NEWSLETTER OFSIBTHE ORKNEY FAMIFOLKLY HISTORY SOCIETY NEWSISSUE 38 JUNE 2006
The Museum Pier Stromness 2 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY Issue No38 June 06
ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORY NEWSLETTER Membership up! Issue No 38 June 2006 CONTENTS Visitors up! FRONT PAGE and it’s thanks to our hard The Museum Pier Stromness. working committee and
PAGES 2 & 3 volunteers says From the Chair. May Minutes. Chairperson Anne Rendall
PAGE 4 Portrait of an Island Registrar. y the time you read this letter we will I was very pleased to see such a good have had our AGM and office bearers turnout at our last two meetings in March PAGE 5 & 6 and committee will have been and April as both speakers had travelled Vedder. B A trip sooth. appointed. overseas to talk to us.Firstly Jim Hewitson Jim Muir visits I would just like to take this opportunity from Papay gave us a very interesting talk Vedder. to thank the committee and volunteers who on emig-ration and left us wanting more, so have helped to keep the office manned, doing I hope he will come back again in the future. PAGES 7, 8 & 9 Elizabeth Briggs from Winnipeg, very kindly My Orkney Granny. research for our members, booking the monthly meetings, making sure the post made a special trip up to Orkney from PAGE 10 goes out on time and last but not least for London to give her talk on the Orkneymen Robbie in a raffle. making sure our members get their Sib folk in Hudson's Bay, and she hopes to visit our More on the Papay every quarter.With 900 members it is a islands again next year . Rocket Brigade. mammoth task. How many of you have put your family PAGE 10 We are looking forward to seeing many tree on the website? Dave Higgins has set it Orcadian War visitors over the summer and hope we are up to be very user friendly, and the more Memorials. able to help them find the information they trees that are online the better the resource Tom’s Treasure. need. Last year we had more than 370 visitors is for our members, particularly our PAGES 12,13 & 14 sign the visitors book and there are always a overseas members who can’t come into the The Great Escape few who don’t put their names down. office.
PAGES 14 Laurie’s Irvine research. ORKNEY FAMILY PAGES 15 & 16 Orkneymen located HISTORY SOCIETY in Hudson’s Bay Records Minutes of AGM held on Thursday PAGES 17 & 18 My distant 4th May 2006 at 7.30pm in the connection with the Supper Room, Town Hall Kirkwall Orkney Islands Minutes recorded by our Research Secretary Adrianne Leask PAGES 19 & 20 Searching for 1. Remarks from the Chair the visitors in the visitors’ book over the past William Louttit Chairperson Anne Rendall, welcomed forty year and said there were 370 signatures in PAGE 21 people to the meeting. it. She also said that it was good to see so Stan Sutherland’s 2. Apologies many visitors and there probably would have Flotta CDs. There were apologies from Helen Manson been more as every visitor did not sign the and Dave Higgins. book.. PAGE 22 Memories from the 3. Adoption of Minutes of AGM held on We also have had a great lot of appreciation Mantlepiece 12th May 2005 from members who had been delighted with Minutes of the 2005 AGM and a statement the research we had done for them and for PAGE 23 OFHS Publications, of the accounts were circulated. Adoption of the birth, marriage and death certificates Family Trees and the minutes of the AGM was proposed by we had forwarded. Anne thanked all the Website Alan Clouston and seconded by Helen Volunteers for their help in the office. Also Angus. she thanked Hazel for booking the various PAGE 24 4. Matters Arising halls for meetings and to Mags and Annie for Membership Details There were no matters arising. coming along to the meetings and making 5. Chairman’s Report the tea. The Chairman Anne Rendall had counted John was thanked very much for his Issue No38 June 06 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY 3
excellent work on our Sib Folk News. All Proposed Seconded the members enjoy the articles very much. Davina Brown Adrianne Leask George Gray Davina was also thanked for all her hard Alan Clouston Nan Scott Alfred Flett work on dealing with the mail. Elaine Sinclair George Gray Alan Clouston Dave Higgins has also requested that BettyThomson Alan Clouston Adrianne Leask members put their Family Tree on the Web. Helen Manson George Gray Nan Scott We now have 900 members The Annual trip to the island of Sanday will 10. Any other business:- be on the 4th June, with Lunch at the Anita Thomson would act as a guide on our Kettletoft @ £3.00 per head. The bus for a tour of Sanday tour round the island is £10.00 per head. All It was agreed that the Bus drivers and Guide those travelling should be at the Kirkwall on Sanday should be provided with lunch by Pier for 9am. The boat arrives in Sanday at the OFHS. It was also suggested that perhaps Did you 11.05am and departs from Sanday at 6pm. the Society should pay for the hire of the know? Graveyard recordings are planned for July, buses on Sanday for the OFHS outing. weather permitting. The monthly meetings However, before this could go ahead it was that if you are a visitor to will start again in September. agreed that it would need to be discussed by Orkney be careful no Speakers for October: Joyce Peace to speak the OFHS Committee at a meeting. one persuades you to on her father who was on the Shetland Bus. The business over, Anne Rendall then accept a copy of the Future Speakers: Bill Miller to speak on the introduced Mimes Manson who gave us a talk Book of the Black Arts. Ballad of Andrew Ross. This devilish tome, November 9th Annual Dinner printed white on black, confers special magic 6. Treasurer’s Report powers on its owner but The Treasurer, George Gray explained that before you get too £3000 of the Subscriptions have been paid in excited you should know advance this year. He also said that there is that if you die with the a lot of members who don’t renew their subs. book in your possession We have received over £800 in donations of Auld Nick will claim both which £300.00 was used for research fees the book and your soul. and certificates.We also now pay for a If you have been gullible cleaner in the Office. enough to accept a copy Helen Angus proposed this was an accurate getting rid of it can prove statement of accounts and Hazel Goar tricky. You can only seconded. Mimes Manson dispose of it by selling it 7. Annual Fees on the island of Sanday. for a smaller coin than The Fees for membership were also Mimes began with telling us she had left the you paid for it or by discussed and it was proposed by Helen island when she was fourteen years old. giving it away. Angus that there should be no increase and Mimes had various pictures which she had A Sandwick man tried it was seconded by Adrianne Leask. It was painted to illustrate her talk and a map she every way to dispose of therefore agreed that there would be no had drawn of the island which had the various his copy eventually increase in the annual fees. roads marked on it. It also showed where weighting it with stones 8. Election of Chairman several of the larger farms were on the island. and throwing it Anne then asked Nan to take the Chair for Mimes then explained who lived on each farm. overboard into deep nomination of chairman or chairperson. The island has three parishes namely Lady, water. He was still in Cross and Burness, deep water when he got Position Proposed Seconded The talk was full of information about the home for there was the Chairperson: kirks, schools, farms and the people who lived book sitting high and dry Anne Rendall Helen Angus Betty Thomson there.Mimes also mentioned how they took on the kitchen table. horses to Eday to cart peats as there were no A Sanday girl fared no 9. Anne returned to the Chair for the peats on Sanday. The peats were only for the better when she tried to election of Secretary and Treasurer and Lairds.All the other islanders had to burn rid herself of the copy up to nine committee members seaweed or cow dung. There is a dyke built on that she had unwittingly the island called Galloway’s dyke which was accepted from a local Treasurer: built by a man named Mackenzie who came witch Reechal Tulloch. In George Gray Nan Scott Mimes Manson from the Highlands. desperation she turned Secretary: Mimes had also taken along several books on to the local minister of Nan Scott Mimes Manson Alan Clouston Sanday for people to have a look at. She also the Sanday Free Kirk who had a list of names to be found in the census managed to dispose of The new committee is :- showing how many people there were with the offending volume. Proposed Seconded each name between 1841 – 1901. Just how is not known Dave Higgins Nan Scott Marion Flett Anne gave a vote of thanks to Mimes for her and the Reverend Tulloch Adrianne Leask Nan Scott George Gray very interesting talk. died on the 23rd March Hazel Goar Helen Angus Alfred Flett Mags and Annie then had a cup of tea and 1903 without revealing John Sinclair Adrianne Leask Nan Scott biscuits ready for us to finish off the evening. his secret. 4 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY Issue No38 June 06
Did you know? In 2004, 200 years after their forebears left Orkney for the wilds of Canada, 25 members of the Cree people pitched a tipi on the grounds of Tankerness House in the heart of Orkney’s capital—Kirkwall. Descendants of the Drevers and Taits, Linklaters and Louttits among others had returned to their roots. These were the direct descendants of the Orkneymen who between 1670 and 1870 had sailed from Stromness to become fur traders with By Nan Scott, Member No 8 Photograph by Laurence Dobson the Hudson’s Bay Company and who at one ecently a local newspaper carried the 1962 was a year that saw him take on time formed almost 70 per story of Billy Brown’s retirement after many new responsibilities. He became clerk cent of the HBC 43 years as Westray’s Home Care Co- to the District Council and to the School employees. R ordinator. He celebrated his 80th birthday Board and an agent for the National The Company, however, Assistance Board. He also became Registrar had a policy of banning about that time but he has packed a whole white women from its lot of other activities into his life and usually for Westray that year and that is how many posts so many of the in a quiet way. Perhaps not so quiet when of our members know him. Now with a traders formed liaisons he was called on to sing, play and perform at computer by his side all find him very with the Cree women. concerts or be auctioneer at local “roups” and helpful when looking for information to be Because the children of furniture sales. He is indeed a man of many found on certificates. these marriages were not parts and has a great sense of humour. So here we have a registrar with a fund of allowed on the post they On leaving school he became a baker with knowledge about people and their different were brought up by their his uncle,W F M Brown in the bakehouse at walks of life as he has met them travelling mothers in the Cree Gill Pier. This is still a thriving business on the steamships, as he served the public as tradition. a businessman, gave help and organised As their contracts expired originally set up by his grandfather,W F many Orcadians decided Brown, who had come from South staff as Care Co-ordinator and spent time to make their homes in Ronaldsay. The skills learned there have among the youth of the island at school. Canada rather than bring stood him in good stead in later years.After This is just a short introduction to their families back to serving his time he joined the crew of the Westray’s Registrar. If one could get him Orkney. Earl Thorfinn. He was on board the vessel started he could write a very interesting Although individuals had the day she was driven to Aberdeen in a book and I suspect some of it would be in visited Orkney over the storm in January 1953. rhyme as that is another gift years this was the first After he married Jean he returned to In 2007 there is to be another Canadian organised visit made by Westray and with his mother started a Homecoming. The chances are that Billy the Cree people. And what could have some cousins calling for the help a visit, as 25 members of bakery specialising in cakes. This led on to the First Nation catering for weddings which he is still of the Westray Registrar.His mother was Saskatchewan Canadians involved in but as right hand man to his one of eleven children. Ten of them sang, danced and daughter Alison now-a-days. He was latterly emigrated to Canada. Only three ever drummed their way into employed for twenty years as school janitor. returned to visit. In those days a parent had their Orcadian cousins’ He was popular with the pupils and knew to be satisfied with letters from offspring hearts just as their them all. The teachers looked on him as who had to go abroad to make good. ancestors had done all “Billy a’thing” who could turn his hand to Billy’s one regret is that he is seldom these years ago. anything. called on to register births these days! Issue No38 June 06 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY 5
