1859 – 1940 Robert Hamilton Macnee
Grandfather of Ian, Sheila and Hazel Macnee
Born October 3, 1859, Falkirk, Scotland
Married November 19th 1892, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Widowed 1898
Married 21 Septermber 21 1901, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Died 3 April 1940, Muirend, Lanarkshire
Robert was the son of Robert MacNie (1819-1899) and Elizabeth Hamilton McNie (1828-1917). He was the sixth of eight children, two of whom died in infancy, and the second of two sons. Robert sr. was an umbrella maker in Falkirk.
He was married twice, first to Jeannie Simpson who died in 1898, then to Emma Jane Carr. Douglas Hamilton Macnee (1903-1967) was his only child.
Early Years
Robert Hamilton was born in Falkirk, Scotland, on October 3, 1859, the sixth of eight surviving children of Robert MacNie and Elizabeth Hamilton. His parents were married in 1851, and lived for many years on High Street, Falkirk, over the shop where Robert senior made and sold umbrellas. Robert junior and his older brother John were the only boys. Two girls had died in infancy before Robert was born; the remaining girls were Janet and Jean, both older than the boys, and Elizabeth (Bessie) and Margaret (Meg), both younger.
Most of the first twenty years of Robert’s life were spent in Falkirk. But at some point in his late teens the family moved to Glasgow. By 1881 they were at 15 Fleming Street, in Glasgow. Robert was twenty-two years old and working as a clerk, in an iron warehouse. And. Three of his siblings, John, Bessie and Maggie, were also still living with their parents. Their older sister Janet, was married to a publican in Haggs, not far from Falkirk, and Jeannie had married Thomas Cook, a grocer from Camlachlie, Lanark.
Robert and John were football players. On 8th December 1877 J.McNee (full-back) and R. Mcnee (forward) played in an exhibition match in Falkirk for a Falkirk XI against Kelvinbank FC. The latter won, 5-0, but what is notable is that the Falkirk side was made up of ‘Falkirk Bairns’ resident in Glasgow and playing with Glasgow clubs. This is considered to be the first ever Association Football match in Falkirk, and the Falkirk team is still called the Falkirk Bairns.
1890-1900 The Americas and First Marriage
Robert left Glasgow, and spent many years in the Americas, but he always returned to his parents’ home. He was first in Argentina, where he was employed as secretary and treasurer by the River Plate Electricity Company. There he was married, on November 19th 1892, to Jeannie Williamina Simpson, 32, the daughter of the late Thomas M. Simpson of Gourock, near Glasgow. The marriage took place at St. Andrew’s Scots Church, in Buenos Aires.
Robert and Jeannie traveled to and from South America several times. In 1893 they sailed from Montevideo, Uruguay to Liverpool. In April 1895 Robert sailed alone from Liverpool to Rio de Janeiro, then six months later the couple, along with Jeannie’s sister Mary Harriet Simpson, passed through New Orleans en route from Liverpool to Mexico. They both sailed from New York to Liverpool in September 1897, returning to New York from Glasgow one month later. This was their last crossing together, however, for Jeannie died on May 18, 1898, in Mexico. Documents state that she was at Calle Gante, in downtown Mexico City.
Robert remained in the Americas after her death. He was in Edinburgh for an Estate Hearing concerning Jeannie’s estate on June 26, 1900, but he had just arrived from New York, and returned there in September. Jeannie’s estate amounted to no more than £300. R. Hamilton Macnee, Chartered Accountant, was granted inheritance of her property by the Edinburgh Sheriff Court. He gave his current address as 9 Coniston Terrace, in Morningside, Edinburgh, but he was also reported as being from Glasgow, and the address on Jeannie’s post office savings account was 79 Roslea Drive, Glasgow, the home of Robert’s parents. There was no mention of children, but the document mentions her sister, Mary Harriet Simpson, who may have predeceased her.
Robert’s return to New York, where he arrived on 4 September 1900, is the date he gave as the beginning of his residency in the Unites States for the purpose of applying for citizenship.
1901 Marriage to Emma Carr
In 1901 Robert married again. On September 21 in Brooklyn, New York, he married Emma Jane Carr. At the time of the marriage Emma was staying at the St. Denis Hotel, Broadway. She was 27 years old, born in Handsworth, Staffordshire, daughter of Deodatus Carr and Ann Robertson. But the Emma Jane Carr, daughter of Deodatus and Ann (Robertson) Carr, was born in Handsworth in December 1860, thus would have been 41 in 1901. Robert gave his age as 38 though he was actually 42. Since he suffered an on-going problem of ‘confusion’ about his age, it is possible that it was he who claimed a younger bride.
