29 John Forman (1819-1906)

1 John Forman(1819-1906)=Margaret Bruce(1820-1906) JOHN FORMAN and MARGARET BRUCE (Written by Thomas Summers West 1927-2010) Name John Forman Margaret Bruce Born Wed. 4 Aug. 1819 Tues. 21 Nov. 1820 Place Buchanhaven, Peterhead. Peterhead. Married Sat. 9 May 1840, Buchanhaven, Peterhead, Aberdeenshire. Died Thurs. 25 Jan. 1906 Sat. 3 Feb. 1906 Place 6 Harbour St., Buchanhaven 6 Harbour St., Buchanhaven Buried Constitution St. Cemetery, Peterhead, both in Lair C108 Occupation Fisherman Parents:- Father John Forman Robert Bruce Mother Margaret Bruce Elizabeth Buchan _____________________________________________________________________ Children: John Forman May 1841 d July 1841 Elizabeth Forman 8 Sept 1842 d1927 William Forman 14 Jan.1847 d1922 Robert Forman 17 Jun.1849 Margaret Forman 14 Aug.1851 Jean Birnie Forman 10 Jan. 1854 d1935 James Forman 5 Mar 1856 d1918 Christian Ann Forman 24 Jan 1858 d1899 Alexander Jamieson Forman 24 Jan 1858 Joseph Forman 10 May 1860 d1931 ________________________________________________________________ 29 JOHN FORMAN (1819-1906) My great-grandfather John Forman was born/baptised on 4 August 1819, apparently the only child of his father John Forman and mother Margaret Bruce in the fishing village of Buchanhaven which was not then a part of Peterhead. The Peterhead OPR record of the event [1] reads:- ‘4th August 1819. John Forman, fisherman in Buchanhaven and Margaret Bruce his wife had a son baptised and named John’. When I started researching this part of my ancestry, I found it confusing that there were two John Forman’s one the son of the other who both married Margaret Bruce’s. To avoid confusion when both are being discussed together, I will call the father John Sr. and the son John Jr. and their respective wives Margaret Sr. and Margaret Jr. though in this case the two Margaret’s are obviously not mother and daughter. There is an odd thing about this entry in the Parish Register. John Jr.’s birth/baptism was not entered in the OPR until 35 years later in 1854 when John Jr. was recording the birth of his own first five children all together at the same time. Civil Registration of births deaths and marriages was about to become mandatory in Scotland in 1855. John Jr. was recording the birth of his five pre-1955 children to bring the OPR record 2 John Forman(1819-1906)=Margaret Bruce(1820-1906) up to date before its closure. In effect he seems to have recorded his own birth at the same time because it appeared to have gone unrecorded previously. I will discus this later in dealing with his parents John Forman Sr. and Margaret Bruce Sr. I should say here that, most unusually for a fisher family in those days, John Jr. appears to have had no more siblings. To some extent this could perhaps be explained by John Sr.’s failure to record the birth of John Jr. who was his first child. Perhaps he treated the others in the same cavalier way. However, the picture that emerges is not as simple as that. I will return to this later. His application for his Seaman’s Ticket [2] in 1844 (see below) shows that he first went to sea, as a fisherman, in 1834 aged 15. There was of course no 1831 Census in Scotland where a diligent search of Peterhead for a John Forman aged 12 staying with his parents or indeed another family might have yielded some clues as to the status of John and Margaret Sr.’s family, i.e., were there other children? His first actual appearance in official records is in May 1840, when he married Margaret Bruce Jr.[3] Almost immediately afterwards John Jr. appeared in the June 1841 Census for Peterhead- Buchanhaven aged 20 with his wife Margaret (20) and a young son John aged 2 months [4]. I have been unable to find any further mention of this son John and have concluded that he died in infancy shortly thereafter. On 31 December 1844, John registered under the Board of Trade regulations as a fisherman. His ticket , issued at Peterhead is very informative:- TICKET No. 48216 NAME John Forman Born. Buchanhaven, 12 Aug 1819 Capacity. Fisherman. Ticketed Aged 25 Height. 