Chapter 11 - MacRob / Braemore Gunns, Jacobites, Clearances, Emigration, Gunn tartan, badge, motto, Septs...
1. Further bits and pieces
The individual chapters can be downloaded as pdfs from latrobe.academia.edu/AlastairGunn
11.1 MacRob / Braemore Gunns
The Robson Gunns were certainly a lawless set of thieves[1]
The most visible Gunn line other than the MacHamish / Killernan line from the Coroner are the descendants of Robert Gunn, the probable second son of the Coroner. These descendants become the MacRobs (Robsons); note how MacRobs and MacHamish are both nothing more than indicators of a particular Gunn family. The MacRob Gunns and the MacHamish Gunns are both significant families which suggest inherited wealth from the Coroner. Robert’s elder son was John Gunn MacRob of Strathy. The MacRob Gunn genealogy is quite traceable.[2] The Braemore Gunns descend from Donald Gunn, the second son of Robert Gunn. Like much of the MacHamish Gunn ‘history’ the MacRob ‘history’ also suffers from many myths. See chapter 7.2 and 7.3 for some Gunn Braemore stories. The Rattoo Gunns of Ireland probably descend from the Braemore Gunns. It is useful to view the MacRob Gunns as the main Gunn family of Caithness, just as one can view the MacHamish Gunns as the leading Gunn family of Sutherland in historical times.
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(1) The 1565 event
Sir Robert Gordon records[3] that in 1565 Alexander ‘Gun’ of the Braemore MacRob Gunn family line was executed[4] due to an etiquette squabble worthy of the Blackadder television show. This Alexander Gunn was in the service of the Earl of Sutherland and would not give way to the Earl of Moray – who was the illegitimate son of King James V and later[5] Regent of Scotland - when the Earls of Sutherland and Huntly met the Earl of Moray in the street in Aberdeen. Alexander was ‘in service with the Earle of Southerland’ and was walking ahead of the Earls of Sutherland and Huntly and did not get off the footpath to let the Earl of Moray have right of way. The Earl of Moray was blamed for later organising Alexander’s execution on some charge. Gordon also records that this Alexander had a son Alexander, and the executed Alexander’s father was ‘John Robson … by Earl Adam his bastard daughter’.[6]
This story is questionable. This Gunn was only a servant - surely if a servant had any brains then he would let an Earl have right of way, especially an Earl who was the son of a King. But the story gets even more doubtful. This story involving Gunn is not readily found elsewhere, one would have thought that such detail should be well known and fully written as it involves the Earl of Moray who was a significant person in Scottish history as he was later Regent of Scotland and what’s more the Earl is viewed as ‘The Gude Regent’[7] implying he wasn’t in for petty squabbles. The implication is that later historians find the story questionable and lacking in primary evidence.
The event is actually extremely questionable - one needs to look at the total story in Sir Robert Gordon’s book. The Gunn story is at the end of a few pages[8] detailing how the Earl of Huntly, the Earl of Moray and the Earl of Sutherland had been clashing with each other in all sorts of major ways over a period of time. These clashes included jail, possible execution, property seizure and so on. In particular the Earl of Huntly and the Earl of Moray had massive previous reasons for hating each other and the Earl of Sutherland also had good reason to hate the Earl of Moray. And who was the Earl of Huntly? The Earl of Huntly was the historian Sir Robert Gordon’s uncle so one has to question this unsupported Gunn story written by Sir Robert Gordon, involving the otherwise liked Earl of Moray due to possible family bias on Sir Robert Gordon’s part.[9]
So this Alexander MacRob Gunn story deserves to be questioned; it needs supportive evidence before it can be accepted. Currrently it seems just a bit too close to fiction, like so much Gunn ‘history’. And it’s not clear which Alexander Gunn it is meant to be…
(2) 1569-1599 or so
Sir Robert Gordon notes a 1569 killing of important MacRob Gunns by Mackays, at Balnakeil at Durness, at the Earl of Caithness’s instigation as he did not like those Gunns support for the Earl of Sutherland, which began a long series of raids and counter raids. Gordon decided that he would ‘pass … (the many raids) over’[10] and without his knowledge it is sensible to mainly do so. By implication it was a series of minor event after minor event with everyone to blame. One can find detail of some of these events in history texts, including a fairly serious attempt by the Earl of Caithness, the Earl of Sutherland and the Mackays to get rid of the Gunns; in particular in the mid-1580s. But as Sir Robert Gordon points out it was against ‘chiefly such of that tribe as dwelt in Caithness, because they were judged to be the principal authors of those troubles and commotions which were likely to ensure in that diocese.’[11] I would view ‘Caithness Gunns’ as shorthand for MacRob Gunns and some others.[12]
Overall what one is looking at in the northern Highlands of the 1500s is not complete lawlessness beloved by traditional Gunn ‘histories’ but a time when various powers with legal rights – in particular the Earl of Caithness, the Earl of Sutherland and the Chief of Mackays - fight, at times, for control and use Gunns (and others) as underlings in a series of power squabbles. It is an area where these events are on record and a broad view is worthwhile; the minutiae is fairly tedious.
