J is for Jedburgh

My 7th great grandfather Thomas Champion de Crespigny (1664 – 1712) was a Huguenot refugee.

In 1676, when he was twelve years old, Thomas was sent from Normandy in France to London, where he was taken into the care of family friends and relatives.

In 1689 he joined the English army, with his first commission in Lord Cardross’s Regiment of Dragoons. This regiment, which had been formed in response to the 1689-1691 Jacobite Rising in Scotland, fought at the Battle of Killiecrankie on 27 July 1689, with severe losses. de Crespigny joined as a Cornet, equivalent to the present-day rank of 2nd Lieutenant. (I suspect he had been in the army before this post but have not found any records.)

(Dragoons were mounted heavy infantry who sometimes fought on foot. From the early 17th century dragoons were employed as conventional cavalry, trained for combat on horseback with swords and firearms. Dragoon regiments were established in most European armies during the 17th and early 18th centuries; they provided greater mobility than regular infantry but were less expensive than cavalry.)

In December 1690 army reorganisation saw Lord Cardross’s Regiment of Dragoons taken under the command of Colonel Richard Cunningham. A regiment was commonly designated by the name of its colonel; the expanded regiment was called Colonel Cunningham’s Regiment of Foot.

In 1694 the regiment transferred to Flanders, where from July to September 1695 it joined the forces of the anti-French coalition, the Grand Alliance, in the Siege of Namur. The commander of chief of the Grand Alliance was William of Orange. The recapture of Namur was the major Allied achievement of the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697).

The uniforms of the 7th Dragoons worn for the Flanders campaign of 1694-97 were likely to have been red with white facings. Illustration originally from A History of The Uniforms of The British Army (vol I) by C C P Lawson (1940) and retrieved from https://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armyuniforms/britishcavalry/7thdragoons1697.htm

The Siege of Namur, 1695 painted by Jan van Huchtenburg. Image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

In 1696 Thomas transferred to be Captain-lieutenant in Lord Lorne’s Regiment of Foot. Within a month he transferred back to his former regiment retaining, however, his new rank. Both regiments were stationed in Flanders. Captaincy of the first company of a regiment was formally held by the regimental colonel, and a captain-lieutenant commanded that unit on his behalf.

In February 1696 Thomas returned to London and married a fellow Huguenot, Magdelaine Grainger (1664 – 1730), who appears to have accompanied him on his military postings. Late in 1696 Magdelaine was issued a pass to travel to Flanders, presumably to join Thomas who was posted there.

They had six children:

• William 1698–1721 born at Bruges, Belgium
• Marie 1699–1700 born at Dumfries, Scotland
• Jeanne 1700–1776 born at Jedburgh, Scotland
• Claude 1701–1703 born at Jedburgh
• Philip 1704–1765 born London
• Claude 1706–1782 born London

There was little military activity after the fall of Namur. On 1 October 1696, Cunningham was promoted to Brigadier-General. William Kerr, Lord Jedburgh succeeded him and the regiment became Jedburgh’s Regiment of Dragoons.

In 1697 the regiment served in the campaign in Flanders under Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria. After the Treaty of Ryswick, which ended the Nine Years War, the regiment returned to England and was first quartered in London. Numbers were reduced to a peace-time establishment. The regiment moved to Scotland in February to March 1698. The regimental history is silent on its activities from 1698 to 1702.

Three of Thomas’s children were born in Scotland in that period: Marie in Dumfries in 1699, and Jeanne and Claude at Jedburgh in 1700 and 1701.

When Queen Anne ascended to the throne in 1702, the Regiment remained in Scotland to suppress any Roman Catholic resistance to her rule. At that time, the Regiment’s establishment was 6 troops, each with about 30 mounted troopers.

Thomas Crepigny was recorded as Captain Lieutenant on the Muster-Roll of the Marquis of Lothian’s Regiment of Dragoons, Marquis of Lothian’s Troop, at Jedburgh, 11th September 1703.

In 1703 William Ker became Marquess of Lothian and the regiment’s name was changed to acknowledge his new title.

From English army lists and commission registers, 1661-1714 by Charles Dalton volume 5 page 207 retrieved through archive.org

The seat of the Marquess Of Lothian is Ferniehirst Castle about a mile and a half south of Jedburgh, in the Scottish Borders area. The castle, first built in 1470, was reconstructed from 1598 having been attacked by King James VI in 1593 in response to the Kerr family’s role in a conspiracy against him.

Ferniehurst Castle photographed by Nigel Brown in 1963 when it was being used as a youth hostel. Image retrieved from geograph.org

Jedburgh is 10 miles (16 km) from the border with England. Jedburgh Abbey, which followed the Rule of Saint Augustine, was founded in the 12th century. When the Protestant Reformation arrived in 1560, the monks were allowed to stay but the abbey was used as the parish kirk for the reformed religion. However, by 1671 the church was decaying and unsafe, and worship was moved to the western part of the nave. The town of Jedburgh is dominated by the Abbey ruins.

