Snapshot on Orphir

A recent addition to our collection is this little booklet all about the parish of Orphir. It was made to accompany a photographic exhibition in June 1992 in Orphir Church, but actually stands on its own with its interesting facts and figures. Topics covered are: Churches; Transport from Horse to Aeroplane; Picnics and Parties; Schools and continuing Education; People; Events; Buildings and Shops; Horses and Ploughing; Island of Cava; Orphir at Work; Orphir at Play; Orphir at War; and Organisations.

Drawing "The Round Church from North East in 1889" Showing remains of old houses of the Bu on the North, now demolished. From a sketch by C. S. S. Johnston

Click on each picture to enlarge the image. 

20 Days of Orkney Trees #9

Still looking at trees planted around 'big houses', today we bring you Orkney Archive Reference D15/21/21 which includes a couple of plans of trees and plants in the old garden at Orphir House, Orphir, c.1900

If you click on the plans to enlarge them, you can see that trees planted include planes, apple, ash, elm and rowan.

The collection also includes rubbings made of initials which had been carved into the garden's trees in the 1870s:

The OS map below shows the extent of the gardens as surveyed in 1900.

Orkney at War - Wartime Visitors

As part of our Orkney at War exhibition we have a few original items on show in the Archive Searchroom.

One gift we received a couple of years ago which we are quite excited about is a Visitor's Book from the Y.M.C.A. in Longhope.

"Long Hope Bay during the war was the headquarters of the auxiliaries of the Grand Fleet, and never in its history were so many vessels of such varied types assembled in the harbour. The village of Long Hope, where there is a good pier, naturally became much frequented by officers and men from the ships, and eventually a commodious Y.M.C.A. was erected, which did much useful work. Tea on the beach was always a pleasant change from ship life (and tinned milk!), and the Post Office at Long Hope became a favourite rendezvous for informal tea-parties."

Quote from Scapa and a Camera by C W Burrows, p51. Orkney Room reference 941.09 Y

The book records many visitors and volunteers to the Y M C A from August 1916 - 1939. The first page contains some well-known names:

 

It is signed on 1st August 1916 by Admiral John Jellicoe, Commander in Chief. It is also signed by his wife Gwendoline Jellicoe and her sister, Freda Cayzer from Tarbert House, Ross-shire. I do hope they enjoyed their cup of tea.

 

Archive reference: D1/1207

 

Other items on show are:

 

John Fraser's record of Orcadians service in the 1914-1918 war which is an indexed scrapbook of soldiers deaths and officer ranks of Orcadians in WW1 containing mostly press cuttings, which include photographs of soldiers and officers from all the parishes of Orkney who served and died.

Archive reference: D1/692

 

Lily Gunn's Souvenir and Autograph book which contains drawings, poems, photographs and messages from patients of the British Farmers Hospital and the Number 2 Anglo-Belgian Hospital, Calais, France from 1916-1918.

Archive reference: D1/983

 

An extract of Military Tribunal Register of Cases

 

A Technical Instruction Committee of the Secondary Education Committee was formed in 1910, which in the following year became the Advisory Committee concerned with extension work in Orkney of the Aberdeen and North of Scotland College of Agriculture. On account of its links with agriculture this Advisory Committee was in turn metamorphosed into the District Agricultural Committee on Food Production in 1916, and had thrust upon its various functions far removed from secondary education, including matters pertaining to military recruitment and the supply of labour for farms. By an extension of this aspect of its work the committee was used, according to the Agricultural Military Service Act , 1916, for the hearing of appeals for exemption from military service on grounds of agricultural necessity.

 

Two men mentioned in this particular extract are:

 

John Sabiston, aged 19 from Northbigging, Swona, a ploughman, fisherman and boatman was refused exemption from military service on 28th April 1916. He appealed on 19th May 1916, but his appeal was dismissed on 2nd June 1916.

 

Peter S Garrioch, aged 40, from Grindally, Orphir, a farmer, was granted conditional exemption on 11th April 1916.

 

This extract contains about 25 names and we have about 20 pages of names in the whole register. Our friends at the Orkney Family History Society have kindly volunteered to transcribe all the pages for us.

Archive reference: CO5/3/8

 

This small exhibition of original items will stay on display until the end of August 2016.  

