The Isle of Man in the 1860s

MS 09214 is a 40 page typescript, manually typed and all in upper case, being the childhood memories of Dr. Richard H. Quine, born 1859 and who died 1959, these undated memoirs, would appear to have been written in the late 1940's.

He was the son of William Quine and Christian Callister (m. 1848) born 17th May 1859 - attended King William's College 1871-73; His father William in 1861 was the miller at Glen Moore Corn mill in German and also farmed 50 acres, employing 2 men on the farm and one at the Mill but on Richard's entry to College his father was noted as of Silverdale and was later MHK; he had developed Glen Helen in the 1860s but sold out using the proceeds to buy the Cregg Mills on the Silverburn.

The author became a medical doctor in Manchester and retired to the Island in the 1930's - he bought Ballasalla Flax mill (later an Umber Mill)and in 1936/7 converted it into domestic accomodation.

The narrow valley he refers to in the memoirs is Glen Mooar, the then relatively new road through the valley is now well known as the TT course running up from Ballacraine, over Ballig Bridge and passing Glen Helen before reaching the higher ground around Cronk-y-Voddy.

I have split the long memoir into several sections - the memoirs are neither chronologically nor thematically arranged and flit from one topic to another; several sections repeat what has been said before - one page has been moved as appeared to be out of sequence..

 

 


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© F.Coakley , 2023