Thomas de Crespigny’s regiment spent most of the 1702-1714 War of the Spanish Succession in Edinburgh. In 1704 Thomas sold his commission and returned to London. His will, dated 24 June 1704, was written there.

In 1705 he rejoined the army as a Gentleman Volunteer in Sir Charles Hotham’s Regiment of Foot. Thomas was subsequently promoted to Lieutenant, and in April 1710 to Captain.

Thomas died in 1712. His widow received a military pension.

A photograph of Jedburgh taken in 1847 by George Washington Wilson and in the collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery

In 2019 on our visit to England and Scotland we drove through Jedburgh but did not have a chance to stop. We will next time.

Related posts:

• F is for fleeing from France
• R is for refugees
• Will of Thomas Champion de Crespigny made 1704 probated 1712
• The Youngs invade Scotland

Further reading:

• Cannon, Richard (1842). Historical Record of the Seventh, or the Queen’s Own Regiment of Hussars: Containing an Account of the Origin of the Regiment in 1690, and of Its Subsequent Services to 1842 retrieved through Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/files/53900/53900-h/53900-h.htm
• de Crespigny, Rafe. (2017). Champions from Normandy : an essay on the early history of the Champion de Crespigny family 1350-1800 AD Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2899050253 pages 119 – 124

Wikitree:

• Thomas (Champion) Champion Crespigny (1664 – 1712)

Loch Ness to Dumfries

On Saturday 18 May we drove south along Loch Ness past Urquhart Castle to Fort Augustus and on to Fort William. We stopped briefly at Glencoe, its awe-inspiring glens and peaks made most atmospheric by a sudden bout of raw weather.

The renovated croft we stayed in overlooking Loch Ness

Urquhart Castle

the road beside Loch Ness

Loch Ness

loch

reminder to drive on the left

Glencoe visitor centre

Glencoe

stretching the legs

 

At Loch Lomond the Highlands scenery was gone and thirty or forty miles of soft Lowlands hills put us in Glasgow.

 

We spent the afternoon at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (my favourite of this trip), starting with a magnificent lunch in the museum cafe. It was very busy, but against the odds Peter and Charlotte managed to grab a table. I had lemon sole, reasonably priced, beautifully cooked, and nicely presented. For us a combined museum and gallery seemed a bit unusual, but I thought the curators did an excellent job of explaining the exhibits and the art. I look forward to returning to Glasgow and spending more time at the Kelvingrove.

Glasgow near the Kelvingrove museum

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

lunch was beautifully cooked and presented

Queen Victoria at Kelvingrove

Glencoe painted 1864 by Horatio McCulloch

enamel on glass by the Walton sisters

furniture designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh

 

We drove south through beautiful country to Keir Mill in Dumfries, our overnight stay. The B&B accommodation was a fine old manse, with a pretty garden. Our friendly hostess recommended the Buccleuch and Queensberry Arms Hotel in Thornhillfor dinner and there we had another very pleasant meal. On the way we drove past Drumlanrig Castle, the Dumfriesshire home of the 10th Duke of Buccleuch & Queensberry. I sincerely hope His Grace gets to have a meal at the local occasionally.

near Thornhill

the garden of our B and B at Keir MillB at

Drumlanrig Castle

Thornhill

 

After dinner our hostess offered us a dram or two as a nightcap. Glenmorangie single malt it was, liberally poured, and conducive of happy reminiscences about her visits to Australia and our experiences in Scotland.

Revisiting the photos and remembering our experiences I very much look forward to returning to this part of the world. I’d like to spend more time in Glasgow and Dumfries.

Google Timeline map 18 May 2019 drive from Loch Ness to Dumfries via Glencoe and Glasgow

To John o’Groats and Wick

I planned our trip to be a driving holiday, and I hoped to cover the entire length of the main island of the United Kingdom, 850 miles from Land’s End to John o’Groats. On Friday 17 May we set out to do the 250 miles (400 km) return trip to John o’Groats and back to where we staying near Inverness. Our route took us through Wick, in Caithness, home of my Budge and Gunn forebears.

Although the roads in northern Scotland are narrow and winding, we enjoyed the drive and the scenery. Scottish weather is often no fun at all, but the day was warm and sunny.

An oil rig parked in Cromarty Firth

John o’Groats was less busy than Land’s End and about as interesting: not very. As Dr Johnson said (of a stageplay) it was worth seeing but not worth going to see.

Sixteen miles south of John O’Groats is the town of Wick, where my great great grandmother Margaret Cudmore nee Budge (1845 – 1912) was born on 22 October 1845. Her parents were Kenneth Budge (1813 – 1852) and Margaret Budge nee Gunn (1819 – 1863).

