The people who hid a note in a Scottish lighthouse 132 years ago.

The work of genealogists has revealed a rich picture of the three men who left a hidden message inside the walls of a Scottish lighthouse 132 years ago.

Earlier this month, BBC Scotland News revealed that there was a bottle containing a note. Found inside the course wall lighthouse.

Written in quill and ink and dated September 4, 1892, it revealed the names of three workers who installed a new type of light in the 100-foot (30 m) tower.

Now experts at genealogy firm Findmypast have combed through censuses and newspapers and archives to uncover the story of the workers who left behind the fascinating time capsule.

Queen Victoria was on the throne and Gladstone led a liberal government, but genealogists’ research reveals the details of ordinary working men who traveled from Edinburgh to leave their mark on a remote lighthouse. .

The first name on the printed letter was John Westwood, a 28-year-old millwright – a tradesman who worked with machinery – from Edinburgh.

He traveled from the capital to the lighthouse at the northernmost point of the Rhines of Galloway to carry out a project by James Millen & Son.

As a millwright, he was following in the footsteps of his father, David Westwood.

He ran his own millwright business with John’s two oldest brothers, David, a millwright, and Alexander, a mechanical draftsman.

Born in 1864 in St Andrews, Fife, John was the youngest of eight siblings.

His two older sisters, Mary and Margaret, worked as domestic servants while John and his other three siblings were still at school.

When John turned 16, he also became a millwright.

By 1891, John had moved to Edinburgh and was living with a widowed pianoforte maker, 70-year-old Richard Honeyman, and his daughter, 45-year-old Helen.

A year later he was sent to the Corsewall Lighthouse project.

He married Margaret Gow, the 26-year-old daughter of a Blairgowrie contractor, in 1896.

They had three children – John, Jane and Neil.

And John Sr. lived a long life. He died in Edinburgh City Hospital in March 1958, aged 93.

James Brody was 48 years old when the three workers hid the bottle.

He was a James Millen & Sons engineer who also traveled from Edinburgh.

Born in Renfrewshire in 1844, he was the eldest of five children of James and Margaret.

Census records show he was an apprentice engineer when he was 17, and lived with his parents on George Street in Greenock.

His father was a shawl weaver and his mother a cotton worker.

In 1868 he married Annie F. Scott in Paisley.

By the time she wrote the secret note, she had seven children under the age of 14 and was living at Tina Hill Place, Paisley.

David Scott was 32 when he left the note at the lighthouse and worked as a laborer for James Millen & Sons.

He was born in 1860, the son of Jane and William Scott, a grain loftman in Edinburgh.

When he wrote The Lighthouse Note, he was still living at 40 Fox Street in Edinburgh with his housewife mother, his sister Jane Mackay, a millworker, and his two sons David and William.

Ten years later, 41-year-old David was still single and boarding with the Munro family (James, Jane and their infant son John) at 41 Leith Walk, Edinburgh.

He had become more skilled at his trade and was now working as a lead and metal worker.

All three men worked for James Millen & Son, a business established “before 1750” as a brass foundry.

In 1821 he installed an oil and gas plant at the Melrose home of writer Sir Walter Scott, Abbotsford, and by 1837 he was making gas meters.

Around 1885, they moved from their premises in Edinburgh’s High Street to the larger Milton House Works in Abbeyhill.

Their Glasgow branch opened two years later, where they displayed gasoilers, pumps, light fittings and Wenham patent gas lamps.

By the late 1890s, they were making “lamps for lighthouses” and specializing in aluminum.

The bottle containing the note was found by Ross Russell, mechanical engineer of the Northern Lighthouse Board, during an inspection.

He saw it after removing the panel in the cupboard but it was out of arm’s reach. The team recovered it using a contraption made from a rope and a broom handle.

He said he was blown away to learn about the men who wrote the note.

“I have touched the note and the bottle but I never dreamed that we would know all this about his life,” he said.

“It’s just unbelievable.”

Jane Baldwin, a research specialist at Findmypast, said: “These rare relics offer such a wonderful window into the past.

“With just a name, date and location, we have been able to trace some of their stories through time and create a rich picture of their lives and the world around them.

“This one lighthouse project may seem simple and far-fetched at first glance, but these workers were part of the technology and engineering revolution of the late 1800s and were able to safely navigate ships through a busy sea passage. were forming – part of a vast network of trade and travel routes across the world empire.”

Historian Eric Malone said: “The Carswell Lighthouse story of a message in a bottle is absolutely fascinating.

“It’s always interesting to find an original contemporary source but it’s even more interesting to find a deliberately hidden one.

“Did the three engineers plan this together? What motivated them? Did they tell anyone about the hidden bottle and did they leave any clues?

“Great credit goes to those who have researched their family stories.”