NOT ONLY FOOLS & HORSES – ‘SCOTCH CHAPMEN’
in England 1660-1800
On 20 Aug 1807, Catherine MILLAGAN married my 5xgreat-uncle William
NELSON. Both were born in Buckingham. How, I wondered, did a name like MILLAGAN arrive in the small English town that
was Buckingham?
I discovered that Catherine was the great-grand-daughter of David
MILLAGAN, a linen draper who married and settled in Newton Longville, Bucks
in 1706. He was one of five MILLAGANs who arrived about 1690 : a James MILLAGAN with four
others, probably his adult children, named James, Andrew, Mary and David. And there was a probable brother of James, a John MILLIGAN in Norfolk.
In hunting them down, I found to my surprise many other Scottish-sounding
names in 17th and 18th century Newport Pagnell, Buckingham, Olney and nearby Bucks villages, with links
to other counties in England. The names identified so far include:
ARMSTRONG, ARTHUR, ATCHISON, BEATY, BELL, BLACKLOCK, BRYAN, BRYDEN,
BUCHANAN, CARLILE, CORRIE, CRICHTON, CROSBY, DICKSON, DYMOKE, FROWD/FROUD,
GOWAN/McGOWAN, GRIERSON, HAMILTON, HANNEY/HANNAH, HARKNESS, HOLIDAY, IRVING,
JARDINE, JOHNSTON(E), LITTLE, MACDOWELL, MAXWELL, MILLAR, PASLEY, PATTERSON,
PERRY, PRESLEY, RENNY, ROUTLEDGE, ROY, STEELE, WAUGH and WELCH.
Clearly, this was a considerable community and not just a stray Scot
hitching up with a local girl and settling down, but when I asked local and
family historians about it, no-one could tell me more. It turns out this is largely uncharted territory.
It is not hard to understand why. These
folk were dissenters in England when dissent was illegal or barely tolerated,
so records are in short supply; they were Scots migrating from parishes that
may not have started registers until after they left; they were travellers
whose activities may be recorded anywhere in England or Scotland, or not
at all; they were lowland Scots whose names seldom start with ‘Mac’ and so
can be mistaken as English – and they were heavily involved in the lace trade,
the history of which has received amazingly little attention. They also seem to fall between two stools of history: local historians of England
haven’t focused on them because they are Scots and Scottish historians haven’t
tracked them into England. On every count, they are hard to hunt.
So for the benefit of others who find themselves fishing in these
difficult waters, here are some of my discoveries.
Why did they migrate?
William PATERSON, we are told, was a farmer’s son from Dumfriesshire
who left after the Restoration to escape religious persecutions - “with the
traditional Scots pedlar’s pack on his back” he made his way south and, amongst
other achievements, established the Bank of England – which started out in
Lothbury, London, where the First Scotch Church worshipped.
This little story, whether accurate or not, gives several important
clues:
- being a pedlar or chapman was a traditional job for Scots. In
fact, there were thousands of them walking or riding the main trade routes
of England in the 16th and 17th centuries. For example, 134 chapmen, predominantly Scottish, were registered in Tetbury,
Gloucestershire in 1697/8. Many settled down, briefly or for good, in the towns and villages along these
routes. If successful, they became drapers, merchants or gents. So we should not be surprised to find Scots settling in England at early dates
and the trade routes of England are good places to look for them.
- post-Restoration, there were religious persecutions to escape. Charles
II promised not to force bishops and Anglicanism back down Presbyterian
Scottish throats but that’s what he did, in the 1670s and 1680s, during
the “Killing Times”. Unsurprising then that travelling Scots might decide to stay in England where
the persecution, though still severe, was slightly less so, especially
if they could make a home with welcoming dissenter communities like those
in Newport Pagnell, Bucks and Reading, Berks - and, of course, London.
- the words ‘pedlar’ and ‘chapman’ do not necessarily mean ‘poor’. Probate
inventories of travelling pedlars and chapmen and those who settled as
drapers show they carried goods of considerable value. Those who engaged more fully in the lace trade could become immensely wealthy
lace merchants [though also bankrupt during periods when lace was not fashionable!]. And it looks like they were often members of well-heeled, landed and merchant
families in Scotland.
Early examples : MAXWELLs and BLACKLOCKs
William MAXWELL, gent of Newport Pagnell, Bucks wrote his Will on
15 Jan 1718, describing property he owned there and in Cranfield, Beds. He also left his son George his estate in New Abbey, Kirkcudbright “commonly
called by the name of Nethergate Annat Land and Barbeth… also that croft
of land commonly called the Fryeryard”. He names sisters Agnes, Jean, Nicholas, Margaret and Catherine, presumably resident
in Scotland, wife Sarah and children Robert, George and Magdalen [who married
Ambrose GREGORY of Newport Pagnell]. His will witnesses were Robert and Martha BRITTAN.