How did Robert Macnee, from Glasgow and living in New York – at 630 Macon St., Brooklyn, to be precise – meet Emma Carr, who was at home with her mother in Edgbaston, Warwickshire on March 31st, the night of the 1901 English census? Did she come to the US for the wedding, or was this a whirlwind courtship? Were any members of her family at the wedding? I have no idea.
Two years later Robert and Emma Jane had their only child, Douglas Hamilton, who was born, in Orange, New Jersey, on February 6, 1903. By the time of Douglas’s birth, Robert was well established as a public accountant based in Manhattan, and commuting to work from New Jersey. In 1903 Robert’s office was at 170 Broadway but by 1906 was working at 25 Broad Street, in the heart of the financial district (between Wall Street and South Street). This was to remain his occupational home in New York, while the home address was 198 South Prospect Street, South Orange (later Maplewood).
The family traveled to Great Britain in 1905, when Douglas was two years old. Mr. R H McNee, Mrs. McNee, and Master D McNee sailed from Glasgow on September 9, on the SS Caledonia from Glasgow to New York.
Two years later, on October 7 1907, Emma J. Macnee and Douglas H. Macnee arrived in London from New York. They were both reported as British citizens. There is no indication that Emma and Douglas were ever again in the United States.
Robert remains in the US
But Robert was committed to remaining. He had applied for citizenship, signing a declaration of intent in 1904; he was sworn in on June 6, 1906. He gave his birth date as 4 Oct 1860, and date of arrival in the USA as September 4 1900. A Frederick Hamilton of East Orange was his witness.
For the next few years his residential addresses continued to be in the same part of New Jersey, variously listed as East Orange in 1910 and 1911, and then from 1912 in nearby Summit. In the 1910 census, however, he was at Hotel Grenoble, 56th and 7th, Manhattan, opposite Carnegie Hall. Was he there for the night, perhaps to attend a concert? Similarly in 1916 he was at Hotel Beechwood in Summit, though whether this was precursor to leaving the US permanently, which he did that year, or it had been his residence for four years we have no way of knowing.
His professional work remained at 25 Broad Street, where he became part of the company of “Thos R. Morley (London) Robt H. Macnee, Geo H Hansel accts,” but his professional activities were expanding. In 1907 he was secretary and treasurer of Metropolitan Specialty Company, at 41 Park Avenue, Paterson.
Robert took and passed the New Jersey State Boards as a certified accountant in June 1908. And in 1915 he was secretary of the Audit Corporation of New York (later acquired by Price Waterhouse). By 1816 the New York company had become “Hamilton Macnee, Morley & Co”.
He also developed a new sporting life, perhaps for the social connections it provided. I had been told as a child that Robert had been accountant for the New York Yacht Club, most famous as the long time sponsors of the Americas Cup Yacht Race. I have no evidence that Robert had any association with the club. But he was a member of the Manhasset Bay Yacht Club in New York, and was elected the club’s secretary in January 1909.
He continued to travel to Great Britain on a regular basis, making trips in 1908, 1910, 1912 and 1914. In 1910, he sailed from Montreal or Quebec to Bristol in August, returning in September to New York from Dover. In 1912 another round trip, this time direct from New York to Glasgow and back in August- September. In 1914, Robert travelled to Glasgow just as World War 1 threatened; he arrived on August 3; Britain declared war on August 14.
There was one item of business to be attended to after Emma left the United States, involving a piece of property jointly owned by Robert and Emma. Located in Wilmington, Delaware was a property – a house near the intersection of Harrison and Twenty-sixth Streets – that they sold for $6000, in December 1914. Since Emma was not in the USA at the time of the sale, she was interviewed by the US Consul in London, who sought to be sure that she was not subject to undue pressure by her husband to make this sale.
Return to Scotland in 1918
In May 1916 Robert applied for a US passport. In the affidavit he clearly stated, and a supporting letter from the Hamilton Macnee and Morley Company affirmed, that he was traveling to Great Britain on business and expected to return within six months. He did not in fact make the journey that year, as far as I can tell, until after the war was over. In 1918 he traveled (1st class) to Glasgow, where he arrived on June 20. But this time, it seems that his intention was not to return to the United States. He gave as his address 35 Parkhill Drive, Rutherglen, where his mother, Elizabeth Hamilton MacNie, died a little over a year later, on August 16, 1917. While he was still a US citizen and his last permanent residence was in the US, his ‘intended future residence’ was Scotland. It may have been his mother’s illness that affected his intentions. He did not return to the US as far as I know until a brief visit in 1929 and he never again claimed his US citizenship.
