A selective family history
At first, the family history was easy to follow because we knew relatively little, particularly about the English side. Once we went back into nineteenth century Bolton, things became a bit hard to follow, especially with our great grandfather, Henry Lee and his father, Robert Lee both having had three wives. These pages are presented as strings through the history and to provide some reference and context. They are very much "work in progress".
The English
The English side is reprented by father Bert Lee. Our starting point wasn't that brilliant. We knew our grand parents, Arthur Lee and Lilian Kirkham and also Lilian's parents, William and Mary Kirkham. However, we did not know Mary's maiden name. Lilian had several siblings, one of whom was Gladys Kirkham who had married Jack Hough. This couple were always known to us as Uncle Jack and Auntie Gladys although Gladys was actually our father's aunt. Nothing had come down to us by way of a verbal history. We knew that Arthur Lee's father had been a watchmaker in Bolton and was reputed to have invented the Lee water clock.
The Scots
Our mother, Joy Anderson, forms the Scottish side. Her father, John Anderson had died of pneumonia in 1929 having been in poor health since being gassed in the World War One. His father had been a stonemason. Joy's mother, Mary Adamson, had trained as a nurse and when she was widowed, earned a living caring for the children of wealthy families throughout Scotland. Her parents, James Adamson and Agnes McDonald had come from Dundee and settled in Huntly, raising a large family. James died in 1916 while in the Army and Agnes lived on at Huntly, dying in 1953. Family legend had it that James' mother had come over from Ireland during the potato famine.