This William MAXWELL was one of the earliest Scottish arrivals in
Newport – he started producing babies there in 1679, appears in a property
deed dated 1684 and by 1702 he is one of the five trustees of the brand new
Independent Meeting house [built by Robert BRITTAN snr], along with Robert
BRITTAN jnr, Thomas RIDER, Thomas SMITH and John BLACKLOCK. John BLACKLOCK was [probably] another Scot; all five were involved in the lace
trade. In 1705, William MAXWELL was the assignee in a commission of bankruptcy against
John MILLAGAN of Watton, Norfolk. He was the overseer of the Will of James BRITTAN, lace merchant of Newport Pagnell
in 1694, executor for John BLACKLOCK in 1709 and overseer for Nelson BLACKLOCK’s
Will in 1711. The BRITTANs were not Scottish but an eminent dissenter family in Newport and
Bedfordshire.
I haven’t tracked down William’s exact origins in Scotland but a MAXWELL
researcher says he was most likely part of the Kirkhouse MAXWELLs who held
the lands of Upper and Lower Barbeth. They were Presbyterian, substantial landowners and Scots gentry. Most sons were well-educated and some attended university so William would have
arrived in England with both money and a good education. Proof of this lies in a funeral sermon preached by Newport Pagnell’s first Independent
Minister Rev John GIBBS on 11 Apr 1697 “On the Occasion of the Sudden Death
of William MAXWELL, A Pious and Hopeful Young Scholar, belonging to Harvard
Colledge, in Cambridge, New-England.”
This young scholar was the son of the first William MAXWELL, senior,
and wife Sarah [nee STANKLIFF, daughter of Martha GIBBS previously BARNES
and STANKLIFF, whose third husband was the said preacher Rev John GIBBS]. William MAXWELL senior’s other son George died unmarried in Newport Pagnell in
1732/3, taking the name with him, and leaving all his property to his uncle
BARNES and two kinsmen from prominent dissenter families, Gresham HAKEWILL
and Thomas TRAVELL.
So the MAXWELLs were clearly well-off before they arrived in Newport
and were deeply connected with local dissenter families, so closely that
William MAXWELL senior and wife Sarah were buried in the same tomb in Newport
Pagnell churchyard with Rev John and Martha GIBBS.
The BLACKLOCKs on the other hand seem to have been somewhat less well-off
and I suspect that William MAXWELL, who executed and oversaw two of their
Wills, was one of their main goods suppliers since, in the sole article I’ve
found about Scottish chapmen, Roger Leitch states: “It is known that certain
chapmen travelled for particular merchants”. The BLACKLOCKs were widely spread in England – so far I’ve found linked ones
in Newport Pagnell Bucks, St Ives Hunts and Fulbourn Cambs. They are probably connected also to Thomas BLACKLOCK, linen draper of Reading,
Berks who had family and business connections in Carlisle, Cumberland.
John BLACKLOCK, laceman of Newport Pagnell, married Mary NELSON in
next-door Willen in 1683 and had four sons: William, Andrew, Nelson and James. Like William MAXWELL, he was one of the original trustees of the Independent
Meeting House in 1702. In his Will of 1709, John left money for the dissenting minister to preach his
funeral sermon and named John HARKNESS gent of St Ives, Hunts and John PATTERSON
gent of Cambridge as his executors alongside William MAXWELL. From his Will of 1732, we know that John PATTERSON was leaseholder for the Independent
Meeting House in Green Street, Cambridge and had a stall at Stourbridge Fair
in Cambs.
Nelson BLACKLOCK, son of John and himself a lace merchant of Newport,
died aged 21 in 1711, naming William MAXWELL as overseer, leaving his property
to his brothers and stepmother Frances. Brother Andrew was then a linen draper in St Ives, Hunts but when he died in
1717, he was a chapman of Fulbourn, Cambs and one of his executors was William
JARDINE, linen draper of Cambridge.
Andrew BLACKLOCK’s son Nelson jnr provides an interesting footnote
to the family story. It seems he was a naughty boy, forging a Fulbourn property
deed, then escaping into the Navy under the false name of Robert SMITH and
dying on board the ship ‘Deptford’ in 1736.
Sadly, the origins of these BLACKLOCKs in Scotland or Cumbria have
yet to be found.
Brain-cracking inter-connections
The MAXWELLs and BLACKLOCKs give just a small taste of the complexity
of marriage, religious and business connections amongst Scottish expat families
and English dissenters from the 1670s. Tracking down the names and places they mention in Wills and property deeds leads
to yet more networks, some of which I will describe in the next article,
featuring the wealthy HAMILTONs, CRICHTONs, BEATYs, CORRIEs and RODICKs.
This is an amended version of an article first published in the Journal
of Dumfries & Galloway Family History Society Journal, July 2008.
© Celia Renshaw September 2008