By Isabella Thomlinson Muir
was never out of Orkney until the could very well do for the rest of your life. summer after I was twenty-three. However,I was back in Edinburgh two years ISeveral of my friends and acquaintances later, as a representative of our Lodge of had been ‘Sooth’ and I felt I was behind the Good Templars to the Grand Lodge, which times. ‘Sooth’ for most of us meant held its session in the Assembly Halls, Edinburgh. More Orcadians have sought Edinburgh, that year. their fortunes in Auld Reekie than in Mrs Fotheringham had been to Orkney on Glasgow, Aberdeen or any of the smaller holiday that summer and I travelled South Scottish towns. The reason might be that in with her.We had a rather nasty experience the old days steamers traded directly on our journey from Aberdeen to Leith. A between Kirkwall and Leith and it was a man came aboard the ‘St Suniva’ and natural thing for Orcadians to travel by jumped overboard when we were out at sea. sea. Be that as it may, Edinburgh has The ship was stopped, and a boat put out, certainly been the adopted home of the but nothing was seen of that unfortunate In part 9 of the majority of Orcadians who did not go man. There was great excitement for a time, story of Isabella’s further afield to the Dominions. but the dead motion of the ship soon sent life at Vedder she Uncle William was there when Maggie some of us down to our cabins where we tells of her first went, but I had no relative to go to.My were helplessly sea sick. I only stayed a visit ‘sooth’ to sister Maggie had been in communication week in Edinburgh that time, and a busy ‘Auld Reekie, the with her husband’s cousin, Mrs week it was, for apart from the Grand Lodge fine people she met Fotheringham, of Leith, and she very kindly meetings, the Exhibition was also in there and a offered to have me. And so it was that I Edinburgh that year.I can never forget the friendship that came to 34 Dudley Avenue where I received kindness of the Fotheringhams when I spent was to last through the greatest kindness from the my two Edinburgh holidays with them. that the years. Fotheringham family.I was taken to places was the beginning of a friendship that has A letter arrives during my fortnight’s stay in Edinburgh lasted all through the years. from Bob Muir to that I have never seen since. There is no SANDAY say that his doubt that visitors see more of a town than My friendship with Jess Petrie had brother Jim was the actual inhabitants.I think I have only advanced so that when she went to Sanday home from sea and once since then, been in the museum. to teach, we corresponded weekly, and in the could they come More than anything I was delighted with spring of 1910 she invited me to come on a visit. the beauty of the trees. Although I had visit. My visit was to coincide with a concert Could romance be never been out of Orkney, had never seen a they were having, at which I was asked to in the air? train or a tramcar,I saw nothing that sing. surprised me.I lunched with Mr Anderson, I had a busy winter, for first Johnny came Uncle William’s old friend, one day. He took home from Vancouver for the winter, then me to Register House where he worked and Maggie came home with little Willie and Jim showed me some old documents belonging and had stayed until after John Donaldson to the time of Mary Queen of Scots.I also Bews was born. In the early spring Maggie went to tea at his house, but I cannot had an attack of quinsy and I went to remember now where Mr and Mrs Swartabreck to nurse her and look after the Anderson lived. Mr Anderson also took me bairns. It was just after I came back from to the Grange Cemetery to see Uncle Swartabreck that I went to Sanday. William’s grave. Lily Muir was then married to Bob Hay I visited and had tea with the Misses and lived at Kettletoft, so I went to her from Jessie and Tillie Keith whom Uncle Keith the steamer and stayed there until after boarded with after Aunt Bella died. They school dispersed and Jess came down for me. were delightful old ladies who might very In an island like Sanday the teachers were well have stepped out of a Victorian novel. entertained and made much of, and I think That was my first real holiday, for people Jess and Bessie were particularly popular. in the country did not often indulge in that Jess was a singularly pretty girl and most luxury. If you managed ‘Sooth’ once, that sincerely nice. Bessie was by no means 6 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY Issue No38 June 06
pretty but she was very attractive and that I wanted to make a good impression on exceedingly witty. Bob Muir but I wasn’t bothering about the There were several very attractive girls in sailor one! Sanday. The Sinclair girls of the Post office I drove the pony and trap to Kirkwall to were bonnie girls, especially Mary,I meet them. I called at their aunt’s house in thought. Then the Burghar girls (the Pier Bridge Street and a young man rose from Master’s daughters) were very musical as the chair at the fireside to greet me. ‘I know well as pretty. The headmaster of the who you are’ I said ‘You’re like your brother Central School (where Jess taught) was a Jock.’ ‘Oh no” he replied “Jock’s a land crab musical, versatile person. The doctor and I’m a sea crab.’ Thus it was that after conducted a singing class in the winter time. eight years I met Jim Muir again. When the In fact, Sanday was a very nice place to three of us were driving to Vedder, Bob teach in. spoke of the Sanday concert and saying he I renewed my acquaintance with the wouldn’t mind paying a shilling to hear me Muirs who were still at Viggie.I met Bob sing again. Whereupon Jim declared that he and Jock on this occasion too. The concert would give me a shilling not to sing as he was a very good show and I took my turn, was tired of singers! The Muirs stayed a few singing ‘The chimes of Normandy’. There days with us and during that time they was a dance in the Drill Hall after the visited their relations in Tankerness. They concert to which I went with Jessie and went to see Mrs Banks of Calsit who was a Did you Bessie. Bessie I should explain was Bessie S cousin of their mother’s. Jeannie was at know? Clouston and she married a minister, the home then and engaged to John Stewart, a Rev, later to become Dr Robert Gardner of Shetland sailor who was on a visit to Calsit that the last Great Auk in Auchterarder. at that time. They went to Whitecleat one Britain was shot on Papa I came back to Vedder thinking Sanday afternoon and to Ellenfield the same Westray in 1813. was a grand place. evening, where Jimmie and I met them and The Great Auk was once Two months later,Johnny left home again we all spent the evening there. found in great numbers for Canada, and I am sure father and I have not mentioned the Eunsons of and bred in Orkney, St mother never expected to see him again. Ellenfield before. They were dear friends of Kilda and Norway. It was Father went to Kirkwall to see him away, ours. Willie Eunson was mother’s cousin also found in great mother and I watched for the ‘St Ninian’ and there was a warm friendship between numbers off the east going up the ‘String’ and when she passed them as there was also between her and coast of Canada. out of sight, mother, although not an James Eunson of Whitecleat. The Eunsons Although a remarkable emotional woman, laid her arms on the of Whitecleat and Ellenfield were mother’s swimmer it could not fly garden dyke and her body shook with dry only cousins in Tankerness, and the and was vulnerable to sobs. None of us ever saw Johnny again. younger members of both houses were humans who hunted it Before he left on 9th of May 1910, he wrote looked upon by us as real cousins instead of commercialy for its in my autograph album the following lines:- second cousins.Mrs James Eunson and feathers, oil and meat. As We say it for an hour - or for years, Mrs William Eunson, were fine women. its numbers decreased We say it smiling, say it choked with tears. Both families were musical and we often collectors offered high Good-Bye sang together. prices for the bird and I only discovered what he had written I went with the Muirs to Grimster the the eggs and this after he went away. Every time I read it a evening before they left. Jim bought a collar hastened its extinction. lump comes in my throat. Dear Johnnie. for York in Kirkwall, and had it sent to me. The last pair were caught VISITORS A story got about that I was engaged to Jim and killed by collectors Later that year we had a visit from Bob Muir - I heard this from Jess Petrie and I on Fire Island off the and Jim Muir. Very often when I was young was rather indignant about it. So that when coast of Cape Reykjanes, I declared I had ‘presentiments’. For he wrote to tell me he was leaving Sanday to Iceland on June 3rd instance,I would say ‘I have a join his ship (the Kircudbrightshire) I did 1844. This pair had laid ‘presentiment’ that someone’s coming in not go to meet him. He wrote to me again an egg, the last one ever tonight’ and very often it proved true.Well, after he had joined his ship and that was the produced by the species. one morning in the summer of 1910 I said to beginning of our courtship. mother ‘I have a presentiment that we are I visited Jess the following winter, but did going to hear from the folks of Viggie today’. not have such a hectic time as my first visit Call it a coincidence or a forecast or to her. The last time I visited her the Muirs whatever you like, sure enough, when had left Viggie and were living in their new Jimmie came with the post, there was a home, Anchor Cottage, a very nice six letter from Jock Muir to say that his brother roomed house with garden back and front. Jim was home from sea and that he and Bob Mr Muir was a tailor by trade, but would like to come and pay us a visit. gardening was his hobby.He seemed to be Accordingly I wrote to say that we would be able to woo the soil and make things grow pleased to see them and received a reply where other people failed. Mrs Muir was a telling us when they would come. Before kind woman and very well liked and they came,I remember saying to mother respected by her neighbours. Issue No38 June 06 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY 7
