Get Off My Island!

Frances Ligonier Balfour

Long-term readers may remember our great excitement when Eastenders hosted a live episode for their 25th anniversary. 'How can this be topped?' we asked. By live WEEK 30th anniversary Eastenders, that's how.




We have been celebrating here in the archive by beating each other on the head with ashtrays, having secret affairs and accusing loved ones of murder. We have also spent most of our working hours in the pub or the caff without detriment to our jobs. Sorry customers.




We have also had a look at Orkney's own steely matriarch of the Balfour family, Frances Ligonier Balfour.


Frances has been described as 'supercilious, ironic with a sharp wit and fond of argument'.


Although the daughter of an aristocratic father, Frances was actually illegitimate but this does not seem to have harmed her social standing. Intelligent and clever and plain, Frances had struggled in the late 18th century marriage market until she met 'flamboyant and charming' Thomas Balfour. Tom was ten years her junior so Frances lied about her age and they were wed soon after meeting.


Frances had three children in her late thirties and was devoted to them and her beloved husband who, unfortunately, kept disappearing off to Dublin only to return with lice, typhus fever and illegitimate children on the way.


As Tom lay on his death bed, Frances coolly received a volley of increasingly frantic letters from her husband's pregnant mistress. She agreed to uphold Tom's offer of a £50/year annuity for the child and to keep in touch.


"my daughter was a legacy bequeathed to you and I have no doubt you will fulfil your promise." (The mysterious Mrs Jackson/M/Clifford to Frances soon after her daughter's birth.)


The year before, Frances had been outraged by her daughter Mary's elopement with the socially inferior Church minister Alexander Brunton.


"I have been betray'd by the blackest ingratitude and perfidy.They went to Glasgow as soon as the ceremony was performed. They are still there but have not condescended to write,." (Frances to her sister-in -law).


Mary and Alexander further horrified her when informing her of their plans to take in lodgers to make ends meet.


 "Your Sister and her Husband I am inform'd are to go to reside in Edinburgh immediately. They propose taking Boarders. I wish I was rich enough to prevent so disgraceful a means of increasing their Income" (Frances to her son William).


Frances was more relaxed about William's love life as, 5 years after the elopement, when he was considering taking a wife she gave him this advice:


"Let it not raise your vanity if I tell you, I believe you may throw your handkerchief to any of our Orkney Belles. Men are scarce, competence scarcer, and a Gentleman the scarcest of the three. You ask me if there is any good natured Girl of my Acquaintance who would accept of you? In a matter of such importance you shou'd chuse for yourself, but my present advice is (tho' rather a licentious one for a parent,) that, for a year to come you wou'd take a Mistress, not into keeping, but a Lady who can keep you..."


Like all the best soap matriarchs, Frances didn't mince her words and was as tough as old boots. She died of a terminal illness in 1813 leaving behind a rich, well-spiced correspondence for future historians to savour.


"You can have no idea what a set of wretches this Country (Orkney) is inhabited. An honest Man would almost stand alone in it."

Frances' angry letter after the elopement of her daughter, Mary. D2/8/16

 

 

 Information taken from Orkney Archive references:

D2/5/6

D2/11/16

D2/7/3

D2/27/11

Who Was Who In Orkney by W. S. Hewison

The Orkney Balfours 1747-99 by Ray Fereday

Rant For A Reverend

Whilst perusing our D10 collection, which is a box full of miscellaneous papers collected by a Kirkwall cabinet maker James Tait (yet another example of a useful collection pulled together by an amateur historian), I found a letter addressed to the Procurator Fiscal by a South Ronaldsay minister named John Gerard regarding the way that unwanted pregnancies were being dealt with in his parish.

Some of the ministers who we read about were very kind and understanding to unwed mothers in their Parish. Thomas Kay of North Ronaldsay, for example, allowed a young mother to baptise her illegitimate child in 1873 and persuaded the rest of the session that she was to be treated decently. Gerard, or "Old Gerard" as he was known begins his letter "Queen Anne put unmarried women to death who concealed their pregnancy - What is now the punishment, if any?"

