Descendants of Charles Stewart of Atholl
The Stewart branch of the family probably originated in Blair Atholl in Perthshire. The earliest evidence appears as late as 1811. This is a marriage entry in the Blair Atholl and Strowan Old Parochial Register, as follows:
John Stewart married Margaret MacGlashan on 17 November 1811. John was 'in Glaicnacaisardoch'. This homestead was not shown on the maps of the period and no other mention of the name has been found.
See Notes at foot of page.
Margaret was ‘in Shireglas’, a large house on the south bank of the River Garry.
There was a similar entry in the Dull OPR, Dull being the parish on the west bank of the River Garry where Margaret - she was known as Kate - lived, and probably worked as a servant, at Shierglass.
Neither entries give the names of the couple’s parents. However, Margaret’s birthplace was given as Midlothian in the 1861 Census for Blair Atholl. An IGI entry confirms that she was born on 16 June 1782 to Peter MacGlashan and Isabell Robertson at Canongate, Edinburgh. Peter was a flax dresser, one who prepared flax yarn for the spinning machine. He married Isabell on 13 August 1775. The Edinburgh Marriage Register gives the church as Lady Yester’s, in High Wynd.
John Stewart’s father and mother are revealed in his death certificate dated 19 September 1855. If his age at death - 66 - is accurate, he was born in 1789 to Janet Campbell and
Charles Stewart at Craggan, a group of cottages on the Lude
estate.
See
Thomson's 1827 map.
Both father and son were masons. Unfortunately, there are no records, among the
many John Stewarts born at the time, which would confirm his birth. And no records of his parents’ marriage have been
found.
In an effort to track John and his ancestors, records culled from various sources are
discussed (and speculated upon) in the Notes below. Being a mason, John would likely have travelled
widely for work. In 1813 he was in the cathedral town of Dunkeld, where Kate
gave birth to their first child, Charles. Three others were born in Dunkeld
but, sadly, all died. By 1819 the family was back in the Blair Atholl
area, at Balintoul, where Isabella was born. By 1854 John was probably in poor health and
unable to work. From 18 March that year, a Mrs John Stewart of
Ballintoual received quarterly charity payments of 10s from the Kirk. These
continued up to 31 October 1859, when (rather late in the day) she became known
as ‘Widow Stewart’. There were
no further payments recorded in the Collections and disbursements book – she
died on 8 January 1860. John Stewart’s children Charles (b
1813) survived to found a line that took the Stewarts to Canada. He was a
mason, like his father. By 1846, he had made his way to Auchterarder, along
with his brother John. While there, he married Janet Stewart and shortly
afterwards set up home in Perth. He died there in 1889. There were 2 boys and 3
girls, one of whom - Margaret - married a joiner called Finlay McColl and moved
to Kelvinside, Glasgow, starting a lineage that ended up in Victoria, BC. Ann, born in 1815 in Dunkeld, only lived for a year.
Twins came next, born in 1816 in Dunkeld, but only
survived for a day. Of the last three children there are no birth
records in the Old Parish Registers: Isabella was born in Blair Atholl around 1819. In 1841
the family's next-door neighbour was a tailor called Charles Gray. Isabella
married him in 1843 and had 6 children. John was born around 1821 - see below. Ann was born around 1824. She was recorded in
Ballentoul in 1841, but thereafter disappears from the record. John Stewart (b 1821) John Stewart was a journeyman mason, so would
have moved around the county in search of work. While in Auchterarder in 1847
he married Jane McAinsh. Jane was born around 1826 in Fowlis Wester, the third
daughter of Isabella Maxton and Alexander McAinsh, who came from a line of
village shoemakers, The Maxtons were from Dollar, Clackmannanshire. The family
had probably moved to Perth by 1848 - all 6
children were born there. John died in 1883, while Jane survived until
