Colin Sievwright, weaver and poet, 1819 -95; part 2

This week I went through to Forfar in Angus where my GG grandfather lived most of his life. The object of the exercise was to get my hands on copies of his published poems which are in the reference section of Forfar library.

I found in two of the 4 books dedications in his own hand, so my gg grandfather must have handled these very books.

It seems that his poems about the people, the folklore and the places he knew were published weekly in various local papers and were so popular that many locals funded the publishing of at least one of the books. Benefactors included the Countess of Strathmore - the grandmother of the future Queen Mother.

He acknowledges that he takes his ideas from other works and offers his works in a spirit of "take it as you find it". When writing in prose he demonstrates a fine style and eloquence, quite remarkable for his circumstances.

A touching poem "Robin's awa" laments the early death of a brother. He certainly had a brother Robert but he didn't die until 1901 aged 76, so this is a mystery. He mentions a sister and her Johnnie. I think this refers to Isabella who married John Smart.


This page is from "The Bards of Angus and Mearns" and, what a thrill! has a photograph of him. He seems to have been highly thought of at the time.


First post about Colin here

Tree here

Charline Clark Shearer, born 100 years ago today!

My mother would be 100 today, if she were still alive. Thought it would be nice to remember her today with a piece about her.
She was the first child of Willie Shearer and Charline Amelia Annie McKenzie Clark. She was born in the Lodge House of Kincaid House in Milton of Campsie where Willie was the chauffeur. After the war Willie was chauffeur at Millburn House near Dalserf. I have piano music with her name Lena Shearer, Millburn Lodge. She was a good pianist, had passed exams and gave lessons. She played country dance music for the women's guild. I still have her piano which is sadly seldom played.
She worked as a typist in the Labour Exchange. She was an ARP warden during the war.
She met my dad at dancing lessons. He was not a great dancer. Her petname for him was QQS - quick, quick, slow.
They married in 1942. After the war they lived with her parents and her brother Colin and his family all in a council house in Knightswood. They got their own house in 1949. She had many miscarriages before I finally came along in 1950.
She was an intelligent woman but wasn't allowed to go out to work after marriage. The husband would provide. She knitted and made my clothes. She flung herself into church work, making crafts to sell and organising events like fashion shows. She liked crosswords. She passed her driving test but was too nervous to drive.
She was funny, had a wicked sense of humour and a fine turn of phrase including Scots words and phrases.
In the late sixties my parents discovered foreign holidays and went to Majorca, Tenerife, Sorrento, Lake Garda and went on a Rhine Cruise.
She had a stroke in 1973 and life changed dramatically. My father looked after her well, having to learn to cook and work a washing machine.
She died in 1985 sadly never knowing her son-in-law or her grandchildren.

Willie Shearer 1881 - 1960

Grandad with me in front and my pal Elizabeth Ross behind

My grandad William Corbett Shearer was born to David Shearer and Nicholas Hyslop Corbett in Maxwellton, Dumfries. In 1901 census he was a cab driver at the Kenmure Arms in New Galloway near Castle Douglas.


He was working as a chauffeur at Kincaid House in Milton of Campsie when he married Charline Clark in 1909. My mother Lena was born in Kincaid Lodge on 1st September 1910.

During the Great War he was with the Army Service Corps, Military Transport and served in France. I have some cards he sent from France to Lena between 1915 -1919 at Millburn Lodge, near Dalserf in the Clyde Valley where he was chauffeur.







Later they moved to Glasgow where he was chauffeur to Sir Daniel MacAulay Stevenson, who had been Lord Provost of Glasgow between 1911-1914.

In 1922 they were living at the prestigious 5 Parkgrove Terrace in Glasgow where my uncle Colin was born. This sounds like the home of an employer.

He was also employed by James Morton of 7 Hughenden Terrace.  I have a postcard sent to him c/o this address from actress Doreen Morton in Jamaica in 1936 commenting on the roads there.

I don't think he ever owned a car himself but he was still going his bike in his seventies!

In Westbourne Terrace Glasgow

Mary Ann Price

I have an admiration for Mary Ann who seems to have flown in the face of convention! She had 11 children, only 3 of whom were born legitimate. We shouldn't judge the lives of our ancestors whose circumstances were very different to ours.

Mary Ann's mother Mary Ann Holmes is the sister of my GG grandmother Jane Holmes.

