Register of Forest Workers at Blackhall Forest, Banchory 1951
Register was courtesy of Moray and Aberdeenshire Forest District, Huntly in 2008.
By 1951 a more formal register process was in evidence with numbers allocated to each worker and more detail recorded. Each forest had a code number, in this case 13, and the first registered worker would have been 13/1 second 13/2 and so on. The lowest number in the register is Alex Denoon at 13/25 and one assumes all the previous numbers were people that left were unsuitable or perhaps called up. Note that the term indicating ‘left’ Forestry Commission applied over quite a long period of years from 1951. The list of names used in all the pages is noted below so that any name searches by families will bring individuals forward:
George William Anderson
William Brown
Elizabeth Robina Christie
Alexander George Clark
John Cumming
William Archibald Davidson
Charles Vincent Davies
Alexander Nobel Denoon
George Donaldson
George R Donaldson
Alexander Duncan
Mabel Duncan ms Ross
Fay Elizabeth England
Samuel Ewen
James Findlay
Agnes Duncan Reid Fowler
James Fowlie
Bernard George Fraser
Robert Glashan
Maxwell Fraser
George Hay
James Gauld
Sydney George Henderson – left for Australia
Robert Reid Hutcheon
Mabel Keiller
Charles Low
Donald Kay McGregor
John McGregor
George McIntosh (Trapper)
Sydney H Mckenzie - left 7/10/50 emigrated to Australia
Murdo Mackay
James Milne
Stephen Wilson Crichton Mackie
William Mathers
James Morrison (Senior)
James Morrison (Junior) - left for North Scot Draining Team
Ian Morrison - left 2/10/50 for Benmore Forestry School)
James Paterson
James Redpath
J R Reid
David Sherriffs
Robert Stephen
John Stewart
Ronald Taylor
Douglas Thomson
George Watt
Robert Youngson -transferred to Roads Dept)
In addition to the names there are addresses, description of whether married, numbers of dependents, date of starting work with the Forestry Commission, their work grade and date of finishing employment. Note the four women Mabel Duncan, Mabel Keiller, Agnes Fowler and Fay England employed in 1951 and assume as field workers or possibly in a local forest nursery. They are probably too young to have been workers in the wartime Womens’ Timber Corps. Elizabeth Robin Christie is a clerical worker, young single lady, and is employed over a range of years.
Unusually the list of names on the first page of the book is repeated with names only on the half side of a second page. The empty half side then was torn off and the names lined line up with the subsequent pages to record weekly attendance, sick periods, holidays, leave with no pay (forest worker holdings), absent or on loan to other forest units. Please see PDF link to view all the pages. The follow on picture numbers show the lists of workers for 1952, 1953, 1954 and a later ones for 1955-1958. Dates of birth and National Insurance numbers have been partially redacted.
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Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports, Groups of people