1894. John Stewart’s children Isabella, born in 1848, has not been positively
identified in the 1871 and 1881 census records. It seems certain that, like
many a poor Scottish girl, she headed for London in the late 1860s to look for
work in service. In January 1881, while living in Chelsea, she had a son called
Russell Stewart Sime. The father, William Sime, a carpenter, hung around long
enough for the baptism of the child in March but probably vanished soon
afterwards. By 1888, mother and child had returned to Perth, where Isabella
married David Kemp, a carter, in a Free Church ceremony. Russell, however, was
adopted by Isabella’s parents, taking the Stewart surname. When her mother Jane
McAinsh died in 1894, he seems to have moved in with Isabella’s sister Maria in
Kinnoull Street, Perth. Isabella and David had probably gone to Ochtertyre
House (near Crieff) for work, though at some point they became known as
Russell’s official parents. When he married Isabella Smeaton in 1909, Russell
was an ironmoulder, described as the son of Isabella Kemp. Isabella died at Ochtertyre in 1920. Russell died
in Glasgow in 1939. Jane, born in 1851, died of TB in 1870. John was born in 1854 in Perth - see below. Maria, known as Hannie, was born in 1856 with the
unusual middle name of Hannon. She was a silk finisher who married a Postman
called William Reid at a Temperance hotel in Perth in 1891. She underestimated her age by 6 years on
the marriage entry! She died in Perth in
1927. Alexander McAinsh was
one of the few members of the family to make good. Born in 1859, he started as
a message boy, then a letter carrier, eventually becoming an Assistant
Inspector of Postmen in Perth. He married Isabella McGregor in 1894 and had two
children, Jane and Alexander. He died of a stomach ulcer in 1908. Jessie, born in 1865, married a house painter called
John Nairn in Perth in 1885 and had 2 children. The couple went to Dublin with
their surviving child, Jane (Jeannie).
After John died of cholecystitis in 1910, Jessie got married in 1919 to
Alexander Innes Gordon who was, curiously, another decorator. He died in 1923,
not in Dublin, but in Mansfield, Notts. Jessie died in Dublin in 1938. John Stewart (b 1854) John was born in
1854, the year before his father’s death. He was a quarrelsome man and, judging
by his wedding photograph (which no longer exists), a tall (6ft), severe and
ugly one with staring eyes, a squint and big feet. He was a drinking man who
was not much liked by his children. He had a range of occupations listed in the
various censuses, from Despatch Clerk to Timekeeper and Furniture Salesman. He
probably began working for the Scottish Cooperative Society in Perth,
transferring first to Dundee, where he married Elisabeth Inches in 1876, then
to Edinburgh and finally to Glasgow as a manager in the Drapery Department. The
couple had 10 children: 5 girls and 5 boys. His drinking seems to have led to
his demotion and eventual dismissal from the Coop. He died in 1912 in a Paisley asylum of General
Paralysis of the Insane. John Stewart’s
children Elizabeth Maxton, born in Dundee in
1877, took her middle name from her great grandmother on the McAinsh side. She
also went into the Coop (she remained unmarried) and became their first female
buyer (in the glove department). She died in Glasgow in 1959. Georgina was born in Edinburgh in 1879. She appears as George (M) on her
birth certificate, suggesting an error of classification, which was only
officially corrected in 1952: for “George” substitute Georgina; for
“M” substitute F. She married a butcher called James Johnston in
1900 and had 3 girls before they separated. She lived in the Dundee area and
was said to have brought up her daughters on her own - although their father
did make a reappearance for the 1921 census. James Johnston, the eldest of at least 11
children born to Peter Charlton Johnston and his 3 wives, disappeared from the
record after 1921 and his fate is unknown. Georgina died in Uddingston, Glasgow
in 1966. Her daughter Elizabeth
Inches was born in 1902 and married
Stephen Ponsford in Dunfermline in 1922.
