Ross Family Archive
- Reference:GB 3638 ROSS
- Dates of Creation:c. 1880s - 1950s
- Name of Creator:
- Language of Material:English
- Physical Description:approx. 660 items
Scope and Content
Papers relating to the Ross family, including for Elizabeth Ross, Moira Ross, Ian A. Ross, John Sim Ross.
The collection includes records relating to Moira Ross' nurse training at Edinburgh Sick Kids hospital; papers relating to the sale of a property in Lumsden (Aberdeenshire); correspondence relating to Ian Ross' military service in WWII; correspondence relating to the deaths of Alice and Yool Ross.
Administrative / Biographical History
John Sim Ross was the younger son of John Ross and Margaret Yool, who were both from Cairnie, near Huntly in Aberdeenshire. The Yool family came originally from the Lumsden area and the 1851 census shows Ann Yool, mother of Margaret, as a widow farmer at Raemorrock, farming 60 acres and employing 2 men and 1 boy.
John Ross senior is listed in the census as commercial traveller and merchant. He lived in Edinburgh but retired to Crieff (Inverleith Row). He had four children - Robert Yool Ross; John Sim Ross; Elizabeth (Lizzie) Ross; and Isabella Moffat Ross (known as Aunt Isa and referred to in letters as A.I.) He refers to owning a farm, which his son Robert helped him to run, but no details of that survive. In 1913 he negotiated the purchase of P. Bell & Son, Engineers, of Edinburgh, where his son John Sim Ross was already employed, funding the purchase to make John Sim Ross the owner and manager of the enterprise. He refers to a loan to his son in his will - possibly from this business venture. At this time, John’s brother Robert worked in Ipoh, Malaya and he also invested a loan in this venture. He married Alice Morgan-Williams in 1918 and he died in 1930.
John Ross senior was comparatively well off financially. His will shows that he held investments in over 33 mainly overseas companies including mining (gold, tin, zinc); tea; rubber; Transvaal Estates; North British Railway; and Aberdeen Comb Works to name just a few. He died on 9th February 1919 and the value of his estate, before deductions, was £9382. [however, after deductions it reduced to £3803]
John Ross senior was ambitious for his sons, encouraging John junior to study for a BSc degree as he believed that this would benefit his career. There is no evidence that he did achieve in fact study for this degree although there is a letter from Heriot-Watt University dated 1903 detailing the qualifications required for entry. He went overseas to India as a civil engineer c.1903-1905.
John Ross senior changed his will several times. He latterly revised it in 1918 saying “that owing chiefly to the effects of this dreadful war, there is a very considerable depreciation of values”… of his various investments. When he died on 9th Feb 1919, he left Robert Ross £500, John Sim Ross £1000 and the residue of the estate and contents of the house to be divided between his two daughters.
John Sim Ross’s family, 8 Rosebank Road, Edinburgh was a traditional, strictly patriarchal household. The family were brought up in the Church of Scotland, attending Sunday School in Edinburgh and sitting church exams. As a father, he ensured that they attended as good a school as he could afford or arrange, and he greatly influenced their career choices and paths, taking charge of correspondence with potential educational establishments and employers. Family members sought his advice on matters such as finance, the purchase of cars, renting and purchasing property and furniture and job openings. The family remained close as the volume of correspondence shows, although the older children (Ian and Moira) may have chosen to ‘escape’ the tight rein of the Edinburgh home.
No birth record has been found so far for Moira Ross - she may have been born overseas after John’s marriage to Ethel Angus in 1901. Ian was the next child, born in 1911, followed by Margaret, Elizabeth and Yool.
Moira studied nursing in Edinburgh at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, and after periods as a trainee at several Scottish hospitals moved to England around 1936, where she met and married James (Jimmy) Cowan, initially against her father’s wishes, probably because they had never met him. They moved back to Edinburgh briefly in the early 1950s with two sons, Ian and Jimmie, before emigrating to Ontario, Canada in 1954.
Ian Ross’s school reports show him to have been a hard working, if not highly academic student. He attended George Watson’s Boys College and then the Edinburgh Academy. His father wanted him to sit entrance exams for Edinburgh University, but correspondence from the school suggests that they did not feel this to be advisable, and he started working in a bank instead. By 1929 he was working for the North of Scotland Bank and has become an Associate of the Institute of Bankers in Scotland. However, by 1937 he had a certificate in proficiency in radio telegraphy.
