Scotland trip – May 2017 – day 4

I’m aiming to write and post a little bit each day about the family history research I’m doing, and what I find, during a week staying​ in Edinburgh. But for personal privacy, the posting of these travels on AFamilyHistoryBlog will be delayed by a few days, and will not necessarily be in day by day order! Some of these posts may be given later tweaks, with added photos, etc.

Update; You can now see all the posts from my May 2017 Scotland trip, here;
Day 1 – day 2 – day 3 – day 4 – day 5 – day 6 – day 7 – & day 8 & the big family gathering.

I got a train from Edinburgh, and spent a day exploring Glasgow. This is the first time that I’ve ever been into Glasgow.

From Glasgow Central station I headed first to see the Glasgow School of Art (GSA), walking up Hope Street, & along Renfrew Street. My great-grandfather, Sir William Oliphant Hutchison, was Director of the GSA, from 1933-1943. When I arrived at the GSA, I bought a ticket for the next “Macintosh at the GSA tour”.

Model of the Macintosh building at the GSA

The tour is about 45 minutes long. It was very focused on Charles Rennie Macintosh and his design of the old GSA building, which is currently in scaffolding, under restoration following a fire in 2014. Boards around the building site explain some of the GSA’s history. Restoration is expected to be finished and the old building reopened in 2019 – so it is on my bucket list to return, to see it once restored. The tour also looked at C.R.Macintosh’s art, and his later furniture design, along with some of his wife’s work, all within the GSA’s modern (2014) building, across the street from the C.R. Macintosh building.

GSA Macintosh building in scaffolding

After leaving the GSA, I headed towards the Kelvingrove, stopping in Kelvingrove park to eat some lunch. When I reached the Kelvingrove museum I found the fine central hall filled with music from its organ being played. I enjoyed looking round the galleries, especially the Glasgow Boys gallery which was very good, with several paintings there by my 2x great-grandfather, E.A.Walton. I also liked the gallery of work by the “Scottish Colourists” a lot, and a gallery of Joseph Crawhall’s work (who was one of the Glasgow Boys). Kelvingrove is definitely a place I’d like to spend more time looking round.

Memoirs of John WIGHAM, 1749 – 1839

Wow! I really enjoyed reading the “Memoirs of the Life, Gospel Labours, and Religious Experience of John Wigham”.

John Wigham, and his wife, Elizabeth (nee DONWIDDY, or DUNWODE) appear to have had amazing Christian faith. Parts of the book read like prayers, praising the Lord for all the things that He had done in and through their lives, and encouraging their children (and descendants) to walk in His path. I think that the strongest of these are in letters, from John, to his daughter-in-law, Barbara Wigham, in April 1800 (pp. 88-90.) and to his son, Amos Wigham, in January 1813 (pp. 107 – 108).

It was also interesting to see letters that John WIGHAM wrote to Elizabeth FRY (nee GURNEY, the prison reformer) who was the wife of a cousin on the opposite side of my family tree (see pp.101-106). This is the first time that I’ve seen records of people from opposite sides of my family tree (in the distant past) communicating with each other!

Page 90 gives a good summery of John Wigham’s life to date, which he ends by saying “I write these memorandums, that when I am gone, my children may be encouraged, by seeing and knowing how He [the Lord] has supported me.” .

The best summaries of their lives are given by John Wigham’s final testimony, dated September 1828 (pp. 121-126), and by the testimonies given by the Aberdeen Monthly Meeting of the Quakers, about John (pp. vii-xiv), and his wife, Elizabeth (pp. 123-126).

Having read the “Memoirs … of John Wigham”, I went on to read “Some Account of the Rise of the Society of Friends in Cornwood in Northumberland”, published in 1848, which says more about the wider WIGHAM family. (Note – that in both books, “Cornwood” appears to be a mis-spelling of “Coanwood“, near Haltwhistle, in Northumberland). It tells of how John Wigham’s grandfather, Cuthbert WIGHAM, became a Quaker in about 1734, and subsequently gave some land next to his house in Coanwood, for a Friends Meeting House, which was built in 1760.

There is a lot more information (on several websites) about the Coanwood Friends Meeting House. See;

• Wikipedia.
• Hexham Quakers.
• Historic Chapels Trust (HCT).

The book goes on to tell of a number of Cuthbert WIGHAM’s children and grandchildren, and their spouses, particularly in relation to their involvements within the Society of Friends. It provides quite a good sense of the WIGHAM family tree.

