Bessie Quinn Survivor Spirit: From Galashiels Mills to Garden Cities – the story of an Irish family in Scotland 1845-1922

Bessie Quinn was an early 20th century New Woman, a mother living her love story in the enchanted world of the Garden City. When she died in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918-19, her shattered husband abandoned her memory, belongings and life history. Her disappearance reverberated down generations.Starting with only an Arts and Crafts kettle, one photo and a linen smock, Ursula has restored her grandmother to life. After long searches she found Bessie in the Scottish Borders, eighth child of working-class Irish parents who’d fled hunger after the Great Famine of the 1840s.This biography of a poor family unearths hard journeys of love, luck and loss, weaving historical fact with memory and imagination into a compelling story.

Reviews of Bessie Quinn Survivor Spirit: From Galashiels Mills to Garden Cities – the story of an Irish family in Scotland 1845-1922

"This is the stuff of real history – atmospheric, emotional and acutely well observed. Bessie is a captivating figure. From the moment you see her wonderful, knowing smile on the cover, she has your attention and affection. This is a superb piece of patient and loving work." Alistair Moffat, author ; "A marvel of dedicated research, energy, presentation and imagination – with lucid writing holding it all together." Grey Hen Press: https://www.greyhenpress.com – publishing poetry by older women ; "A book that shows why family history matters so much. A moving story about a grand-daughter's quest for her grandmother's origins in famine-ravaged Ireland, a granular evocation of industrialised Scotland, a social history of early 20th century Bohemianism, and an examination of the damage done to families by pandemics and silence. Bessie Quinn, Survivor Spirit, deserves the widest possible readership." Ian Marchant, writer and broadcaster ; "In a trajectory one can only describe as miraculous, Bessie Quinn leads a transformed life in Hampstead Garden Suburb… Rich historical detail is woven with memories and vivid imagining of the losses and gains that Bessie's rise to the middle class inevitably entails. An innovative contribution to histories of migration, class mobility, and family relations." Lyn Thomas, Professor Emerita, Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research, Sussex University ; "A journey of Irish and Scottish roots ending in a garden suburb, cut short by Spanish Flu. Drawing on archive sources, fascinatingly illustrated with contemporaneous photographs, the book retrieves the untold story of life on the other side of a family that produced Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City movement. Ursula Howard searches for answers to questions about lives hidden among fragments of evidence, and in so doing brings to life not just Bessie Quinn as a resourceful, resilient woman, but the hard grind of family emigration in difficult circumstances at a time in which urbanism was remade in remarkable ways… An absorbing social history from below, in which Bessie Quinn's life is both remarkable in itself and illuminates themes of poverty, class, social change and the transformative remaking of place." Susan Parham, Academic Director, International Garden Cities Institute