Largo's Cork Cutters

Back in the nineteenth century (and likely before then too), one of the occupations carried out in Largo was cork cutting. Among the men who described themselves as 'cork cutters' over the years were John Ballingall, Edward Johnston, Henry Kirk, John Edmonson Miller, Thomas Rankin and James Rodger. In addition, there were several boys employed to assist in this line of work.

Henry Kirk was a cork cutter based on the upper part of Kirkton of Largo's North Feus, shown in the above postcard image. At the time of the 1861 census Henry Kirk employed '1 man and 1 boy' in his cork cutting business. He was listed in the 1862 Westwood Directory (above) under 'miscellaneous'. It's likely that the cork cutters' main output would have been stoppers for bottles and other containers, such as the stoneware containers shown in the advert below for Henry Kennedy and Sons of Glasgow.

Raw cork came from countries such as Portugal, Spain and Italy into ports such as Leith and Kirkcaldy, before being transported on to Largo. The bulky nature of cork made it expensive to transport, so cork cutters tended to be based fairly close to ports. The cork cutter would grade the cork and prepare it for the production. Bottle corks or larger stoppers would have been cut from sheets of good quality cork and end cuts would be ground down then mixed with other substances to be moulded into other products. In addition to stoppers, other possible cork products would be floatation devices and shoe parts. Interestingly, Henry Kirk's father was a shoemaker, so it seems quite possible that there was a connection there. 

Tragically, Henry Kirk died in 1862 aged just 28, leaving behind a wife and baby daughter. Fairly quickly Henry's business was taken over by an English cork cutter, who relocated from Norwich to Largo. Edward Johnston stayed for decades to continue the business and in 1864 he married Henry Kirk's widow Annie. The couple went on to have 7 children of their own, as well as raising the daughter of Henry.  The 1871 census tells us that Johnston employed '2 men, 4 apprentices and 1 woman', suggesting that the business had grown significantly since 1861. 

This increase in production could well be linked to the opening of Cardy Net Works in 1867. Floats would have been required for the edges of the nets and cork was the material of choice for that at the time. In 1876, the Johnston family moved to a property on the south side of Upper Largo's Main Street. They named their home 'Norwich House' after Edward's home town. The house (later changed to 'Norwich Cottage') is shown in the centre of the map below.

​A listing for Edwards's cork cutting business appeared in the 1886 Slater's Directory (see below), however, his fortunes were about to change. In 1887 Johnston was declared bankrupt. A likely contributor to would have been the closure of the Cardy Net Factory around the same time. The factory had been impacted by a marked downturn in the fishing industry.

Details of Edward Johnston's bankruptcy show that money was owed to Fisher Howard and Sons cork merchants of Leith, David Gillies net manufacturer, Alloa Glasswork Company, Henry Kennedy Potteries in Glasgow (see advert further above), Robert White grocer of Largo, and J.A. Bertram and Company cork manufacturer, among others. This information confirms that bottle stoppers and floats for nets were a large part of the business. Edward then left Largo, never to return, and Norwich House was sold (see 8 Oct 1887 Fife News insert below). But there was another cork cutter operating in Upper Largo, who continued to trade for some time after Edward's departure. More on him, and on changing times as cork stoppers were being replaced with other forms of bottle closure, in the next post. 

With thanks to Vicki Howell for sharing information about Edward Johnston.