John Carfrae and Helen Walker

[kiterunner]

Another variant of the surname, from ancestry - Carthfrae.

[kiterunner]

Scotland's People has a burial for a Helen Carfrae, other surname Walker, 23rd Feb 1830, St Cuthbert's, Midlothian.

[Shona]

Originally Posted by kiterunner

Scotland's People has a burial for a Helen Carfrae, other surname Walker, 23rd Feb 1830, St Cuthbert's, Midlothian.

Oh my! What a breakthrough! Thank you so, so, so much.

I bought some credits and viewed the image recording Helen's death.

'Date of death: 23 February 1830, Helen Walker, 70, relict of John Carfrae, 70, 8 Salisbury Street, old age.'

I then found the following record:

'Date of death: 22 May 1837, Mr John Carfrae Senr, bookseller, 59, 8 Salisbury Street, weary,'

The death above fits in with the son of Helen Walker and John Carfrae who was born in 1777.

Here's an account from 'Reminiscences of booksellers and bookselling in Edinburgh at the time of William IV - a address delivered to a meeting of booksellers' assistants, Edinburgh, October 1904'.

Adjoining M'Lachlan & Stewart's was the shop of John Carfrae & Son, who had also a considerable business as booksellers. They had the previous year removed into their present premises from No. 3 Drummond Street, now " Rutherford's," where they had also been book auctioneers, their sales being held at night.

Dr Hill Burton, in his Bookhunter, refers to their auction sales at some length, and I have also heard many one speak of these sales in their student days, and of the strange scenes which were enacted there night after night. Hill Burton says he went many years after to see the place where such occurrences took place in past years, and found it had been converted into a "gin palace."

In 1836 the father and son had quarrelled and separated, the father taking the shop at 8 Nicolson Street, recently vacated by R. Grant & Son, while the son with his son took the premises at 62 South Bridge.

I recollect reading on the lintel wall of the shop, 8 Nicolson Street, that he, John Carfrae, senior, had been thrust out of the business which he had carried on for twenty-five years, and thus appealed to his old customers to continue their business with him.

Mr Carfrae, senior, had a brusque, gruff manner, with a temper somewhat soured by loss of prestige; as a consequence he failed to succeed, and his stock was sold off in little more than a year after he began.

The principal assistant in the son's shop (62 South Bridge) was Mr George Simpson, afterwards and for many years the well-known manager of Messrs Blackwood & Sons.

A short time after, possibly three or four years, the Carfraes went to Australia, and their business was transferred to M 'Lachlan & Stewart, next door.

There is in Robert Chambers's Humorous Essays two articles, entitled " Sale Rooms," in which he gives an interesting account of Carfrae's and other book auctions of a past day.

I've managed to confirm a number of these details looking through old trade directories.

[kiterunner]

Wow, what an interesting story! He sounds a bit like the bookshop owner in the comedy series "Black Books".

The John Carfrae who was Helen's husband must have died before her as she was his "relict", but I'm not sure which death is his. There are 7 John Carfrae deaths in Midlothian 1782-1830 (with surname variants) and 2 of them at St Cuthberts.

[Shona]

I've been reading some more about the Carfrae's book-selling business - it's very Black Books. Even down to descriptions of John Carfrae being dark-haired, liking the sauce and not letting people read his books in the shop.

A memory has been triggered. I have a memory of Dy-Dy (one of my great-grandfathers) saying that my great-grandmother, Robina Moyes (Helen Carfrae, nee Walker, had a daughter named Helen who married David Moyes) had some connection with Robert Burns.