All seven of their children were born in Broughty Ferry. With their
youngest, Patricia, they emigrated to New Zealand onboard RMS Ruahine on 23
April 1963. They lived at Porirua, Wellington, where Elizabeth died in 1975 and
Stephen in 1988. Georgina’s middle daughter Jeannie McAinsh Stewart
was born in Falkirk in 1905 and married Gerald McHugh in 1928. After he died in
1960, she married William Peter in Broughty Ferry in 1969. He died in 1978,
while Jeannie lived to 90, dying in in 1995. Georgina and James’s youngest daughter Georgina Stewart
was born in Broxburn, west of Edinburgh, in 1908. She married John Banner in
Glasgow in 1929 and had 4 children. John died in 1989, while Georgina died in
Uddingston in 1996. John Inches was born in 1881 in Glasgow. He started his
working life as a mason, after his grandfather. He signed up with the Royal
Horse & Field Artillery in 1899 and was sent to fight in the Second Boer
War in 1901 and 1902. He drove the horses that pulled the great artillery
pieces to the front. On his return to Glasgow, he was promoted to Corporal and
trained as a Bombardier. According to family recollection, he contracted a
disease in South Africa. This may have had a grain of truth – he died of skin
cancer in Glasgow in 1913. He never married. Alexander McAinsh was born in Glasgow in 1884. He trained on Clydeside as a ship’s
upholsterer and went to Liverpool to
look for work. He may have been in a reserved occupation that saved him from
being called up. In 1918 he married his landlord's daughter, Dorothy Allen, who
was 13 years his junior. They raised 3 girls and 2 boys. He died in Bootle in
1960, while Dorothy died in 1986. Their daughter Dorothy married Wilfred Hignett in 1939 and died in
1999. Their son Alan married Elsie Westbury in 1945 and died in 2005.
Their daughter Jean, who was blind, having had meningitis as a child,
married Ronald Jones, also blind, in 1948 and died in 2004. There were no
offspring. Their son John married Joan Tomey in 1959 and became a bank
manager. There were probably 3 children. He died in Crewe in 2016. Their youngest daughter Margaret Teresa was doing her nursing
training at Guy's Hospital in 1954 when she met Roy Clark, a medical student
who would later become an anaesthetist. Roy was the son of Raymond Clark, a
well-known cellist. They married in London in 1956 and sailed to New York 3 years
later, settling in Portland, Oregon. Aside from their hospital work, they ran a
home care business. The couple had two sons, Timothy and Graham, but divorced
in 1979. Margaret remarried in 1981 - to a carpenter called Raymond L Pease -
but they divorced sometime before 2003. She may have subsequently married a
Canadian university professor called Maurice Stewart. Jane McAinsh was born in Glasgow in 1887. A cash girl at the Scottish Coop, she
met William Francis Hamilton there
and married him in 1914. They had 2 boys and 2 girls, although one girl
survived for only a few weeks. She died in Glasgow in 1969. Thomas Ogilvie was born in Glasgow in 1889. A railway clerk, he married Janet Cannon
in 1916 and had two sons. He died in Glasgow in
1931 of a lung tumour, even though he was a non-smoker. His widow remarried in 1933 and died in Glasgow
in 1939. Their second son Charles Athole,
named after the uncle who was killed at Loos, was born in 1919 and died of
meningitis at 13 months. John Ogilvy, known as Ian, was
born in 1918, but disappeared from Glasgow in the mid-1930s. Some of his relatives believed he’d died in
his teens of TB. In fact he had enlisted in the RASC as a
Signalman in 1934 (by lying about his age). By 1936 he was in Coventry, a
Trooper in the Royal Tanks Corps. In 1939 he married Francesca Geoffrey-Smith
in South Tidworth, an army base in Wiltshire where they were both stationed. Francesca was born in Buenos Aires to a
university lecturer in English. Her sister Bride was a nun, Mother
Bridget, who became headmistress of several Catholic schools, in particular the
well-known St Mary's School in Ascot. By 1941 John was a Corporal and a year later an
Instructor, driving Churchill tanks and
lorries. He received a severe reprimand
for speeding in 1942. Soon after being sent to Normandy in 1944, he
became ill and was permanently discharged from the army. On 30 May 1948 John, with his wife and two
daughters, arrived in Buenos Aires onboard the SS Rippingham Grange, a refrigerated cargo ship. He was an
engineer and was, presumably, starting a job arranged through his wife's family
connections. But less than 2 years later, on 20 April 1950,
Francesca and the girls disembarked in London from the RMMV Highland Brigade
and made for Leamington Spa, where they set up home. John Ogilvie Stewart is presumed to have returned to his family at a later date. He worked
as a Midlands Electricity Board driver and later became a transport manager for
Seeboard in Deal, Kent. He died of a burst ulcer in Dover Hospital in 1973. Isabella Kemp was born in Glasgow in 1892. Known as Bella, she was pressurised into
becoming the family's housekeeper after her parents died in 1909 and 1912. She
escaped by falling pregnant and marrying Robert Rennie in 1915. Bob was a spirit salesman at the time. It is
not known if he was called up for military service. By 1922 he was unemployed.