(3) The burning at Sandside
The burning at Sandside is a serious incident which ends with the removal of some Gunns from Caithness for a while…
Sir Robert Gordon records that in 1615 the Earl of Caithness – who was against Lord Forbes for all sorts of reasons - first got ‘John Robson alias John Gunn’[13] to ‘invade’ Lord Forbes land but that plan did not go ahead as Lord Forbes was away from home. The Earl then dealt (bribed? told lies?) ‘earnestlie with John Robson… and with his brother Alexander Gunn… he dealeth also with ther cousin-german (full brother) Alexander George-sone’[14] to burn the corn at Sandside, being owned by a servant of Lord Forbes. Gordon says Alexander Robson agreed to the Earl’s request and so with two others the crime was committed. This caused all sorts of problems, a law case in Edinburgh, confusion and the loss of all sorts of honours and possessions owned by the Earl of Caithness as the Robsons Gunns explained all in court. Presumably in consequence in 1619 the Earl of Caithness arranged it so all Gunns ‘were dispossessed of whatsoever lands and possession they had from the Earl of Caithness.’[15] You get the idea; Robson Gunns were not exactly law-abiding… Mind you, the Earl of Caithness was hardly on the side of the law…
Colonel Sir William Gunn was[16] a nephew of one of the arsonists. Colonel William Gunn served in the Swedish army and in France and England. He had contacts with Cromwell’s army. ‘After 1655, Gunn disappears from view in both Stuart and Cromwellian correspondence, … with little being possible to confirm other than his death at some point between 1661-1663.’[17] It is probable he had a brother Donald Gunn of Dirlot[18], a cousin (possibly brother) John Gunn in Easterdale;[19] much of the family can be traced. A fuller account can be found in Mark Rugg Gunn.[20]
(3) The Gun Munro family of Poyntzfield, being probably the senior line of the MacRobs.
Robert had at least two, possibly three sons; the two main lines are from Donald (Braemore) and John MacRob (Strathy). One view[21] is that the Braemore Gunns were senior but the MacRob (Strathy) Gunns were the more visible / violent and, in consequence, better known. There are various stories about the generations in Mark Rugg Gunn[22] and elsewhere and the genealogy can be followed in the 1896 tree. The most well known – and I think most senior - family comes from the Braemore side; the Gunn Munros of Poyntzfield. The 1896 tree has
1. Robert Gunn (2nd son of the Coroner)
2. David Donaldson Gunn
3. Alan Davidson Gunn
4. John Gunn
5. George Gunn
6. Janet Gunn married the Rev. John Munro around 1704 from whom come the Gunn Munros.
Janet Gunn and Rev. John Munro[23] - the Gunn Munros – had
1. William Gun Munro dwi.
2. Captain John Gun Munro married (1) Elizabeth Sutherland and later (2) Christian MacKenzie
3. Sir George Gun Munro married Mary (Hinde) Poyntz 1760. They had ten children. This is the start of the Gunn Munros of Poyntzfield.
4. Henry Gun Munro c1727-c1782 married Sarah Hooper in Granville Nova Scotia. Henry was a soldier before fighting and staying in North America. He became a politician.
The Gunn Munros of Poyntzfield were –
1. Sir George Gunn Munro son of Janet Gunn of Braemore and Rev. John Munro of Halkirk.
2. He was followed by his nephew George Gunn Munro, son of his older brother Captain John Gunn Munro of Braemore. George Gunn Munro died July 1, 1806. He had married Justina Dunbar, daughter of William Dunbar, Forres. They did not have children. An illegitimate son of George Gunn’s was Treasurer of the Colony of Grenada.
3. Sir George Gunn Munro's nephew Col. Innis Munro succeeded; he was also son of John Gunn Munro and Elizabeth Sutherland.
4. Upon Col. Innis Gunn Munro's death in 1827 his son, Major George Gunn Munro succeeded to Poyntzfield. He married Jemima Charlotte Graham in 1822. Major George Gunn Munro was knighted in 1842. Major, Sir George Gunn Munro[24] died at Strathpeffer Spa in 1852.
The Gunn Munro line continues and can be readily found on the internet.
