Part of the Earley family tree
Family background and early life
Thomas Allan Rutherford was born in the small village of Kilconquhar in Fife on 18 August 1862.
His mother, Isabella Allan née Pryde (1824–1909), was a 37-year old widow with three sons, aged between 6 and 10 years old. Her husband, Colin Allan, a master mariner, had died at sea in December 1857 from tuberculosis.
At the 1861 census, Isabella was living in Kilconquhar with her mother and sons, plus two lodgers, including 21-year old Thomas Rutherford, a porter at Kilconquhar railway station.
Isabella and Thomas had a brief relationship, resulting in the birth of their son on 18 August 1862. His birth certificate records him as Thomas Rutherford (illegitimate) with Thomas Rutherford [senior] recorded as the father. No later record of Thomas Rutherford has been identified.
In 1871, Thomas, aged 8, was living with his mother and his half-siblings near the church in Kilconquhar. Thomas was now recorded with the surname Allan.
At the 1881 census, Thomas (recorded as Thomas R Allan) was living with his brother Colin Allan (a joiner) and his wife, Jessie, and infant son, Colin, at 24 Fowler Terrace, in central Edinburgh. Thomas, now 18, was employed as a journeyman baker.
Marriage and children
On 8 November 1885, aged 23, he married 18-year old Alison Ewart at St Andrew’s Church, in New Town, Edinburgh. On the marriage register, he is recorded as Thomas Allan Rutherford and his father as “Thomas Rutherford, railway clerk (deceased)”.
Alison (sometimes referred to as “Alice”) was born at Joppa Pans, to the east of Edinburgh on 21 July 1868, where her father, Robert Ewart, was a salt carter.
The couple’s first child, Thomas Allan Rutherford, was born at 14 Dundonald Street, Edinburgh on 11 March 1886.
The couple then moved to Falkirk, and lived at 46 Grahams Road for several years, where their following three children were born:
Beatrice Wallace Rutherford, born on 23 January 1888,
Robert Ewart Rutherford, born on 6 July 1891,
James Duff Rutherford, born on 11 May 1893.
Thomas Allan Rutherford died at Falkirk on 30 April 1896, aged only 33, from “phthisis pulmonalis” (tuberculosis) leaving Alison a widow at 27, with four children aged 11 or under.