Ivor Wilfred was their 4th child, born on 14th June, 1917 in Ince Avenue, Crosby, Liverpool, Birth Ref: West Derby 1917 - 3rd Qtr (8b - 341) but eventually moved to Leytonstone in London with the rest of the family. Oscar Alfred Barrand (father) was still mentioned as Master Mariner in the Merchant Navy. Ivor also went to the Leytonstone High School and as with the other boys, also attended the Wesley Church where they all joined the Boys’ Brigade. Ivor played a bugle in the Boys Brigade band and his younger brother, Peter played the drums. All four boys achieved the King’s badge, the highest honour that can be obtained in the Boy's Brigade. Ivor was given all his brother’s Boys Brigade badges and he presented them to the Leytonstone Company in 1970. Straight after leaving school, he joined Hollerith Tabulating Machine Co, as a salesman, like his elder brother, Denis. In 1938, he was sent to India to evaluate the prospect of setting up a branch in Calcutta, but when war broke out, he joined the 8th Gurkha Rifles as a 2nd Lieutenant, serving in Burma. By the end of the war he was a Major in command of a special unit releasing POWs from the Japanese prisoner of war camps. Ivor would never talk about the conditions and state of the prisoners that were released but he was awarded the 'King’s Commission' for his actions in Burma. After the war, he returned to England and was posted to Scotland on behalf of Hollerith to set up the Scottish division and moved into lodgings in Uddingston where his father and mother were stationed, and where he met Mary Margaret Murray (nee Handley) who was born in 1915 in Kilmarnock, already a widow (her husband, George Archibald Brown Murray) had died in a Japanese Prisoner of war camp of gangrene when he had to have his legs amputated.
MURRAY, GEORGE ARCHIBALD BROWN
Rank: Signalman
Service No: 2335293
Date of Death:27/11/1943
Age: 28
Regiment/Service: Royal Corps of Signals
Malaya Command Sigs.
Grave Reference 6. B. 6.
Cemetery CHUNGKAI WAR CEMETERY
Additional Information:
Son of George Nelson Murray, and of Elizabeth Simpson Murray (nee Brown); husband of Mary Murray, of Leith, Edinburgh.
George Archibald Brown Murray was born on 22nd of September, 1916, in Quarryhills, Haddington (East Lothian) the son of George Nelson Murray, (a coachman) and Elizabeth Simpson Brown and they were married on the 25th March, 1915 in Edinburgh. Elizabeth Simpson Brown was from Quarry Pits in Haddington where her family had a blacksmith’s forge now known as “The Old Smiddy”.
The parents of George Archibald Brown Murray:-
George Nelson Murray (b 1891) was the son of Archibald Murray, a farmer and Margaret Murray (nee Henderson)
Elizabeth Simpson Brown (b1889) was a daughter of William Brown (blacksmith) and Rebecca Brown (nee Stewart.
The Murray family can be traced back to the mid 1800s where they originally lived in Lowick in Northumberland with the name Archibald in every generation, and around 1870, they took over a farm in East Lothian. They must have been quite wealthy to be able to buy a complete farm but in the 1861 census, Archibald Murray is described simply as a shepherd.
Birth Certificate George Archibald Brown Murray
e-mail to Liz Mcoll
My mother married my father in 1946 in Kilmarnock and by a strange coincidence, they moved to Edinburgh and I can well remember my mother visiting "a relative" in Haddington many times (1955-1960), but bearing in mind I was just a youngster at the time, my memory is rather scant on this. What I do remember is that they had a smallholding with chickens and pigs in or certainly near Haddington with a blacksmiths forge and they made horse shoes as farriers and iron gates in the forge. I think the person my mother used to visit was Elizabeth Simpson Murray (nee Brown) - her Mother-in-Law, and there was also a man working there called "Willie Brown" and may possibly have been be a brother of Elizabeth. He only had one eye and he said he lost his eye on barbed wire years ago.
