The Smith Family and a case of 'The Wrong Trousers'.

Introduction

Last month’s post was all about the Aynsley family and their various Northumbrian family connections as written by George Aynsley-Smith in circa 1940.  This month it is the turn of the Smith family, which is more of a cross border affair, again told in George’s own words, so please bear this in mind whilst reading.  In relative terms when he refers to his grandfather, he is, in fact, referring to my 3 x great grandfather who died in 1860!

Horncliffe Mill

NOTES ON SMITH PEDIGREE
Written by George Aynsley-smith circa 1940

"My family having been born in Darlington (37, Stanhope Road and 8, Harewood Grove) where I lived after I was married in 1906 till October 1929 when I retired and removed to Purley, Surrey, and knowing little of Northumberland and Roxburgh from whence came their paternal ancestors, I think it desirable to leave a few details of family history in case they may be of interest to those who come after. The generations of ordinary middle-class people with no claim to distinction rise up and pass away leaving little trace, unless some record in writing is made.   I have consequently drawn up pedigrees of most of the families constituting my paternal and maternal ancestors, which may be of interest though they only relate to good farming stock from which we are sprung.

Reverse of George Smith d. 1690 Cornhill

George Smith d. 1690 Cornhill

The first authentic Smith ancestor I can trace is John Smith, living at Cornhill-on-Tweed in the year 1690, when he wrote his name in the old Family ("Breeches") Bible, printed in 1613. I am strongly of opinion that he was a son of George Smith who died in 1690 and Elizabeth his wife, who died in 1702, who are both interred at Cornhill, south of the church and near the middle of the church­ yard, a small stone still standing (1940) marking the spot. On the back of the stone are sculptured a hammer and two horseshoes, which suggest to me that he was a blacksmith.

A recent interment has taken place in front of the stone.   John Smith probably wrote his name in the Bible on the death of his father George in 1690. He would appear to have married late in life for it is not until 1722 that the baptism of his eldest son , born at Twizel Mill, where the family appear to have moved, is recorded in Norham register.   The name of his wife is not known, but I think it may fairly be assumed from the naming of the grandchildren that it was also Elizabeth .

Robert Smith of Horncliffe d. 1751 Buried at Cornhill

There is no trace of the marriage at Cornhill or Norham, or indeed any of the adjoining parishes in England, but it may have, and probably  did, take place in Scotland.   In 1742 John Smith died and was taken from Horncliffe Mill, the place of his death, to Cornhill for burial on the 22nd April.  No stone marks the spot but as Robert Smith, who died at Horncliffe aged 90 was also taken for burial at Cornhill in 1751 in close proximity to the grave of George and Elizabeth Smith, I think it may fairly be assumed that John and Robert were brothers and that John was buried in close proximity to his father and brother, whose tombstone still stands.

The burial of Elizabeth, wife of John, cannot be traced, either at Cornhill or Norham for lack of detail, the name being common and it being impossible to say which Eliz­abeth Smith was the wife of John.   John's family consisted of George, born 1722, Nicholas, born 1725 and Elizabeth, born 1729.  Nothing is known of Nicholas except that he wrote his name in the old Family Bible when a boy .

Elizabeth married James Taylor of Horncliffe, had a family of five or six daughters and one son, Leonard Taylor, who all married and left descendants, several of whom still reside in the district but are, and always have been,unknown to me except by name.   George Smith, my great grandfather, born in 1722, married in Norham church in 1756 Phyllis Jackson, daughter of Robert Jackson of Lowick Mill, and their nine children and descendants are set out in the pedigree. The only descendants that I ever knew were those of Agnes (Mrs Aaron Young) and Phyllis (Mrs Middleton). I do, however, remember seeing John Johnstone from Aberdeen, who came south in the end of the seventies of last century to visit his relations in this district and also came to Longhoughton to see my father . The Johnstone family is, I believe, extinct except for the descendants of one who married a Gillie, her cousin at Berwick.