11.2 The ‘Covenanters’, especially 1639-1640
The Scottish covenanting movement was essentially about Presbyterians keeping their Presbyterianism and renunciation of anything and everything Roman Catholic. It’s a problem if you supported it as although for a while it was successful - it was for a while a sort of government and had its own army - when Charles II regained the throne he rejected the whole covenant idea.
In the troubled time of the Covenanters ‘Aberdeen ... and most of the Highlands – stood aloof’[25] and there is no reason to suppose Gunns overall behaved differently from the majority of the Highlands. I have, though, found one reference to some Gunns as covenanters in 1647.[26] Sinclair has the Gunns ‘taking the side of the landed proprietors’[27] which makes sense; one does not want to offend the landlords as otherwise one ends up homeless. Of interest is that in 1639 there was a battle at Aberdeen[28] (a Roman Catholic town) between Catholic and Presbyterian forces; and ‘crowner Gun, with diverse other English captains and officers’[29] – crowner[30] meaning here a colonel - was there on the Roman Catholic, English side. Who ‘crowner Gun’ was though is unknown.
The whole covenanting story is complex, partially merges with the English Civil War but its relevance to Gunns as a whole is minimal.
11.3 Jacobite rebellions and Gunn non-involvement
Given the non-commitment of the Gunns to the Stuart cause and the strength of the Sutherland Estate one should view the Jacobite rebellions as basically irrelevant to the Gunns…
Neil Oliver[31]
The Jacobite rebellions all had the same aim; restoring the last Catholic King of England and Scotland. These rebellions included the 1689-1690 (including the Glencoe massacre) period, the 1715 uprising where the ‘Old Pretender’ James Stuart arrived in Scotland and led an uprising but later fled. Finally there was the 1745 uprising of Bonnie Prince Charlie which also failed. The emotional appeal of the Jacobite rebellions is undeniable and is the stuff of many a film. Bonnie Prince Charlie, in particular, has had great propaganda. Real history, however, is markedly different from the movies.
The first point about these rebellions is the major issue of religion. The Highlanders were most commonly Presbyterian but the Stuarts were Catholic (although with some Episcopalian support). To support the Jacobites as a Highlander was to go against the dominant religion and risk losing all one’s possessions, including land as the landowners were all basically Protestant. The Sutherland Estate landowners were Protestant; if Gunns fought with the Jacobites they could expect serious problems as they lived on the Sutherland Estate. At least one map[32] has everything north of Inverness in the 1689 rebellion as either neutral or pro-government. Gunns are down as pro-government. The accompanying authorial comment is ‘Jacobitism was indelibly tainted by Catholicism and this ensued it had little appeal for most Scots’. So, logic and religious culture were against the Gunns having any role in the support of the Jacobite rebellion.
This is supported by evidence. I cannot find Gunns listed as supporting the 1715 rebellion.[33] Material relating to Chiefs of some Clans and their involvement in 1715 can be found;[34] the lack of Gunn reference again strongly suggests lack of Gunn involvement, not least due to the Gunns not having a Chief. However, in the folk song ‘The Chevalier’s Muster-Roll’ there is a list of those supporting the rebellion with the line ‘Donald Gun and a’s coming.’[35] If the mentioned Donald was meant to refer to Donald Crotach Gunn (9,15) of Killearnan / Badenloch then that Donald was dead by 1715 – see the discussion in his life. So if the song is meant to provide history there is no known Donald Gunn around as a potential leader. It has to be viewed as just a later written song, not an historic record – it was first known printed in 1803[36] which is a long time after 1715 so this song should be ignored as history. It is worth noting that the Lord Sutherland could have one thousand men out in support of the Hanoverian – and against the Jacobite - cause[37] which, one assumes, would include some Gunns.
There is no support for the Gunns having anything more than a token involvement in the 1745 uprising. The Gunn muster in Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s army was four; Angus Gunn a husbandman of Lairn, Donald Gunn of Caithness (being a deserter from Lord Loudon’s), Donald Gunn a husbandman of Dunbeath and John Gunn of Stoneywood.[38] Worth noting that it is estimated that under one third of the potential Highland fighting force did fight on the side of “Prince Charlie’ – the idea that all Highlanders were Jacobites is not supported by fact.[39] However, we know Alexander Gunn (10,19) of Badenloch, was one of the ‘List of Officers of Independent Companies raised in the year 1745’[40] as part of the anti-Jacobite military forces; he was there as an individual; his company was not a Gunn company. He was serving for the Government (and really the landowner). For more detail on his involvement see his life.
