People's Archive: King's Profiles

The People’s Archive: King’s Profiles is a section that will tell the hidden histories of people who worked and performed at the King’s Theatre in the early 20th century. Digging through hundreds of articles, images, and programmes, we came across a single page from the People’s Journal, published in 1937. Photographed, as it is here, was a woman named Bertha. The article highlighted women in unique jobs for the time.

Ruth Bowman, a volunteer with the People’s Archive, decided to spend the last few months researching to find out who Bertha was and what her life was like. In a twist, she has ended up delving into the world of genealogy. This article is a snapshot of the research she has conducted into the life of Bertha Cassie at the King’s Theatre. Stay tuned for the full article which will be available Spring 2026 on the People’s Archive webpage.

It started with an article in The People’s Journal about Bertha Cassie as part of a series of occasional items about people with unusual jobs.

She was born on 22/02/1887 in Aberdeen, the fourth child of William Wison and his wife Mary Catherine (nee Phelps). The family moved to Edinburgh about 1890.

Working life

The 1901 census shows that, aged 14, she was working as a message girl.

She started work in the King's as a cleaner in 1917, aged 30.

The chief electrician promoted her to operate the spotlight and subsequently to operating the lighting switchboard. This job become hers after his death – a very unusual job for a woman.

She mentions that this was during the war when the men were away fighting. We don’t have timings for her changes of roles, but I have discovered that “Mr Wu” was performed in the week from 9 September 1918.

According to Andrew (“Andy”) D Stewart who was manager of the Kings she was persuaded to “have a shot at the job”. He didn’t say who persuaded her but did say that she proved so skilful that she remained long after.

***If you know the name of the man in the photo, please get in touch with abby.pendlebury@capitaltheatres.com 

From the original newspaper article we know that she was still doing the job in 1937. We don’t know when she left but given that the men would have been away fighting in the Second World War, she may well have continued in the job during the war years.

Ruth’s experience researching Bertha's story

The questions I wanted to answer were:

Where did she come from?

Was she married?

Did she have children?

Where did she live?

How did she get the job?

Did Bertha have equal pay with other potentially male lighting technicians?

What was her working environment like in the 1920s and 1930s? Was there any discrimination?

Who was this woman?

After reading the article I tried searching for Bertha Cassie but all I found was reference to this article. Eventually I thought of trying the 1921 census. This had two entries for 'Bertha Cassie’ living in Edinburgh, mother and daughter. Mother’s place of work was the King’s Theatre but her job was noted as ‘duster’. This threw me a bit but I reckoned it had to be her as it would be unlikely that there were two ladies with the same name working in the King’s.

Using her children’s names and ages I found their birth certificates and her marriage certificate – all showed her name as ‘Bethia’. This led me to looking at earlier census entries and tracing birth, marriage and death certificates for her and for members of her own and her husband’s family. From this I did family trees as far as was possible.

It then struck me that I had not tried searching for ‘Bethia Cassie’ and doing so led me to the My Heritage website.

Understanding the family tree- Re-introducing Bethia with her descendants

I discovered that on the My Heritage website there were eight people who had Bethia in their family tree and contacted them asking if they had any stories or memories of Bethia to contact the People’s Archive. 

We had a contact from a lady whose husband is the grandson of George, one of Bethia’s brothers. His name was Phil Maclaughlin, and his wife Janette Maclaughlin got back in touch with the theatre wanting to learn more about their family connection to the King’s. They knew nothing about Bethia or her job but were very interested and were happy to meet us.  George may not have known about his sister’s job as by the time he married he was living in Coatbridge and the family still live there.  It was interesting to hear a bit about his branch of the family tree.  Excerpts from our interview with the Maclaughlins solidified that strong women run in the family. There was even a family resemblance between Bethia from the original article and Phil’s mother—Bethia's niece.

Abby Pendlebury:

‘’From what I've gathered, it seems that if she wanted something done, she was gonna do it and she knew how to do it...’’

Janette Maclaughlin:

‘’...but through the family, when I look at your mother and her daughter, Lynn, is exactly the same, and her daughter, Cam, they're strong, strong women. You just wonder if it's a trait...’’

Conclusion and final thoughts

From the newspaper article, we infer that she was a good and conscientious worker and that she was a bit feisty with a sense of humour

I hope other family members will get in touch. It would be lovely if they have memories/family stories/photographs of her to give us a rounded picture of her. The icing on the cake would be if they have her autograph book and we were able to see it.

I have enjoyed the research very much. The fact that “Cassie” is a relatively unusual surname was beneficial when starting it all.

Never having done any genealogical research before, I have enrolled on a genealogy course. I hope that this will give me ideas for how to do this kind of research and what other avenues to try - both for my own family and for future projects for people who worked or were associated with the King’s Theatre.

I already have new projects on the horizon relating to the early years of the King’s. Stay tuned.