Elizabeth, his sister-in-law, showed him an advert for jobs in Canada and
offered to pay his fare there. On 3 August 1923, with £3 in his pocket, Bob*
sailed to Canada, intending to settle in Winnipeg and find work as an
agricultural labourer. Bella followed a year later with their 3 girls -
Elizabeth (known as Elsie or Lynn), Jean (known as Jeanette) and Isabella
(known as Margo or Margot). They sailed from Glasgow on the SS Athenia's maiden
voyage to Quebec, heading for Regina, Saskatchewan. A son, Robert Stewart
Rennie, was born there, either in Montague St or Wallace St, in 1928 or 29. His
father Bob Rennie was a process worker at Imperial Oil's refinery, earning
$1680 a year (in 1931). After 1935,
Bob was said to have lost his job, at which point the family returned to
Glasgow to beg for support from Bella's sister Elizabeth. Her other sister,
Jane, was not impressed: the Rennies, she declared, had never bothered to stay
in touch when they were in Canada. Robert eventually got well-paid work in Bahrain. In 1938 Bella and her son Robert were onboard the
SS California bound for Bombay. They would have disembarked in Bahrain to join
Robert. But Bella hated the climate and refused to stay. So in 1940 she and her son sailed, via Calcutta,
to Los Angeles. They returned to Canada, possibly to Toronto, where her sister
Lynn lived. They were supported by funds remitted from Bahrain. In 1944 Robert sailed to Baltimore onboard the SS
Mark Hanna and joined his family in Toronto. He was a refinery foreman. How the Rennies ended up in Portland, Oregon is
not known. Bella died there (in Tigard) in 1969. Robert died in 1977 and was interred in the
Lincoln Memorial Park. *
Robert Rennie's document trail is of interest because of its quirkiness: every
time his name appeared on passenger manifests or immigration forms his age /
year of birth was incorrectly given - usually as 1898 instead of 1894. Perhaps
his Canadian passport had the wrong birth date and, during 30 years of
travelling, was never corrected. On
his official birth record of 23 February 1894, his parents' date of marriage
was incorrectly given as 16 April 1893. Actually, it was 10 June 1890. When
he married Isabella Stewart in 1915, the official record noted his mother as
Margaret Campbell. Actually, she was a step-mother of sorts (she was not
married to his father): his birth mother, Christina Smith, died in 1905. In
the 1901 census for Portobello in Edinburgh, his father, who was also called
Robert, was listed as William. His father was known as Robert Rainy in the
Glasgow electoral registers. On a
US immigration form in 1944, his wife (Isabella) was named Ethel. On another US immigration form
in 1951 Robert declared that he had landed in Halifax,
Nova Scotia in October 1920; but on his Canadian immigration form of August
1923, he said he had never lived in Canada before. (There are, unfortunately,
no shipping records that would confirm the 1920 event.) Bella
Stewart / Rennie’s children Elizabeth (Lynn) married Capt
Donald Layfield in Ontario after the War and had 2 sons. Her husband worked for
Monsanto chemicals and later for a prosperous company that made cab
fairings, founded by his son Brian.
Donald died at the age of 92 in Oakville in 2009, 2 years after the death of
the couple's first-born son, Ian. Lynn herself died in 1989. Jeanette married a British
Columbian sailor called Frank Russ, in 1942 in Toronto, where she lived. Russ,
a Petty Officer Telegraphist, was killed when his ship, the destroyer HMCS St
Croix, was torpedoed whilst on convoy duty in the Bay of Biscay on 20 September
1943. In 1952 Jeanette married Sherwood S Stutz, a US army major in Carson City
and went to live in College, Fairbanks. Their first child, Susan, was born in
1954 in Christian, Kentucky and the second, Douglas, was born in 1956 in
Oregon. The couple divorced before 1960. Jeanette died in Portland in 1996. Isabella (Margot) married Paul
Burgner in Multnomah in 1944. He was a naval officer who later became a doctor.