Gerard was described as a passionate man, or, as my boss put it when I showed her the letter, 'crazy.' There is a lot of underlining and exclamation marks in the letter as he lists examples of abortions and illegitimate births in his Parish and tells of the young couples whom he has forced to marry, one girl whom he has dragged "politely"straight from her birthing bed.

There is one somewhat amusing tale of a girl who, Sonia-Eastenders-style did not realise that she was pregnant, took to her bed with pains, got up when the "curmurring in her guts" had stopped and then angrily demanded to know who had put a baby in her bed.



There are some very horrible tales within his letter, however, of infanticide and children being abandoned which I shall not share as they really are distressing. Gerard seems to have no sympathy for these girls who must have been terrified to find themselves in such a situation and whose fear of exposure drove them to terrible, previously unthinkable acts.

I took a look at Goodfellow's Two Old Pulpit Worthies of Orkney which contains a biography of Gerard. Chapter titles include 'His Hasty Temper and Passionate Nature', 'His Ideas of Women', 'His Strange Antics',and 'His Scathing Rebukes.'

Goodfellow claims that Gerard "had a warm and kindly heart." Examples of his kindness include, warning men to marry a woman who is not "an old hag as ugly as sin", who has a good inheritance but to choose Prudence over Piety as, although a pious woman is ideal, you don't want to be stuck with a "regular Tartarean" (OED definition: 'a vixen or shrew.')

Gerard further demonstrated his warmth of heart when a neighbour's pig wandered onto his lands. Gerard shot it with his gun and then demanded that his neighbour collect his pig. He did not tell the poor man that he had shot the animal, however, and the farmer was confronted with a carcass when he was expecting to pick up a live animal.

When Gerard found the sheep of another neighbour grazing upon his lawn what do you suppose he did? Why what any reasonable man would do, of course; he whipped out his pocket knife, slit the poor sheep's throat and hung the livid remains upon his fence to warn others against repeating the neighbour's mistake. Sensible, measured and not at all weird.

He also congratulated a woman of his acquaintance for having a big mouth saying " I dinna like wee bits o' prim prinket mouths. Commend me to a leddy wi' a mouth could swallow a cod." Charm personified. She must have been thrilled.

The only thing I like about Gerard is that his funeral addresses used to have "Greet here" in the margin at sections where he wished to move his audience with a well-timed tear.

Information taken from Two Old Pulpit Worthies of Orkney by Alexander Goodfellow, 1925 and Orkney Archive Reference D10/20.

Marie celeste

No email working and no customers, as we are closed. It is a sad, lonely day for the archives... almost as sad as Eastenders *LIVE* (did he fall or jump by the way?)...

We are getting an awful lot done, however, so the absence of our beautiful customers is almost worth the pain. Shelves are being built, archives are being moved and thrilling preparations for Discovery Week are taking shape.

Apples and Pears

Tonight's television is possibly the most exciting event that could ever have been conceived: Eastenders LIVE!

Today in the library we shall be celebrating this truly momentous day by falling over, swearing and flicking our eyes at the CCTV cameras in a flustery panic.

In recognition of the fact that Soap Operas were originally intended as vehicles for soap commercials, we have posted a frankly quite disturbing advert from an 1890 edition of The Orcadian.

After tonight's show, you will probably feel quite downbeat and think that nothing else will match the visceral thrill that you have just experienced. Then, however, you shall remember that the library are hosting a live broadcast of Radio Orkney's the Bruck Show on Monday the 8th of March as part of Discovery Week. Phew.

Archives closure week

The Orkney Archive will be closed to the public the week of the 22nd - 27th of February 2010. This closure will not affect any of the library facilities.

We try to have a closure period every February so that we can drink tea, play winky murders and sardines in the strong-rooms, make prank calls and generally have a laugh.

Only joking. Because the majority of our working day throughout the year is spent front of house, there are many behind-the-scenes jobs that get neglected. The closure week is a good opportunity to accomplish tasks that need more than two people working on them at the same time, or that have acquired some urgency.

Last year we completely rearranged our Orkney Room, catalogued an entire collection, made great headway with another enormous collection and brought some semblance of order to our Aladdin's Cave of uncatalogued deposits. This year we hope to broker a peace deal in the Middle East, work out who killed Archie in Eastenders and invent a recipe for instant tea granules that doesn't taste rank.