NOT ONLY FOOLS & HORSES – WEALTHY SCOTCH
MERCHANTS IN ENGLAND, 1660-1800
History books give few references to the elusive Scottish chapmen,
pedlars, lacemen and drapers who travelled and settled in England after the
Restoration. Occasionally, however, there’s a gem. In 1842, Joseph Staines wrote a history of his native Newport Pagnell in Bucks
and he tells us:
“Mr. Gainsborough [Minister of the Independent
Chapel 1743-7 and brother of the famous artist] was succeeded by Mr. Afflick, and Mr. Fordyce… these gentlemen were both Scotchmen,
and it was probably this circumstance, which induced the Scotch Packmen,
who came to this Town to attend at the Chapel; the lodging house of these
men was the Chequers, and when they attended Chapel they were in the habit
of sitting in the front pew of the middle gallery. This gallery having at that time only a railed front, these Scotchmen had it
panelled at their own expense, and for many years afterwards the pew went
by the name of the Scotchmen’s pew.”
Newport Pagnell was a hotbed of dissent during the Civil War and afterwards
dissenters in Newport, Olney, Northampton, Wellingborough, Bedford, Cranfield
and other nearby villages were tightly linked, along with groups in Hunts,
Cambs, Berks, Herts and London. They were like family: helping and supporting each other, sharing doctrine and
ministers, and frequently falling out, with door-slamming arguments, split-ups,
reconciliations and re-groupings. They offered welcome to mobile Scots looking for something akin to their native
Presbyterianism; they gave safe havens and ‘passports’ of recommendation
during times of persecution. It is also likely that the Scots who travelled by trade were ready-made disseminators
of non-conformist materials and ideas.
Wealthy Scots who settled down in England were closely involved in
early dissenter meetings, sometimes as full members, more often as trustees
and owners of meeting house leases and land. Their Wills are full of links both to other Scottish lace and linen merchants
and to English dissenters, all based in ‘hotspots’ where the lace trade,
travellers’ inns and dissenting communities coincided.
HAMILTONs
Margaret Hamilton, born 1706 in Newport Pagnell, lived in Sanquhar,
Dumfriesshire with husband George Whigham; their son Robert of Hallidayhill
was Provost of Sanquhar 1772-88. Margaret’s brother William also lived in Sanquhar. It was their brother John, lace merchant and business partner with Walter Beaty,
who had the closest links with Newport Pagnell. John married Sarah Abbott from Lavendon near Olney, daughter of a local lace
merchant – this Sarah and daughter Ann were admitted to full membership of
Newport Pagnell Independents in 1768 and 1784 respectively. In 1788, Ann married dissenting minister Rev Samuel Greatheed, an amazing chap with close links to the first Congregational Church at St John,
Newfoundland. Amongst other things, he was a founding director of the London Missionary Society,
established in 1795.
After a dissolute early life while a military engineer in Canada,
Samuel saw the light, attended the Dissenting Academy in Newport Pagnell,
became assistant tutor to Rev William BULL and then minister to the Independent
Church at Woburn, Beds. Through his wife, he inherited the Hamilton fortune; and he was an intimate friend
of the poet Cowper, who lived in Olney and wrote the tombstone epitaph for
Samuel’s brother-in-law Thomas Abbott Hamilton in 1788.
Samuel and Ann were childless so their fortune passed next to Ann’s
first cousin Robert, son of William Hamilton in Sanquhar. This family is well-documented in the ‘Annals of Sanquhar’ and ‘Memorials of
Sanquhar Churchyard’ by Tom Wilson. Robert married Janet Witherington and their three surviving children were next
co-inheritors of the Hamilton wealth: William, Mary [married a Macmillan]
and James Abbott Hamilton, all of Sanquhar. James Abbott’s descendant Dorothy Jens tells me that he and his wife Jean Thomson
made a visit to Newport Pagnell to visit relatives after their marriage in
1792. She also owns a sampler stitched by James & Jean’s daughter Martha. Their son John married a Marion Crichton, who was possibly connected to the Crichtons
of Newport Pagnell…
CRICHTONs
If only I could reach across the centuries and kiss the cheek of Robert
Crichton [before he died in Newport Pagnell c1749]. He was the first Bucks person I researched to state clearly that he came from
Scotland and I wasn’t imagining the connection – in his Will, he left £100
to the Ministers and Elders of the Church of Glencairn “where I was born”. Unfortunately, that hasn’t helped me pin down the precise branch of Crichtons
he belonged to.
Robert Crichton’s mother was Jane Welch, possibly living in St Albans,
Herts by 1749, and he had six known sibs, named in wills and deeds:
· John
who married Lydia Latimer in London 1703, with a daughter Jane
· William
· Marron
who married a Dickson, with a son Robert
· James,
draper of Newport Pagnell, died 1722, with a son John
· Charles,
lace merchant of Newport Pagnell, died 1733 and probably married Sarah Latimer
of Newport Pagnell in 1716 in London
· Isabel
who was of Kircudbright in 1733 and had at least 7 children [married name
unknown]
Robert first shows up as a lace merchant in Hatfield, Herts in 1707
and the family reached Newport Pagnell by 1714; he married Mary [niece of linen draper Samuel
Carlile of Newport Pagnell] and had five known children. The eldest Jane married James Buchanan, merchant of London, in Dunstable, Beds
in 1733 and Samuel the youngest baptised three children in Newport Pagnell
with wife Jane. Beyond these bare details, there is a shortage of hard data for the Crichtons,
but we do know that John, linen draper of Newport Pagnell, caused rather
a crisis for the Independents in 1740.