Reply from Liz McColl
Well, it's a small world Peter. I have just been on the phone to Hugh the son of a late friend who was able to tell me Willie Brown was the Blacksmith at the Smiddy at Quarrypits which is just outside Haddington. Hugh's family bought the house beside the Smiddy (and the piggery) called Quarrypark. He is going to look up records to see if there is some helpful information.
Hugh remembered his Dad speaking about him. It looks like his sister -Elizabeth- your mother's mother law- was living there perhaps with her husband or as a widow. They would be kept busy looking after the livestock.
A friend who would be 30 in 1960 and who would go to the Smiddy might remember some more details eg if Elizabeth had family. The Smiddy is now a funeral home.
e-mail to Liz McColl
I can remember spending time at the blacksmiths forge as a small boy aged about 8 or 10, and Willie Brown showed me how to work the bellows and we made horseshoes together. I well recall horses coming into the shed and how the hooves were scraped with knives before the shoes were moulded onto the hooves and nailed down. The smell of burning metal horse shoes and the way they were moulded round the anvil while still red-hot and then plunged into a barrel of cold water to make them fit is something I'll always remember.
Something else I remember is when Willie Brown killed some chickens and he simply wrung their necks and waited until they stopped fluttering round, picked them up and stripped the feathers off them. As I recall, we brought them home to Edinburgh in a paper bag on the bus along with loads of fresh eggs. I thought at the time that was very cruel to do that to chickens.
Your contacts may also remember if Willie Brown had pigeons, as I can remember seeing dozens of pigeons in racks and boxes at the back of the forge. Perhaps he raced them as a hobby? I can't remember why else there would be so many pigeons, but there were certainly lots of them. He used to let them out of the boxes to fly around when we were there.
Marriage certificate – George Nelson Murray and Elizabeth Simpson Brown
Death Certificate George Nelson Murray 1955
Marriage Certificate 1884 – Archibald Murray and Margaret Fairly Murray (nee Henderson)
Memorial to George Archibald Brown Murray
Mary Murray (nee Handley) was working in the Government Food office in Uddingston at the time, issuing ration cards. Ivor’s father, Oscar Alfred Barrand was also in Uddingston working for the Admiralty. Ivor Barrand and Mary Murray married on the 20th July, 1946 in Uddingston and had two children; Peter Geoffrey, born in 1947 and Alan George, born in 1950. They moved to Glasgow in 1947 living at Penrith Avenue in Giffnock. Ivor and the family then moved to Edinburgh in 1956 and he was a Sales Manager of the Scottish division of Hollerith until it was taken over by IBM, the American computer giant. They stayed in Edinburgh until 1963 when he was moved to Leeds in Yorkshire, and the Company once again changed its name to ICL. Ivor was made redundant in 1970 when the ICL Company decided to reduce its presence in the UK, and Ivor got alternative employment locally and continued there until his death in Dewsbury on the 31st October, 1977, aged 60. Death Ref: Dewsbury 1977- 4th Qtr (4 - 1222) Mary had died the previous year in Dewsbury, aged 60. Death Ref: Dewsbury 1976 - 2nd Qtr (4 - 1118)
Birth Certificate Ivor Wilfred Barrand 1917
Birth Certificate – Mary Handley 1915
Ivor 1924
Ivor Barrand to India 1938
| Name: | Ivor Barrand |
| Gender: | Male |
| Age: | 21 |
| Birth Date: | abt 1917 |
| Departure Date: | 14 Oct 1938 |
| Port of Departure: | Liverpool, England |
| Destination Port: | Bombay, India |
| Ship Name: | Britannia |
| Search Ship Database: | |
| Shipping Line: | Anchor Line Limited |
Travel to India 1938
Ivor Wilfred Barrand 1946
Marriage of Ivor Wilfred Barrand and Mary Murray (nee Handley) 1946
Marriage 1946
Taken about 1955 in Giffnock
Taken 1968 in Dewsbury
Marriage Certificate - Ivor Barrand + Mary Handley (nee Murray)
Taken 1970
Death Certificate of Ivor Barrand
Marriage Certificate George Archibald Murray + Mary Handley 24/02/1940
The Handleys
The Handleys are a Yorkshire family and can be traced back to the 1700s where they were mostly farmers and agricultural labourers in the Pontefract area.