At some point he moved to London (where Moira already was) and he worked in a technical capacity for the BBC in the new area of television. During the war he served with the Royal Signals in Africa, and was taken prisoner of war and spent late 1942-1944 in an Italian camp. He married Joan Dawson in 1949 and they live in Enfield Wash with Joan’s mother as a lodger. In 1954 he was posted back to Aberdeenshire to work on a new television transmitter somewhere near Oldmeldrum.
Margaret Ross attended George Watson’s Ladies’ College and then pursued secretarial studies at Skelly’s College, Edinburgh, sitting exams as typist and clerk-typist for the Civil Service Commission. During the war years she talked of working in an office, but it is unclear what her work actually involved. She stayed on in the family home in Edinburgh and did not marry. She was active in sports and social clubs in Edinburgh. When her father spent time in Lumsden she dealt with his correspondence and collection of rents for various properties in Edinburgh.
According to the available documents, Elizabeth (Betty) Ross did not appear to have had any post-school training or education. In 1942 she was working in Fraserburgh, perhaps on wartime duties. Mostly she seemed to live with Aunt Isa in a variety of houses and locations over the years. They always went on holiday together. Perhaps she just became a companion and housekeeper for her aunt, and certainly she seemed to be the organiser in that household. Another person also called Elizabeth (Betty) Hartopp lived with them in East Newport in the 1950s and at Tullynessle. Betty and Aunt Isa variously live in Bray; Lumsden; Clova, Fyvie; Whitehills, Banff; East Newport, Fife; and Tullynessle. There was also usually a dog in their household.
Another member of the family, of whom we hear almost nothing until the 1950s, is Yool Ross. He is mentioned in wartime letters to Ian Ross when the parents spent some months living in Lumsden and took Yool with them. He appears to have suffered some kind of learning difficulties, and after the death of Mrs Ross he lived for a short time with Moira Ross and her family in Edinburgh. However when she emigrated to Canada he is then institutionalised in Gogarburn Hospital, Edinburgh, which functioned at that time as a mental institution and home for those unable to care for themselves. Letters tell us that his speech was difficult to understand, and he could not read or write - he appears to have enjoyed comics, jigsaws, knitting and crafts etc. He died in 1976.
Of Mrs Ethel Ross we hear little, apart from the letters which she wrote to Ian Ross when he was a prisoner of war. There is one other letter from 24th July 1942 in the collection, when she informed her husband that Ian was missing in action in WW2. There is no mention whatsoever of her death in 1950 which seems odd given the volume of correspondence.
Latterly the family moved to the Old Manse, Tullynessle House. Aunt Isa died there on 13th April 1961 (certificate issued by Dr. Watt). John Sim Ross registered her death and he also lived at Tullynessle. He died in 1965 in Aberdeen. The 1970 electoral roll showed Betty and Margaret Ross as occupants of the house, along with Betty Hartopp (who died in 1971 aged 66) and so it appears that the family continued to live together as they had done in Edinburgh.
The family’s connection with the village of Lumsden is through Margaret Yool, mother of John Sim Ross. When her mother died in 1889, she left her cottage in Lumsden to her unmarried daughters Barbara and Betsy who lived there. On their deaths it passed to the two married sisters, Margaret and Isabella. John Sim Ross bought out his sister-in-law Isabella Bremner’s share for £20 and so the property passed into his ownership (with his wife Ethel). He rented out the cottage and bought up, and to some extent modernised, other properties around the Square before finally selling up in 1954. He attempted to sell in the 1940s but, as the properties had sitting tenants, this proved problematic. The family seem to have used Lumsden as a holiday home, with various combinations of Ross family members living there from time to time.
In Auchindoir churchyard is a headstone for the Ross family. It says “In memory of Ethel Kate Angus wife of John S. Ross d. Edinburgh 2 Jan 1950; the above John Sim Ross of Edinburgh and Tullynessle House, Alford d.21 Sept. 1965 aged 87. Their dau. Margaret Julann d. Tullynessle House 24 Apr. 1974; their son Yool d. Edinburgh 18 July 1976.”
Access Information
Open; please contact the archive in advance to arrange access.
Custodial History
The collection of letters and other documents from the Ross family appears to have been part of the personal collection of John Sim Ross (1878-1965). The documents were bound into small bundles by subject matter and/or date and stored in a trunk which was deposited at the Lumsden’s farm, Terpersie, by Betty Ross, who lived latterly at Tullynessle House (the old manse). They were to be collected by a member of the family but this never happened, and so they were deposited in the Heritage Centre by James Lumsden in 2017.