‘Hid kam aboot like this dost thoo see?’ up the String to Kirkwall pier fired my imagination. Would it be a story? Like the one about the selkie This was no steamer.I was on a Viking Longship and (seal) who spoke to the lass who’d gaan saft in the heid we were coming to plunder and pillage! There was when she lost her man at the fishing? If I sensed a story always a crowd to meet the ‘sooth’ boat. It was a ritual. I’d fetch the creepie (stool) from the ‘glory hole’ and sit I was always amazed at how little emotion was shown. at her feet, as she sat at the window, her luminous blue Brothers ‘meeting’ again after thirty or forty years, with eyes gazing out beyond the ducky pond towards no more than a handshake and ‘aye aye man’. Gran Papdale.Perhaps not a story.Maybe just a passing would be there with my aunt Lilly. She would be no memory, like when Hoxy Jock went to the tinker’s different. No hugs or kisses, just a smile and ‘Are thee wedding and kam to, four days later doon by the peedie aal right bairns?’ A walk through the narrow street of (little) sea, wi aal his claes oan ootside-in and niver a the town and we were ‘home’. notion o’ hoo hid kam aboot. After Glasgow, the amount of freedom I enjoyed was My granny spoke in the broadest of Orkney dialect bliss. True, there were very few motor cars, so virtually with strong elements of old Norse words, a reminder of no traffic, and there was water all round, and I was the days when the islands were ruled by the Vikings. To never very far from it. I used to haunt the harbour area. me she was a Viking woman: fair haired, with striking The corn slit, is a peedie jetty which protruded into the blue eyes, strong and independent. Before I went out to harbour basin, and in those days there were two stout play, she’d stand outside on the verandah, turn her head poles, holding ropes which in turn were tied to floating to one side, then the other, sniff the air and forecast the boxes of live lobsters. The game was to jump from box to weather! ‘Thee’d better tak a coat, it’ll rain before box without falling in. I fell in. More than once.I was a denner time.’ She was seldom wrong. fair sight running drookit up through the town to My father left Orkney a year or two after the Great gran’s. War, in his teens, and Every night about seven o’clock, after the older lads arrived in Clydeside to had finished work, about twenty or thirty of us would serve an apprentice-ship change in to our bathing costumes aboard one of the as a shipwright. In inter-island steamers and go swimming ‘ower the pier’. Greenock he met and My special pal was Thorfinn Keldie.I loved his name. I married my mother., had about eight or ten other close friends. Herbie Flett Having ‘served his time’, and Dan Grieve were the sons of like many others, he was fishermen, so there was always a promptly sacked. He managed to get a job as ship’s dinghy to be rowed and fish to be carpenter on a tanker shipping oil from the Persian Gulf caught. There were the Walls to Swansea. My mother took my youngest sister and me boys. They lived across the street to live in lodgings in Swansea. The great depression from my gran. Sando and Jointy took it’s toll and eighteen months later my father, once were my idols.Much older, in again jobless, brought us back to settle in Glasgow.I was their late teens. They took me aware, even as a wee boy, that living in a tenement on out to lay and gather their Glasgow’s south side, with only a pittance from the ‘dole’ lobster creels. But they were was a great struggle for my wild lads and were the cause of parents.Money was something that my greatest embarrassment. I other people had, but somehow was about nine or ten and had every summer my folks managed to fallen madly in love with an scrape together the boat fare for me older woman—Elsie Leslie—who worked in her and my sister to go ‘home’ to mother’s shop. She was about eighteen with raven black Orkney for two months. My dad hair and beautiful blue eyes. When I went for the took us through to Leith where we ‘messages’ she would tease me about my red hair and would board either the St Magnus my Glasgow accent. I thought she was wonderful. or the St Ninian, and in the care of About this time, Sando and Jointy took me out the Purser or the Steward (both old fishing for ‘pooties’, the local name for,I think, sea Orkney friends), we would make trout, or was it rock cod? At any rate we rowed out into the long journey north. Sailing the bay and fished for a couple of hours. Most unusually through the small green isles and a thick fog came down. We could no longer see the lights 8 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY Issue No38 June 06
town, or even the light at the head of the pier. It was brimstone’. My sister called him getting late and the boys could see I was a little scared ‘Thumpin’ Gray because he so they started to sing, and they taught me the ‘song’.I emphasised his message by don’t remember all of it, but the first verse went like thumping the pulpit while we this:- bairns sooked like mad on our My mother said I never should, imperials! In the afternoon I would Play with the gypsies in the wood, change into my old clothes and join If I did, God forbid, Thorfinn and the other boys.We She’d skelp my . ... with a teapot lid. couldn’t be seen swimming in the There was more and to say it was rude, would be an harbour on the Sabbath so we understatement! The lads finally found their way back went a mile or two out to one of to the harbour with me lustily singing at the top of my the bays.I liked Scapa because voice.I thought no more about it until the next morning it was furthest away, and with when I went round any luck if we were late back we to Leslie’s shop.My would miss the evening service. adorable Elsie Another good pal was Duncan McCorkindale.His greeted me with, father was minister of the ‘Wee Free’ kirk, but Duncan ‘Whit wis that song was no more keen on his father’s sermons than I was on ye were singin’ doon Mester Gray’s and together we made excuses as to why at the harbour last we were late. Neither of us were very night beuy?’ I was good liars.I doubt if granny devastated. ever believed me. Needless to say my She came ‘sooth’ once to gran got to hear Glasgow. It was the first about it. I can never time she had been on a train remember her scolding or chastising me. All she said or a tram. She enjoyed the was, ‘I never did think the Walls’ boys were very good at journey, but the big city was the singan furteffer!’ not to her liking. She loved Another of our pastimes was the goosie raid. the shops and the subway Strawberries were not common in Orkney, but there but I think the tenements were plenty of gardens with gooseberry bushes, and we appalled her.At night when knew them all. One of the best was that of Dr Sinclair’s. they were lit up she said We paid it several visits and on one notable occasion they were like ‘gret big were nearly caught when the good doctor chased us lighted caves’. It was the shouting only time she ever left ‘I know who you are’. Orkney. Whether it was the fresh food or the change of diet I Our Orkney holidays continued until I was about don’t know, but I cultivated two very large boils fourteen. Then a month before my sixteenth birthday on the back of my neck. Normally this we were at war. I was working in an office in the centre would have been a linseed poultice of Glasgow and was quite prepared to carry on there remedy, but granny decided they were till I was called up. However, after a year or so I nasty enough to warrant a visit to the bumped into an old friend who told me that he was doctor. The family doctor was Dr going to Orkney to work at Scapa Flow. Sinclair.I feared the worst when In the Flow, the Royal Oak had been sunk by a German he greeted gran with ‘Hello submarine and a plan was formed to link the islands and Maggie, what’s the boy been up to seal the breech in the defences to prevent any further then?’ They were old friends, attacks. These causeways came to be known as the and he knew who I was! He Churchill Barriers. The prospect of seeing Orkney again lanced the offending boils was a strong incentive for me to give up my office job and without the comfort of visit the Labour Ex-change.Within days I was on my way anything as mitigating as a local up north to work on the barriers as a navvy at the princely anaesthetic and squeezing with both rate of one and fivepence halfpenny ( about 7.5p) an hour! thumbs, observed, ‘It’s chust like squeezing goosies, eh In the event I was beuy?’ I howled all the way home. The nearest gran only a navvy for came to offering any sympathy was to bake some of my about a week. One of favourite treacle scones and allow me to miss the the twenty men I morning service at the kirk on Sunday. share a hut with Sundays were special. My sister and I wore our best drove a giant clothes. Gran stitched up my trouser pockets, and excavator. He was whistling was forbidden. Before leaving for church, we leaving and, to my were each given a penny for the plate and two mint surprise, recom- imperials with the injunction, ‘Mind on noo, dinnae ended me to replace crunch, sook”. Our church was the Paterson Kirk, and him. After a week’s the minister was Mester Gray. He towerd above us in tuition I was the pulpit, and his sermons were all ‘hellfire and Issue No38 June 06 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY 9
the proud operator of a twenty-ton mechanical On Sunday we went to the kirk and there I met again monster shovelling earth and rock for the foundations of the fearsome ‘Thumpin’ Gray. He was all of five foot the barriers. four, weighed about eight stones, and had the face of a I loved it and the pay was considerably more that one- sixty year old cherub! He still thumped the pulpit .. . and fivepence halfpenny an hour! well not exactly thumped; he tapped it gently with his I worked on Lambsholm, which was the nearest knuckles as he decried the falling attendance at the island to the Orkney mainland. Because of the nature of children’s Sunday school. Where was the daunting giant the work, I was free most weekends and it was no of my childhood? problem cadging a lift on one of the many small boats At least granny was the same. She was still my sailing between Lambsholm and the mainland. Viking woman. I worked on Lambsholm for about four Gran knew where I was and was expecting me.I months and saw her most weekends. When the time hadn’t seen her for several years. On my first visit I came to go ‘doon sooth’ I called one last time, She knew arrived in the middle of a fierce gale. She greeted me that I would be going into the army and that the war with ‘My beuy, whit a uivigar yir in’. She meant that I was not going too well. We said goodbye on the was looking more than a little windswept. She hadn’t verandah. As always there were very few words but my changed. She still made her own mealy puddings and abiding memory is of the baked bere bannocks and soda scones and of course blue, blue eyes wishing me treacle pancakes.My workmates on Lambsholm loved well. them. As a boy I had always It was a harsh winter but I do remember one felt that I should have beautiful clear night when there was a wonderful show been born with fair hair of the Northern lights. and blue eyes and been Many Orcadians call them the Merry Dancers, but christened Thorfinn or granny called them simply ‘The Lights’. She had her Magnus. But, as my stories about them too; they were the souls of lost Orkney granny would have seamen seeking their way home or were they the spirits said; ‘Hid didnae chust of the children of the old Norse gods playing in the sky? kam aboot like that, dost She took me out on to the verandah and said, ‘If thoo thoo see?’ listens beuy thoo’ll hear them whispering’. It was magical and I was a wee boy again. Bill Caithness Among my souvenirs