I have not, myself, ever looked very closely before into the family history of the Quaker parts of my family tree! I’ve long known that the Quakers do have very good family history records, evidenced by the fact that, to date, the FRYs (and related families) are the branch of my family tree that I know to be traced furthest back – both in time, and in generations.

Quakers in Britain

Finding this material about the WIGHAM family, in the books mentioned above, and in a number of other sources, has opened my eyes to just how good these Quaker records are, and to how much of it is now freely available on-line – as well as where to go to find the stuff that isn’t yet on-line. There is clearly a lot more material there that I can dig into further, in the future.

A couple of generations remain whose details I have not yet fully checked out, between the WIGHAMs and the family that I know about through direct family knowledge! But from what I’ve seen, I’m pretty sure that they do all genuinely link up. Benjamin Buck (whose family history website led me to the above books) has been able to put me in touch with John Gray, who had written to my Granddad nearly 20 years ago with a tree of the HENDERSON family [see my sources to the WALTON family tree.]. The HENDERSONs are one of those additional links, and John Gray has been able to send me some additional pages of his HENDERSON family tree, with notes, which also add some more names, dates, and details that I didn’t have before.

I just want to say “thank you”, again, to John Little and Benjamin Buck , for their family history websites, which led me to all the materials noted above (and more).

Follow-up on new WALTON and HENDERSON family links

Following my last post, I’ve been looking at details about the WIGHAM family, on a website by Benjamin Beck, who John Little cites as the source for “much of the information” on his site (which I linked to last time). And despite my doubts, I have had a reply from John Little!

I found Benjamin Beck’s family history website wonderfully detailed, although a little difficult to get into at first, without a basic overview/chart of the family trees. But his site is certainly one of the best family history websites that I’ve seen in terms of citing its sources. I wish that more were like that. I aspire to be as good as that, and his site gives me some ideas for areas that I might develop on afamilyhistoryblog.

Following a link to one of Ben’s sources about the WIGHAM family, I’ve just started reading the “Memoirs of the Life, Gospel Labours, and Religious Experience of John Wigham”, published in 1842 (3 years after his death). There are two digitised copies of the book available on-line.

• https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XwsFAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover
• https://archive.org/details/memoirsoflifegos00wigh

John WIGHAM was evidently a prominent member of the “Society of Friends” (or “Quakers”) in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, and his Memoirs express a strong Christian faith. I’m enjoying reading his memoirs, and the spirit-filled faith that he writes about.

In e-mail messages we’ve exchanged, Ben Beck has suggested that I may find the Quaker Family History Society of interest. This is certainly something that I’ll be looking at, as I also have well-known Quakers on the opposite side of my family; the FRYs. (See my ELLIOTT tree).

Based on the WIGHAM family tree, from John Little’s website, John WIGHAM appears to be my 6x Gt-grandfather, on my Granddad’s maternal line (see genealogy below). I have yet to check all the in-between links (which I will be doing). But Benjamin Buck’s site (in particular) is so good in its detail, and in citing all of the source records for his information, that I’m in little doubt about its authenticity.

My line, from John WIGHAM;

1. John WIGHAM, b. 23 Mar 1749, Hargill House, Coanwood, Haltwhistle, NBL, d. 17 Apr 1839, m. Elizabeth DONWIDDY, b. 24 Mar 1748 Ambroseholm, m. circa 1769, d. 16 Apr 1827 – See; http://benbeck.co.uk/fh/wigham.html#P3.%20JOHN%20WIGHAM
2. Elizabeth WIGHAM, b. 1779, Burnhouse, Coanwood, Haltwhistle, d. 04 Aug 1854, m. James GLENNY, b. 27 Mar 1777, m. 28 Nov 1798 Kinmuck, d. 31 Jul 1804
3. Jane or Jean GLENNY, b. 28 Apr 1801 Mill of Lethenty, d. 02 Apr 1848, m. James SMEAL, b. circa 1798, m. 22 Sep 1824 Kinmuck, Aberdeenshire, d. 1847
4. Jemima SMEAL, b. 11 Sep 1832, d. 19 Nov 1908, m. 19 Jun 1856, James HENDERSON, b. 29 Mar 1833, d. 13 Jul 1893
5. Helen Urie HENDERSON, b. 15 Apr 1859, d. 28 Aug 1945, m.2. 04 Jun 1890, Edward Arthur WALTON, b. 15 Apr 1860, d. 18 Mar 1922
6. Elsie Marjorie WALTON, b. 17 Oct 1898, d. 12 Dec 1976, m. 15 Nov 1918, William Oliphant HUTCHISON, b. 02 Jul 1889, d. 05 Feb 1970 (my Great-grandparents).