Once an important fishing port, Wick was quiet and a little run-down. Charlotte and I had a look in the museum, where we learned about the herring trade, including a word of its vocabulary, ‘tenterhooks’, hooks which herrings to be sold as kippers are hung on to dry. (A ‘tenter’ is the frame; pegs on a tenter fastened kippers for drying.)

Wick Heritage Museum model sailing ship “Minnie Ha-Ha”

Wick Heritage Museum kippering kiln display

I have another family connection with Wick: William [Johnstone] Pulteney (1729 – 1805), my 7th great uncle, a wealthy politician and financier. Besides investments in North America, William Pulteney had an interest in the Pulteney Bridge and other buildings in Bath, buildings on the seafront at Weymouth in Dorset, and roads in his native Scotland. He also invested heavily in Wick. As Governor of the British Fisheries Society, Pulteney appointed the Scottish civil engineer Thomas Telford to design Wick’s herring fishing port, at that time the world’s largest. The development was named Pulteneytown. Peter bought a bottle of single malt whiskey from the Old Pulteney distillery there.

On our return south we paused at the Clan Gunn Heritage Centre – it wasn’t open until June but we admired some of the gravestones there

a Budge headstone at the Gunn Heritage Centre

a Sutherland and Gunn headstone at the Gunn Heritage Centre

a view across the fields to the sea near the Gunn Heritage Centre at Latheron

another view of the parked oil rigs in Cromarty Firth

We had haggis for dinner again this evening. It was a different brand, not so good. A nip of the Old Pulteney would have improved it, but we were keeping Peter’s whisky for later.

Google Timeline map of our drive north on 17 May 2019

Related posts

• J is for John O’Groats
• W is for Wick, Caithness
• The death of Kenneth Budge (1813 – 1852)
• Margaret Gunn (1819 – 1863)

Forth to Loch Ness

On Thursday 16 May, we left Edinburgh, crossed the Firth of Forth and, about three hundred kilometers later, arrived at Lochend, near Loch Ness, our next overnight stay. On the way we visited Abernethy and Pitlochry, passed through the Cairngorms, and walked around the battlefield of Culloden Moor.

crossing the Firth of Forth on the Queensferry Crossing (opened 2017)

 

The first of my forebears to migrate to Australia was my fifth great grandfather George Taylor (1758 – 1828), who arrived in Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen’s Land, in 1823. With him was his wife Mary née Low (1765 -1850) and four children: three of his sons, and one daughter. His daughter Isabella Hutcheson née Taylor (1794-1876), my fourth great grandmother, followed ten years later, arriving about 1833. Other family
members followed.

Since about 1670, the Taylors had lived on a farm of seven hundred acres near Abernethy, tenants of the Earl of Mansfield. In her family history book “Cherry Stones”, Helen Hudson wrote that the Taylors realised a considerable amount of money by selling various goods, stock, farm implements, and other property, and were granted land in Tasmania. George Taylor and the first of the Taylor emigrants sailed forth from Leith, the port of Edinburgh.

At Abernethy we admired the Round Tower which dates from the 11th century, church and churchyard. We looked at some of the graves. One headstone had the surname Low, perhaps a relative through George Taylor’s wife Mary.

the countryside near Abernethy

Abernethy Round Tower

Abernethy merket (market) cross

Abernethy church and churchyard

Abernethy gravestone meantioning a Low – perhaps a distant cousin

 

From Abernethy we continued north, stopping for morning tea at Pitlochry, very pretty but very busy with tourists and everything, including morning tea, very expensive. We then drove through the Cairngorms, a stunning plateau of rounded glacial mountains. We arrived at Culloden Moor in time for a late lunch.

heading north to Pitlochry

Pitlochry – pretty but lots of tourists and expensive

Cairngorms

Cairngorms

 

After lunch we walked across the battlefield. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and I found it hard to picture the few acres of flat grassy ground as the site of a bloody battle – a thorough defeat for the Jacobites. Exhausted by their long march the previous night they were no match for the better equipped and disciplined English. The butchery lasted just an hour.

One of Charles Stuart’s supporters at the battle was David, Lord Ogilvy (1725-1803), who raised a regiment for the Young Pretender. It was cut to shreds at Culloden and Ogilvy was captured and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. His wife, Margaret Ogilvy née Johnstone (1724-1757), my 7th great-aunt, also captured and imprisoned there, escaped six months later, ‘disguised as a washerwoman’. Ogilvy is also said to have escaped, dressed as a woman in his sister’s clothes.

Welcome to Culloden Battlefield

Culloden battlefield : thatched roofed farmhouse of Leanach which stands today dates from about 1760; however, it stands on the same location as the turf-walled cottage that probably served as a field hospital for government troops following the battle

Culloden battlefield

Culloden battlefield headstones that mark the mass graves of fallen Jacobite soldiers. They lie on either side of an early 19th-century road which runs through the battlefield.