5ft. 5 1/2 in. Hair Light. Complexion. Fair. Eyes Grey Bodily Marks. None First went to sea. As Fisherman, 1834. Royal Navy Service None Foreign Service None Can Write Yes. Place of Residence. Buchanhaven. Issued Peterhead 31 Dec. 1844 _________________ ____________ So, thanks to this Seaman’s Ticket No 48216, I know that my great-great-grandfather John Forman first went to sea aged 15 and was five feet five and a half inches tall when he was 25 years old. He had a light complexion, fair hair and grey eyes, and he could read and write. There is a discrepancy of about a week in the dates given for his birth/baptism between the OPR and the Seaman’s ticket. However, this is nothing compared to the wealth of information available from this Board of Trade record. I was fortunate enough to get this information for many of my fishermen/sailor ancestors who were alive at this time, including John Forman Sr. ! There is a photograph of John Jr. and his wife in their old age in Peter Buchan’s book ‘Collected Poems and Short Stories’, [5]. In the Board of Trade Register Of Seamen [6] I found a very faint record of two voyages for John Forman under his ticket number 11433. It reads:- 3 John Forman(1819-1906)=Margaret Bruce(1820-1906) 11433 Forman Jn. S S 18, Buchanhaven 1/294 1/361 3 / 7 / 38. 25 / 7 / 39. Mary Traveller, Peterhead. This can be interpreted as follows, [7]. On the first line, ‘S’ indicates that he served as an ordinary seaman. On the second line ‘18’ denotes his age; Buchanhaven, his place of birth; ‘1/294’ and ‘1/361’ represent, Port of Registry/ Rotation Number for the ship’s movement. The third line gives the dates of filling in the Schedule C report to the B.O.T. on completion of the voyage. The fourth line gives the names of the ships. The Port Registration Number ‘1’ is that of Aberdeen. This means that the Schedule was filed in Aberdeen , not necessarily that the voyage took place from there though in most cases it probably would . The Rotation number basically identifies the ship within the port’s schedule, but there is no key to these numbers. They do, however, appear on the Crew List and for example would identify which of two or more ships called ‘Mary’ or ‘Traveller’ was involved should such an eventuality arise. In its earlier history Peterhead was a trading port rather than a fishing one. In 1794 it boasted a fleet of 26-28 trading ships ranging from 40-200 tons plying on coastal and international trade [8]. It was also an important whaling port. There were 16 whaling ships in the town in 1823, each carrying a crew of 16 men typically. By 1857 there were 30 such ships ranging from 168 to 300 tons unburdened weight. My guess, in the absence of further information, is that John Forman went on a trading ship or a whaler in the early parts of 1838 and 1839 before marrying in 1840 and settling down at home to being a fisherman. Perhaps he was accumulating some money before becoming married to enable him to set himself up. His father John Sr. seems to have done something similar ca. 1815. By the time of the 1851 Census [9] John (34) and Margaret (30) are staying at No 6 Buchanhaven. John seems to have gained a couple of years! Their son John who appeared, 2 months old, in the 1841 Census and should now be 10 is absent from the household and since I have found no more record of him, I have presumed that he died as a child (nb died 5/7/1841). John and Margaret now have a daughter Betty aged 9 listed as a scholar, a son William aged 4 and another son, Robert, aged 2. William went on to become my great-grandfather. The 1861 Census shows them staying at No 71 Buchanhaven [10] with their daughter Elizabeth (19), William (14), a scholar, Robert(12) and new additions, Margaret (10), Jane (7), James (5), all scholars and twins Christian and Alexander Jamieson (3) and finally an infant son Joseph (11 months). At this time John was 42 and Margaret, 40. The only other piece of information to be gleaned from the Census is that No 71 Buchanhaven had two rooms with one or more windows. By the time of the 1871 Census [11], John (52) and Margaret (50) are at No 5 Harbour Street, Buchanhaven - which may be the same house because it still has two rooms with ‘one or more windows’ but is now given its street name rather than an Enumeration Book number. William, who married in 1868, is no longer there, but Elizabeth (29) described as an unmarried domestic servant is, as are Robert (22) an 4 John Forman(1819-1906)=Margaret Bruce(1820-1906) unmarried fisherman, Margaret (20), James (15), Christian (12) and Alexander (12) both scholars and Joseph (10), also a scholar. Jane who would have been 17 years of age is absent from the house. She might have been married or have died. Though Elizabeth, William, Robert, and James are mentioned in John’s will in 1906 there is no mention of any of the others, so what happened to them is obscure and I have not researched it further though it is obvious from Peter Buchan’s book that one of John’s daughters, other than Elizabeth, must have become his grandmother, viz., Margaret, Jane, or Christian .*1 See Addendum The 1881 Census [12] shows the family at No5 Harbour St.

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