There had been many losses in his family. His elder sister Janet had died in 1883, leaving a daughter, Bessie to be raised by her grandmother. His only brother, John, died in 1894, leaving a widow and three children. His father died in 1899. Bessie Noble, may have died too, for there is no sign of her after 1901, while her daughter, Madge was still with her grandmother. In the 1911 census, in fact, Margaret, the youngest daughter, who had a husband and daughter of her own, was providing a home for her mother, and the daughters of two of her sisters. The remaining sister, Jean, was married to Thomas Cook and the mother of two daughters (there may have been more children), and lived in Cadder, not far away.
From 1918 until 1926 I have no information. While he may have been continuing to work. When Douglas was enrolled at Fettes College, Edinburgh, in 1917 his father’s address was given as 5 Rumford Street, Liverpool. He evidently paid his son’s fees, though it is possible that the reason Douglas arrived at Fettes a year late had to do with some reluctance on his father’s part to assume that obligation, as became evident in May of 1935, at Emma’s cremation.
Robert, the world traveller
Beginning in 1926 Robert let hardly a year go by without a journey abroad. He was in the Canary Islands returning on August 30 1926. The next year he was in Gibraltar in September. In 1929 there was a short trip to the United States and Canada. He sailed to New York in July and returned from Montreal in August. It may have been on the return trip that he met the woman who was to become his companion for the rest of his life. Robert was travelling in first class, but on the same boat in second class was Hilda K. Muirden, 46. Robert was living at 6 Linn Terrace, Muirend at the time, but Hilda’s home at 591 Clarkston Rd, Muirend, was soon to become Robert’s. He remained there until his death in 1940.
Almost two years passed, then, starting in March 1931 Robert spent almost the entire year travelling. First a cruise to Bermuda in March, then a round trip through the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, to Java, Australia and back by way of the Cape of Good Hope in August and September, and in November he embarked on a journey to Hong Kong by way of New York, San Francisco and Honolulu.
Another round trip cruise in 1935 took him to Valparaiso and back from Liverpool, where he arrived in time to attend the cremation of his second wife, Emma, at the Golders Green Crematorium, on 9 April 1935. Their son and only child, Douglas, was at the ceremony, and encountered him there. This is when Robert informed this one and only child that he would dispute Emma’s will. Robert claimed that as he had paid for Douglas’ education, he was entitled to share Emma’s legacy, which she had left entirely to Douglas. As Douglas was about to leave England for Australia, and did not wish to be entangled in a lawsuit, he agreed to his father’s demands. (Since there are no more journeys documented I am tempted to assume that he was deeply in debt and needed Emma’s money to pay off all those first class cruises.)
Death
Robert died at the age of 80, on April 3, 1940. He left his entire estate but for a few small legacies to Miss Hilda Katherine Muirden – for “her care and attention to me in sickness and in health,” a phrase oddly resonant of a marriage vow. He left £200 to his sister, Jean Cook, and £100 each to his nieces Miss Betty Walker (Janet’s daughter), Mrs. Noble (this must be Madge, Dad’s cousin, married to MacKenzie, but using the maiden name in Scottish tradition) and Mrs. Edmiston. To his brother-in-law John Mitchell Wilson, the husband of his sister Margaret, he left his share as partner in the firm of George Stirling and Co, worth £100. Douglas was left nothing, and is mentioned only in the inventory of the estate as follows: “Douglas Hamilton Macnee’s Settlement per Westminster Bank, Priory Mansions, Bath Road, Bournemouth – Income accrued: £14 0s 1d.”
It was not easy to track Robert Hamilton MacNie/McNee/Macnee. There were the name variations. Then there was his age: for an accountant he seems to have been loose with numbers when it came to his age. If it were not for the consistency with which he understated his age I would doubt these were all for the same man. Every record had to contain at least one other piece of data confirming that they were all Robert Hamilton Macnee (however spelt) before it was included. One of these was his occupation, which remained fairly consistent. He was first listed as a clerk, then an accountant, later chartered accountant, and once each he described himself as a merchant, a lawyer and a broker. And finally he changed his citizenship twice, becoming an American in 1906, then reverting to British citizenship in 1927.
A most interesting man, Robert Hamilton Macnee. I wonder if we would have liked him – Douglas certainly didn’t.