At the back: me at Bulford Barracks, Salisbury Dear friends fom my early years in Orkney. Me in my element; addressing Plain in 1945. In front is Granny and Grandad, Me on the left standing alongside Billy the haggis on a Burns night with Margaret Nicholson and William Caithness with Norquoy with John Windwick seated in a dram close at hand..... well two of their children, Richard and Lily front and looking very serious. someone has to do it! 10 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY Issue No38 June 06 Robbie in a right raffle again By Allan Taylor. Member No 1055 id wis aboot the ‘Yes,’ said the wife bendin munt o’ December if ower Robbie.‘I am HI mind right, an it Elizabeth Inkster; Davy wis a bonnie frosty was my Mother’s uncle.’ efternoon at the back o’ two By this time Robbie had Did you o’clock, just in the scrabbled tae his feet an’ know? grimleens, when there wis his mither says tae the that the Orkney Wireless an aafil rattle on the sneck unkan wike Museum has gathered an o’ the door o’ Northoose. ‘Come in lass an’ tak a incredible array of exhibits Robbie’s mither hid binnen saet on the creepie.’ devoted to the development him tae tak in twa pails o’ Robbie, no wantan tae of radio and communication water fay the waal an’ he miss anything noticed the equipment in the Islands. hid jist pitten them on the fire wis kinda low so he You’ll see early domestic bink in the ubbie end when gaed it a bit o’ a poke an’ radios, wartime memorabilia he made tae see wha wis at took twa or three blue used by both sides including transmitters, receivers, and the door. clods in his scurt thinkan radar equipment. There’s a He appened it an’ there wis that’ll soon tak up the fire. spy suitcase radio, a U-Boat the unkan wife that hid Noo as Robbie wis thinkan radio, crystal sets, wind up just cam tae Upper Biggan this, the wife fae Upper radios,valves transistors, an’ her twa peedie white Biggan sat doon on the maps and charts; even a co- dugs both in peenk jaikets an’ the wife creepie, crossan her legs an’ trimmin her llection of crafts showing off hersel wae a gravit an’ glivs tae match. skirt so no tae crush it. the creative skills of the Weel Robbie pat his hand ower his mooth an This sight made Robbie drap the peedie blue Italian POWs interned in the started tae sputter an’ laugh. He took twa clods in the ass an’ hid aal splashed up like islands. Far too much to list steps back an’ tripped ower an auld seck haeven a stone in a hole o’ watter.Weel the here; in fact far too much to display at one time so they that wis there tae keep the wind an’ watter ass wis red and covered the twa dogs so vary the displays as often as fae comin’ in at the feet o’ the door, an’ Robbie grabbed fur the besom tae clean possible. landed on the keel o’ his back. them just as the visitor got tae her feet. All this is the result of Jim Noo Robbie’s mither, who hid jist been oot Robbie took fur oot wi’ the sparks commin’ McDonald’s determination to for twa peats for the evening, wis makin for fae his tackety boots, provide Orcadians with a in an’ here wis Robbie spraglin for up, wae Robbie’s mither, the puir owld soul, wis left collection that would show the unkan wife bendin ower him and the withoot a word tae say but then asked the the evolution of radio and twa dugs lickin at his whiskers fur he hid lass tae bide wi her a peedie meenit and recorded sound in the jist took them off afore he went tae bible Elizabeth, feelan a peetie fur the owld islands. class at the kirk on Sunday night. buddy sat doon again. An’ afore she went Jim set up his exhibition initially in his house at South ‘You’ll be the wife fae Upper Biggan,’ says home, Robbie’s mither kent more about her Ronaldsay in 1984 but sadly Robbie’s mither. than she kent hersel’. died just 4 years later, never knowing the pleasure his collection has given to thousands of visitors from The Papay Rocket Brigade all over the world. After Jim died a charitable Jim Rendall, Member No 43 from Papa landed first in Westray to pick up a man trust was established and in Westray was interested in the mention of the (from Peatwall?) who was able to guide them October 1994, the museum close to the stranded trawler. obtained full registration with Rocket Brigade of Papay in our December 05 the Museum and Galleries newsletter and his letter, which appears here From this position they set up the rescue Commission in London. in full, sheds a little more light on the rocket in the boat and it is believed that this In 1997 the collection was activities of these brave men. was the first time that such a method was moved to its present location ‘When I read your article regarding the used to connect a rescue line from boat to at Kiln Corner near the rescue of members of the crew of the Aberdeen trawler. harbour in Kirkwall where a Trawler ‘Badger’ in 1905 I thought it would The result was impressive and ten of the group of volunteers provide be of interest to a fellow Papay man William eleven man crew were rescued from the their services free, every day Groat. Badger which eventually foundered. of the season, from April to William told me that when the Brigade got Incidentally, your readers might be September. interested to know that William Groat is the Radio enthusiasts may be word that the trawler was in trouble they interested to know that the launched the ‘Aileen’ a longboat which had son of the late Andrew Groat who co- call sign of the museum’s been built to fetch the doctor from Westray mmanded the rescue, and William was also, amateur radio station is when required. for many years, the volunteer in charge of the GB20WM, and the station is The crew of eight oarsmen and a helmsman Papay Rocket Brigade. sometimes operational. were unfamiliar with the search area so they yours faithfully, Jim Rendall’ Issue No38 June 06 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY 11 Orcadian War Tom’s treasure y thanks to Ian Cameron, member number 10, for this interesting item. Memorials MIan had heard the story of the coins in his younger days He knew that the Thomas Peace who discovered the coins was and War Dead his mother’s brother. Their father was James William Peace who was born at rom James Irvine. Member No 96 Longhouse, near Kirkwall.James William f had gone south looking for work and rian Budge has recently updated Thomas was born at Newyearfield, near his page on
SCOTTISH EMIGRATION UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
he great Scottish community in exile, the Scots generally accepted that over the ‘long the land. A century later 50 per cent of diaspora, the Scots overseas, has been a subject century’ of which we are speaking, the entire Scottish population lived in the Twhich has fascinated me since I first became a Ireland topped what Professor Tom Glasgow area. journalist 40 years ago and, I have to say, continues to Devine has called this unenviable So it was that the vast majority of Scots captivate me to this day. Because of my research, my books championship. But when you add the figures who found their way to Canada, the United and my radio work over the past 15 years scarcely a week for the number of Scots who States, South Africa and Australasia passes without a wee note arriving from the Australian made England their destination came from the Lowlands which, of outback or the streets of San Francisco telling me about (am I right in thinking that for course, includes Aberdeenshire and what the Scots are up to across the world. The feedback is most Scots England is still a the Northeast and the Northern constant. foreign country?) during this era Isles. On one occasion I received a letter from a correspondent – some estimates put this figure Another point worth making in in New Zealand telling me about their local Burns Supper as high as 600,000 – then relation to the Lochaber No More at which the speaker cheerfully poked fun at the Scotland stretches out as scenario is that it conveys the expatriates around him and their Scots guests who were unchallenged leader in world impression that Scots were either gathered to remember the Bard. This gentleman talked of emigration. chased or squeezed out of their home how the Scots would, at the drop of a bunnet, sing about There are several points in ground. Of course, this was often true the old country, write moving poetry about it, reminisce relation to the topic of emigration in the Western Highlands. endlessly and after a wee hauf would even enjoy a greet that are worth clarifying. I think However, although Scots were over the homeland. They would, he said, do anything but it would be true to say that the perception of Scottish cleared from the land, exiled as political, military or damned well stay in the place! emigration overseas – and to a great extent at home – is religious prisoners, indentured for long periods as There is no doubt that the Scots have a great conceit of bound up with the 19th century Highland Clearances, the servants, most made their own life choice and decided to themselves.Whether this is justified or not, perhaps born dominant image being that of Lochaber No More - the sad risk the dangerous sea voyages and the uncertainties of of an inferiority complex, is another argument for another Highlander staring over the gunwales of the ship as his new worlds in order to make a better life for themselves day. But this love of the homeland maintains the strong homeland disappears into the Celtic mist. and their families. connection long after other ethnic groups seem to have Deplorable though the Clearances might have been, they This wanderlust is perhaps not so surprising when you The Central Pacific Railroad in its construction phase as it cuts through the happily assimilated in their new homes. were not overly significant statistically. They were part of realise that the Scots had a long track record of Rocky Mountains. Hundreds of Scots engineers, railwaymen and admin- That renowned Scots singer, the late Bill McCue, was a movement off the land and into the urban areas which adventuring. In the Middle Ages, for example, thousands of istrators were involved in its westward expansion towards the Pacific. Credit: The Library of Congress, Washington DC only being slightly tongue in cheek I suspect when he was going on, with varying degrees of compulsion, all Scots could be found resident in countries with which we remarked that there were three kinds of people in the across Europe. Again the figures here are very telling.In traded in the Low Countries and the Baltic States. expert on Scottish emigration, has argued that world – those who were Scots, those who wanted to be 1750 in Scotland 90 per cent of the population were still on Our 19th and 20th century pioneers were generally not correspondence received from family and friends who had Scots and those with absolutely no ambition at all. – like the Irish – poor and destitute emigrants. They were taken the emigration plunge was the single biggest factor As a nation we Scots are not accustomed to being at the often families containing one or more skilled tradesmen in persuading people to move overseas. top of league tables, except maybe in the poor health and more than occasionally with a wee bit of cash in their What is clearly seen in action is the so-called push-pull statistics or rainfall figures. But in one area I would argue pooch. They might be farmers, or masons, shipwrights or effect in emigration – desperate economic and social that we should be regarded as world leaders – and that is professional folk, teachers, ministers and lawyers. conditions at home (push) and the attractions of a fresh in emigration. It may be debatable, of course, whether we The topic of ‘returners’ is worth dwelling on briefly.As start overseas (pull). However, the decision to move was should be crowing about this. the legions left Scottish shores we encounter the dismay of never an easy one.We have stories of families who after For the entire 19th century and a large part of the 20th writers like our own Edwin Muir on seeing the homeland months of fruitless debate simply sat down and prayed for Scotland exported her sons and daughters in substantial emptied, often of its brightest talent, youth and enterprise. guidance, thinking nothing of praying through the night. numbers. Throughout the period from the end of the However, significant numbers of these people, having Usually this was enough to point them in the correct Napoleonic Wars in 1815 through to the inter-war years, sampled what was on offer in Toronto,Toledo or Otago direction. 1919-1939 it has been estimated that some 44m people left returned home, more worldly-wise and focused. And, of It often seems that the great Scottish legions who Europe in what historians have described as mankind’s course, there were those who returned penniless and emigrated were over-achievers. If this is correct why did it greatest ever exodus. disillusioned. Naturally, their story is less often heard. happen? The Scottish contribution to this great haemorrhage was Families preferred to forget about their failures. Is it possible to gauge, in anything other than general perhaps around 2m, seemingly a small element in the It is instructive to study the many and varied ways in terms, the depth and width of the contribution of these overall picture. However, when you consider the which people caught the emigration bug. Numbers were Scots to the emerging countries of the New World in the proportionate loss of people then we begin to shoot up the influenced by letters from family members who had 1800s? I fear not. I will resist the temptation to provide emigration league table.We were, and remain, a small become established overseas or by face-to-face encounters long charts of Carnegie-style achievement in the old nation which can ill afford to lose our young, talented Explorer Donald Sutherland from Wick surveys the scene from his camp at with returning emigrants. The work of emigration agents Commonwealth and the USA, presidential lists, business ‘The City’ at Milford Sound in the Fjord Country of NewZealand’s South entrepreneurs, military leaders etc. The biographical people, but we did, in large numbers. Island. At his feet, seated on the tree stump is his faithful hound, Johnny moving through the Scottish communities, and letters and For most of the period I mentioned, we were competing Groat. The picture was taken in the late 1800s. articles in newspapers also played an important role.Dr dictionaries are packed with Scots. regularly with Ireland and Norway for the top spot. It is Credit: Burton Bros. Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z. Marjory Harper of the University of Aberdeen, a leading However, when you think about it, these praise works 14 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY Issue No38 June 06
