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McIvor and Allan, Chip Carvers of Castletown c.1890
to c.1955 |
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Page Three It must not be thought that any article chip-carved and bearing a general likeness to a McIvor and Allan product is necessarily one made by the firm. As mentioned much earlier, there must have been a number of makers active around the turn of the 20th Century. Very often they display carving of far less precision and uniformity; sometimes produced by amateurs! It must be mentioned that the firm stated in their catalogues that they would finish off work started by others who were unable to complete them! One fact is not open to question; when one sees a McIvor and Allan article it bears a hallmark of quality that is quite unmistakable and of distinctive shape this being particularly true in the shinty-stick shape of the legs of tables, always carved with the same patterns.
All goods costing more than 20 shillings were despatched free of charge, even at the later dates of the more recent catalogue available. We do not know which of the partners was responsible for the marketing strategies they adopted, or for the administration and financial aspects of the firm, but much of the long success of the concern must have been due to its competence in these matters as well as innovative thinking in marketing and the superior quality of the products. In 1908or 1909, the workshop, where the timber was also stored for seasoning, caught fire and was burnt down. However, it was quickly rebuilt. the adjoining house, where John McIvor lived, on the main street of Castletown still stands, as does the workshop. Donald was the first of the partners to die, on 8
December 1934, a well-respected pillar of the community, as witnessed by
the Obituary published in the John O' Groat Journal. One of his
nieces, now a very old lady, has related that he wanted to be buried in
the same grave as his first wife, but that his second wife, Maria, refused
to allow this to take place! John married very late in life on 31 December 1936, to Jessie Bina Sinclair Jack, aged 60, of Scarskerry. He died on 31 July 1937. She died at Reay in 1959. He, like Donald was a widely respected and much admired man. A copy of the paper in which his Obituary, with a photograph has survived. Mrs McIvor, with foreman, James (Jimmy) Waters, and several men, including Ben Calder and his son Benjamin Gordon Calder, carried on the firm until the outbreak of War in 1939, when both materials and labour began to be difficult to obtain. Benjamin Gordon Calder had been a Territorial and was called up in 1939. Mrs McIvor then offered to hand over to Waters the much reduced firm, free of charge, or if he declined the offer, she would simply close it down. He accepted the offer and with the original apprentice Ben Calder, kept the firm ticking over during the Second World War until Ben died in 1944. After the Was, Jimmy Waters carried on in Castletown, largely alone for a number of years. At the time when the Queen Mother acquired Barrogil Castle, (now the Castle of Mey) in 1954-55, James' wife Alice, was offered the job as resident housekeeper at the Castle, where an extension to it was built, in matching stone, to provide them with accommodation. For a while, James commuted from Mey to Castletown, but when he found this more than he could manage in bad weather, he closed the business down. when the time came for the couple to retire, they went out to Australia, where they had two sons, and died there during the 1980's. In 1978, the eldest son Captain Donald Waters, was appointed Principal of the Australian Maritime College, the major such training college and research establishment in the Southern Hemisphere. After 1985, became Rector of the World Maritime University in Malmo, Sweden. Married to Bettine, nee Angus, from Mey, and now retired, he and his wife maintain their links with Caithness, having homes in Tasmania and Inverness. As a footnote to this account, it is good to relate that chip-carving is not dead in Caithness! One of Benjamin Gordon Calder's sons, Terence, is still carrying on the family tradition as a carver and his carved products are much in demand. His brother, Gordon, is not so much a worker with wood as a worker with words, being a reporter with the 'Groat'. It became apparent to the writer, when first coming to Caithness to try to discover the origins of his much-valued table, that although many people in Caithness and elsewhere still have memories of the firm, as well as examples of its beautiful work that they value highly, that many details of the history of this once-celebrated industry had become lost because no-one thought it might be of interest to future generations, whether in Caithness, or among a wider public. It is now too late to obtain more than a little second generation information about the personalities and characters of the partners and their families, or of how the firm was managed. This is such a pity, because it is even these few details that have brought to life the dry facts in Certificates of Birth, Marriage and Death, Valuation Rolls, the Internet and what records are still in existence and held at the County Archives whose team have given so much help and encouragement, as the story unfolded, bit by bit, each item pointing to another. What a remarkable amount of information and invaluable research help has indeed come to light in the year since the article by Noel Donaldson and the photograph of a table appeared in the 'Groat' of 27 October 2000! Nevertheless, there must still be much that may come to light; the hunt is not over and it is to be hoped that this account may be expanded and amended. It is impossible to thank in adequate fashion, although this account is an attempt to do so, all the people who have given so generously of their time and energy, becoming friends and, as a result, bringing me to settle here as a very elderly 'Apprentice Wicker' James Dunster Back To Page Two Back To Page One Calder Carvings continue the tradition today in a direct line from the famous firm. |
