I suppose the addition of 7 mouths to feed on a still dangerous journey would have felt like a threat. That when the story became public otherness a court case though shows that the mindset wasn't accepted then. Greenock isn't that big a place so I wonder how few degrees of separation are between the boys and me.
You could find out easily enough on Ancestry.
Off topic but I have found out so much through their website, including a coroner’s report in which my so-many-times great grandmother gave evidence in relation to the death of a very drunken man who was one of a group who had tried to use her and her companions ‘most indecently’. They took refuge in a house and some other men saw off the attackers. It seems that he died of internal bleeding.
I’ve also got glimpses into my past in other ways - the man in 17th century Dorset who left his first son the house, the second son his best bed and the daughters nothing as they had husbands to provide for them. The people ‘buried in woollen’. - we were a law abiding lot. The numbers of my ancestors too illiterate even to sign their names. The ones who were on the care of the parish. The ones who died in the workhouse.
Coming back to your story, it’s interesting to note the pull felt by this past story. What is it about the need to keep the past alive I wonder? And I’m struck by the fortitude of the survivors, who generally seem to have gone on to make excellent lives as far as we can tell.