Mary Ann Holmes married Joseph Price in 1843 in St Peter's, Wolverhampton and by 1850 they were living in Dalry in Ayrshire. They were, as far as I can see, the first of the Black Country miners in my family to move to Scotland.

In 1851 Joseph is an ironstone miner in Dalry. In 1861 he is an ironstone miner in Beith and they have 3 children Joseph Price junior, Mary (Ann) and Margaret Price. Sometime in the next decade Jane Holmes Rolinson's family and Joseph and Mary Ann Price all move to Cumnock.

In February 1871 Mary Ann aged 16 is married to her cousin Matthew Rolinson age 24. They have 3 children Jean/Jane Rolinson, Margaret Rolinson and John Dudley Rolinson. Neither Matthew nor Mary Ann can write so their surname is spelt various ways according to how it is interpreted by others. Mary Ann has a fourth child in 1876 recorded as Aaron Price or Rollison. On his birth certificate she states that her husband is not the father and that they have been apart since 1875. This must have been pretty scandalous and no doubt caused some family strife since their mothers were sisters.

In 1881 Mary Ann is with her parents in Auchinleck and the children with her are Jean, 9, John, 4 and Aron Robinson, 3. She is 26 and working in a woollen factory. I don't know where daughter Margaret is. She dies in 1883 but I can't find her in the 1881 census. Husband Matthew is living with his parents.

I find a birth for an Agnes Rollison in 1881 born in Crookedholm near Kilmarnock (as Rorison!). Payment of about £1 to scotlandspeople shows the mother to be Mary Ann Price and Matthew Rolinson the father. But there is a note in the margin. Matthew is not the father and Mary Ann is brought to the Sheriff Court in Kilmarnock to explain herself. (I wonder who told on her!) She claims ignorance, which can hardly be the case after Aaron's birth certificate. However the Sheriff takes pity on her and she is admonished. I found the report in the Cumnock Chronicle. Sadly baby Agnes dies a few months later as does daughter Margaret. Another fatherless child James is born and dies at 8 months in 1885. Her parents die in 1884 and 1885 so she is alone with the children. Or is she?

Later in December 1885 Catherine Ross is born in Cronberry to Mary Ann and James Ross, a coal miner. The family move to Kirkintilloch and have 3 more children Hugh Ross 1887, Mary Ann Ross 1889 and Elizabeth Ross 1895.

In 1904 James Ross and Mary Ann Price undergo an irregular marriage in Glasgow witnessed by her sister Fanny Price and husband Charles Dickens. An irregular marriage is one sworn in front of witnesses usually after the couple has been living together for some time rather than being married by a minister. In it Mary Ann states that she is a widow.

However I checked up on her husband/cousin Matthew. He does not die until 1923. So she has lied again. It's hard to believe that she did not know he was alive but maybe there was no contact between the the Price and Rolinson families after the parents died.

When son Aaron Price marries, he gives his father as Joseph Price (his grandfather) and his mother's maiden name as Rolinson, which is no doubt what he has been told!

Link to Mary Ann here

Sievwrights in New Zealand

I have been doing some work today on the descendants of Colin Sievwright who went to New Zealand.

David Burnett Sievwright 1845-1931 (tree here) and his family emigrated some time between 1873- 1881*. He was a shoemaker. I wasn't making too much progress until I tried a google search. I am indebted to the New Zealand government for putting old newspapers online.

I found several mentions of their daughter Annie McKenzie Sievwright including her getting school prizes in 1881 for buttonholes and good attendance.

There are several court cases in which D B Sievwright appears involving fairly petty squabbles and verbal abuse. I particularly enjoyed the one in 1882 where a man is accused of assaulting Mrs Sievwright (Helen Grant). It seems a cow got into their garden and when the owner Mason came to retrieve it she demanded money for the damage. The judge dismissed the case saying "Mrs Sievwright was possessed of a hasty temper and it was evident she had no control over herself at the time and did not know what occurred."

Their son, James Dickson Sievwright 1863-1947 was a journalist and he too was involved in a court case involving slander over a business deal that went sour. He was defended by a Mr A B Sievwright which turns out to be his son Archibald Burnett Sievwright 1890-1978 who graduated LLB in 1913 and whose photo above is published here


* Update: they arrived on the Oamaru in Otago on  17 Feb 1875 having left Glasgow on 30 November the previous year. Record here.