offer no insights unless set for proper influx of immigrants from southern and comparison against the performance and eastern Europe, people of Scots or Ulster- impact of other ethnic groups.To have any Scots descent began vigorously to value a study would also have to take into champion the role their ancestors played. account relative population numbers, the Having English as their native tongue urban/rural distribution of that population, gave Scots a head start in settling Canada rates of assimilation – a whole range of and the United States.Psychologically the parameters which, frankly, are not available. Scots would have been more at home than To be honest, comparative contributions are the later arriving Europeans. just about unquantifiable although the other We have already mentioned the trad- Did you ethnic groups,I have discovered, also, itional mobility of the Scots and the 21st understandably, have a high opinion of their century buzz word ‘networking’ sums up know? contribution to the new lands. the way the Scots benefited from a The soil and seas of However, the received wisdom from the framework of Scots interest groups.I have Orkney’s 70 islands academics is that the Scots did perform well, heard this network described as the support an incredible probably punching regularly above their Scottish mafia, an almost Masonic like variety of birds through- weight. There is a wealth of the brotherhood, which included in the out the year. aforementioned praise literature about Scots community of interest, St Andrews, Summer brings the sea achievement, particularly in North America. Caledonian, Highland and Burns clubs. birds to the safe sea cliff Why should this be so? The story of the great Scottish exodus is nesting reserves on The Scots had the advantage of coming a remarkable one and as it becomes an Westray, Copinsay and from a culture where a broad-based ever more popular subject for study with Marwick Head where education was valued and just as the growth of family history and guillemots, great black significantly where publishing was an genealogy groups, more and more tales of gulls. common gulls, the Caledonian emigrants are certain to Kittiwakes, Arctic terns established business.One scholar suggests and skuas gather in their that faced in the later 19th century with an emerge. thousands.The biggest bird nursery in Britain is to be found at The Noup Mary Irvine and Jessie Irvine). His in the north west of occupation is listed as farm labourer.In Westray while in the 1861 he is living in Newbigging in Evie with south of the island his wife and family and he is listed as a Stanger Head is an Farm Servant. In 1871 he is living in North- excellent site to watch bigging in Harray with his married sister the antics of the puffin. Margaret Corrigall and her two sons James Orkney in the spring and and William and his unmarried sister Jane autumn provides a (Jean). He is described as a widower. There handy staging post for is no record of his wife coming to America birds migrating to and from their breeding or with him. wintering habitat. His son John Yorston Irvine saw that his The lochs and marshes father and father’s children came to America play host to many sometime between 1867 and 1871. species and over 50.000 I’m still searching for my ancestors and waders are to be found hope someone will see this information and feeding on the Orkney can put a connection to these Irvines. I’m shoreline in the winter. not giving up yet. Contact me at The RSPB reserve on A plea from Laurie McClanahan No1160 [email protected]. Egilsay protects the last Sincerely, Laurie McClanahan. stronghold of the corn- My search took me back to 1814 when my crake in Orkney while gr-gr-grandfather John Irvine was born. His Hoy provides sanctuary mother was Catherine Garrioch (christened LOCAL for the perigrine falcon and the hen harrier. April 30,1786). Her parents were David & ATTENTION MEMBERS The RSPB has been Margaret Kirkness Garrick who were married in Stromness February 5, 1784. Don’t forget we are looking for members with involved in Orkney since local knowledge who would be willing to spend before WW2 and they John and Catherine had six children, one of now have 13 reserves whom was John Irvine (b. March 25, 1814, a little time with the overseas visitors who will throughout the islands. in Evie & Rendall). He died in the U.S. in be arriving for the May 2007 homecoming. Log on to 1892 at the home of his son John Irvine. Even a day or two of your time helping them to www.visitorkney.com/ac He is listed in the 1841 Census as living locate their ancestral home, or telling them tive/birdwatching,asp> with his sisters Jane, Margaret and Betty about the area their forbears left all these many and click the ‘RSPB and his father and mother at Dale in Evie. years ago, could well be the highlight of the vist. Monthly Bird Reports’ In 1851 he is living at Mount Misery in Evie Please contact the Orkney Family History link for an incredible with his wife Catherine and children Society at (01856) 873166 extension 3029 for amount of detailed local Euphemia and Robert (Irvine). Three other more information. information. children were born (JohnYorston Irvine, Issue No38 June 06 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY 15 Orkneymen located in Hudson’s Bay Company Records
By Elizabeth Briggs n early April 2006 I had the privilege of interlibrary loan or a researcher can be visiting Orkney and giving a short hired to check the information in Winnipeg. Ipresentation to members and guests Canadian photo-copies are a fraction of the from the Orkney Family History Society. cost of those in the British Isles. Nan Scott organized the evening and To begin the search it is recommended Did you kindly hosted my visit to Kirkwall. I had a that a skeletal summary of the life of the know? wonderful time meeting many people and servant or officer be prepared. The first step visiting places which were of great interest would be to check his name in the: When Peter Shearer, a to me as I had read about them in Hudson’s • Biogs. [Biographies] Kirkwall tailor of Broad Bay Company records. • Search File Street, discovered that The purpose of the presentation was to • Private Records the business he had look at documents which would assist • Servants’ Contracts built up in Orkney and in London, had researchers in adding information to their • Post Record slackened off at the ancestral charts and gather personal Biogs. start of WW1, he details on their ancestors. These records were turned his attention to For decades documents relating to initiated by Judith making uniforms for employees working for the Hudson’s Bay Hudson Beattie, a officers of the Grand Company were gathered at posts in Keeper of the Hudson’s Feet lying in Scapa Flow. Canada, the Winnipeg headquarters and Bay Company Archives. Sir Stanley Colville who the London Office in Fenchurch Street. These are one-two page was Admiral The fur traders were men hired by the summaries of the life of a fur trader or Commanding the Company to work in North America. The employee of the HBC. Biogs. are now on-line Orkney Fleet commissioned Peter to Company focused upon gathering furs and and they can be accessed through the produce an overcoat transporting them to London and Europe HBCA website.A typical example could that was less formal for sale.From the late eighteenth century indicate: than the regulation to the early twentieth century the majority • Birthplace/birthdate garment. The design of workers were engaged from: Orkney; • Home parish came to the attention of Shetland; mainland Scotland; Isle of Lewis; • When first employed the War Office and was Eastern Canada. Fewer employees • Chronological history of the employee’s subsequently approved originated from the rest of the British Isles; work centres giving for issue to the services Scandinavia; Europe and Hawai’i. • Dates where it was soon in Employees were called Servants and they • References to documents demand by both the army and the navy. were labourers, semi-skilled craftsmen, •Date individual retired or left the Known as the British tradesmen, educated accountants and service Warm it became popular surgeon clerks. Some officers responsible • Pension if granted with all ranks in WW1 for directing the work of the servants were • Date of death and was still being worn educated in Britain and could have entered •Additional information on wife and by officers in WW2. By the Company as a clerk. children searching the internet it The Hudson’s Bay Company Archives Not all employees have a Biog., only those is still possible to find has an excellent website. Log on to whose life with the Company has been companies selling the http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/ for researched by staff. item. an an overview of records held at the Search File Peter went from strength to strength and Archives.Posts where servants boarded are This can only be searched at the Archives the well known people illustrated on maps and detailed entries in Winnipeg. It contains papers relating to who made their way to identifying the microfilm numbers for each individuals, posts, places etc. The his shop included time period can be checked on the website. information in each file may span decades Admiral Sir John Copies of some microfilms may also be of time and the contents may contain Jellicoe and Prince consulted at: photocopies of printed articles from journals Albert who was later to • Orkney Archives or slips of referenced comments. Sometimes become Duke of York • National Archives,Kew there are pages of information from family and King George VI The HBCA will send copies of microfilm members who have researched their who had served for a records to research centres through ancestors. time with the fleet in Orkney. 16 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY Issue No38 June 06