They had no children. After they divorced in 1971, Margot retired to Palm
Springs but returned to Portland, where she died in 2010. Robert Stewart
ran a successful truck accessory business after retiring from a career with a
newsprint company. He died in Toronto in 2009. Charles Athole was born in Glasgow in 1894. Reputedly the best-looking member of the
family, he volunteered as a Private in the Seaforth Highlanders and was killed
at the Battle of Loos in 1915. Maria Reid was born in Glasgow in 1895. The family knew her as Myra, though she
preferred to be called Jean. She is thought to have eloped in 1914 with David
Brown, a photographer from Arbroath, where they married by Warrant of the
Sheriff Substitute. Sadly, they separated before 1921 and eventually got a
divorce. Myra went to London, where she worked as a housemaid
in Portman Square. She may later have trained as a nurse. Returning to Scotland
at the start of the War, she took up a residential
position as PA to a wealthy family of solicitors. Later, she became the live-in
Housekeeper and Nurse to Wilfred Semple, one of the sons of the family. He left
her his house, furniture and car when he died in 1970. Myra herself
died in Paisley in 1981. William Kenneth was born in Glasgow in 1898. He was said to given the wrong age at
call-up and enlisted as a Private in the Gordon Highlanders. He was killed,
probably at the Battle of the Selle in
Flanders, almost the last action of the War, in 1918. NOTES Place names
See
1783 map by Stobie.
When John Stewart married Margaret MacGlashan in
1811, the Parish Clerk wrote down his abode as Glaicnacaisardoch. The
Gaelic translates as hollow-steep-dwelling. It hints at a house in a
steep-sided valley. There are plenty of such places in the area north of the River Garry to Glen Fender and lower
Glen Tilt. Since the Stewarts were associated with this area - Craggan and
Ballentoul - it is likely that Glaicnacaisardoch was here also. Craggan
(rocky place), John's birthplace, was a group of at least two cottages - Wester
and Easter - belonging to the Lude estate, at Craggan Corner, the point where
Wade's military road heads away from the old A9 at Kingisland towards Old
Blair. The following may help to account for the paucity
of records for our Stewart family. Baptisms As there were strong social and religious
pressures to baptise infants, it is thought that most children, even
illegitimate ones, were baptised. Not all baptisms were recorded in the
registers, however. This was either because parents might have had to pay for
the entry, or because of inefficiencies in the record-keeping system. Marriages As marriage registration was not compulsory, the
registers were not comprehensive. In Blair Atholl
they were not kept very well. There are no marriage entries at all from 14th
December 1781 to 26th August 1784. Deaths There are no death or burial registers for Blair
Atholl. The Minutes and the Accounts of the Kirk Sessions
recorded mortcloth payments and donations received, sometimes with the names of
the deceased attached. One such payment is likely to refer to Charles Stewart -
see below. Charles Stewart records Charles's name appears in his son John’s death
register entry of 1855. He was a mason, married to Janet Campbell. He was at
Craggan at the time of his son’s birth. This is the only definitive record of
his existence. Our Stewart family is presumed to have followed
the naming conventions of the day, at least for the male line. So, John and
Margaret’s firstborn son, Charles (born in 1813), was named after his paternal
grandfather, Charles. According to the
convention, John’s own paternal grandfather would have been born around 1745
and christened John. There are only three instances in the Blair
Atholl records of the mid-1750s of sons named Charles born to a John Stewart.
They are listed below and may or may not be ancestors of our Stewart family: 1) One was
born on 11 October 1757 to John Stewart and Elspeth Robertson in Pitagowan, N
of the River Garry, across from Struan (4 miles W of Blair Atholl). John was
from Bohally (E of Tummel Bridge) while Elspeth was from Dalinriach (W of
Tummel Bridge). After their marriage on 10 June 1755, the couple appear to have
moved north to Pitagowan, where Charles was born. This Charles Stewart probably
married Katharine Gow at Pitagowan on 30 May 1786. Four children were recorded
in the OPR: Janet (b 1789), Grissel (b 1792), John (b 24 June 1794) and
Margaret (b 1797). 2) Another
Charles Stewart was born on 5 March 1758 to John Stewart and Ann Stewart at
Easter Invervack, a homestead near Struan that was also known as Balnastewardoch.
