More on Elizabeth Mary Johnston

Elizabeth Mary Johnston was born in 1923. Her birth registration reads:

Birth of Elizabeth Mary Johnston 2 Apr 1923

Baptism of Elizabeth Mary Johnston 15 Apr 1923

Elizabeth was baptised on 15 Apr 1923 at St John the Evangelist, Portugal Street, Gorbals, Glasgow

The above shows that John Johnston was a protestant and Elizabeth Johnston or Wright was a Catholic. They were married in 1921.

The Marriage of John Johnston and Elizabeth Wright 2 Mar 1921

Elizabeth Mary Johnston was born in 1923. Her birth registration reads:

The above shows that John Johnston was a protestant and Elizabeth Johnston or Wright was a Catholic. They were married in 1921.

Here we see that the couple were married by declaration. Scotland’s People says of this:

“Until the mid-twentieth century most people in Scotland were married by a minister, in a ‘regular’ marriage.  This involved banns being read on three consecutive Sundays at the parish church. However, a minority were wed by ‘irregular’ marriage, in which a man and a woman made a declaration in front of two witnesses, hence the other name ‘marriage by declaration’.  By showing proofs of their marriage the parties could obtain a warrant of a sheriff or sheriff substitute to have the marriage registered by the local registrar.  Churches disagreed with these marriages in principle, but accepted them for fear that couples would otherwise ‘live in sin’.
There are fascinating stories behind some of the irregular marriages before the law changed on 1 July 1940, when they were no longer legal.  From that date Scottish registrars were permitted to perform civil marriages for the first time, under the Marriage (Scotland) Act 1939. “
https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/article/irregular-marriage-scotland

I have not looked into any brothers or sisters for Elizabeth Mary Johnston. I repeat the details of her marriage to John McDonald Neil here for the sake of completeness.

Marriage of John McDonald Neil and  Elizabeth Mary Johnston 29 June 1942 at St. Aloysius Church, Springburn

The John Connor who is a witness here is almost certainly the John Connor who married Susan Logan Neil, John McDonald Neil’s aunt and sister to his father Timothy Chrystal Neil. Susan died at 126 Wellfield Street, Glasgow 14 November 1964. John Connor died before her. Incidentally, John’s father had also died at Wellfield Street but at number 114 but that was long before, in 1935.

John would have undoubtedly had to return to his regiment shortly after his marriage and, although we might expect a child would follow, in fact, none seems to have. We can only guess how this marriage went but both my own research and the research I commissioned many years ago from the Scots Ancestry Research Society could find no record of any children of this marriage between 1942 and 1948. I describe some of my findings about Elizabeth Mary Johnson and her family in a sub-page of this site.

In the main narrative of the Neil family, I have discussed the war service of John – in as far as I know it – but I know nothing about Elizabeth. She is a bolt-screwing machinist at her marriage to John and this would have been a typical heavy industry occupation for a woman during the war. In the main narrative we have outlined her divorce from John but, again, I repeat it here for the sake of completness.

The Divorce of Elizabeth Mary Johnston and John McDonald Neil 1 1 Nov 1949

Divorce for ordinary people was no easy thing until modernising legislation made it possible. The Matrimonial Causes Act 1937 had made divorce for ordinary men and in particular women easier by introducing three further grounds for divorce in addition to those established prior to that. These were cruelty, desertion for at least three years, and incurable insanity. Additionally, it should be remembered that it was not until 1949 that the “Legal Aid and Advice Act” provided legal aid for couples wishing to divorce who could not afford legal fees.
The social upheavals of the war and the changing roles of men and women in society led to a great increase in failed marriages and this is probably why this divorce took place then. I suppose if a split had happened shortly after the marriage we would not expect any children to come of it but they could not move on until divorce became a possibility. In John and Elizabeth’s case, the birth of John’s son, Colin, to Margaret Cunningham Ramsay took place three years before John’s divorce came through. It is clear that the action was brought “at the instance of Elizabeth Mary Johnston or Neil” As we saw above, the marriage registration of John and Elizabeth had a margin note mentioning an entry in the Register of Corrected Entries and the entry referred to is this one.

For a long time I though that my father had abandoned his first wife but, on further scrutiny, it occurred to me that it could just have easily been the other way around and he may have been the recipient of a “Dear John” letter; it turned out to be a bit of a close thing but Elizabeth beat my father to remarriage by fifteen days! She married John Baird Vaughan on 2 December 1949 and John McDonald Neil married Margaret Cunningham Ramsay on 17 December 1949! I go into more detail on Elizabeth’s remarriage in the sub-page devoted to the Johnston family

Marriage of Elizabeth Mary Johnston and John Baird Vaughan 2 Dec 1949 at Possilpark Register Office

I looked up this entry on a recent trip to Hawick where I could take advantage of the Scotland’s People FamilySearch facilities at the the Heritage Hub

Some Speculation on Elizabeth’s Extended Family

John Baird Vaughan was born in 1919 and there is a RD Garnethill entry that is probably him. I could go into his family but It seems fairly low priority but I was curious about how Elizabeth fared in this new marriage. Her death registration (see below) had a P Carberry as her daughter so I looked for a Vaughan marrying a Carberry and found the following

Surname	Forename	Spouse Surname	Spouse Forename	Year	Ref	RD Name
VAUGHAN	PATRICIA	CARBERRY	CHARLES LOWER	1975	560 / 92	Bishopbriggs

At the moment I have not added this to my FH file but having a Patricia Vaughan to look for, I thought I would see if I could find any other children to Elizabeth and John Baird Vaughan.

Surname	Forename	Gender	Year	Ref	RD Name
VAUGHAN	PATRICIA	F	1950	644 / 7 / 2290	College
VAUGHAN	JOHN CHRISTOPHE	M	1952	644 / 5 / 85	Springburn
VAUGHAN	PATRICK NOEL	M	1952	644 / 5 / 86	Springburn
VAUGHAN	BERNADETTE	F	1958	644 / 4 / 2239	Springburn
VAUGHAN	JOANNE PHYLLIS	F	1993	609 / 677	Glasgow, Martha St
VAUGHAN	MICHAEL JAMES	M	1961	644 / 4 / 170	Springburn

As we have seen above, Patricia went on to marry Charles Lower Carberry in 1975. There seemed to be two children to this couple

Surname	Forename	Gender	Year	Ref	RD Name
CARBERRY	PAUL CHRISTOPHE	M	1976	612 / 235	Glasgow, Martha St
CARBERRY	LAURA	F	1979	560 / 103	Bishopbriggs

The Christopher as a middle name could indicate a sibling to Patricia – perhaps John Christopher Vaughan born 1952 in Springburn was Patricia’s brother and since the next entry in the search results in for the very next entry in the RD Springburn book, Patrick Noel could have been a twin to John Christopher.

I looked at deaths for Elizabeth Mary Johnston’s father but there were too many John Johnston deaths to be sure of who was who but it looks like her mother died aged 86 in 1980 (RD Glasgow, Martha St)

Regarding John Baird Vaughan, I believe he is to be found at the 1921 Census

Surname	Forename	Year	Gender	Age	Ref	RD Name	County / City
VAUGHAN	JOHN	1921	M	1	644/5 31/ 6	Garngadhill	Lanark

I found a likely deaths index entry for him

Surname	Forename	Age at death	Mother's MS	Gender	Year	Ref	RD Name
VAUGHAN	JOHN BAIRD	69	BAIRD	M	1989	560 / 65	Bishopbriggs

Elizabeth died in 2006 aged 83.

Death of Elizabeth Mary Johnston or Neil or Vaughan