Private Records working as a fur trader throughout There are a few hundred private records. his career he retired from the They contain a miscellany of information Company and settled in Manitoba. sometimes generated from the individual James Flett died 31 December fur trader himself or from researchers 1906. His son Alexander Flett investigating his life. Many files contain worked for the Company and he copies of Company documents. was followed by his son Servants’ Contracts Horace Flett. Horace had Thousands of documents fourteen children and are held by the HBCA served the Hudson’s Bay and they can be Company for many years. consulted on microfilm He died in 1992 but his at various centres. The family roots are linked to surviving documents Orkney and the careers of date from 1776-1926. these three men can be Contracts before 1776 traced through archival cannot be located but documents. references to their Around 1815 new existence can be found. immigrants arrived at After 1926 employees’ York Factory and personal details are Churchill. They moved Did you held in individual south to the area which know? personnel dossiers.A is known as the Red database summarizing Elizabeth Briggs, seated, and Nan Scott. River Settlement where that once upon a time the information in all they were able to there was a Queen who the contracts is in the process of preparation purchase land. Many families originated from handed out huge lumps and it is hoped it will be accessible on the Scotland and numerous people came from of Orkney to friends and HBCA website sometime in the near future. Orkney. One settler found in the census of 1827 relatives. Mary Queen of Some Fur Trade Records to Assist was James Sclater from Orkney who set up his Scots granted her half Researchers home along the Red River. Numerous census brother, the lothesome These records include: returns were taken in Manitoba between 1827 Lord Robert Stewart, the • Servants’ Contracts and 1870 and they are indexed and available in crown rights and • Application for Employment possessions in Orkney the Archives. Not only can the census returns in 1564. Gilbert Balfour, • Account Ledgers identify Orcadians but it is possible to locate the Master of the • Evaluation Forms the land which was granted to the settler. Queen’s Household was • Record of Service Medical journals add interest and personal appointed Sheriff of • Celebrations details on our ancestors which are not always Orkney, Keeper of • Newsletters available through other sources. Some of them Kirkwall Castle and also • Pension Records survive and are found amongst the records received lands in • Wills & Estate Records……… held for each post. They offer insight into the Westray where he Not all documents exist for earlier time clinical skills, diseases and treatments of the erected Noltland Castle. periods but this list offers some suggestions time. William Smellie, an Edinburgh trained James Hepburn, Earl of on various records which might be doctor from Tankerness, kept meticulous Bothwell, the Queen’s consulted. Examples from this list of records patient records and these offer details on the third husband was made were illustrated in the presentation and it is health of the inhabitants of York Factory and Duke of Orkney. After possible to trace the careers of fur traders the travelers through York Factory in the mid- the fiasco of the Battle through these records. When a successful nineteenth century. of Carberry, Bothwell search has been made a person may locate The Hudson’s Bay Company Archives offers a fled north to his the following information on his ancestor: unique collection of records which give Dukedom but was • Birthdate/birthplace fascinating details on the life of employees of refused entry by guess • Date contract(s) were signed the Company. These details are unique and it is who—Gilbert Balfour. • Capacity or occupation unlikely they could be obtained from other And nobody lived • Annual salary throughout his career sources. happily ever after. Mary • HBC posts where the fur trader served lost her head at • The personal evaluations from his superiors Fotheringay Castle; • His purchases in the Company’s trading Have you contributed an article Balfour fled to Sweden posts, and much more….. to SIB FOLK NEWS yet? We where he was executed Sometimes brothers worked for the and Bothwell, who Hudson’s Bay Company in North America or would love to hear from you. eventually reached two or three generations in one family Let me have your contribution Norway, spent the worked for the Company. Their careers can by July 18th and it should remainder of his life in be checked through archival records.For prison. example James Flett from Birsay, Orkney appear in our September issue. entered service 7 December 1846. After Issue No38 June 06 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY 17
By Bob Sanders, Palm Springs, California. Member No 1335 My relationship to the Orkney’s may be his descendants are eligible for membership diluted by many generations but having of the D.A.R and S.A.R. recently visited Kirkwall I still feel a In 1800 the first Quakers moved into connection and perhaps this writing may be eastern Ohio.James and his family were of some interest to the many Sinclairs still most likely the first Sinclairs to reside in the on the Islands. It would be a plus if I were state and they put down roots that have able to connect to some distant cousins who endured for almost 200 years. Many of their may read this epistle. descendants still reside in south eastern My paternal grandfather,Howard Wilkins Ohio. born in 1896 (Kansas, USA) related stories William Sr.(Sinkler) Sinclair born 1685 in Did you from his mother and grandfather of a Scotland, was the father of James.He know? Scottish background through their Sinclair married Phoebe Phebe Gleave.Quakers, line. My brother Richard and myself hired a their descendants ended up by 1813 in it is written in ‘Jo Ben’s genealogist in the early 1980s to research Belmont Co. Ohio. Orkney’, a Latin our family tree. His first mission was to John Sinclair, styled Master of Berriedale, manuscript from some- research my grandfather’s side as he had son and heir apparent of William, Master of time between 1529 and 1657, that in the year been the family historian and had all the Caithness, and Mary his wife. He obtained a 1506 a gold mine dates and places of birth, death and charter, 27 July 1633, of the reversion of the existed in Deerness on marriages going back many generations. Earldom to himself and the heirs male of his the mainland of Orkney? Howard’s father was Bingham Goodrich body, whom failing to his father and his And even more amazing Wilkins b. 1854 married to Rebecca Ann heirs male and assigns whatsoever. In Dec. enough gold was Smith b. 1851. Rebecca’s father was Thomas 1633 he married Jean, younger daughter extracted to fill two Smith b. 1822 who was a Quaker who had and coheir of Colin [Mackenzie]. 1st Earl of ships before a cave-in settled at various Quaker enclaves in Ohio. Seaforth, by Margaret, 4th daughter of killed five of the Thomas’s father was William Smith b. 1799, Alexander [Seton]. 1st Earl of Dunfermline. ‘miners’. a Quaker who first lived in Virginia then An alternate lineage for John Sinclair would Nothing has been heard of the mine since. settled in Ohio. He was married to Rebecca be a marriage to Elizabeth Sinclair.John’s Perhaps it is still there Todd, a second cousin to Mary Todd, parents William Sinclair b. c. 1615 m also to buried under the rock of Abraham Lincoln’s wife.William’s father an Elizabeth Sinclair and William’s parents Deerness or is just was Thomas Smith b. 1758 who lived in John Sinclair b. c. 1570 m Janet Sutherland another story to add to Virginia and whose grandfather was an b. c. 1575 and John’s parents John Sinclair the tales of myth and immigrant from England. This Thomas was b. c. 1540 m Janet Hepburn b c 1540 and legend that have been married to Phebe Sinclair b. 1763. Janet’s parents Patrick Hepburn b. c. 1450 handed down through Phebe came to Belmont Co. Ohio from m. Agnes Sinclair b. c. 1495 and Patrick’s the generations. Virginia in 1813. Phebe and Thomas had 4 parents Patrick Hepburn b. c. 1450 m. Janet It is true, however, that sons; no information about daughters but Douglas b. c. 1460 and Janet’s parents lead and silver mining did take place in the the 1820 and 1830 census records four. James Douglas b. c. 1425 m. Joan Stewart West Mainland of [Source:Our Sinclair - St. Clair Family] b. 1428 and Joan’s parents James I Stewart Orkney and that mineral Phebe’s father was James (Sinkler) Sinclair King of Scotland b 1394. All said and done companies have looked b.1725 in West Caln Township, Chester Co. the line either way goes back to JamesI. We at the possibility of Pennsylvania. James Sinkler, known as are already related to Patrick Hepburn and mining gold and silver. ‘Quaker James’ to distinguish him from Agnes Sinclair via another descendency. others in Sinclair St. Clair records, moved to Although documentary evidence (by this Loudon Co.Virginia, near Harper’s Ferry in I mean primary sources) establishing 1764. ‘James Sinkler requested certificate John Sinclair’s parentage and place of for self, wife Mary and child Phebe to origin in Scotland has not yet been Fairfax Monthly Meeting,Virginia, 3-16- discovered in the words of L.A.Morrison, 1764.’ James is listed as patriot ancestor in ‘many circumstances, [family] traditions the Daughters of the American Revolution and suppositions point so strongly in a in recognition of services rendered to the given direction, that in their cumulative Revolutionary Army in 1780. This means force they amount almost to a 18 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY Issue No38 June 06
a certainty’ (Morrison 1896;44). That prisoners of war, and the historical certainty that Morrison refers to is John ‘coincidence’ of his presence in America soon Sinclair’s connection to the noble St Clair after the Battles of Dunbar and Worcester, family of Rosslyn, Scotland. all coalesce into the virtual certainty that BATTLE OF WORCESTER John Sinclair was a Scottish soldier captured John Sinclair is reputed to have fought in in one of the military engagements of the the Battle of Worcester and been captured by British Isles in the early 1650s, and exiled to Oliver Cromwell in September 1651 and America in lieu of execution or continued Did you subsequently been transported to America. imprisonment. Major evidence concerning this was brought It is possible to tentatively reconstruct the know? to my attention by Mrs Marian Loeschner, sequence of events during the first few years of John Sinclair’s presence on the American that no one really knows who past genealogist of the Clan Sinclair built the brochs; iron age Association, USA. It consists of the following continent. The ship ‘John and Sara’ docked at round towers of immense statement in the book History of New Boston Harbour on February 24, 1652. The strength and considerable Hampshire, by Everett S. Stackpole, and is surviving prisoners disembarked and were architectural know-how . worth quoting : marched from Boston to Lynn, a two day trip. They are peculiar to the north ‘An item of some importance in the early There, at a place called the ‘Saugus House’ or of Scotland, the Hebrides, history of New Hampshire has been the ‘Scotchmen’s House’, they were Orkney and Shetland and are overlooked by historians. This was the apparently sold to indentured servitude to all of similar design. bringing in, as servants, of some Scotchmen, the highest bidder. A typical broch is 20 meters who had been taken prisoner by Oliver Our ancestor John Sinclair and several of his in diameter with 3 meter comrades were purchased by a Scottish thick walls and anything up Cromwell in the Battle of Dunbar, to 15 meters high. The walls September 3 1650, and the Battle of expatriot Nicholas Lissen, a Presbyterian are solid for the first 3 or 4 Worcester, just one year later. Two hundred lowlander who had emigrated to America via meters incorporating a stair and seventy-two prisoners from the Battle of Northern Ireland, in 1637 (Bean 1977:5). in the middle of the wall Worcester arrived in the ship ‘John and Transporting his new labourers north to which then divides into two Sara’. A score or more of these Scots were present day New Hampshire, he employed concentric rings with the employed in the sawmills at Oyster River them in one of his two lumber mills at stair winding up between and Exeter, and then included Newmarket, Exeter. There John Sinclair worked his way them. The circular stair gives and some became permanent settlers in to freedom. access to a series of galleries those places. Among them were Walter It is not known how long he remained which are used to bind the indentured but he was a free man by inner and outer walls to- Jackson and William Thompson’s son John gether. It also led to an at Oyster River,John Hudson of Bloody January of 1659, when he purchased ten opening in the roof that let in Point and John Sinclair,John Bean, acres of land in Exeter. This transaction is light, let out smoke and also Alexander Gordon and John Barber of recorded in a deed filed among the Old allowed the defenders of the Exeter. The descendants of these include Norfolk County Records, at Salem, broch to strike at their some of the leading men of the state.’ (p.76) Massachusetts (Morrison 1896:65). enemies in comparative If it is true that John Sinclair was captured safety. Brochs have a low at the Battle of Worcester and transported entrance and no windows. In against his will to America in the ship ‘John times of trouble the people from the surrounding areas and Sara’, as explicitly stated by Stackpole, took refuge in the broch one would expect his name to appear on the which would almost certainly ship’s list of passengers. Such a list exists have its own water supply. At but there is no John Sinclair on it. This in one time they were thought itself proves nothing. In an article published to be Pictish strongholds but in October 1927 in the Journal of the this has been discounted as Massachusetts Historical Society the author no brochs have been found says of the list ‘While [the list] is fortunate in the other Pictish areas of for historical purposes, yet [it] is not to be Scotland. Also brochs were accepted as a true record of the correct in use from the 1st mill- ennium BC until the 2nd or names’ (p.19). 3rd centuries AD. while the There are three illegible names on the list, n the next issue of SIB Folk one of which could be Sinclair’s. there is also I first historical references to News,I will attempt to the Picts appears in 237 AD. a ‘Salaman Sinclare’ listed and this may The Broch is purely a de- have been our ancestor’s name recorded by a show how our ancestor, fensive structure and Eric disinterested clerk.A theory reinforced by John Sinclair, was Linklater in his book ‘Orkney the fact that after this time there is no connected to some of the and Shetland’ suggests that record of that name appearing in the records prominent Sinclair it is an artillery platform of New England. It is interesting to note also employing some form of that of the seven men described as being families stretching back to catapult or ballista; well Battle of Worcester prisoners, only three the 13th century within the scope, he Bob Sanders suggests, of people who appear on the ship’s passenger list. could design such a tower. After all sides of the argument have been Palm Springs, California examined, Stackpole’s information, Sinclair’s close association with confirmed Scottish Issue No38 June 06 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY 19
By James Louttit, Member No299
t started for me when Tom Loutit wrote William’s brothers, she recalled, were John The Louttit Saga, his story of the family and James and a half-brother, Henry. Ihistory. Not much, but surprisingly accurate, and I had always thought that our name was enough for me to send Tom Loutit the few unique, and that its origin was vaguely paragraphs that later appeared in his Saga. French, but I knew nothing of the family’s Then for that first time in 1983, I visited Orcadian roots until Tom published his Orkney. history in the summer of 1970. I had a free weekend when I was in London I had contributed a few paragraphs to on publishing business and I flew up to Tom’s Saga, and I had read and enjoyed his Orkney on a whim. My arrival was a book when he had published it, but after that revelation. At Kirkwall’s small airport I I forgot it—for thirteen years. settled into a taxicab beside the driver and Then, in the summer of 1983, I made my told him I wanted to go to the Kirkwall Hotel. James Louttit first trip to Orkney. “American are you?” he asked Self Portrait I felt immediately at home. “Yes,” I admitted, “but my ancestors were I fell in love with the place. originally from here.” This article is an I truly felt I had found my roots. “And what family would that be sir?” extract from Prior to 1970, when he published his book, “Loutit,”I told him. ORCADIAN the late Tom Loutit had researched family “Loudit?” he said smiling at me.“Aye, that’s ROOTS,One documents, read any number of Orcadian a good old Orkney name.” Loutit Family’s histories, and corresponded with every It was like coming home. Story, which was Louttit or Loutit he could find. During that long weekend break in Orkney, published a few I was one of the Loutits he found. I found that nine Louttits (individuals or years ago. It’s Like most people,I had paid little families) were listed in Orkney’s little author, James attention to my family’s history until after telephone directory; the names of three Louttit reports the last elder who could recite names and Loutits (each with only one middle T) from that genealogy can dates and relationships had died. In my case, the 1600s were on prominent stones on the require many this was Grandma Louttit—Annie Cook inner north wall of St Magnus cathedral; and hours of dogged Louttit—who had died in 1963 at the age of many others were on the stones in the detective work. 92. A wealth of family lore died with that kirkyard outside.I also found one when I “Tracing your thin but tough little woman. purchased Gregor Lamb’s delightful little roots is fascinating But I was lucky—I still had Aunt book ‘Orkney Surnames’ and I found that work” he writes, Genevieve. “Louttit” (two middle Ts) appears four times “but it can be Genevieve Leach Louttit, my Uncle in the Index and rates a generous paragraph frustrating, too. Harolds widow, and Grandma Louttit had in his Glossary of Surnames in Orkney. Lamb Days, weeks, even shared the family home in Riverview, won my affection with the statement that the months, can be Pennsylvania for all of Aunt Gen’s married name Louttit, which was first recorded in wasted following life.Fortunately for me, Aunt Gen had a Orkney in the early 1400s, was pronounced false leads and sharp memory and she provided me with “Loudit” locally—which is exactly the way the misleading clues. enough data to fill Tom’s request. Louttits of Western Pennsylvania have but in the end, if From her I learned (I believe for the first always pronounced it you get it right, time) that my great grandfather’s name was It was a short but memorable weekend break few personal William.I was born in 1924— a quarter of a and side trip into the past, but I soon returned projects are more century after his death and eight years after home to New York City and the business of satisfying.” the death of his son, my grandfather James. publishing books. It was not until the summer She told me that William was one of four of 1988, after another visit to the islands, that I brothers (one was a half brother, Gen said), set out to explore my Orcadian roots. and I found my father’s middle name— With no real plan in mind, my short term Scurfield— was my great grandmother’s goal was to establish the birthplace of great maiden name. grandfather,William Louttit. I still believed Aunt Genevieve wasn’t sure exactly when that William had been born in Orkney, and William had come to America, but she that he and his brothers,John and James believed that my great-great-grandfather’s and half-brother Henry had come to America name was James and that he had worked in with my great-great-grandfather James in a river boatyard in Elizabeth, Pennsylvania. the mid-1800s. 20 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY Issue No38 June 06
Most of this was correct, albeit slightly but this time for an Orcadian William who askew. was of marriageable age in 1789. Over the next few years I corresponded I finally found him, one of a handful of several times with Mrs A. A. McCallum, a William Louttits who had been born in wonderfully patient and knowledgeable Orkney between 1760 and 1770. woman who operates Orkney Roots My William—my great-great-grandfather— Research out of her home in Stromness, was born in Stromness, Orkney in 1761. His Orkney, but my information was so sketchy father’s name—surprise—was James. that nothing concrete could be learned. Mrs Did you McCallum suggested tactfully that a bit know? more research at my end might be useful. WHAT’S IN some people have been I did as she suggested, and in the process I heard to say that Orkney found a copy of my great grandfather’s will ANAME? has its fair share of old from Carroll Township in Washington fossils but if you are County, Pennsylvania, and I located and Orkney Islands and parishes all have their interested in the ones visited his grave in Monongahela City, own teu or nicknames. Tradition has it that from 416 - 359 million Pennsylvania, where I learned from his years ago, a visit to the headstone that he had been born the 17th of teu names stem from the time of the cons- Fossil Centre in Burray October in 1827. truction of St Magnus Cathedral and result will reveal some weird I forwarded this information to Mrs and wonderful from the provisions that the various crews examples. McCallum and in short she came back with Most of these were an Orcadian candidate who fits some , but brought with them. Others are just insulting. recovered from the not all, of my date. Cruaday Quarry in His name was William Allen Louttit and he Sandwick, Orkney (now had been born in 1827 on a farm named PLACE NAME TEU NAME declared a Site of North Cara on the Orkney island of South Kirkwall Starlings Special Scientific Ronaldsay. This William Louttit did indeed Stromness Bloody Interest) and they date have two older brothers named James and from the Devonian John but there was no record of a half Puddings period when the area brother Henry. It was a bit unsettling that St Andrews Skerry Scrapers was a vast sub-tropical freshwater lake. When William’s father’s name was Magnus, not Deerness Skate Rumples the centre was being set James (but Aunt Genevieve’s recollection Holm Hobblers up it was visited by two could have been faulty on that); but a lot Orphir Yearnings professional geologists more disconcerting was this William’s from the National birthday—July 23 instead of October17. Mrs Firth Oysters Museum of Scotland McCallum and I agreed that mistakes are Sandwick Ash Patties who expressed often made on tombstones, or that AunT Harray Crabs amazement at the Gen’s memory may have been slightly faulty, breadth and quality of Birsay Dogs or Hoes but that gap between July and october was Evie Cauld Kale the collection which in a discouraging, and I also knew of no other worldwide context is Rendall Sheep Thieves vary rare. ‘Magnus’ in our family’s line. Now fossils may not be And that’s where matters stood until I had Hoy Hawks your scene but the enough sense to check the burial records at Walls Lyres centre also houses a Monongahela City Cemetery and discovered Burray Oily Bogies special collection of that I had been searching for William in Grimness Gruties objects used in the the wrong country—my great-grandfather everyday life of William had been born in England, not Hope Scoutties Orcadians together with Scotland! Herston Hogs a collection of old tools, In time through the newspaper obituary of Widewall Witches obselete cameras, William’s brother John, research services in photographs and books Sandwick Birkies which the visitors are Western Pennsylvania and England, and South Parish Teeicks various sources on the internet, I learned free to browse through. Gairsay Buckies Recreated rooms show that great grandfather William had been typical Orkney rooms born in Sunderland, England, as was his Wyre Whelk from the beginning of father James, (yes, Aunt Gen also had that Egilsay Burstin Lumps the last century and the right). I also learned that he had been Rousay Mares World War 2 period. married twice in that small North Sea port Shapinsay Sheep And after all that you’ll in England—first to Margaret Leshly, and no doubt be ready for a again, following her death, to Margaret Stronsay Limpets seat in the cafe which Turnbull in 1803. But, other than that— Sanday Gruellie Belkies serves teas, coffee, home bakes as well as nothing; there were no English records of Eday Scarfs lunches in this delightful my great-great-great-grandfather William’s Westray Auks corner of Orkney. birth or death. Papa Westray Dundies So, once again, I was Searching for William, Issue No38 June 06 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY 21