Culloden battlefield headstones that mark the mass graves of fallen Jacobite soldiers. They lie on either side of an early 19th-century road which runs through the battlefield.

Culloden battlefield memorial cairn was erected in 1881

 

At Loch Ness we stayed in a renovated crofter’s cottage with superb views over the water and the hills beyond, including Aldourie Castle across the Loch. No Nessie, though. The more we looked the more she wasn’t there.  Peter and I had a very fine haggis for dinner, bought from an Inverness supermarket.  In the middle of the night I heard what I think was a large deer moving about in the woods beside our cottage. It might have been the Monster, I suppose.

The view of Loch Ness from our croft

View from the cottage window of Loch Ness

Aldourie Castle was across Loch Ness from our croft

Peter playing with the owner’s dog

the croft was very cosy inside

Loch Ness at night – no monster in sight but we could hear a very large deer in the woods just beside the cottage

 

My Google Timeline map of 16 May 2019

 

Related posts

• V is for Valleyfield in Van Diemen’s Land
• Jacobites in skirts

Family history travels

Our holiday in Britain took us away from home for 40 days.

We flew 21,000 miles to London and back.

In our trip from Land’s End to John o’Groats and many places between we drove more than 4,200 miles.

We visited:

• 23 National Trust properties
• 8 cathedrals
• 15 other churches and abbeys (at least)
• 50 other places of significance (at least)
• 45 places directly associated with our family history
• 10 major art galleries

I took 8,946 photographs and bought 13.8 kg of guide books.

I met thirteen of my cousins.

Most of our trip went to plan, though I am sad to say that I got the date wrong and missed seeing some of my relatives at Henley on Thames. This was my fault entirely.

The preparation I did in researching places and the associated family history was invaluable.  Over the coming months I will write up our travels in more detail.

A grave marker for my 8th great grandparents in Marylebone

T is for twins

My sixth great grandfather Charles Kinnaird (1723 – 1767) was a Scottish peer, the sixth Lord Kinnaird.

Sir George Kinnaird of Inchture, 1st Lord Kinnaird, knighted by Charles II in 1661, was a steady loyalist during the civil wars. He represented the county of Perth in the Scots parliament, and was sworn a Privy Councillor. On 28th December 1682 he was raised to the Peerage of Scotland, with the title of Lord Kinnaird of Inchture, ‘with limitation to the heirs male of his body’. George Kinnaird had six sons.

tree showing the first six Barons Kinnaird

 

Charles, the 5th Lord Kinnaird, was the grandson of the 1st Lord. In 1728 he succeeded to the title when his nephew died without issue. The 5th Lord married Magdalene Brown at Edinburgh in about 1729.

The 5th Lord and his wife had no children, but in September 1747, about eighteen years after their marriage, Lady Kinnaird left her home, went to an undisclosed destination, and two days later it was announced she had given birth to twins. She was said to have shown no signs of pregnancy.

It was also reported that Lady Kinnaird intensely disliked her cousin Charles Kinnaird (1723 – 1767), who was due to inherit the title. She is said to have declared that “she would be content to go to hell or do anything rather than he should inherit.”

Charles Kinnaird took the matter to the Commissary Court, a Scottish court with jurisdiction in matters of marriage, divorce, and bastardy. He asked for proof of delivery and a physical examination of Lady Kinnaird. Lord and Lady Kinnaird were summoned to court in December 1847 but they refused to give evidence or produce the twins. Shortly afterwards Lord Kinnaird declared that the twins were dead and the case was closed.

On 1 July 1748 the Commisaries decerned, that is decreed by judicial sentence, Lord Kinnaird to make payment to Mr Kinnaird of the sum of 600 pounds sterling for not appearing personally in court. [In 2018 according to measuringworth.com, the relative value of £600 from 1748 ranges from £88,010 to £12,830,000].

The fifth Lord died ten years later and his first cousin once removed, my sixth great grandfather, inherited the title.

Related post

• Jacobites in skirts: My sixth great grandfather, Charles Kinnaird (1723-1767) was imprisoned during the rebellion. In November 1745 Kinnaird was committed to prison by the solicitor of His Majesty George II for holding treasonable correspondence with the Highlanders at Carlisle, but was released a few weeks later on 19 December 1745. He is described in family stories as having “eaten his commission in prison”, destroying in this way the documents and correspondence he was carrying.