Cornish miners in Loudoun parish, Ayrshire

Ladyton Loch near Loudoun Kirk

I'm related to these people by marriage but I got interested in them because of the similarities with my miners from the Black Country and because Loudoun parish is my home patch.

One of my Price descendants married a Burley in 1900. William Burley, a miner, was born in Loudoun, lived in Glengyron Row, Cumnock, where both my ancestors and David's lived. Further research, back a generation, finds his parents Thomas Burley and Amelia Clary marrying in October 1872 in Loudoun parish. They lived in Loudoun Rows just outside Galston. His father Arthur Burley was a copper miner. Witnesses on the certificate were James Phillips and Ellen Burley.

It seems that tin and copper miner families including Burley, Phillips, Chynoweth, Harris, Luke, Bunney, Mudge and Toy all emanated from Cornwall and moved to Loudoun from around 1867. I think they were brought in because of a strike* but they went on strike too.

On 26 July 1872,  3 related couples got married in Loudoun Parish. There must have been some party that night!

Arthur Burley married Ellen Jane Phillips
Elizabeth Ann Burley married James Chynoweth
Elizabeth Ann Chynoweth married Edwin Harris

Initially it seems they stuck together with their Cornish countrymen. I try to imagine how hard it would be for the locals to understand them and vice versa.

I found a much later link though. McMeekin descendant John Murdoch McMeekin married a Luke/Bunney grand-daughter Elizabeth Ann Bunney McHoull in 1914.

Burleys here
Chynoweths here
Phillips here

* 3rd Statistical account of Scotland: Ayrshire by John Strawhorn and William Boyd 1951 page 523

"In the 1860s there arrived in Galston a group of Cornish tin-miners as strikebreakers including Chynoweths, Burleys and Lukes, who still figure among the local families, Some of these were Methodists and held meetings which attracted some following. The original Methodist groups has not survived but a group which hived off from them formed themselves in 1871 into a company of Open Brethren whose present day successors number about 60."

Update August 2022

I haven't found any other evidence of strike breaking. But I did find an article in the Glasgow Herald 12th November 1866 that  Baird of Gartsherrie  was recruiting miners from Cornwall to come to work in mines in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire. There was a local shortage of miners and many had gone to be shale miners, whereas in Cornwall there were many out of work (tin and copper) miners. They were offered an engagement of 12  months and accommodation. But for every married couple, there had to be two single men as accommodation was in short supply. The wages were favourable compared to Cornwall and some 6-700 men had arrived in the last fortnight.  Hurlford Colliery was the only Ayrshire place mentioned in the article. It does mention that were were Wesleyans and most had brought a large family bible with them.

Donnan family of Monreith by Glasserton

Garlieston Harbour at low tide

Stewart Donnan was the wife of William McMeekin mentioned in a previous post. With such an interesting girl's name, her family merited further investigation.

I first found Stewart in a census with a William McMeekin in Lancashire and was doubtful it was the right McMeekin because of the location. I found eventually the marriage in 1870 to William McMerken (a new variant!) in Liverpool and got her surname from that. It was easy to find her then. She is the oldest of the 10 children of George Donnan innkeeper at Monreith and Helen Milroy. Here's the family on my ancestry tree.

They were both in their mid thirties by the marriage. I wonder what took them so long?

They both were born in the Machars (Wigtownshire) he in Sorbie about 1834 and she in 1836 in Monreith by Glasserton.

In 1861 she is a servant in Sorbie. I can't locate him in 1861 but in 1851 he was a sailor age 16 with his Flinn grandparents at Pouton in the parish of Sorbie (near Garlieston). Surely they knew each other then?

They lived at 63 Latham Street in Kirkdale (Liverpool dockland) from the 1871 census on. He was a mariner.

It is always worth checking out the neighbours. In the same house in 1881 are William Anglesea born Jersey and wife Agnes born Scotland. A marriage check 1877 shows she is Agnes Donnan, a younger sister. A few doors away at no 59 are Catharine Donnan age 26 and husband John Williams a mariner and baby son Albert.

In 1891 census they are still together at no 63 except in the meantime Agnes's husband has died and she has a new one. Similarly sister Catherine and her second husband are next door at no 65 and sister Jane Donnan, 40, is visiting. So 4 sisters in 2 neighbouring houses!

In 1901 William McMeekin has died. At no 63 there's Stewart and daughter Ellen sister Agnes and husband and children and brother Maxwell Donnan visiting, at no. 65 sister Catherine husband and children.

