John’s marriage to Mary Kerr took place in Dundee on 4 October 1905. He was just 16 years old - she was about 20. They both worked in the textile industry - he as a jute preparer and she as a jute spinner. Dundee was once the world’s largest producer of jute and at one time, half of Dundee’s workforce worked in textiles.

Hardly a week after John and Mary married, their son, John Hendry, was born. Both of Mary’s parents were already dead - she must have felt very alone during her pregnancy and no doubt very relieved once they were wed.

There were no more children for John and Mary. In 1911 the family were living at 161 Overgate in Dundee; John was working as a railway carter. But this was not to last. In 1912, little John Hendry died of cerebral meningitis. He was 6 years old; his father John was 22.

As an aside, John was born illegitimate - his father John Williamson and mother Mary Ann Hendry married in 1892, three years after his birth. At the time of his own marriage to Mary Kerr, John was still using his birth surname of Hendry. But when he registered his son’s birth one week later, he used the surname Williamson, and continued to do so for the rest of his life. One wonders what happened in that one-week interval to change his mind about his surname. It did create some confusion during his army service however. John had to sign a declaration (right) explaining his surname change, so that his wife Mary could receive his army pay.

In 1914, John enlisted in the armed forces and was away for the duration of World War I. It is not known if he and Mary stayed together. Mary died of tuberculosis in 1924.

John never spoke to anyone of his marriage to Mary or their little son John - the news came as a surprise to his children and grandchildren. His silence speaks of great grief and sadness and the typical response of the day was to bottle those emotions up and put them away. Sadly, those feelings must have been all brought back when he lost his next-eldest son, John, in World War II.