The time capsule photos of a 'lucky' Scottish village and its people
There can be few villages in Scotland as well documented as St Monans.
For photographer William Easton, the village and the people he lived amongst became his life’s work
The result is a stunning collection of photographs of St Monans in the East Neuk of Fife, with every picture holding still a detailed moment of the village that prospered and then floundered on the back of the fishing industry.
As a local man and shopkeeper, Easton was embedded in the streets, the wynds and the homes of villagers during the late 19th and early 20th Century, with his shots delivering a candid document of the personalities, the hard work and the natural environment of the village built on the search for haddock and herring.
A book of the images - ‘We Live By the Sea’ - a translation of the village motto Mare Vivimus - brings together part of his work, some which is held by National Museums Scotland.
Jerzy Morkis, a St Monans resident who compiled the book; said the village was “lucky” to have had Easton.
He said he wanted more recognition for the photographer, whom he described as “near forgotton” but whose work he compared to that of contemporary Francis Sutcliffe, whose images of Whitby during the Victorian era have long been celebrated.
While photographers such as Erskine Beveridge were touring Scotland at the same time, Easton focussed on St Monans and other pockets of the East Neuk, leaving a deep record of this particular part of coastline.
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Mr Morkis said: “St Monans had this one man who chronicled life in the village for decades, which makes St Monans very lucky and which makes the work of William Easton very special
“Although Scotland has a wealth of photographers, and talented ones at that, who captured life in Scotland in the early days of photography, such as Erskine Beveridge, St Monans was particularly fortunate to have had William Easton.”
Easton was more than a photographer and from his shop on Coal Wynd, he worked as an ironmonger, a pharmacist, a cycle agent, dental consultant, seed seller and newsagent.
His father, also William, first got a foot on the business ladder in the village after creating a product called ‘Bootoline’, a preparation used to waterproof fishermen’s boots and soft leather, which he made in his shop.
His son, perhaps inspired by this, went to Glasgow around 1881 to study as a pharmacist. There, he met his wife Janet with the couple returning to St Monans a couple of years later.
The Easton family drug store became a firm fixture in the tiny community. By the early 1900s, Easton’s photography was becoming a commercial asset and he built a two-storey studio in his garden, where locals came for sittings.
But his time on the streets of St Monans which delivered his most powerful work as he captured a village hunkered down on the edge of the North Sea and the powerful relationship between land, water and people.
Mr Morkis said: “There is the journalistic dimension to Easton’s work and the scenes he saw and wished to preserve.
“These provide a fascinating insight into life in a fishing village and Easton’s work has an honesty that could only have been achieved by being part of the community, and a trusted observer.
“Some of his work in this area is as candid as an early camera would permit.”
In 1837, St Monans is recorded as one of the ‘principle fishing stations on the East coast of Scotland’ with 34 skippers registered in the village. By 1861, a further 40 were registered in the village as herring boomed.
According to accounts, St Monans economy prospered in the 19th century, with barrels of herrings and potatoes transported by rail into deepest Russia to meet the staple diet of the peasantry.
The Napoleonic Wars pushed up bread and meat prices, and saw demand for fish increase at the same time as bumper catcher was brought to shore.
This turnaround followed a critical loss of stocks in the late 18th Century, when haddock all but deserted the waters and men threatened to emigrate. Whaling provided employment for some, with crews returning in autumn for herring fishing. In winter, they crewed private ships, leaving a village empty of a large part of its workforce for much of the year.
St Monans, it is said, became an isolated community , both socially and geographically. The middens of fish offal in the street were a major public health concern, as were the outbreaks of smallpox, whooping cough and even cholera in 1849.
The new Alexandra Pier was completed in 1865. At this time Easton was just five years old. A new harbour came in 1877, which was designed and constructed by lighthouse engineer Thomas and David Stevenson.
By 1900, there was said to be over one hundred sail boats using the tidal harbour.
By this time, Easton was working at full steam recording the village, from fish auctions to the fisherwomen and the great sails of the herring luggers silhouetted against the skyline.
In the wynds, homelife crossed with industry as nets were mended, oilskins renewed and buoys tarred ahead of the summer drave, or drift net fishing.
Decline in the industry followed given the losses of World War One. St Monans had forty-two boats in 1938 but 10 years later, the number was down to 17.
Mr Merkis said Easton preserved “what otherwise would have been lost”.
He added: “He gifted St Monan’s with an enduring memory of how the town was in its fishing heyday.
“While his photographs are obviously of interest to a wider audience because they record a way of life long gone, to St Monans they are invaluable.”
With commercially astute Easton turning many of his works into postcards, his work was later “traded across the world”.
Mr Merkis said: “It would be impossible to hazard a guess at his output over the years but, with some certainty, much of it has been lost.”
Easton’s family gifted a number of photographic plates to the St Monans Heritage Collection, with some then donated to National Museums Scotland.
Mr Merkis added: “Many other plates and negatives have been lost; a good number of Easton’s images only exist in prints that have seriously deteriorated over the past 125 years.
“As a result, their quality is far from ideal but what remains precious is the content of these faded frames, and these we have tried to preserve.”
Limited copies of ‘We Live by the Sea’ compiled by Jerzy Morkis are available from Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther and St Monans Heritage Collection.
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