Sue Johnston Asks Her Mother For Answers | Who Do You Think You Are

Sue meets with her mother Margaret Cowan, to try and jog her memory and find out the truth about grandfather's rift with the family.

In each episode one of Britain's best-loved celebrities traces their family tree to reveal the surprising, extraordinary and often moving stories of their ancestors. We publish new videos twice a week with the most memorable moments from the show. Subscribe now and click on the bell 🔔 to get notifications every time we upload a new video!

Sue Johnston's story revolves around the relationship between two men who played an important role in her family history. As she started her research into her own background she realised that they were of particular interest, because their lives reflected the increase in social mobility that followed on from Britain's Industrial Revolution.

The story of her great-grandfather James Cowan is an instructive one - an archetypal rags to riches story. He managed to pull himself up by the proverbial boot straps from the disease-ridden slums of Carlisle, and eventually became an independent man of means. His son, Alfred (Sue's grandfather), however, rebelled against the plans his father had for him, and went to work on the same railways that his father had worked on as he hauled himself out of poverty.

James Cowan was born in Scotland in 1825, and later moved to Carlisle. Records seem to indicate that he started work on the railways around 1849, at the time of the birth of the railway industry. The Industrial Revolution was changing the face of the country at this time, and the railways were at the forefront of the process.

James spent 25 years working at Carlisle Citadel station. Records show that in 1856 he started as a porter, then rose to be second head porter, and in 1861 he was promoted to second assistant platform attendant. Family legend has it that he eventually became a station manager. This, as Sue discovered, turned out to be untrue. He never made it to the top job, which could be the reason he resigned after 25 years of service. The records show that he left seven months after the death of the previous station manager, perhaps realizing that he would never step into his shoes.

By the time he left the job, however, his economic circumstances had improved dramatically. Most of his early life had been spent living in The Lanes, a notorious, almost Dickensian slum in Carlisle. Life was tough, as James's genealogy proves. His first wife, Jane Harrison, died of tuberculosis, and one of their four children also died.

In 1866 he was remarried, to Elizabeth Atkinson, and he had six further children. His place in the middle classes was cemented by the fact that he moved into a townhouse and employed a domestic servant - as the 1871 census shows.

When James left the railways, he entered the hotel business, another boom industry, and continued to succeed. The 1881 census reveals him to be a hotel-keeper, employing seven domestic servants, at the Station Hotel, Belle Isle Place, Workington. On his youngest son Alfred's marriage certificate of 1909 he is described as a 'gentleman', which is further evidence of how well he had done for himself.

This modest success meant that James could afford to provide well for his children. Alfred, who was born in 1885, was educated privately by a governess. It is clear that James wanted him to get a respectable white-collar job, which he did, as a shipbroker's clerk at the age of 15. But this obviously didn't suit Alfred. He threw it in, and went to work on the railways as a trainee fireman and an engine cleaner.

Whatever the inspiration for this move, one can only imagine the family rows that must have accompanied this decision. James had spent his life working hard to escape the railways, a resolutely working-class industry, only for his son to choose it as a career. Alfred also married Margaret Lacey, the daughter of a plate layer, and this too was probably considered an unsuitable move by his father.

Perhaps the difficulties between the two men were generational - James was after all 60 when Alfred was born, and much had changed from the time when he was a young man. Alfred also had the advantage of growing up at a time when the Labour Party was active and trade unions had gained some power. James, on the other hand, had had no support as he worked his way up the social hierarchy.

[michelles]

She is right it is upsetting I found one of my great uncles was working age 12 in the cotton mills he died age 67 before I was born all I could imagine was a little boy having to work 6 days a week in a Lancashire mill God bless him 🙏may he rest in peace

[cmtippens]

"My ancestral home...". LOL Glad she can have a laugh about it.

[uptoncriddington]

My ex was so disgusted when we explored the town where grand tales of maternal origins had been set as the trip put it all in a much more modest perspective. Context is often so important and we cannot easily recapture the past, which is, after all, another country, and so, almost totally alien to our eyes brought up in different circumstances.

[antipodesman]

Gentleman was actually a thing back in the day. It simply meant a man of personal means who did not work for a living. Of course it had other connotations too. Think of Mr. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. Not necessarily wealthy but a man of means and wealthy by most standards.

[starsweeper]

I have been doing family research over the years and have discovered that a lot of family stories that have been passed down are exaggerations or simply tall tales. I guess its a side effect of trying to keep up with the Joneses.

[purposegrow]

Enjoyed video...they should number the videos in order do we can watch properly.

[ScarlettO]

Does that say "spinster" next to 22 yr old Margaret on the certificate???

[andrewfischer]

another place id have to take a stone home with as an heirloom

[krissee]

I wonder if the parents were still at the station hotel when he was 21

[coopsevy]

Ok how can I contact this helpful insight program and ask them kindly to bless my life to receive help like what is shown in these programs, where I can travel and receive the assistance to obtain documentation with a face to face set down with much needed help to explain my family tree and so many other questionable family secrets where I have questions of safe gaurdenship and I only seek for knowledge and to educate my children and my grandchildren so they might understand the place here on earth has chosen them for.. I want to break the chains of wrongs in a personal healthy guided journey and not one that exposes privacy to whom seeks this, and mostly I don't want to shame or be shamed over choice. My health, family wellness and safeguarding to living is important. My choices circle back to misleading secrets in my family, I do not wish to expose anyone only seek the truth and the safeguarding to what needs to take place from here. I have educated myself on the legal parts, and the rights and people but what I don't understand if I have decoded the pieces of a family secret where it's not to be spoken of then who can I seek for understanding the real truth.. the people in the photos to whom shows the mirror images of a principle title and that of a media title.
I feel like it's all a Truman show.
I mean no disrespect, I would be blessed to know my Dads family and my Moms family hidden secrets where my dads side shares with the acting roles.
My family could smile again, and ripe off the bandaids to heal a pain that was planted, watered and grew into a strong rooted family!