Blue Stone Ford on the River Whiteadder

Alexander Smith of Galagate, Norham, who married my grandfather's niece, Agnes Young, was not a blood relation but was one of a family owning land in Horncliffe that came from Coldingham or Eyemouth . Aaron Young, after the death of his first wife subsequently married Margaret Smith of Coldinghara in 1803, a sister of his son-in-law.  Aaron Young was drowned when crossing the Whitadder on the 31at December 1822 when return­ing from a Nev Year's party, his wife, crossing the river by a footbridge seeing him swept away by the flood.

I have searched all the parish registers in the district and can find no trace of the marriages of any of the family of George and Phyllis Smith and it remains a mystery where they were married - probably in Scotland as most of his daughters married Presbyterians. 

My grandfather George Smith was married at Kerchesters, Sprouston parish, but no record of it is contained in the register, which appears to have been indifferently kept . The marriage probably took place in 1800 as my aunt Agnes, the eldest of the family, was born in 1802. After the marriage, the bride and bridegroom rode tandem to their new home at Loanend.  The house in which they lived - a whitewashed house with a pantile roof - stood at the east side of the entrance to Loanend House and was pulled down about twenty years ago.

Believed to be the site of House at Loanend

It belonged to the Nicholson family, from whom he rented it, the farm which he rented and subsequently purchased - East Loanend containing, I was told, about 270 acres - not having a house of its own. My grandfather lived at Loanend, where all his family was born, till my grandmother died in 1842, when he retired to a house at the west end of Norham purchased from his brother-in-law, Thomas Cleghorn, who subsequently appeared to have lived at High Cocklaw, a farm within Berwick bounds, where he probably died.

My grandfather survived till June 1860, when he died, aged 85. During the last three years of his life he remained in bed, not that he was seriouslly ill, and my aunt Jane attended to him and humoured all his whims, my aunt Agnes having less patience. Any stories in connection vith him I fear I have forgotten.  I only remember that he always went to the butcher to order the meat and took with him a little stick to measure it by, not buying by weight, and that he frequently invited his grandchildren from Ladykirk to the house and that they no sooner arrived and began to make a great noise, after the manner of children, than he rapped his stick vigorous on the bedroom floor (during the last years of his life) and requested that they should be all sent home.

Jane Smith 1807-1887 - "Aunt Jane"

An oil painting of him wearing a black stock exists, but it does not portray a man of any distinct character. Another reminiscence of him is that on Sundays a large volume of Matthew Henry's ''Commentaries on the Bible" was always laid on the dining room table but that it was seldom opened. He was however, I believe, a very upright and honourable man and an old lady (Miss Nicholson) who remembered him told me that in Berwick market his word was regarded as his bond. 

John Smith d.1860

​My grandmother was Christian Trotter, daughter of George Trotter and Agnes Turner his wife, of Kerchesters in the parish of Sprouston.   She was born in 1773 at Kerchesters and died at Loanend in September 1842. The Trotters were tenants in Kerchesters, a farm containing 1300 acres, for more than 100 years, the first being James Trotter, who married Janet Young, daughter of Robert Young, a previous tenant.

James Trotter was born about 1699 and married Janet Young in ( ? ), the last tenant being James (Trotter) who died in 1829. Shortly after that date the family resided at Cheswick, Northumberland, for about ten years and then went to live at Rosshill, Dalmeny, where the survivors died and are buried in Dalmeny churchyard.

Kitty (Christian) the youngest daughter, on the death of her sister Marion, left Rosshill in 1885 and went to live at  2, Craigmillar Park, Edinburgh, where she died in February 1900. The Trotters are, so far as I know, extinct in the male line unless there are descendants of John Trotter, formerly of Stacks, West Lothian, now living in South Africa.  John Trotter married Grace Young, a relation, I believe, of the Youngs who formerly farmed Kerchesters. I remember Miss Ann and Miss Jane Young, sisters of Mrs.Trotter, who lived in a villa house adjoining Christ's Episcopal Church, Edinburgh, two interesting old Scottish ladies with pronounced personalities. An older sister was Isabella and they are all buried in the Greyfriars churchyard .