Sources

• Dictionary of National Biography London, England: Oxford University Press; Volume: Vol 11; Page: 190 entry for George Kinnaird, first Baron Kinnaird retrieved through ancestry.com
• Douglas R Scots Peerage Vol 5 1908, page 211. retrieved through the Internet Archive, archive.org/details/DouglasRScotsPeerageVol51908/page/n225.
• Debrett, John (1840). Debrett’s Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland. revised, corrected and continued by G.W. Collen. pp. 423–4.
• Burke, John (1832). A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire. H. Colburn and R. Bentley. pp. 38–9
• “381. Process of Declarator.” from page 29 “Scottish Record Society. [Publications]”, first published 1898 and viewed through https://archive.org/details/scottishrecordso22scotuoft/page/28.
• Sabbagh, Karl (11 June 2014). The Trials of Lady Jane Douglas: The scandal that divided 18th century Britain. eBookPartnership.com. pp. 45–6
• http://www.kinnaird.net/lordkinn.htm

S is for Shrewsbury

My fifth great grandfather Edmund Dana (1739 – 1823) was born in Charleston, near Boston, Massachusetts to Richard Dana (1700 – 1772), a lawyer and a prominent local politician, and Lydia Dana nee Trowbridge (1710 – 1776). He was their second child.

Edmund entered Harvard in 1756 and graduated in 1759. After a brief apprenticeship with a local doctor, he travelled to England, never to return. By 1764 he was at Edinburgh, perhaps he was studying medicine and science at the university.

The Reverend Edmund Dana (1739-1823) A miniature in the possession of my father.

 

At Edinburgh Edmund Dana met the Hon. Helen Kinnaird (abt. 1749 – 1795), daughter of Charles (1723-1767), sixth Baron Kinnaird of Inchture, and his wife Barbara Kinnaird nee Johnstone (1723 – 1765). Edmund and Helen were married on 9 July 1765 at the church of St Cuthbert in Leith, Edinburgh’s port, a few miles from the city.

The couple moved to London where their first three children were born.

On 18 December 1768, at a ceremony in the Chapel Royal of Whitehall, Edmund was ordained a deacon of the Church of England. Two months later he was made a priest and appointed as Vicar of Brigstock Northamptonshire with the chapel of Stanion in the Diocese of Peterborough.

In a letter to his father Richard, written soon after his appointment to Brigstock he explained his new situation and his decision to abandon his medical studies:

My living has been magnified beyond measure, but I have great privileges in it [wh[ich] no other person ever had upon acc[oun]t of its being upon an Estate of Mr Pulteney. I really understood before I took the gown that whatever deficiencys it labor[e]d under Mr Pulteney w[oul]d make good.

In effect, therefore, Edmund had accepted the assurances of his wife’s family, notably of his wife’s uncle William [Johnstone] Pulteney (1729 – 1805), that a career in the church would be assured and well paid. The parish of Brigstock itself was controlled by the Crown through the Bishop of Peterborough, but Edmund’s letter indicates that the land was owned by William Pulteney and that his basic salary would be supplemented. Given the influence of his wealth and position, it would not have been difficult for Pulteney to persuade the bishop to find a place for his niece’s husband.

In November 1772 the Reverend Edmund Dana took up new duties as Vicar of the parish of Wroxeter in Shropshire, in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield. Wroxeter is a village five miles east of Shrewsbury. William Pulteney had first entered Parliament in 1768 as member for Cromartyshire in Scotland, but he had substantial interests in Shropshire and had also contested the seat of Shrewsbury. Successful at the 1775 election, he held the borough until his death in 1805. Because of the property William Pulteney held, he was patron of several livings in the area: that is, he had authority to name the priest who would head the parish as rector or vicar. The previous incumbent at Wroxeter, Robert Cartwright, had died, and the vacancy was free for Pulteney to nominate his nephew by marriage.

Edmund Dana and his family  settled in the region of Shrewsbury, and William Pulteney continued his support. In 1775 the living of Aston Botterell became vacant through the death of the former Rector Nehemiah Tonks, and Edmund Dana was appointed his successor.

In 1781 Edmund Dana received two further appointments as Rector: to Harley and Eaton Constantine. Both parishes were in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield and both lay southeast of Shrewsbury, Eaton Constantine just two miles from Wroxeter and Harley a couple of miles further. The livings were formally in the gift of a certain John Newport, but Newport was under age and William Pulteney was his official guardian.

Helen continued to bear children: thirteen, nine girls and four boys, in twenty-one years. Three died in infancy. Helen died at Shrewsbury on 17 April 1795, aged about forty-five, and was buried at Wroxeter on 22 April. She and Edmund were married three months short of thirty years; he did not marry again.

Though Edmund Dana had no previous contact with Shropshire, the patronage of William Pulteney gave some status to the newcomer. Wroxeter is a notable parish: a short distance east of Shrewsbury, it occupies the site of the ancient Roman town of Uriconium. Some time after his arrival, Edmund Dana became a local magistrate.

An early supporter of the great engineer Thomas Telford, William Pulteney arranged for him to work on the refurbishment of Shrewsbury Castle during the 1780s, and a few years later had him appointed Surveyor of Public Works for the county, where he constructed roads, bridges and canals. Edmund Dana was a member of the trust concerned with roads and streets, so the two men were at least acquaintances. When Telford was commissioned to construct a new prison in the city, close to the castle, Dana had Telford construct a passage from the castle, across the line of the present-day railway, to the main entrance of the prison and then some distance along the River Severn. The route became known as The Dana, and local custom applied the same name to the prison itself.