Remember the days of the old schoolyard

As we get older we all tend to think that everybody in positions of authority, whether its police officers, doctors or teachers, are getting younger. Well, a new acquisition we received this week takes this to a whole new level!

The acquisition includes a photograph, a letter and an autobiographical account of William Clouston's childhood and young adulthood in Orkney. William wrote about his childhood home at Houton in the parish of Orphir, where he was born in 1854, part of a large extended family of Cloustons living in the area.

William started school at five years of age. In those days schools consisted of one room where children of all ages were taught together. His first teacher was William Tait, an uncle, and he was followed by a succession of different teachers over the years until William turned fourteen.

TK3439 - Houton, Orphir

Being the youngest of three brothers William had to attend school more than most of the boys. Older boys would have had to stay at home in the summer to help with farm work but William attended school both in the winter and summer. The result of this was that, aged fourteen, he was the top pupil at the Petertown school. At that time the teacher was William's cousin but he suddenly decided to leave for Newcastle and the school was left without a teacher for the summer term. So a group of local men met to discuss the problem, and decided to make fourteen year old William the teacher!

It must have seemed very strange to be playing with your school friends one day and to be addressed as 'master' by them on the next! William wrote that he managed the teaching part of his first day without too much trouble but when he went out at break time to join in the games he felt a little self-conscious!

William later worked in Stromness in a Drapers shop for some years before moving to Glasgow in 1874. After that he travelled to Michigan, USA, to join one of his brothers working in the lumber industry.

Act of Grace

On this day 27th July in 1880 we have a curious Sheriff Court Petition for Benefit of the Act of Grace. It's the only one in the whole collection, so I thought I'd share it with you all.

I realised this is my geeky side revealing itself when I told the story to Archiver and she could not stop yawning. So please comment if you find it interesting, then I can point at her, laugh, and say "I told you so!" In a respectful colleague to colleague way, of course.

Definition Act of Grace: A privilege or concession that cannot be claimed as a right: e.g. the bonus remains a payment made as an act of grace
In Scots Law this concession mainly referred to civil debt. When a person is imprisoned for not paying their debt, they can petition the court to let them out if it can be proved they do not have the means to pay. If the debt is an aliment (a fund of maintenance), then it can be changed to installments of not less than three-pence. [Information from A Dictionary of the Law of Scotland by Robert Bell, pub.1815]

Our example is about William Gunn, a shoemaker from Orphir in the West Mainland who is in Kirkwall Jail and Jane McKay from South Faray or Fara, an island in Scapa Flow.

Doc 1. Petition on behalf of  William Gunn, from Orphir, who is in prison for not paying a debt to Jane McKay "the incarcarating creditor" who resides in South Pharay. The debt being the total sum of "seventeen pounds, sixteen shillings and ninepence" to pay for the birth and subsequent care of an illegimate male child since 17th February and "taxed expenses of process". William Gunn's petitioner states that he is "in poor circumstances and is neither able to pay the said sums nor to Aliment [maintain] himself in prison. He is therefore under the necessity of applying to the court for the benefit of the Act of Grace." John Macrae, Pursuers Agent, 27 July 1880.

Doc 2. Answers for Jane MacKay by her solicitor William Cowper, states that William Gunn has "movable property to the value of about fifteen shillings Sterling" and so he is not entitled to the benefit of the Act of Grace. Lodged 30th July 1880.

Doc 3. Certified copy of the Petition, 31st July 1880.

Doc 4. Minutes and Interlocutors: The Sheriff Substitute orders William Gunn to be brought to court to be examined by him on Friday 6th August. But on Friday 6th August, "Macrae for the pursuer respectfully craves leave to withdraw the action". This craving is granted.

Doc 5. Copy of Minutes and Interlocutors.

Doc 6. Copy of Inventory of documents.

 

So William Gunn did not get his Act of Grace after all. But did Jane ever get any money? Who was the illegitimate male child? There are no more documents to give these answers unfortunately.

Archive Reference: SC11/5/1880/98

Panting for Planting

Plan of old garden at Orphir House, Gyre.

Well hello there archive-I-stumbled-upon-today! Could you delight us any more? I think not.

a) It is a beautiful spring day and you are a plan of trees and list of plants for the garden at Orphir House (which was rebuilt in 1886.)

