Father and son James McLean and Thomas Campbell McLean owned family businesses which were remembered fondly by the residents of Montrose in Scotland for many years.

James McLean and his family

James McLean is my 3x great-grandfather and was born in Ireland’s County Roscommon about 1841. He emigrated to Scotland with his family in the mid to late 1840s, when he was a child, and lived in Strathaven, south of Glasgow. The family’s surname was spelled variously as McGlyn, McGlynn, McGlyne and McClain, but became more usually recorded as McLean.

His father Thomas McGlyn was a agricultural labourer, and James is recorded as working as a labourer himself, as a dresser in linen and flax mills, between 1866 and 1879. The census and records of his 1866 marriage to Elizabeth Murray, and the subsequent births of their children, suggest his occupation changed around 1880. In 1881 when son James George McLean was born, he said his job was a master confectioner, and on the census the same year he was listed as a baker.

The usual way to become a confectioner and baker was to be apprenticed, and I’ve found a census record for 1861 which I believe is the correct James McLean. It lists him as a 21-year-old confectioner living in Glasgow. That’s most likely where he completed an apprenticeship. When he married five years later, it was more than 150 kilometres away. Perhaps his marriage drew him to Montrose, or maybe it was seeking an opportunity to eventually ply his trade independently.

As a pastry baker and confectioner James ran McLean & Co. Bakers, and operated at 36 New Wynd, and 11 and 13 Castle Street in Montrose. The latter was close to home as the McLean family lived in Castle Street for many years, including at numbers 13, 17 and 24. A 1940s newspaper shared memories of James as also having operated a flesher’s business, aka butcher, at 9 Murray Street, Montrose.

James’ daughter, my 2x great-grandmother Margaret McLean, was twelve when she was listed in the 1881 census as a confectionery shopkeeper, obviously helping in the family business. His eldest son, Thomas Campbell McLean joined his father and they worked together until Thomas set up a business of his own.

Thomas Campbell McLean follows in his father’s footsteps

Thomas Campbell McLean was joined by his wife Eliza Thomson in his business, The Real Pie and Bridie Shop located at 15 and 17 Bridge Street. They also operated McLean’s Dining Rooms. Thomas worked in the bakehouse and Eliza served in the shop, and their baked goods included the Scottish horseshoe-shaped hand-held meat pie known as a bridie.

Thomas owned and operated the business for 43 years, until he and Eliza retired in 1946. When Thomas Campbell McLean died fifteen years later in 1961, the Montrose Review reminisced about The Real Pie and Bridie Shop.

Is there any Montrosian over 25 who does not remember the famous pie shop in Bridge Street? The shop to which almost everyone in town went some time or another for pies which seemed to be just that bit different, that had a taste so much their own, that people faced all kinds of weather, and stood in what must have been the only regular pre-war queue, to get? Saturday was the hey-day and for years many a home had a pie-dinner on that day.

And was there a shop which could close down for holidays—leaving only a brief written note on the window—“On holiday. Re-open 24^th September”—and the proprietors come back and find the queue there? There certainly must have been something different. In the back Mr McLean worked steadily, summer and winter. Boys, kept well in check by Mrs McLean, would wait their turn and gaze quietly at the rows of pie-crusts on the shelf just inside the bakehouse. Then Mrs McLean would lift the tray, go “ben the hoose,” return, remark “You,” wrap the pies—sometimes bridies—and the homeward journey was soon being made with thoughts of the mouth-watering gravy and crisp crust, the eating of which would mark the successful ending of a mission.

– ‘A Gable-Ender’s Gossip: T. C. McLean’, Montrose Review, 13 April 1961, p. 2, FindMyPast.co.uk, accessed 12 January 2025.

Selected references

The Montrose Year-Book and Directory for 1907, Alexander Dunn & Co. Ltd, Montrose, 1907.

‘Good wishes from Queen for “gey happy” couple’, Dundee Courier and Advertiser, 19 December 1955, p. 5.

‘Queen’s telegram to Montrose diamond wedding couple’, Montrose Review,
22 December 1955, p. 4.

‘T. C. McLean: They queued for his pies and bridies’, Montrose Review,
13 April 1961, p. 3.

‘Pie Baker’, Montrose Review, 22 November 1973, p. 2.

‘Looking back on 1946’, Montrose Review, 3 January 1947, p. 5.

‘A Gable-Ender’s Gossip: T. C. McLean’, Montrose Review, 13 April 1961, p. 2.

‘A Gable-Ender’s Gossip: Bakery Question’, Montrose Review, 23 April 1959, p. 2.

‘A Gable-Ender’s Gossip: Household Names’, Montrose Review, 31 May 1962, p. 2.

‘A Gable-Ender’s Gossip: Miss Maney Presides’, Montrose Review, 9 May 1947, p.2.

Marriage registration of James McLean and Elizabeth Murray, married 20 April 1866, 24 Castle Street, Montrose, 312/00 0042, National Records of Scotland.

Census record for James McLean, age 21, 100 South Wellington Street, Govan, Glasgow, 1861 Census 644/10 18/9, National Records of Scotland.

Census record for James McLean, age 30, 24 Castle Street, Montrose, 1871 Census 312/8/3, National Records of Scotland.

Census record for James McLean, age 39, 17 Castle Street, Montrose, 1881 Census 312/8/16, National Records of Scotland.

Census record for James McLean, age 49, 13 Castle Street, Montrose, 1891 Census 312/8/16, National Records of Scotland.

Census record for James McLean, age 59, 17 Castle Street, Montrose, 1901 Census 312/8/2, National Records of Scotland.

Census record for James McLean, age 71, 17 Castle Street, Montrose, 1911 Census 312/8/1, National Records of Scotland.