of 1940, and told them about her ‘new boyfriend’.  There seems to be a washboard in the background. Obviously, they had no washing machines during this period! 

As mentioned, my mother, Rhoda, when visiting Eigg as a young girl in the 1920s and 1930s, would travel with her mother, Morag, or travel alone when she was old enough. They would stay with her mother’s brother, Donald Campbell (married to Janet MacKintosh), or Morag’s sister, Flora, married to John McKinnon. John McKinnon was the grieve for all three farms on Eigg at one time or another, Kildonnan, Laig and Sandavore (Dressler, 2007: 117-122; conversation with Rhoda Campbell Harkness 2006). My mother would have visited the island and the farms during the period of Runciman’s ownership (after 1925).

 As mentioned above, my mother, used to stay with her Uncle John and Aunt Flora, when she was 12 or 13 years old, around 1933-4. Her favourite was Kildonnan – a large farmhouse. My mother said that “the garden won prizes for the best garden in the Small Isles – they had crab apples when I used to go there. My Uncle John’s family eventually retired to a croft at Cuagach. John McKinnon from Muck was a second cousin to my grandmother, Sarah (Morag) Campbell, nee McKinnon.” 

John MacKinnon

As noted above, my mother loved visiting her Uncle John and Auntie Flora in the 1930s and staying at the Kildonnan farm, where John was the grieve (Dressler, 2007: 125; conversation with my mother).

The photograph shows Kildonnan farmhouse in the early 1900s (Eigg History Society, 2005: 13). The island farmhouses were substantial buildings, two storeys high, with a slate roof, and a large kitchen. They were held by farm tenants – tacksmen. To run the farms a large number of farm servants were needed, such as dairy maids, poultry-women, herdsmen and ploughmen.

This can be seen from the 1911 census, where, my great uncle, John MacKinnon, is a ploughman; there is also a ploughman, shepherd and cattleman living in the Kildonnan house, which has ten rooms; John is probably living in some kind of bothy (4 rooms) attached to the farm (shown here). He is living together with his first wife Mary MacKay in 1911; by 1913, she died of pelvic prolapse. Two years later John had married Flora Campbell, my mother’s aunt.

John MacKinnon’s death

John lived to the ripe old age of 93, dying in 1961! In our context, this is perhaps not so interesting in itself – but of interest is the fact that my mother’s scrapbook contains a letter from her Aunty Flora about his sickness and death. 

The letter from my mother’s Aunt Flora

Aunt Flora mentions in the 1961 letter that her husband was bedridden for the last nine months of his life, and various relations helped her look after him. She mentions her daughter, Morag. She also mentions that her brother Hugh visited her. In other words, this letter very much ties together all the family relations that are mentioned elsewhere here.