The WIGHAM family line is traced back another 5 generations.

There are details of the Coanwood Friends Meeting House on Wikipedia.

This is a branch of my family that I, myself, have not yet done very much research into.

What I know about Helen Urie Henderson and her descendants comes largely from family knowledge within my immediate extended family. I have some details of Jemima Smeal, James Henderson and their family (and the names of Jemima’s parents) from a family tree and letters sent to my Granddad by a John Gray, dated 1997. See my WALTON family tree.

All earlier details I have only found in the last few days via John Little’s and Benjamin Buck’s websites. So I still want to go through these details for myself to check that they all fit together.

Thank you, to John Little, and Benjamin Buck, for your websites.

New WALTON and HENDERSON family links

In the last few days I’ve been looking through some links that Dr Mark Jardine pointed me to, about the Scottish Covenanters – transcriptions of their christening and marriage records, etc. – trying to find anything that could help me to link the Covenanter, James DAVIE (shot dead cir.1673) to the Marion DAVIE who married into my JOHNSTON family, in Bathgate, cir.1720. (See my notes at the bottom of Patrick MAIR and Thomas JOHNSTON – Part 1 )

I’ve not yet found anything particularly useful in that respect! But as I looked through the Covenanter records list, I noticed one or two surnames from completely the other side of my family cropping up repeatedly. “URIE” was the surname that caught my attention. I know that there is some Quaker influence on this side of my family (see my WALTON tree), so it made me think that there could be a connection!

A book that a friend gave me for Christmas; “The Glasgow Boys, In Your Pocket”, (one of the “Glasgow Boys” – Edward Arthur WALTON, being my 2x Gt-grandfather), also influenced me when I began by doing a web search for ““Helen Urie HENDERSON”” (wife of E.A. WALTON); “URIE” was her paternal grandmother’s maiden name. At the moment when I did the search, Helen’s was the one full name that came to mind! My thought was; could I find anything that might link Helen’s URIE ancestors to those Covenanter records?

Given that Helen was the wife of a well-known artist, I was surprised to find only 4 links in the search results! Two of these were to AFamilyHistoryBlog, which means that this site is doing it’s job (I guess that this post will be added to that list in future). The other two links were to other people’s family trees; one of Helen Urie HENDERSON’s material line, and the other covering the family of Edward Arthur WALTON’s maternal grandparents.

Both of these trees give me quite a lot of new material; names, dates, etc. I can’t yet confirm what they claim. I would like to go through these trees, and their sources carefully, for myself, to check their records. I have e-mailed the authors of both sites, hoping to obtain more details. But I don’t have a lot of hope for a reply from the WIGHAM site (Helen’s maternal line), due to the page having last been updated in October 2002 (another page of this site was last updated in July 2005)!

But for my own record, and for the interests of others, I’m posting the website links below.

• https://community.dur.ac.uk/j.d.little/family/Wigham.html – This is the maternal ancestry of Helen Urie HENDERSON. See the link (a screen’s height down the page) to “THEIR DESCENDANTS“, which takes you about 2/3 down the webpage. Then scroll down another 2 screen heights to see “Helen Urie HENDERSON” and “Edward Arthur WALTON”.
• http://bayanne.info/Shetland/getperson.php?personID=I442658&tree=ID1 – The Information card for Edward Arthur WALTON on the Shetland Family History website. From here you can explore a large family tree, going back through Edward’s maternal Grandfather, Thomas Balfour NICHOLSON.

If you know any more about these family connections, please leave a comment below, or use the Contact Page to get in touch.

 

The story of Jackson Walton and his family, told by Martin Robb at ‘Past Lives’

At about the time that I began creating AFamilyHistoryBlog, I discovered a great article about my 3x Gt-Grandfather; Jackson Walton, and his family, written by Martin Robb on his blog; ‘Past Lives’. I would say that finding this article was one of the things that inspired me to begin AFamilyHistoryBlog.