Charles probably married Janet Ferguson there on 27 Dec 1783. Three children
were recorded in the OPR: Janet (b 1788), George (b 1790) and Alexander (b
1807). 3) A third
Charles Stewart birth took place on 18 April 1768 to John and Sarah Stewart at
Nether Bohespick (NW of Tummel Bridge). It is not known if, or to whom, he got
married. Other Charles Stewart records worth mentioning
are: 4) The
marriage of a Charles Stewart (no known birth information) to a Margaret
McDonald at Kindrochit (S of the River Garry near Struan) on 9 April 1776. 2
children were recorded in the OPR: Margaret (b 1784) and John (b 1 February 1789 at Calvine, N of the River Garry near
Pitagowan). 5) Entries
in the Kirk Session Accounts for 12 Feb 1764 and 1765 show that 10s charity was
paid for Charles Stewart a boy in Invertilt (later to be known as Bridge
of Tilt). 6) An
entry in the Accounts Ledger for 26th June 1774 shows that £1 charity was given
to Charles Stewart in Croftcrombie, a homestead near Croftmore in Glen
Tilt (around 2.5 miles from Bridge of Tilt). 7) An entry on the Collections page (No 122) of the
Heritor's Minutes and Accounts book for 1827 reads: 25
February - To the mortcloth from the friends of Charles Stewart late at Bridge
of Tilt - 4s [Scotland's People reference: CH2/430/8]. This refers to the new bridge over the Tilt,
built in 1822. Bridge of Tilt was half
a mile or so from Craggan, where our John Stewart was born. Accordingly, this
Charles Stewart is thought likely to be our John Stewart's father. The parish possessed two mortcloths -
fine and coarse. The amount paid in this instance - 4s - was probably for the
fine mortcloth, indicating that the deceased had been relatively affluent. On 20 April 1828 the Book refers to a
charity payment of 1s 6d to a Janet Stewart of Bridge of Tilt. The same amount
was paid on 7 December that year to a Janet Stewart, possibly the same woman,
of Kilmaveonaig (near Bridge of Tilt). Although it was common for a widow to
receive such payments, the Session clerk would usually have written the name
as: 'Widow Stewart'. This was not done consistently,
however, so it is possible that Janet was Charles Stewart’s widow. John Stewart records 1) A John
Stewart was baptised on 13 April 1755. His father was Neil Stewart of Balinloin
(near Shierglas), who married Isobel Robertson of Carrick (near Fincastle) on
11 Dec 1752. John’s own son Niel (sic) was baptised at Tomban of Pitaldonich
(near Struan) on 1 June 1789. Neil married Christian McKinzie on 17 Feb 1828
and a son, John, was born in 1832. Neil was a mason. He was recorded at Craggan
in the 1841 census; the next entry on the page was that of our own John
Stewart. However, no relationship between John and Neil Stewart has been
established. 2) In the
Kirk Session Minutes for 23 January 1763, a John Stewart in Ballintoul (between
Craggan and Bridge of Tilt) paid a fine of £5 2s for fornication with Katharine
McDonald. No pregnancy or child was mentioned. Had either of the pair been
married, the term "adultery" would likely have been used. It is
possible that John and Katharine were the parents of Charles Stewart just
before they got married - he is thought to have been born in 1763 or 1764,
though there is no record in the OPR. 3) On 1
September 1765 John Stewart in Ballintoul, probably the same man, a wright by
trade, repaired the east loft seats and communion table. On 29 September he was
paid 6s Scots for taking down a tent and laying it up in the Church. On 18th
May 1766 he was paid 14s for mending the east church loft and setting up a
tent. 4) On 8
May 1782, John Stewart, a mason in Bridgend of Tilt, was given a contract to
build a ‘strong stone bridge over the Garry near the Kirktown of Strowan,
for £83:10/- sterling’ [1]. 5) A John
Stewart, mason in Bridge of Tilt, presumably the same man, was contracted on 8
Jun 1789 to repair the bridge over the Water of Errochty at Kirktoun of Strowan
and to 'uphold his work' for ten years thereafter [1]. 6) In
1792, a John Stewart of Bridge of Tilt and an Alexander Stewart built a bothy in
Glen Tilt. They earned 1s 8d per day [1].