Possibly the same gentleman, looking equally as fierce! May also be one of his sons.

I think their father was a brewer in Edinburgh and their mother a Miss Crammond,  who had a school in Edinburgh.  The name of Trotter is not found in the earliest church register for Sprouston and I am under the impres­sion that the family originally came from the Hume or Greenlaw district. An  affectionate relationship was maintained between my father's family and their cousins the Trotters, which still exists between their descendants. They were most likeable people and I have nothing but the pleasantest recollections of them.  I think my grandmother Trotter was superior to my grandfather in the social scale and that by his marriage he was probably raised in life.

Horncliffe Mill in 1989 - Taken by Philip Aynsley-Smith

My great grandfather George Smith, at the time of his death in 1792, seemed to be in the occupation of Horncliffe Mill, Norham East Mains and Tweedmouth farms, which were left to his surviving sons John and George. £100 was left by his will to each of his surviving daughters and an annuity of £65 per annum to his wife, who died at Norham East Mains in 1810 and was probably buried beside her husband, but her name was never put on the tombstone . My grandfather George Smith became a Presbyterian on his marriage (probably through the influence of his wife, whose brother the Revd. Ninian Trotter was minister of Sprouston, dying in 1832 at Spittal from cholera) and all his family were baptised in the Church of Scotland, Tweedmouth, though I believe the registers for that church are now non-existent. My great grandfather George Smith, his eldest son John and all his family, and Agnes his eldest daughter (Mrs Aaron Young) are all buried (at Norham) near the church path in a line with the chancel door, and the subsequent generations, are buried adjoining the path on the south side, near the entrance to the vicarage .

John Smith of West Chevington and Longhoughton 1813 - 1881

My father was twice married, his first wife being Jane Mont­gomery Marshall, daughter of John Marshall, Fallside Hill in the parish of Hume, Berwickshire. She died at West Chevington on the 6th December 1860 and was buried at Norham, where she was also married about three years previously, leaving no issue. Her mother was Esther Smeaton in the same parish, and a member of the well-known engineering family, one of whom built the first Eddystone lighthouse. Her uncle George Marshall, a solicitor in Berwick, died at Norham in 1855 and her aunt, Miss Janet Marshall, in 18?? leaving her the house on the east side of the house belonging to my grandfather.

Mr Marshall was, I believe, at one time a prosperous man but, investing much of his money in shipping, he lost a great deal. He took into partnership Stephen Sander­son, a man of very great ability, who was Clerk of the Peace for the County of Northumberland and died in 1915, aged 85. It was, I think, owing to Mr Sanderson that my father first went to West Chevington.   His mother, a Miss Goodman, a Londoner or South of England woman, had a brother who was the last man to drive the stage coach between London and Edinburgh, making a good deal of money. When he retired, he took the farm of West Chevington where he lost it, and at his death was followed by my father who also purchased his household effects, including a number of pictures, most of which still constitute the furnishing at present at Long­houghton".

John Smith of Longhoughton 1864-1937. Brother to George Aynsley-Smith & my gt grandfather circa 1900

John Smith 1864-1937 brother to George Aynsley-Smith as a young man. Photo taken circa 1882

Conclusion

It is interesting to note that a fundamental error that occurred early on resulted in a serious case of the ‘wrong trousers’.  It is therefore little wonder he was unable to find the marriages of any of the children of George and Phyllis Smith, when he had the correct men married off to the wrong sisters.  With this in mind, particularly in the case of the Gillie family of Berwick, and the Johnstons (note no ‘e’) of Aberdeen, some preliminary investigation has returned some interesting results.  Not least that the Johnston family were not of Aberdeen at all, as William Johnston who married Mary Smith in Tweedmouth in 1789, hailed from Berwick-upon-Tweed!  This has created a whole new line of enquiry, and my findings will no doubt find their way out here in due course.  
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In the meantime have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!