George’s father, also George Handley a miner at Allerton Bywater Colliery married Sarah Fozzard in Morley, near Leeds and they had nine children, the eldest being George Handley. The children were George (Grandad), (b 1877), Elizabeth, (b 1890), John (b 1892), Henry (b 1894), Blanche (b 1897), Eliza (b 1899), Ethel (b 1900), Joseph (b 1903) and Sarah (b 1904).
He was originally a miner like most of the boys in the family, but changed his career as a young man to become a clog maker.
He met Margaret Ellen Whitton the youngest daughter of William Whitton (b 1845 - 1893) and Mary Ann Nicholson (b 1848 - 1927) who were married in 1867. William Whitton was a master Blacksmith in Aisken (or also known as Aiskew) village, just north of Bedale, and he was also a Fruit and Potato dealer. They had 10 children: Margaret Ellen Whitton was born in 1890, the youngest child.
George Handley met Margaret Ellen Whitton in around 1910 when she was visiting her sister Susannah in Leeds from her home at Leyburn in North Yorkshire. The whole family seems to have moved to West Yorkshire after the death of William Whitton, and Margaret Ellen worked at the mansion belonging to the Krupp Von Bolen family as a servant and eventually as the cook. George meanwhile worked at the Saxone Factory in Leeds as a boot-maker but the factory was deemed too small to be profitable and George Handley was offered a job at the new factory in Kilmarnock in Scotland. He, and Margaret Whitton, with the approval of Mary Ann Whitton (Margaret’s mother) moved to Kilmarnock in 1913 and married on the 11th of February, 1914 in Kilmarnock.
George Handley was the backbone of the Saxone Shoe Company, being the most experienced and qualified shoe repairer and only clog maker on the premises, as the remainder of the staff were trained in mass manufacturing rather than high class hand-made shoes. One day completely unexpectedly, they fired him as they said he was costing the Company too much money. With no job, he made the decision to open a shoe repairers’ shop of his own and for the next few months, he did very well, probably making just enough to provide for rent and food in the years immediately following the first world war.
Suddenly, he was approached by the manager of the Saxone Shoe Company in his big black limousine and he offered George his job back at the factory with increased wage, as they realised that there was no one else with his skills in the Kilmarnock area. George refused the offer, but said he was prepared to take on their work as an independent contractor from his own premises. This they agreed to do, and the Saxone arranged a daily pick-up and delivery service to his shop, and he billed them for his time and work. The original shop was in the Netherton area of Kilmarnock and eventually he moved to premises in Riccarton in Kilmarnock where he lived. So well did the business do, that George Handley eventually took on his eldest son, George to work with him, and George (jnr) carried on with the business after his father died in 1949. Margaret Ellen’s mother, Mary Ann (nee Nicholson) came to stay with George and Margaret and stayed until her death.
George Handley and Margaret Ellen had four children: George, Mary, Margaret and Jack.
George (son) was enlisted as a soldier in the 2nd World War and was captured on the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940. He was imprisoned for the duration of the war and the German officers offered him a relaxed time with favours for making boots for them. Unknown to them however, he made the boots just a little smaller than asked and although they fitted when made, they tightened up over the next few weeks and became painful.
George Handley died in 1950, and Margaret Ellen (nee Whitton) died in 1973.
Marriage Certificate George Handley and Sarah Fozzard
Birth Certificate – George Handley
Birth Certificate – Margaret Ellen Whitton
Baptism Record for Margaret Ellen Whitton
Banns record of marriage – George Handley /Margaret Whitton
Marriage George Handley/Margaret Whitton 1914
Death Certificate – Margaret Ellen Handley
George Handley 1st Shop George Handley 2nd shop with son, George
George Handley & Ellen with George + Mary
1968 1950 1974
Margaret, Sarah, Mary Whitton + Mary With Margaret Ellen
Death Certificate – Mary Barrand (nee Handley/Murray)