 List of plants growing in the layer rockery at East Cottage on 5 May 1895.

b)You are the record of the old garden, a garden past, which makes us feel mournful and wistful... which we love.

Plan of trees in the old garden.

c) As great fans of luuuurve, and romance the rubbings taken of initials carved into trees made us squeal with delight.

Rubbings of initials carved into the bark of trees.

Well done Orkney Archive Reference D15/21/21. A sterling job.

I Didn't Call Him a Liar, Just an Untruthsayer!

Today, we have been looking through the Orphir Church records on behalf of a family history researcher. We didn't find the people we were looking for, but were reminded of how small some of supposed crimes brought to the church elders' attention were and how disproportionate the punishments.

The children of Thomas Inksetter of Buxa were twice hauled up in front of the Church committee for the sin of 'breach of Sabbath'. In May 1728, they were flouting the Lord's day 'in taking a sheep with their dog'; and in October 1732 they were spotted by some neighbours 'carrying a burden in time of Divine worship'.

That's right, not only were they seen CARRYING SOMETHING on the Sabbath, they were carrying it while the Church was in session. The investigation into this incident went on for several weeks, with both children being brought before the elders and either denying all or saying they were too sick to attend. (The classic get-out clause from P.E. lessons to Sabbath Breach chidings.)

At no point does anyone ask why the witnesses to their crime were not at church either...

Later on in the saga, the burden is sensationally  revealed to have been a quantity of butter 'stealth from David Louttit on the same day.'

Catherine Slatter was accused of 'uttering imprecations' against neighbour Elspeth Scott when quarrelling about a piece of grass; this charge was stoutly denied and both women were told to grow up ( or 'exhorted to peace and a better agreement'.)

Three women were charged with the 'sin of uncleanness', (fornication, that old chestnut) in the same Church session. One Margaret Inksetter was accused of carrying the child of a married man, one Margaret Garrioch was pregnant by her boss's son and one Marjory Gorie admitted that she had been 'in her naked bed' in the presence of one James Cloustone but that he had been fully clothed throughout and that there had been 'no carnal dealing.' She may have been lying though as she had his baby several months later.

Couples accused of ante-nuptial fornication could either sit in the 'Publick place of repentance', a sort of 18th century naughty chair, or pay a fine of £4 which, considering that a male domestic servant's yearly wage in the 1790s was not much over £5*, was a considerable price.

The best entry is Peter Garrioch's complaint against the 'abuse' he suffered from William Knarston. According to Peter, William called him 'a Knave and a Lyar before one witness.' William poo-pooed this telling of events, insisting that 'he only called him an untruth-sayer.'

This verbal trickery did not fool the Church elders and William was fined 40 shillings by the Civil magistrate.





* Kirkwall and St. Ola, Statistical Account of Scotland 1791-1799

Light My Fire

In the present age of soaring fuel costs it's easy to think that things were better back in the "good old days". Well, unfortunately not!!

I'm currently cataloguing the records of an Orkney Estate, D15: The Halcro Johnston papers. The records reveal the history of the Coubister Estate in the Parish of Orphir and, once cataloguing is complete, will be an extremely valuable source for researchers interested in family history, farming techniques and practices, and a host of other topics too.

I came across the following two documents yesterday which reveal a startling rise in the cost of the tenant's main source of fuel, peat.

Both documents are lists of subscribers who have paid for the right to cut peats in the property of Greenigoe. The first, dated 23 June 1865, states that the subscribers agree to pay three shillings for each tusker of peats they cut.

D15/6/2/6: List of subscribers 23 June 1865

However, less than a year later on 24 April 1866 the subscribers agree to pay four shillings for each tusker. A price rise of 33%!

D15/6/2/6: List of subscribers 24 April 1866

Not only that but, to rub salt in the wound, the Laird has also restricted the amount of cutting time allowed to ten hours a day and raised the price again to five shillings for peat cut in the month of August.

A tusker is an implement used to cut peats and traditionally a tusker of peats was measured as the amount of peat a man could cut from sunrise to sunset. This obviously varied depending on the fitness and stamina of the cutter as well as the differing length of day throughout the year, and on one reported occasion three men took turns throughout the day and managed to cut double the normal quantity!