MORGANHOLD STRAYS INDEX

NOT ONLY FOOLS & HORSES, part 3.  ‘SCOTCH CHAPMEN’ in England 1660-1800 – the less wealthy ones.

When linen draper David Millagan married his first wife Ann Tompkins in Newton Longville, Bucks on 13 Oct 1706, he was making the decision to settle down close to the heart of the lace trade, and to “go no more a-wandering” between Scotland and England.

When I first discovered him, more experienced researchers gave me the orthodox views about 17^th and 18^th century Scottish chapmen : they were poor; they didn’t settle down in England; they were little better than vagrants and often in trouble with the law.  I heard that the years prior to Union were very dangerous ones for Scots to be in England, and that dissenters in this period were social outcasts and barred from public offices.

The research of some local historians, like Prof Margaret Spufford, has challenged these views and what we know of David Millagan’s life supports newer theories that dissenters were often tolerated and respected in their village communities, and that many chapmen did settle down eventually with their own shops. 

David Millagan paid tax on five acres of land in Newton Longville 1706-1721.  In 1728, he was parish constable and in 1715-1729, he witnessed the Wills of  five local residents, all of which indicates some status in his community.  He also had a shop in the village, later run by his widow, second wife Ann Barrett, and we have a delightful picture of her from the diary of Rev William Cole, vicar of nearby Bletchley:

“Sat 22 Nov 1766 - Mrs. Meligan was buried on Thursday at Newton… she died in Clerkenwell Workhouse & was brought down in an Herse, to be buried by her first Husband in Newton Churchyard: her 2^nd Husband is a  Baronet of the Name of Yeomans… but he using her ill & having no Estate, she would never go by his Name…  I have heard Mr Tho: Willis & others say, that when she kept a good Shop in this Town, his Mother, (Mr Brown Willis’s Wife), used to pawn her Cloaths to her & borrow Money of her at an exorbitant use: when I first came here, she lived in this Parish, where she has still an House: was a tall strapping Woman & several Times within these 6 or 7 years used to walk on Foot from London to Blecheley in a Day[1].  She was between 80 & 90 at her Death”.

As Mrs Ann Yeomans, she gave evidence at the inquest into the death of Andrew Millagan in Kings Bench Prison on 8 May 1750, suggesting strongly that Andrew and David were brothers, especially as Andrew was buried back in Newton Longville.  He was described as a chapman of Newton Longville on his marriage in 1711 to Mary Woodbridge of Weston Turville and, in 1750 he was no doubt in prison for debt. 

A James Milligan (note the middle I rather than A) was also buried at Newton Longville.  He was almost certainly the James Milligan linen draper and innkeeper of The Ram in Newport Pagnell and their burial together strongly suggests David, Andrew and James were brothers.  As previous articles explained, James Milligan was a respected member of the Newport Pagnell Independent Meeting, trustee of their meeting house for about twenty years.  In 1728, he married Margaret Roy, daughter of Patrick and Sarah Roy, previous innkeepers and co-owners of the Ram.  But in 1760, James Milligan was declared bankrupt.  A 1769 newspaper advertisement shows us the type of stock he had in his shop:

Unsurprisingly, neither bankrupt James nor debtor Andrew left Wills and David’s Will of 1737 makes no mention of Scotland, so the origins of the migrating Millagan family remain unknown. 

This is also true for the Crosby, Hanney and Irving families who settled in Bucks at the same time.  They either left no Wills or did not mention Scotland.  I believe these were travelling Scottish chapmen, perhaps working for wealthier merchants like the Maxwells, Hamiltons and Crichtons; holding no land or property themselves in Scotland, they had no reason to mention it in their Wills, or were not wealthy enough to leave one.

David Millagan was best buddies with James Crosby, described as a “Scotch lacebuyer” when he married Millicent Daniel in Bletchley in 1700.  James and Millicent had only one child Mary, born and died in 1701, but in 1716, James was up at Quarter Sessions, agreeing to support a child Richard Crosby, born to Jane Cooke, and David Millagan was his surety.  In his Will, James left the property he had acquired in Bletchley to a kinsman, another James Crosby of Saffron Walden; he also gave £5 to Robert Crichton, lace merchant of Newport Pagnell and 2 guineas to his friend David Millagan.  Later, this friendship brought David to grief.  In a Chancery case in the 1720s, he testified that his friend’s heir, James Crosby junior of Saffron Walden falsely arrested and jailed him on charges of non-payment of debt.  The truth, David asserted, was that the heir owed him money, repayment of a bond he had honoured on behalf of James senior when he failed to repay a loan before his death.

Incidents like these lead us to wonder if the Scottish chapmen lived up to the reputations the prejudiced English had about them, or whether they were picked on deliberately.  Further south in Bucks, William Irving of Great Marlow (later of Bledlow) appeared several times at quarter sessions in 1709-10 indicted as a “disturber of the peace” and as a “common barrator”.  Like the Millagans and Crosbys, the Irvings settled down, married well and acquired property in their adopted county, but still found themselves in trouble with the law.  Similarly also, they left few Wills and those they did make no mention of Scotland. 

Though Scottish roots for the Hanney family of Buckingham also cannot be proved, once again the weight of evidence suggests it.  In 1710 in Buckingham, a James Milligan of Tingewick, Bucks married Sarah Hanney of Finmere, Oxfordshire.  Sarah was either the daughter or widow of Patrick Hanney, lacebuyer of Buckingham whose Will of 1693 names eleven children by two wives named Sarah, but once again makes no mention of Scotland.  The Buckingham registers tell us that Robert, John and Andrew Hanney were also baptising babies at the same time as Patrick and the names point to Scottish origins. 

It is just possible that James Milligan and Sarah Hanney were the parents of David, Andrew and James Millagan who were all buried in Newton Longville.  There was certainly an older James Milligan living and going bankrupt in Newport Pagnell when James Milligan, the draper and innkeeper of the Ram was there.  The latter took out an advert in the national newspapers in 1739 to protest that the James Milligan of Newport Pagnell lately bankrupt was not he at the Ram and he was doing nicely thank you.  In his own bankruptcy proceedings in the 1760s, he is referred to twice as James Milligan of Newport Pagnell junior.  But, as so often, these relationships remain only conjecture.

Though, as we have seen, many of the wealthier expat lace merchants left Wills that tell us about their roots and relatives in Scotland, for their less wealthy compatriots like the Millagans, Hanneys, Roys, Crosbys and Irvings, and many others not mentioned here, the trail is harder to follow.  We are left with occasional clues, mainly in parish registers, court records, newspapers and property dealings, and with the ‘weight of evidence’ from given names, surnames and connections with families that are known to be Scottish.

Though it may seem like slender evidence, when all the families discovered in these ways are added up, it is clear that there was significant movement of Scots to the lace counties of England after the Restoration, a part of the Scottish diaspora that so far has received very little attention.

© Celia Renshaw, 2009

First published by Dumfries & Galloway Family History Society