By Stanley Sutherland Did you t all began when I was researching my establish a Heritage Cabin for the island. know? three times Great, Great Grandfather The Casagram would fit into their plans that Orcadians may who said in the 1851 census for quite nicely so three years ago on another have taught the I Egyptians the art of Gravesend in Kent that he came from visit I presented them with a CD and a hard copy of the spreadsheet and a copy of all the pyramid building. “Orkney”. No place name given. I then found According to Dr Lomas that most of the Sutherlands came from documents that I had used to produced it. of Bradford University, Walls and Flotta. (see Sib Folk No 7) This was well received by the islanders and Orcadian builders From my researches I became interested in has been around many homesteads and developed the complex the Flotta Sutherlands.I came to the generated a lot of interest in the family technical under- history on the island. standing required to conclusion that this could have been the build a pyramid 3800 island of his birth. Unfortunately after nearly The Casagram gave a good insight into years before the birth 30 years searching I have still not been able the length of time that people stayed in the of Christ or 1000 years to establish his parentage or birth. properties.I then decided that with the before the first pyramid Flotta had many Sutherlands with the erosion and dereliction of the crofts it would appeared in the Valley be sensible if we could produce another CD of the Kings. same Christian name and in an effort to sort Evidently the whole and sift out the correct one for me I decided which showed pictorially the properties old thing hinges on the to produce a spreadsheet with all the and new. megalithic yard which crofts/houses along one axis and all the dates With the assistance of Phyllis Gee we the Orcadian builders of the documents researched along the other. managed to find 135 photographs. This of Maeshowe devised allowed me to produce the second CD which by taking measure- This then allowed me to infill the names of ments from the the occupiers at each property at the given hopefully will preserve the image of some of movement of the sun dates. Thus producing what Gavin Rendall the dwellings before time and weather and the stars. This once called a “Casagram”. From this and removes them. would indicate, other material I was at least able to assess The two CDs have been given to the island according to Dr Lomas, to help them establish the Heritage Cabin. that they knew the the relationship of the individuals. earth was round and On one of my visits to Flotta I found that Copies have also been given to the Family moved around the sun, David Sinclair and Phyllis Gee were trying to History Society and the Archives Office. many centuries before it was accepted by the . rest of the world. Margaret Traill s Orkney recipes from the 17th century• The megalithic yard measures 86.966 cm A Fellere Soupe Cutt these very small have a care you and it was re- ake 2 Draughts (entrails) & 2 do not boyll them till they be yellow discovered in 1967 by heads of lamb a piece of fresh then take two handfulls of sorall beat Alexander Thom of beef if you have it not take a it and squise out the Joyce of it when Oxford University after T he had analysed over the Soupe comes of the fire to be pound of Sweet butter put it in cold 400 sites in Britain and watter wt 2 or 3 drops of Mace when dish’d put in ye Joyce then put in the northern France. the meat is boylled enough take it out Lambs heads in yr dish wt toasted Dr Lomas, in his book and put in apound of prunes then take sipets of whyte bread and pour your Uriel’s Machine: the 4 handfulls of Spinnage 2 of Lettuce 2 soup over them the Garnishing must Ancient Origins of of young kaill (cabbage) a little Thyme be parsley cutt small and strawed Science, and his co- a little winter Savory of Goosetongue a about the dish wt marygold flowers on author Christopher very little pennyroyal a few Marigolds the top of it So give it up. Knight maintain that the information was *Margaret Traill was the daughter of John Traill of Elsness and his rst wife Helen Stewart. On the 21 October 1712 she taken to Brittany and married James Traill of Woodwick and was known as Lady Woodwick.A book of 32 of her recipes was compiled from beyond by seafarers. the Walter Traill Dennison collection held in the archive s. These recipes were probably passed around in the Merchants’ larders and would not have been common in the homes of farm labourers. It is available from the Orkney Family History Society for £1.50 p copy plus postage. 22 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY Issue No38 June 06
Memories from the box on the mantlepiece
This article by Harold Esson first appeared in the Orkney Vintage Club Newsletter, of which he is editor and it is reprinted here with his permission. Mr Esson is also member 811 of the Orkney Family History Society. Most folk over a certain age can still see it in mantlepiece, another thing I remember is Did you their mind’s eye – the box on the mantle- receiving a box of ‘goodies’ each Christmas piece of their parents’ or grandparents’ from relatives in either Canada or the U.S.A. know? house, which held a virtual treasure trove of The one thing that still sticks in my mind is neatly folded pieces of paper. It is only with the drinking chocolate. My mother had a Jewellery making is big the passing of the years that the box first cousin, Jack Spence, who was sent over business in Orkney with changed hands, when father-time claimed to fight in the war. His father,James, had the output of the various the lives of those we remember so dearly, left Orkney about 1880 and was never back. craftsmen being sold and the box fell into younger hands. So, when Jack got leave and came up to world wide. It seems, I can remember the first time I went Orkney, he met three aunts and an uncle for however that they are through the contents of the box that stood on the first time.Jack never forgot the only carrying on a hospitality he received and nearly every tradition that started my maternal grandparents’ mantlepiece at letter he sent, up to the time of his passing, with the Picts in the 7th Sunnybrae.I never knew my grandfather as mentioned this. In fact I think it is safe to Century on the Brough he passed away in 1941 when I was just a say that the war affected him for the rest of of Birsay. year old. However, my grandmother lived his life, as he always said that his ‘nerves Considerable evidence until 1959 and, even then, the box on her of metalworking has mantlepiece stood undisturbed for many were shot’ as a result of his wartime been found on the years after that. I have sifted through the experiences. Brough. Hundreds of contents many times since then and nearly Another news-cutting from The Family whole and broken always find something I had missed or Herald and Weekly Star contains a picture of moulds have been simply forgotten about. Jack bidding goodbye to his tearful nephew, discovered, the In the age that we now live, when George Barrett, as he sets out on the first impressions indicating communication with the rest of the world is part of his journey to join the war in Europe. that bronze brooches instantaneous, we tend to forget that our Jack was twenty-five years of age and was were being produced in parents and grandparents swapped news- one of the 165 members in the B Company of quantity. A number of papers and magazines with friends and the Royal Canadian Regiment - ‘Canada’s clay crucibles have also relatives in places like Canada and the full time, cash on the barrel-head, been found and these U.S.A. About twenty of the news-cuttings in professional soldiers. Fighting is their job would have been used to my grandparents’ box were from The Family and they do it well.’ The report goes on, melt the bronze for Herald and Weekly Star from Montreal. ‘After farewells were said, there was no casting. They were titled ‘Favourite Hymns’, and cheering as the train pulled out, only a Also of interest were the gave the words and music of each, along straining to catch a last glimpse of husband pieces of a symbol stone with details of who had written each one, or father.Women wiped furtive tears and showing three warriors and the often interesting circumstances tried to be brave; children done up in their and Pictish symbols. surrounding this. The reason for keeping best bibs and tuckers wept quietly but While these are now in these would have come about as a result of without shame. Stern-looking men turned the Royal Scottish my grandfather being ‘The Presenter’ in the quickly toward the dark so no-one would see.’ Museum in Edinburgh, a Kirk. Jack had a visit to Orkney planned in 1978. casting of the complete Many years ago, when someone was clearing Of course, his uncles and aunts had long stone can be seen on out their house in preparation for flitting,I departed, and my mother, who was ten years the Brough. There is was given a sackful of papers that had been older than him, was beginning to be also a Pictish well sent from Canada. They were still in their forgetful. The day he was due to leave together with a number wrappers and had never been touched. As I Toronto, we got a telegram to say that he of Viking structures, opened them,I discovered that Biro pens had suffered a heart attack. Jack was never including a small had been enclosed with some and if it was a again well enough to travel such a long Romanesque church bundle of comics for the bairns, there would distance and, as so often happens, letters got from the 12th century. be a cigar in the centre — I didn’t try any of further and further apart and I no longer Visitors should note that them! I can’t understand why the bundles communicate with any of my Canadian or the Brough is tidal and had never been opened. They dated from the American cousins.So, for me at least, the can only be reached by a 1950s and I found them of great interest. box on the mantlepiece is all that remains.It causeway visible two Mind-you, they were forty years old by then, contains so much more than the faded hours either side of low so that would explain it. pictures and the printed words. It is a water. Although nothing to do with the box on the treasure that you can never replace. Issue No38 June 06 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORYSOCIETY 23
Essential Orcadian Family History FAMILY research material can be found in our CENSUS TREES BOOKLETS We have over 900 family trees, both members and non-members. These are not always up- Our booklets. for the census years from to-date and can only be viewed at our offices. 1841, are published with the permission of Did you Now we have launched ‘Trees on Line’ and H.M. Stationery Office, and cover the this allows members to submit their own trees parishes of Birsay; Deerness*; Eday & know? to our website thereby making them available Pharay; Evie, Rendall & Gairsay; Firth & Scotland’s most northerly to other members of the society. It’s easy and Stenness; Harray, Holm and Paplay;Hoy and remote library founded and Graemsay; Kirkwall and St Ola; North by Andrew Carnegie was information can always be kept right up-to- opened on the 9th date. Ronaldsay; Orphir*; Rousay, Egilshay, Wyre September 1909. Simply log on to our website at:- & Eynhallow;St Andrews*; Sanday; Andrew Carnegie was born