Register of Forest Workers at Blackhall Forest, Banchory
Register is courtesy of Moray and Aberdeenshire Forest District, Huntly in 2008.
This very rare and invaluable record is one of three registration booklets from the former Blackhall Forest which show the names of forest workers. The names of past forest workers have hardly ever been permanently recorded in Scotland as all their records at this time were maintained at local forest offices and over time as the registers were updated the old ones were destroyed.
All pay records, insurance stamp books, leave records and the hiring was all done at the local forest office with periodic checks by District Officers to ensure that men on pay role actually existed! The forest clerk had the role of collating all the weekly data from information submitted by the foresters and gangers and somehow working out the weekly wage payments, tax and insurance payments. One assumes that simple tables existed then but any details welcomed.
The first list shown here is of names compiled in 1948 but the forest had been in existence prior to 1941 and some of these people listed may have been employed from that time.
The Employment register list or forest workers from 1948 reads as follows:
1. M Mackay
2. I Morrison
3. J Findlay
4. C Low
5. D Sherriffs
6. G Hay
7. J Stewart
8. J Morrison (Senior)
9. S H McKenzie
10. J Cumming
11. G Donaldson
12. J Morrison
13. G Jaffray
14. W Brown
15. G McIntosh
16. J Fowlie
17. D Mcgregor
18. M Fraser
19. A N Denoon
20. R Hutcheon
21. R Youngson
22. G McKenzie
23. M Robertson
24. M Duncan
25. S Mackie
26. A C Ross
27. C Davies
28. A Smith
29. S Smith
30. J Gauld
31. J Robertson
32. T Hall
33. A G Clark
34. F Fainweather
35. A McPherson
36. J Cumming
37. J Forbes
38. A MacDonald
39. M McKenzie
40. G McKenzie
41. A Fowler
42. D Paterson
43. A Duncan
44. J Cunningham
45. M Keiller - Female
46. M Buist - Female
47. G Thomson
48. K Annandale
49. F England - Female
Following the war the forest industry was used as an employment opportunity for large numbers of recently demobbed ex-service personnel. For many this was a short lived occupation until they found work more suited to their temperament and situation. Note that the term indicating ‘left’ Forestry Commission applied over quite a long period of years from 1948.
Please see the PDF link to view the pages and list of names and their details.
The 1948 register was subsequently used to record the delivery of young tree plants to the forest from the Blackhall and other forest nurseries. The Despatch Invoice number date (1951), Tree Species and Identity Number and total number in the consignment are all recorded. Also recorded are the compartment numbers where the proportions of consignments were planted weekly.
Note one of the last tree species received from Craigievar Nursery was 12 Betula paprifera or Paper Bark birch a native of North America.
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Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports, Groups of people