Fettes and Glasgow Uni: my father’s education
Written as part of Amy Johnson Crow’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge. This week’s topic: School
My father’s education undoubtedly began in the USA where he was born, in 1903, in Orange New Jersey. I know very little of those years and their meaning for him, but they included at least two trips across the Atlantic. In September 1905 the family sailed from Glasgow, on the SS Caledonia, headed for New York, which presupposes an earlier voyage from the USA to the UK. Two years later Douglas and his mother, but not his father, sailed from New York to London on the SS Minneapolis. They traveled cabin class, were listed as British citizens, and English not Scotch (sic).
Once he left the USA with his mother at the age of seven, Douglas never returned to the US. Yet he never gave up his American citizenship, which suggests that those years were very important to him.
The 1911 British census records Emma and Douglas living in a boarding house, the Ocean View Beach House, at 314 Sussex Gardens, Westgate-on–Sea, Kent. The entry confirmed that Douglas had been born in Orange NJ about 1903, and his mother, Emma Jane Macnee, born in Birmingham about 1871, considered herself still married, though she had left her husband Robert in New York. While the boarding house was a temporary setting, Emma remained in Westgate, where she died in 1935.
Westgate on Sea, 1907. (Frith collection)
Douglas soon began school, attending Tormore School, a private boarding school in Littlehampton, Sussex, where he was to stay for five years. The proprietor was Mr. D.R. MacDonald, and Douglas was a member of Wellesley House. In 1911 he had the whooping cough, and in 1916 the measles. From Tormore, Douglas went on to Fettes College, in Edinburgh in 1917. The admission record confirms his birthdate as February 6, 1903, and that he was the only son of Robert Hamilton Macnee of 5 Rumford Street, Liverpool, who was listed as his guardian. (Robert had finally returned to settle in Britain in 1916.) The Fettes record also informs us that “His digestion is poor. Care should be taken to avoid chills.”
Fettes College was established by Sir William Fettes (1750 - 1836), a merchant and philanthropist. Sir William had grown wealthy trading tea and wine during the Napoleonic Wars and twice served as Lord Provost of the city. However, in 1815, his only son fell ill and died of typhoid at the age of 27 while touring Europe. Unable to pass his money onto the next generation, Fettes left the sum of £166,000 to enable the foundation of Fettes College for the education of poor and orphaned boys. This was completed on part of his estate in 1870 by the architect David Bryce (1803-1876). The College remains one of Scotland's top private schools, although retaining a tradition of scholarships for poorer children.
Fettes College, Edinburgh, 2009
The school buildings were Hogwarts-like, and the accommodation was stark. What’s more, in 1917-18 the country was at war. “
We came to Fettes during the war…[which]… more or less dominated our life” wrote one of Douglas’s contemporaries. Another described the time as dark, with “an atmosphere of strain and anxiety … The war-time restraints, the careful screening of lights, the shortage of food, the general nervous tension [and] the chilly pencils of the searchlights wheeling and wheeling through the sky” helped to create “a curious feeling, almost of careless fatalism”.
Douglas lived in Carrington House, meaning he was not a scholarship student, for the ‘scholars’ lived in the main building.
Carrington House, Fettes College, Edinburgh, 2009
Douglas was at Fettes for 3 years. He studied Classics to School Certificate, then practical subjects, taking the track for students aiming at the Army, Engineering or Medicine. He was a keen sportsman, as noted in the school journal, The Fettesian. In his final year he was on the Shooting VIII and the Cricket 3rd XI. In the former “there was a tie between G.K. Knox and D. H. Macnee for the Donegal Badge, given for the best score” when both scored the maximum 100 in the first round. In a house cricket match between Carrington and Moredun, Douglas scored 90 runs in the second innings but ‘a fine second wicket stand of 78 by Macnee and Halley’ failed to carry the game for Carrington.
In July 1921 Douglas left Fettes and matriculated at Glasgow University, where he studied Engineering, Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, graduating with a BSc in 1925.
Glasgow University 2009
The University provided the following: “Our records indicate he was born in New Jersey, USA and his father Robert Hamilton Macnee was an accountant. He first attended Glasgow University in 1921-22 at the age of 18, and studied Engineering, Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. He graduated with a BSc in 1925. His address while in Glasgow was 63 Vincent St.” I found no other information in the University archives – no sporting activities that made the student newspaper, for example. But Douglas used his education in engineering throughout his adult life. It took him to northern India (now Pakistan) and to Australia before he settled back in England. But I am still puzzled that he never returned to the USA, the land of his birth.