Margaret Chartres and her family in 19th C Berwickshire, Scotland

Here I am on a beautiful sunny afternoon struggling to work with this challenging WordPress software.  Perhaps it is not meant to run on an IPad.  Thank goodness my daughter Katie is here to help me!  I have a few more days in Cambridge before leaving for Scotland and need to get the blog up and running.

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Pictures above – the entrance to Christ’s College Cambridge which runs a wonderful B & B in the Summertime (the breakfast is amazing, although beware the sticky table), and on the right my daughter Katie and myself at the Oak Bistro.  I’m the older one of course!

Now its August, and I am back home in Winnipeg.  From this point on I shall talk about my Chartres ancestors in the Lowlands of Scotland. This should be of interest to anyone with the last name of “Chartres”, or with an interest in the history of the Greenlaw, Duns, or Kelso area of the Scottish lowlands.

Before I start posting pictures, just a bit of background.  My newfound (its a long story, and one I might post one day), sister Susan Chartres in Te Anau, South Island, New Zealand  has researched our paternal ancestry back to the William Chartres who set sail from the port of Glasgow in 1874 at age 20.  He had a long, but uneventful voyage to New Zealand, and as the saying goes, he “made good”.  Actually, good enough to marry a Scottish lass (and I suspect they were in short supply in South Island in 1879), called Catherine Macintosh.  She was three years older than William, and they had three children, one of whom was my grandfather.

But lets go back in time.

The William Chartres who emigrated to New Zealand was the second son of Margaret Chartres, who never married (at least according to census records).  I have to admit to becoming somewhat obsessed with Margaret, as she seems to have been a “free spirit”, well ahead of her time.  She was born in 1823 in Heiton, Roxburghshire, but the family moved to Greenlaw, Berwickshire, sometime prior to 1826.  She was the second child of William and Margaret Chartres, who had 9 children. Most of her life was spent in Greenlaw.

This is Greenlaw church.  The Margaret Chartres headstone (# 13) is on the far left in the distance (more on this to come).

In 1841 when Margaret was 18 years old she gave birth to a son John.  There is no information on the identity of the father, and Margaret continued to live with her family in Wester Row, Greenlaw.  Coincidentally, her Mother Margaret gave birth to her youngest child Thomas in the same year, so the two boys would have spent their early years together.  Unfortunately there is no record of Thomas beyond age ten, so in all likelihood he died young.

In 1854, at age 31, Margaret Chartres gave birth to a second son William, and  again there is no information on the identity of the father.  At some point between 1841 and 1851 the family (Margaret, her child John, and her Father, Mother, and the youngest three siblings, Agnes, Mary and Thomas) moved to a new address in Greenlaw listed in the 1851 census as Green (East) Greenlaw.  After 1851, but prior to 1861, Margaret and her two boys left her Father’s house to live on their own at Gordon Bank, Greenlaw.  At this time (1861) she was 38 years old, Head of the Household and unmarried.  Her occupation was Agricultural Labourer.

However, the really interesting thing about the 1861 census record is that her oldest son John, aged 20 years, is described as a “scholar”.  Now how could a single Mother, who works in the lowest paid occupation of Agricultural Labourer, afford to support two boys on her own and pay for tuition for the oldest?  William was only 8 years old at this time, not old enough to earn a wage.

On possibility is family support, but this is unlikely.  Her father was a thatcher in the 1840’s, but would have lost his livelihood some time in the middle of the century when thatched roofs were forbidden due to the fire hazard.  All thatched roofs were replaced with slate tiles.  In the 1951 census her father’s occupation was “Mole Catcher”, and by 1861 he was living alone with his unmarried daughter Agnes, and was described as a “Pauper”.  No help could be expected from that quarter.  A second possibility is that one or both of the boy’s father(s) came from a different social class, and was able to provide financial support.  This seems the most likely explanation, but we shall never really know.

Of her two children, John and William, only the fate of William is known for sure.  In 1874 at age 20 the young William emigrated to New Zealand on the vessel “Invercargill” sailing out of Glasgow.  The New Zealand shipping records record the following:

“The Invercargill made her maiden voyage to Otago in command of Captain Tilly.  Leaving Glasgow with 390 passengers on July 17 1874 she sighted Cape Saunders on October 12, and anchored at Port Chalmers on October 14 after an uneventful passage of 90 days port to port.”

As for John Chartres, he disappears from the census records after 1861.  In the shipping records there is mention of a John Chartres who died at sea in 1866 at age 25 years.  The vessel was the “Mary Black and Harriet McBeath”, and the cause of death was fever.  It is likely, but not certain that this was Margaret’s oldest son.

We get our next glimpse of Margaret from the 1871 census.  At this time she is living with William (age 17 years) at “Old Greenlaw Cottage” near Greenlaw and is 48 years old.  Her occupation remains Agricultural Labourer.  From my recent visit to Greenlaw I learned that “Old Greenlaw Cottage” is attached to a Farm property, although time constraints prevented me from visiting and taking pictures.

By 1881, seven years after William left Scotland for New Zealand, we find Margaret in Chirnside, a small community in Berwickshire, east of Duns.  At this time she is 57 years old and a lodger in the household of Catherine Neilson, aged 54 years.  Margaret’s occupation is “Assistant Dairy Maid”, while Catherine is listed as “Dairy Maid and Hen Wife”.  Interestingly, Catherine was originally from Greenlaw, and they may have known each other for a long time.

Margaret died in 1893 in Greenlaw at age 72 years.  With the help of a local man I was able to identify the house she probably lived in at the time of her death, in a small street called Mill Wynd.  In the latter part of the 19th century it was a lodging house for persons of limited means.  I even discovered (with help of course), the street side tap that was the only source of water for Mill Wynd residents “back in the day”.  There was something about that old tap that took me back in time.  I felt a connection to the long dead Margaret, and could imagine her stooping to fill her pail.

The cause of death listed on her Death Certificate was “Senility and exhaustion”, while she was described as a “Pauper and field worker, single”.  Her younger sister Isobel Lillie (nee Chartres) was the “informant” on the death certificate.

So Margaret had lost both her sons – one most likely to death at sea, and the youngest, William, to emigration.  Without children to support her in old age (although it is quite possible her siblings helped her), life would have been difficult as she grew old.  Also, a lifetime of physical toil in farming must have taken its toll.  The question that comes to mind is whether of not William Chartres in New Zealand maintained any contact with his Mother, and if he was even aware of her plight.

I discovered a partial answer in Greenlaw churchyard.

The inscription reads:

Erected by
William Chartres
In memory of my Mother
Margaret Chartres
Who died on (date difficult to decipher) 1893 aged 72 years
and
Agnes Chartres who died
on (date difficult to decipher) 1895 aged 65 years

This was an exciting find.  Did William, at age 41, travel back to Scotland when news reached him of Margaret’s death, or did he make arrangements with the Pastor, or another local person, for the headstone to be inscribed?  It does speak to the respect and regard he had for his Mother; and also his Auntie Agnes (who never married).  I like to think that he did remain in contact all those years, and that Margaret could rest easy in the knowledge that her youngest son was thriving in the New World.