William Taylor MacGregor Cape Town 1930s

[Geordie daughter]

Just got around to checking my inbox now - yes, I did, thank you sooo much. Hope and Ian actually did travel out to the Caymans together, to live. Her record's on a different page of the passenger list to Ian which is how I missed her.

I've been trawling through Scottish P.O. Directories for Edinburgh and Leith today, trying to trace William T.'s movements. There's an entry for him (as M'Gregor) in the 1900-01 and 1901-02 editions at 3 Frederick Street (as per 1901 Census) but then nothing more until 1909-1911, when there's a W.T. MacGregor listed at 24 Howe Street. Not sure if that's definitely my man, though.   

[Geordie daughter]

Got nosy and thought I'd see if I could find Hope on any passenger lists with her first husband. They were living in Southport near Manchester, c.1929, by the looks of it. She was a teacher, he was an agricultural research worker and it seems he went by his second name Spencer. She might also be the Mrs H. Garner travelling with a six-year-old daughter and two other children to Durban, South Africa, in 1940. Her last place of residence had been Sierra Leone, according to the list, so she and Ian would have had a lot in common.

[rosie17]

There is  William Taylor Macgregor on the electoral records 1895/6
Address 41,Comely Bank Avenue Edinburgh occupation clerk
Also as mentioned 1913/4/at 12 Dundas Street Edinburgh occupation clerk
So he must have left sometime after that date as he is on the 1911 census

Found this record
Mrs M Macgregor age 54 years address 13,Dundas Street Edinburgh
Going to Capetown
Departure date 27/4/1922

Rosie

[Geordie daughter]

It's dawned on me that I could check the census returns to see if the Williams at Comely Bank and Howe Street are the other W.T. I mentioned (provided he's still at one of those addresses in 1901), so I'll tackle that this morning.

The Mrs MacGregor you found is my great-gran (age is a little out, but that's about par for the course with these records), so she must have been visiting Marie and co. It's nice to know that even if William and Marie had separated, his siblings stayed in contact with his wife and children. Broughton School, where Ian went, had a very good reputation by the sound of it and apparently its students regularly bagged most of the University of Edinburgh grants and bursaries, so I presume that's how he was able to study as a doctor. It looks like he was on the staff of Creek Hospital in Lagos during his years there. (I only have passenger lists going out of the UK on FindMyPast, not coming back, so I'm not sure how long he stayed in Nigeria each time he went out.)

[Geordie daughter]

I didn't have much joy correlating the addresses we found with the census returns, but never mind.

Ian and his brother had very itchy feet, I think! William D. got a B.Sc. in Agronomy and Forestry from Edinburgh University, attended the Imperial Forestry Institute in Oxford (which explains why he married there then became assistant Conservator of Forests in Nigeria, and later in Sierra Leone. He may have been responsible for Ian meeting Hope, actually, given her husband was an agronomist, and they were in Sierra Leone around the same time as William D. 

[rosie17]

That's a pity but at least you are finding out more on the family which is a bonus 

Rosie