So, in case I've lost you, 5 of the Donnan children are at Latham Street in Kirkdale at some point.
Of the others they are mainly in Wigtownshire except for the youngest Robert Donnan who emigrated to the USA in 1910 and died in Hartford Connecticut.

Until writing these posts, I hadn't realised that William's sister Jane McMeekin and husband David Fraser also were also in Kirkdale in 1881 and 1891. Who went first?

Abraham Yates and Ann Rolinson

I first saw the names Abraham Yates and Ann Rolinson as witnesses on the marriage certificate of my great great grandparents John Rolinson and Jane Holmes in 1839 in Rushall, Staffordshire. Ann, I assumed, was John's sister. She is in the 1841 census with her parents aged 18. I thought no more of it, but the name Abraham Yates stuck in my mind.

While investigating the censuses of my great grandparents John and Emma who were in Cumnock, Ayrshire in 1871 and 1881 and in Calderbank, Lanarkshire I moticed that the lodger in 1871 Joseph Hunt pops up again in 1881 and in 1891 living very close by with a wife Louisa. I had to look for a marriage. He married Louisa Yates in 1874 in Glengyron Row, Cumnock. Her parents were "Abel Yates" and "Hannah Rolleston". Could this be Abraham and Ann? Versions of Rolinson I have seen include Rolieson, Rollason, Rowlinson, Robinson even Roberston, so it was quite possible. The marriage certificate was well worth the £1.20 fee. Normally you get the bride and groom's age, status, occupation, address, parents and whether deceased or not, father's occupation and 2 witnesses. On this certificate because Joseph was illiterate his x mark was witnessed by Benjamin Yates and Ann Maria Yates. They turn out to be a son and a daughter-in-law of Abraham and Ann and proof I was on the right lines. When I got Ann Rolinson Yates' death certificate it gave different parents to John's so I thought they were maybe cousins instead. Since the informant of the death of a person is quite often a child or son-in-law and may only know the deceased as "gran" they may be mistaken in the information they give. The only thing for it was to send for the marriage certificate from 1842 in England at a cost of £9.25 to get more accurate information. Statutory records in England start in 1837, earlier than Scotland which 1855. But you need to send for the certificate, you can't just download an image. When it arrived it confirmed her father was John, a miner, which fitted perfectly. Mother's names were not registered on English certificates, at that time anyway.

Abraham and Ann followed her brother John Rolinson to Cumnock. They had 9 children born in England and they all stayed in Scotland apart from Eli Yates and wife Ann Maria Colbourn, the aforementioned Ann Maria Yates on the marriage certificate. Many of the Yates were in Auchinleck and Dalmellington (Benwhat) and I have been talking to one of their descendants, now in Northamptonshire not so far from where they started out.

The strangest thing of all is that in the 1901 census my great great aunt Ann Rolinson Yates, a widow of 78, is still living in Glengyron Row next door to my father-in-law, David McMeekin, a boy of 8!

You can see Abraham Yates on my tree here

1901 Cumnock

John McMeekin & Helen Flinn from Newton Stewart

Sorbie Kirk in Wigtonshire where John and Helen's banns were read

The McMeekins have been hard to find because of the number of variations in spelling. Nowadays we often get it spelt with CH instead of K but not once have I seen this in the past, We've had McMeken, McMeikan, McMikin, McMickan, McMeckan, McMiekan, McMeeking and similar combinations. I have now learnt to do "wild card" searches where an * represents any one or more letters eg m*m*k*n

John McMeekin (McMickan) was born on 10 Jan 1811 in the parish of Penninghame in Wigtonshire which turns out to be Newton Stewart or thereabouts. I can't find a marriage locally for his parents leading me to suspect they may have come over from Ireland.

He married Helen Flinn in 1835. Her father Peter Flinn was definitely from Ireland probably county Antrim. He was still alive in 1841, 1851 and 1861 censuses and buried in the churchyard above.

John was a shoemaker in Newton Stewart in 1841 and 1851. Some time in the 1850s the family moved up the road to Cumnock in Ayrshire and he carried on shoemaking until about 1863 when he is a labourer.