7) The
John Stewarts in 4), 5) and 6) above seem likely to have belonged to the same
family. Perhaps the following man was also a member of this family: On 11 November 1810, a John Stewart, mason in
Bridge of Tilt, married Elizabeth Stewart of Middlebridge (in Glen Fender).
They may have had a son, James, on 30 March 1820. John, Elizabeth and James were a
different family to our Stewarts, who were associated with nearby Craggan and
Ballintoul. On 26 Oct 1828 a mortcloth was rented for this John Stewart, late
of Bridge of Tilt. A month earlier Elizabeth Stewart of Bridge of Tilt had
received 1s 6d charity from the Kirk. It is possible that this John Stewart
came from the Struan area - one was
born in Pitagowan in 1794. Interestingly, he had a Charles Stewart father (but
his mother was Katharine Gow). 8) In the
1817 Census of the Stewarts of Atholl, compiled by Stewart of Garth, a John
Stewart, mason, was listed at Dunkeld with 4 children. He was descended from the
Stewarts of Fincastle (a glen north of the River Tummel), which may have been
part of the Shierglas estate in Dull Parish. This could have been our John Stewart – he had 2
sons and 2 daughters, born in 1813, 1815 and (twins) in 1816 – were it not for
the fact that the twins were born and died on the same day in 1816, so would
probably not have appeared in the 1817 Census data. While it is true that our
John Stewart was in Dunkeld at the time (his first 4 children were born there),
he probably came from the Blair Atholl area, rather than Fincastle. Information
about the Atholl Stewarts was so sparse as to be almost non-existent in the
1817 Census, so might explain his absence. 9) On 17
March 1824 a John Stewart, mason, and an Alastair Stevenson quoted for the
construction of the new church at Blair Atholl. Their price was £1255 with £35
for materials from the old church taken into account. A John Angus from Dunkeld
won the contract. John Stewart's abode was not given [1]. 10) There is
an intriguing entry in the Heritors' Minutes and Accounts for 16 April 1820
stating that John Stewart of Craggan paid a fine of 18s 6d sterling for
fornication with Margaret Stewart of Haugh. The latter was either Haugh of
Blair or Haugh of Urrard, both low-lying areas near the River Garry. By this
time, the word "adultery" was seldom used by the Session, so it is
unclear if the fornicator was married or single. The misdeamour does appear to
have been dealt with fairly leniently (at the time, it was common for fornicators
in Blair Atholl to be fined £1 or more).
It is possible that if this really were our married John Stewart, he
would have been referred to the Presbytery of Dunkeld to explain himself, as
used to happen with adulterers. 1 "Church and Social History of
Atholl", by John Kerr, Perth & Kinross Libraries, 1998 2 The locations of many homesteads and townships
are given in "A Gazetteer of Place Names in Blair Atholl Parish" at
http://www.borenich.co.uk/Place_names.html 3 This writer is indebted to transcriptions of
the earliest Blair Atholl Kirk Session Minutes provided by the webmaster of the
Borenich website. The Minutes themselves appear on the Scotland's
People website. Unfortunately, there is
a gap from 1780 to 1843. The Accounts, however, are uninterrupted. The
Collections columns show donations, collection box returns, mortcloth dues,
marriage services, fines for sexual misdemeanours and rents. Curiously, there
are no payments for entering baptisms in the Register. The Distributions
columns show charitable payments to the poor, loans, payments for services and
materials and for salaries. For political and social interest, this writer's
transcription of an entry for 15th May 1741, is appended here: "Resolutions, viz 1 That lists of all the begging poor be laid
before the meeting of Monday next, 2 That the said list be then purged, the non
Indigent cast out, and badges given to the really Indigent, therewith to
travell the parish, and some method devised not only to restrain the
non-indigent from begging, but to furnish them Some How, [with some means of
support?] 3 That the poor of other parishes be furtherwith
ordered, and sent home to their own parishes, and a proper person em-ployed at
the expense of the parish, to clear the parish of such vagabonds. 4 That the Session exert themselves to raise what
funds they can with the utmost speed and diligence and with such funds as they
with the assistance of the Heritors can raise, supply such of the poor who are
unable to travel, and also buy lint to be spun by such poor as can spin and
they to be payd in meall for their work or spinning."
[words in italics are quotes]
References