Lancasterian School with Castle and Dana path. Before construction of the Railway Station in 1848. Shrewsbury Museums Service (SHYMS: FA/1991/125). Image sy8896

Former HM Prison Shrewsbury viewed across the road named The Dana at the end of May 2014. The prison constructed during 1787-1793, closed in March 2013.

 

Some sources claim that Edmund Dana lived in Castle Gates House, close to the entrance to the castle, and it is possible that for a while he did. From the time that he arrived there, however, all his children were born and baptised at Wroxeter, and his wife Helen died and was buried there.

abbreviated family tree showing William Pulteney, Helen Kinnaird, Edmund Dana, William Pulteney Dana (his son who was jailed),  granddaughter Anna, and great- nephew Richard Henry Dana Jr

 

In 1856 Edmund’s great-nephew Richard Henry Dana Jr (1815 – 1882), grandson of Edmund’s brother Francis, visited England and spent three days at Shrewsbury. On the first day he met his cousin Anna Penelope Wood nee Dana (1814 – 1890), Edmund’s grand-daughter. Anna’s husband William Henry Wood escorted him on a tour of the city. Richard Dana was shown the Dana Terrace, “principal walk of the castle, and named from the Rev Edmund Dana, who planned it.” He also saw an old house with black timber cross-beams, where the future King Henry VII was said to have spend the night on his way to defeat Richard III at Bosworth in 1485. There was no mention, however, of Edmund Dana living in the city and, since Anna Penelope Wood nee Dana was nine years old and living near Shrewsbury when her grandfather Edmund died in 1823, she probably would have remembered it if he had.

Richard Henry Dana’s diary entry for the following day, Sunday 10 August, records how he accompanied Mr and Mrs Wood to Wroxeter, where they attended the evening service. In somewhat romantic style, he tells how:

Wroxeter is a fair specimen of the old English parish Church, parsonage and village. . . The church stands in the midst of the graves of the villagers, and the vicarage opens into the Church Yard. In this vicarage, lived and died, Edmund Dana, my grandfather’s only brother. Here he officiated from 1766 to 1823 – a period of fifty seven years. Here he brought his beautiful noble bride, a peer’s daughter, in the bloom of her charm, and here he laid her, under the stone of the chancel, at middle life, the mother of twelve children, loved and honoured by all. Here he lies by her side, and here most of this children are buried. . . . . Here grew up, here played, here walked and studied, and loved, and married, those beautiful daughters, whom Mrs President Adams [ Abigail Adams nee Smith] says were the most elegant women she saw in England, and whom George III called the roses of his court.

He goes on to describe the church itself, with the tombs of Edmund Dana, his wife Helen, and several of their children, placed before the chancel.

Wroxeter Church, Shropshire. Watercolour. Artist: J. Homes Smith. Shrewsbury Museums Service (SHYMS: FA/1991/071/40) image sy1325

Richard Henry Dana remarked that the Wroxeter local bridge, a Roman column in the churchyard, and several trees were named in memory of Edmund Dana who had died 33 years earlier, while the old people of the parish still call him the “old gentleman”, and look upon the present rector, who has been here twenty years, as the “new vicar”, and complain of his innovations.

Excavation at Uriconium by Francis Bedford Retrieved from Wikipedia. Original from the Victor von Gegerfelt collection, Volume K 1:3, Region- och Stadsarkivet Göteborg.

Related posts

• J is for jail: Bankruptcy of William Pulteney Dana

Sources

• research by my father, Rafe de Crespigny
• Dana, Richard Henry, Jr and Lucid, Robert F. (Robert Francis),1930-, (ed.) The journal. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1968.
• Thorne, R.G. “PULTENEY, William (1729-1805), of Westerhall, Dumfries and The Castle, Shrewsbury.” History of Parliament Online, The History of Parliament Trust, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/pulteney-william-1729-1805.
• http://shrewsburylocalhistory.org.uk/street-names/the-dana

J is for John O’Groats

The village of John O’Groats, on the north-eastern tip of mainland Scotland, is 876 miles from Land’s End, on the western tip of Cornwall. Some of our ancestors lived at John O’Groats, some at Land’s End. Because they failed to bunch up for our convenience we will be obliged to drive from one end of the country to the other to take them all in.

One was Margaret Cudmore nee Budge (1845 – 1912), my great great grandmother, who was born on 22 October 1845 to Kenneth Budge (1813 – 1852) and Margaret Budge nee Gunn (1819 – 1863) in Wick, Caithness, 16 miles south of John O’Groats .

