The Albert in 1978. Source: Picture Sheffield.
After her husband Thomas’s death in 1852, Elizabeth McQuhae became a licensed victualler in her own right firstly at The Red House tavern on Solly Street and then from 1855 at the Union Inn in Barker Pool. She placed this advert in the Sheffield Independent:
BILLIARD SALOON – MRS. McQUHAE UNION INN, BARKER POOL, Corner of Division Street. Gentleman visiting the above will find every satisfaction. Choice Wines and Spirits; Burton, Scotch and other Ales. N.B. – The best BILLIARD TABLE in Sheffield.
She died four years later at the same address. Cemetery records have her occupation as ‘widow’. The Union Inn was on the corner of Cambridge Street and Division Street and was renamed The Albert in 1861 after the death of Prince Albert. It was demolished in 1980, and this is now the site of Yates Wine Lodge.
Elizabeth’s husband Thomas (known as Tam) had been the publican at The Old Cock on Paradise Square from at least 1837 until his death. He received a glowing tribute in his obituary in the Sheffield Independent:
Mr. McQuhae was a son of Scotia, a native of that most mountainous of the mountain districts, Galloway, which he left for Sheffield about twenty-four years since. By his liberal disposition and warm heart he made a host of friends, but no enemies. His house has been a refuge of many a needy unfortunate, and none went way unrelieved. A sincere friend, a valuable husband, and an affectionate father, were his domestic characteristics, and no one who knew poor old “Tam” will hear of his sudden departure without a grateful remembrance of his worth, and a sigh to his memory.
At this time Paradise Square was often used for large public meetings so The Old Cock would have been at the heart of events. In 1839 over 7,000 people gathered for an anti-Corn Law meeting, and many Chartist rallies took place in the Square.
Tam was well known for the annual Burns Nights that he hosted for many years. Tam and Elizabeth were interred in grave O1 108 in the Anglican area.