Recently, a 132-year-old message was discovered inside the walls of Corsewall Lighthouse in Scotland. The message was contained in a bottle and was written with quill and ink, dated 4 September 1892. The note revealed the names of the three workers who installed a new type of light in the tower. These workers have been identified as John Westwood, James Brodie, and David Scott, all of whom were employed by James Milne & Son.
Westwood was a millwright and he traveled from Edinburgh to the lighthouse to carry out the project. He was the youngest of eight siblings and was born in St. Andrews, Fife. He followed in the footsteps of his father, David Westwood, also a millwright, and went on to run his own millwright business in partnership with his eldest two brothers.
Brodie was 48 when he and his colleagues concealed the message in the bottle. He was an engineer for James Milne & Sons and had traveled from Edinburgh. His father was a shawl weaver, while his mother was a cotton winder.
David Scott was 32 at the time and worked as a laborer for James Milne & 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 with his housekeeper mother, his sister Jane Mackay, a millworker, and her two sons David and William at 40 Fox Street in Edinburgh.
The genealogy firm Findmypast has conducted research on these workers and their families, providing a glimpse into the lives of ordinary working men from Scotland in the late 1800s. Through census and newspaper archives, they have uncovered a rich picture of the workers who left the intriguing time capsule. The note they left reveals they were part of a revolution in technology and engineering during the late 1800s, enabling ships to safely navigate through a busy sea passage, which was part of a wider network of trade and travel routes across a global empire
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