From a collection of 44 monochrome postcards showing fishing scenes around Scotland in the early 20th century. Monchrome photograph with the title ‘Herring Gutters at work, Wick’ showing three large trench style benchs full of herring with men and women on each side gutting herring. There are stacked fish barrels behind them with the masts of fishing vessels in the harbour in the background. Retrieved from Dornoch History Links image library http://www.historylinksarchive.org.uk/picture/number11794.asp

Margaret was baptized on 16 January 1846.

16/01/1846 BUDGE, MARGARET (Old Parish Registers Births 043/ 40 493 Wick) Page 493 of 593 retrieved from ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk

Her father was a sailor, who died at sea of cholera in 1852, when Margaret was almost 7. In 1854 Margaret Budge nee Gunn remarried, to Ewan Rankin (born 1825).

Margaret was the fourth of five children. Her older sister Alexandrina died between 1845 and 1851. Her younger sister was also named Alexandrina.

Margaret, her two brothers Daniel and Kenneth and younger sister Alexandrina accompanied their mother and step-father to Adelaide, South Australia in 1854. Margaret was then 9 years old.

Margaret married James Francis Cudmore (1837 – 1912), a pastoralist. They had 13 children.

Margaret Cudmore nee Budge. (I am not certain of the source of this photograph)

James Francis Cudmore was in business at various times with Margaret’s brothers Daniel and Kenneth and also James Mansfield Niall, the husband of Margaret’s younger sister Alexandrina.

Margaret, it appears, never returned to Wick. In honour of her home place however, Margaret named their house at Mount Barker “Caithness”. Mount Barker is 33 kilometers from Adelaide. Margaret’s youngest child, Robert Milo Cudmore, was born there in 1889.

Family Notices (1889, February 15). The Express and Telegraph (Adelaide, SA : 1867 – 1922), p. 2 (Second Edition.). Retrieved April 9, 2019, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article208524891

Related posts

• W is for Wick, Caithness
• The death of Kenneth Budge (1813 – 1852)
• Margaret Gunn (1819 – 1863)
• K is for Kenneth
• Trove tuesday : Daniel Budge

Jacobites in skirts

Illustration by Arthur Rackham of Mr Toad escaping prison dressed as a washerwoman from Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

In The Wind in the Willows the irrepressible Mr Toad escapes from gaol by dressing as a washerwoman. My 7th great aunt Margaret Lady Ogilvy is said to have escaped from Edinburgh Castle, where she had been confined after the failure of the ’45, in much the same way, disguised as a washerwoman.

It happened like this.

Margaret (1724-1757) was one of 14 children of my seventh great grandparents Sir James Johnstone (1697-1772) and his wife Barbara née Murray (1703-1773). In 1745 Margaret married David, Lord Ogilvy (1725-1803), who had raised a regiment in support of the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart. Margaret accompanied her husband during the rebellion.

Ogilvy’s clansmen were cut to shreds at Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746, and in the aftermath Margaret Lady Ogilvy was captured and kept at Edinburgh Castle. In November 1746 she escaped, “disguised as a washerwoman”.

Margaret Ogilvy made her way to France where she was reunited with her husband, who had survived Culloden and fled to Paris. He later became a general in the forces of the French king.

Margaret, Lady Ogilvy from “Illustrations of people and events relating to the Jacobite Rebellions in Scottish history (1715 and 1745-46)” in the collection of the National Library of Scotland

So the story goes, but it is suspiciously similar to a tale told about David Ogilvy. He too had been captured after the failure of Culloden and is said to have escaped St Andrews Castle dressed as a woman, in his sister’s clothes.

My sixth great grandfather, Charles Kinnaird (1723-1767), brother-in-law of Margaret Ogilvy née Johnstone was also imprisoned during the rebellion. In November 1745 Kinnaird was committed to prison by the solicitor of His Majesty George II for holding treasonable correspondence with the Highlanders at Carlisle, but was released a few weeks later on 19 December 1745. He is described in family stories as having “eaten his commission in prison”, destroying in this way the documents and correspondence he was carrying. Kinnaird was imprisoned with Walter Scott, a  servant of his future father-in-law, Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall, Dumfries.

In 1748 Charles Kinnaird married Barbara Johnstone (1723-1765), Margaret’s sister. I am descended from Charles and Barbara Kinnaird through Charlotte Dana (1820-1904), my third great grandmother.