Martin Robb is not a direct relative! Trying to describe the relationship is complex. So it’s impressive that Martin has researched his family connections so widely. Thank you Martin.

I have long intended that at some point I would post something onto AFamilyHistoryBlog, linking to Martin Robb’s article about the Walton family. And now – having just posted a piece about William Oliphant Hutchison (the husband of Jackson Walton’s granddaughter, Margery), it seems like a good opportunity to share more of my family’s artistic heritage.

Please read Martin’s article here;

Janet Young and Jackson Walton revisited

For the basic details that I have about my Walton ancestry, please see the WALTON tree, or the WALTON Category on AFamilyHistoryBlog.

WALTON ancestors

In no particular order I’m making several posts to show my known ancestors, in a “pedigree view”, starting each pedigree with one of my great-grandparents (for people’s personal privacy I will not give details of the more recent generations).

The Roman Numeral in front of a name indicates the generation (counting backwards) and the number of “great”s that you need to add to describe their relationship to me. i.e.

• “-i-” = my “great-grandparent”,
• “-iv-” = my “4x-great-grandparent”.

Click the numeral to link to any posts tagged with that individual’s name, or to all the posts tagged with that surname (if the individual person doesn’t have a tag).

If someone’s name is highlighted as a hyperlink, you can click that link to an external webpage with information about that person. I generally favour entries on Wikipedia, though other sources may come up if there is nothing on Wikipedia, or if the alternative offers better information.

Here are the WALTONs.

 

-iv-[ John WALTON, b. ???, d. ???, m. ???

-iii-[ Jackson WALTON, b. ../../1809, Fallowfield, Manchester, d. ../06/1873, m. 14/11/1844, Old Machar, Aberdeen.

-iv-[ Mary GANDY, b. ???, d. ???

-ii-[ Edward Arthur WALTON, b. 15/04/1860, Neilston, Renfrewshire, d. 18/03/1922, m. 02/06/1890, ???

-iv-[ Thomas Balfour NICHOLSON, b. ???, d. ???, m. ???

-iii-[ Eliza Anne NICHOLSON, b. ???, Forfar, d. ???

-iv-[ Hughina FORBES, b. ???, d. ???

-i-[ Margery WALTON, b. 17/10/1898, ???, d. 12/12/1976, Cambridge, m. 15/11/1918, Edinburgh, to (Sir) William Oliphant HUTCHISON. [See HUTCHISON ancestry HERE]

-v-[ James HENDERSON, b. ???, d. ???, m. ???

-iv-[ John HENDERSON, b. 21/05/1797, Houston, Renfrewshire, d. 18/04/1851, m. 22/11/1818, High Paisley.

-v-[ Mary BARR, b. ???, d. ???

-iii-[ James HENDERSON, b. 29/03/1833, d. 13/07/1893, Liverpool, m. 19/06/1856,

-v-[ John URIE, b. ???, d. ???, m. ???

-iv-[ Helen URIE, b. 14/12/1798, Ferguslie, Renfrewshire, d. 29/11/1878, Pollockshields.

-v-[ Elizabeth SCOT, b. ???, d. ???

-ii-[ Helen Urie HENDERSON, b. 15/04/1859, Paisley, Renfrewshire, d. ../../1945, ?

-iv-[ James SMEAL, b. ???, d. ???, m. ???

-iii-[ Jemima SMEAL, b. 11/09/1832, d. 19/11/1908, W.Hempstead, London.

-iv-[ Jane GLENNY, b. ???, d.???

 
Click here to download as a PDF file;
WALTON ancestors – Jan2014version.

* Sources;

HENDERSON tree – from John Henderson Gray – Letters and trees from John Henderson Gray (to H.P. Hutchison) dated 5th Nov 1997 and ? Feb. 2003 ?, John is a descendant of James HENDERSON and Jemima SMEAL

URIE messages – Messages/contact made via URIE message board at GenForum and resulting e-mail from Helen Kinsey – a descendant of John URIE and Mary CUNNINGHAM.

A letter to me from Robin HUTCHISON (my Gt Uncle) in Aug 2004, including various notes about the WALTON family.

International Genealogical Index (IGI) – My own searches of the index, used mainly to double-check other sources. Not to be fully relied on by itself. Given the chance I like to look at the OPR microfilms (from which the IGI is transcribed), which tend to contain many more details than the IGI.

My apologies if I’ve missed any particular sources or credits that I should have given. I believe that these are my major sources.