Robert Brittan snr vested the new chapel in the hands of trustees
in 1702 but failed to transfer the ground on which it stood. This passed through the Latimer family to John Crichton who wished to sell it
in 1740. Rev Phillip Dodderidge, eminent dissenting minister at Northampton’s Castle Hill
Meeting, saved the day by purchasing the premises and vesting them in new
trustees including Robert Crichton, Robert Dickson and James Milligan. In 1760, when James Milligan and others resigned from trusteeship, Walter Beaty
gent and John Hamilton lacebuyer joined up. So the Scots continued for decades to be very involved in the dissenting community
of Newport.
BEATY
Charlotte Beaty, who died unmarried in 1850, inherited the accumulated
wealth of three Walter Beatys, lace merchants of Newport Pagnell. In her Will she spread the fortune round liberally, for charitable causes and
the Independent Church in Newport and to family and friends in various parts
of Scotland and England.
She named her cousin William Beaty and his father Walter, both farmers
in Becks, Langholm Parish, Dumfriesshire. William’s daughter Charlotte, aged 10 in the 1851 census for Langholm, was born
in Newport Pagnell and in the 1841 English census, we find her, aged 3 months,
with her parents living with their ageing relative Charlotte in Newport Pagnell. It is an astonishing testimony to the way the family branches stayed close over
more than 100 years, despite the geographical distances.
Details of the first Beatys to settle in England are not clear, though
they probably hailed from the Langholm area. Walter Beaty I (died 1749, first of three Newport Pagnell lace merchants and
partner to John Hamilton) was the son of a William Beaty who outlived him,
and had sibs named Simon, John, William and Margaret (she married a Bryden),
all of whom had issue. Walter I, dying unmarried, left his estate to nephew Walter II, son of brother
Simon; Walter II married Ann Little (daughter of Ninian) in Wimborne Minster,
Dorset in 1755, thereby acquiring property in the south-west of England.
They had four children, one of whom died as a baby. The
eldest, Walter III, lace merchant like his dad, died unmarried in 1801, leaving
all his estate to sister Charlotte. Their sister Amelia Anne Beaty married Thomas Higgins [member of the Turvey Abbey
family of Beds] and died a wealthy, though childless, widow in St Luke, Old
Street, London in 1834, also leaving much property to her sister Charlotte,
on whose death the Beaty name died out in Newport Pagnell.
But the family story didn’t quite end there. Her
younger namesake, Charlotte daughter of William of Langholm, married a Newport
Pagnell man, Charles Osborn Rogers in London in 1870 and they started life
together in Newport. By 1881, they were in Reading, Berks with a bunch of children but after that,
disappear, perhaps abroad. It seems a shame that the family didn’t continue in the town where they made
their mark and their wealth, but the almshouses that Charlotte endowed are
still in use today.
CORRIEs and RODICKs
These two families were prominent in Wellingborough’s Cheese Lane
Independent Church, the Corries being the only expat family to have been
thoroughly researched already. A summary of the family’s story is given in “Art Trade or Mystery – Lace & Lacemaking in Northamptonshire” by Pat Rowley:
“The Corries were from Terregles and Clunie, Dumfries. James
Corrie came to Wellingborough in the 1730s to set up business as a trader. He was followed by his nephew William who is recorded as being a lace merchant
in Wellingborough. William was later described as a ‘Scots Trade’ merchant, employing scores of
carriers to convey cotton textiles to Scotland and returning with ‘all goods manufactured in Glasgow’, mainly whisky and salt. William’s nephews, Richard, Adam, Andrew, Robert and William all moved from Scotland
to Wellingborough and also became lace merchants. Robert became a lace dealer in Cranfield, Beds, before emigrating to Illinois,
USA.”
The Rodicks appear to have arrived in Wellingborough around the same
time, one of the earliest being John Rodick, lace merchant and gent, who
was living in Northampton when he married his first wife Sarah Brown in 1737. In his Will of 1779, John names William and Robert Corrie among the trustees
for the fund he set up to give an income to the dissenting ministers of Cheese
Lane Independent.
Amongst many other bequests to family around England and Scotland,
he also mentions Johnstone kin in Tundergarth and his nephew William Rodick in Hoddam, Annandale. His nephew Archibald Rodick and great-nephew John Tole Rodick were his main beneficiaries,
the Tole name coming from Bedfordshire. The Rodicks also had close links with London, several of their marriages happening
there, and Ann Rodick settled down in St Matthew Friday Street with husband
James Corbett after their marriage in 1784.
Drawing together the threads between Bucks and Wellingborough, John
Atchison, lace merchant of Olney, in his Will of 1771 names Walter Beaty
of Newport Pagnell with John Rodick and William Corrie of Wellingborough
as trustees and executors. He also lists relatives named Atchison, Dobie, Johnston, Jackson, Murray, Holliday,
Jardine and Mundell in Lochmaben, Dryfesdale, Crathets, Aughenstock and Tundergarth
and mentions the two dissenting congregations in Olney.
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The five families featured here are just a few examples of the Scottish
merchants who settled in England after the Restoration, but they show clearly
that, while keeping close links with folk back home, they settled in England
for good, supported and helped each other and played a major part in English
non-conformist congregations.
My final article will throw light on the less well-off families in
this exodus, including the MILLAGANs, CROSBYs, HANNEYs and ROYs.
© Celia Renshaw, 2008
First published by Dumfries & Galloway
Family History Society, Autumn 2008