References

• Rothschild, Emma The inner life of empires : an eighteenth-century history. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. ; Woodstock, 2011. Page 318. Note 28 refers to the imprisonment of Charles Kinnaird and Lady Ogilvie and states The family stories “of Lord Kinnaird eating his commission in prison—Of Westerhall being a refuge for the fugitives & of Lady Ogilvie’s escape”—were recounted by Betty Johnstone, many years later, to her great-niece Elizabeth Caroline Johnstone.
• Bernard Burke (1854). Family romance: or, Episodes in the domestic annals of the aristocracy. Hurst and Blackett. pp. 264–274
• Stamford Mercury 26 June 1746 page 3 retrieved from FindMyPast.com.au quoting a letter from Edinburgh dated June 16: “Yesterday Lady Ogilvy, who attended her husband, and was remarkably active in the present Rebellion, was brought to this Place by a Party of Soldiers, and confined in the Castle.”
• Newcastle Courant 22 November 1746 page 3 retrieved from FindMyPast quoting a letter from Edinburgh dated November 24 : “The Lady Ogilvie made her Escape last Friday [18 November] from the Castle.”
• Walton, Geri. “Daring Escape of Jacobite Woman Lady Margaret Ogilvy.” Geri Walton unique histories from the 18th and 19th centuries. November 10, 2017.  https://www.geriwalton.com/daring-escape-jacobite-woman-lady-margaret-ogilvy/.
• The Scots Magazine 7 March 1757 page 53 retrieved from FindMyPast : “Lately in France, in the 32nd year of her age, Mrs Margaret Johnston, wife of Lord Ogilvie, leaving issue one son and two daughters. This lady’s husband is the lineal heir  of the family of Airly, became attainted in 1746 [viii, 269.] and is colonel of a regiment in the French service.”
• Ogilvy David, entry in the Dictionary of National Biography 1885-1900 vol 42 by  Thomas Finlayson Henderson, transcribed at Wikisource
• Charles Jobson Lyon (1843). History of St. Andrews: Episcopal, Monastic, Academic, and Civil, Comprising the Principal Part of the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, from the Earliest Age Till the Present Time. W. Tait. pp. 32–33 states David Ogilvy dressed himself in the clothes of one of his tiers and escaped disguised as a woman.
• Stamford Mercury 12 December 1745 page 2 retrieved from FindMyPast.com.au quoting a letter from Edinburgh dated November 28 about the imprisonment of Charles Kinnaird

Related posts

• I have previously written of the role Edward Mainwaring, my 6th great grandfather, played in repelling the Jacobite rising of 1745

V is for Valleyfield in Van Diemen’s Land

The first of my forebears to migrate to Australia was my fifth  great grandfather George Taylor (1758 – 1828), who arrived in Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen’s Land, in 1823. With him was his wife Mary née Low (1765 -1850) and some of his family. My fourth great grandmother, his daughter, Isabella Hutcheson née Taylor (1794-1876), followed ten years later, arriving about 1833.

“Valleyfield” Epping Tas. The “Taylors” have lived here for over 100 years. , about 1914 – about 1941 Photograph in the collection of the State Library of Victoria. Accession number H22546. A.C. Dreier postcard collection. Retrieved from https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictoria/gid/slv-pic-aab47005

The Taylor family’s arrival in Hobart on the Princess Charlotte on Sunday 12 January 1823 was reported in the Sydney Gazette. George Taylor’s son, Robert, wrote a diary about their four-month voyage, mostly concerned with the weather. (Helen Hudson, a Taylor family descendant, covers the Taylor’s voyage in her family history book Cherry Stones, basing her account on Robert’s diary.)

MAGISTRATE FOR THE WEEK—JOHN PIPER, Esq. (1823, February 13). The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2181641

 

George Taylor received a grant of land about 30 miles south of Launceston on the Macquarie River. He named his property ‘Valley-Field’. Three of his sons, George, David, and Robert, received grants of land nearby.

 

The land grant to George Taylor senior signed 30 June 1823 by Governor Brisbane. Image retrieved from ancestry.com (Copies of land grants issued 1804-1823. LSD354. Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office, Tasmania, Australia.)

In January 1923 and January 1973 there were large family reunions to celebrate the anniversary of the arrival of the Taylor family in Australia.

After 182 years in the Taylor family the Valleyfield property was sold in 2005.

Further reading

• TASMANIAN FAMILY’S CENTENARY. (1923, January 12). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 – 1954), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article23613784
• A more complete family history and full page spread on the reunion appeared on page 2 of the Launceston Examiner: (1923, January 11). Examiner (Launceston, Tas. : 1900 – 1954), p. 2 (DAILY). Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page3215437
• FAMOUS PASTORAL PROPERTIES: Valleyfield (T) Has Been in the Possession of the Taylor Family Since 1823 (1941, September 13). The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 – 1946), p. 28. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article142144917
• Pioneer family remembers (1973, March 21). The Australian Women’s Weekly (1933 – 1982), p. 88. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51268754
• Hudson, Helen Lesley (1985). Cherry stones : adventures in genealogy of Taylor, Hutcheson, Hawkins of Scotland, Plaisted, Green, Hughes of England and Wales … who immigrated to Australia between 1822 and 1850. H.L. Hudson, [Berwick] Vic
• Valley field Epping Forest
• Companion to Tasmanian History: The Taylor family

Related posts

• Trove Tuesday: George Taylor (1800 – 1826) killed by aborigines in Tasmania
• Australia Day: Climbing our family’s gum tree