They had at least 8 children and 6 of them moved to Cumnock with them. Around this time there are several records:
1859 son David McMeekin a miner marries Margaret Cunningham in Ochiltree
1861 census John 58, Helen 59, Elizabeth 21, Mary 18, Jane 12 and 2 lodgers
1861 daughters Elizabeth and Mary McMeekin have illegitimate children
1862 son Andrew McMeekin a miner marries an English girl Mary Sparks in Cumberland but moves to Cumnock
1863 daughter Ann McMeekin marries Peter McCulloch a baker from Wigtonshire in Cumnock, moves back to Wigtonshire. Has 3 children in 8 years.
1863 daughter Elizabeth McMeekin marries miner John McKay and has 7 more children in the next 15 years
1863 David's wife dies of scarlet fever after birth of a daughter who also dies.
1864 Andrew is killed in a rock fall in a Cumnock pit. His wife and baby daughter also die that year.
1865 daughter Agnes McMeekin marries a miner John Ross in Cumnock. A baby is born before 9 months has elapsed and they are in bother with the Kirk Session. They have 8 children in 14 years.
1869 daughter Jane McMeekin marries a miner David Fraser, has 7 children in 12 years. They move to Liverpool (near her brother William) by 1881 where he works as a docker.
1869 son David dies of chronic bronchitis leaving 2 orphans
1870 eldest son William McMeekin, a sailor, marries Stewart Donnan from Monreith, Wigtonshire in Liverpool. He witnessed the 1869 marriage of Jane in Cumnock. He lived with his Flinn grandparents in Garlieston in 1841 and 1851.
1871 census John 68 is a mason's labourer, cannot work, wife Helen 70 are looking after the 2 orphaned grandchildren

John dies in 1876 of chronic bronchitis and Helen in 1880 of hemiplegia.

We are descended from Elizabeth's illegitimate son. I can find no mention of her in the Kirk Session records which may have given the father's name.

There are 2 other unusual things.

John was born in 1811 to John McMickan and Mary McCreddie. But they had another son John born in 1816. Quite often the first named died. It is however not unheard of to have 2 living children with the same name (big John and wee John)? In traditional Scottish naming patterns the first son is named after the father's father, the second after the mother's father, the third after the father's oldest paternal uncle and so on. So it is possible that this is what happened.

Secondly Helen Flinn is twice referred to as Alice Flinn. The first time was in the Old Parish marriage records. She was from Sorbie parish and the record there has Alice but the record in John's parish of Penninghame has her as Helen. All through the censuses she is referred to as Helen but on her death certificate she is Alice again. All very strange.

You can see them on my tree here

Colin Sievwright, weaver and poet

I was surprised to find out that my great great grandfather Colin Sievwright was a published poet, mentioned in a database of labouring class poets at Nottingham Trent University. Granny failed to mention this. Or I failed to remember it!

He was born about 1819 in Brechin, Angus (to Solomon Sievwright and Martha Burnett.

He married Annie McKenzie in 1842 and they had 4 sons and a daughter, Jessie Sievwright, my granny's mother.

Granny's given names were Charline Amelia Annie McKenzie. Don't know about the Amelia or Charline but now I know where Annie McKenzie came from!

It seems that Colin was the oldest of a large family and went to work in the linen mills from the age of eight.

In 1841 census he was in Kirriemuir working as a Linen Handloom Weaver. He married Annie there the following year. He wrote about her in a poem Annie was my dearie, O quoted in an out of print book: One Hundred Modern Scottish Poets. I have yet to find the full text.

His first work was published in 1866

The sough o' the shuttle : or poems and songs
by Sievwright, Colin.
Dundee: Printed By Robert Park, 1866.

In the 1871 census he is in Forfar listed as a Starchmaker in factory and poet

Other works are

Love lilts o' the braes o' Angus / Colin Sievwright.
by Sievwright, Colin.
Dundee: Weekly News Office, 1878.

Rhymes for the children of the church : with an introductory note by the lord bishops of St. Andrews
by Sievwright, Colin.
Brechin: D. H. Edwards, 1879.

A garland for the ancient city : or, love songs of Brechin and its neighbourhood, with historical notes. 2nd ed
by Sievwright, Colin. Brechin: D. H. Edwards, 1899.

He lost his Annie in 1874. By 1891 he was living with one of his sons James D Sievwright a customs officer in Wales where he died in 1895. Son Thomas Wildman Sievwright was a market gardener in Arbroath and another son David Burnett Sievwright a shoemaker went to New Zealand and my great granny went to Aberdeen.

One of his poems appears online on another blog

I think I am going to have to go through to Angus as they have copies of his works in their reference library! (I did! see this post  and more about Colin here)

This is the link to Colin on my tree