There is a detailed historical document of 1748 – a ‘Memorial, said to be drawn up by the Lord President Forbes of Culloden was transmitted to Government detailing the force of every clan, the tenures of every chieftain, and the amount of retainers which he could bring into the field ... Besides the clans enumerated in this in this curious document, there were a number of independent gentlemen, who had many followers, but being what were called broken names, or small tribes, they are omitted in the Lord President’s report.’[41] This document was about the potential for military action – one way or another - by the Highlanders; the Gunns were not mentioned at all with the implication they were, at most, but a small tribe (and certainly not a clan) and of no military significance.
The Gunns, in essence, took no part in support of the Jacobite rebellions and the main MacHamish Gunn quite logically supported the Government of the time.
And was the Jacobite rebellion all that the movies have made it to be? Another view is that ‘Jacobitism was right-wing, backward-looking, intellectually regressive, morally bankrupt and financed by foreign tyrants. The much-romaticized Jacobite rebellions … were essentially attempted right-wing coups d’etat.’[42]
11.4 The Clearances
There is no doubt that some Highland estates were “cleared” of tenants and their subsistence crofts or tenanted small-holdings, usually to provide room for sheep grazing and/or deer-shooting. This is still keenly felt in many areas of the Highlands. It also resonates with the Scottish Diaspora overseas, even against evidence to the contrary. It is not unusual to meet descendants of émigré Scots who, their descendants claim, were “forced out of Scotland”. This is often given an overlay of religious persecution, class warfare, unjust criminal sentences and so on, and an image is conjured up of entire crofting communities being herded onto boats for exportation to the Colonies … and no evidence to the contrary will change the mind of the convinced..... Dr Bruce Durie[43]
If you go the bother of actually reading up about the Highland Clearances, not in rubbish like John Prebble’s book[44] and similar, but in the scholarly literature, the real picture is revealed as being far from the popular myth of tens of thousands of persecuted Highlanders who had their houses brutally torched and who were then forced to flee to Canada, Australia and elsewhere.[45]
The popular view tends to be grossly over-simplified and, at worst, becomes caricature…[46]
The Highland Clearances of 1790-1855 have been extremely well covered by historians over many years and those wishing for the full detail should explore their texts. Simplistically the key question is; was it ‘ethnic cleansing’ or had the process merely suffered from a bad press?[47] Or was it something in between? As far as it impacted on the Gunns – and it was a wide process involving much more[48] than just Gunn lands – I think it is best viewed as forceful / violent, Victorian, well-meaning paternalism with appalling consequences for many. Yes, serious mistakes were made in the actual process; for example the Kildonan riots[49] of 1813 were caused by too hastily requiring people to move[50] - although at least one suggestion for the reluctance of the Kildonan people to move ‘was attributed to their whisky smuggling activities which were sure to be restricted’[51] when they settled elsewhere - but this haste was not deliberate policy, more inexperience. The point is clear; the people did not want to move but the land was not theirs. Violence was certainly used, but ‘The level of violence was less than in similar events in contemporary Ireland.’[52]
Why did the Sutherland Estate get involved with Clearances? ‘Two ideas loomed large in the thinking of the Sutherland estate… The first was the growing conviction that the estate… was capable of spectacular economic advance … The second…was about the poverty of of the common people… A fundamental rearrangement of the foundations of their lives was imperative.’[53] In other words, sheep would pay more and allow for improvements on the Estate a lot of which would be for the good of the ‘common people’. Yes, the policy underpinning the Sutherland Estate clearances had as one of its two key points spending money to remove poverty. There may also have been antipathy to those on the Estate due to the poor response to raising the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders in 1799.[54]
Now what did this mean in practice on the Sutherland Estate around 1820?[55] The points and some of the language are from Factor Francis Suther’s letter to the Editor of ‘The Scotsman’ 13 August 1819 and from George Gunn’s (13,60) letter[56] of 21 July 1819 responding to ‘The Scotsman’ of 10 July 1819. -
· The Sutherland Estate tenants had notice in November 1817 that they would be removed starting 1 May 1819. The last year was rent free and arrears of rent were ignored.
· This information was regularly repeated including by local Ministers and personal communication.
· Tenants were offered lots at Helmsdale in replacement of between one or two Scots acres, or at Brora with lots of two acres with land already ploughed and ready for cultivation. Coastal allotments for the first year were rent free. They could, therefore, live in the old houses whilst building the new.
· For those who thought such land too small six to twelve acres were offered on Dornoch Moors and Five Pounds given for every acre brought into cultivation.
· Timber was furnished for the new houses free of charge.
· With regard to the burning of the houses ‘The account of their being burnt out of their huts is equally untrue, in those instances indeed where the tenant either did not, or from the distant situation of his hut, could not carry away the timber, it was burnt, but not until after valuation of two sworn appraisers, in order to prevent them being reoccupied ...’
· These arrangements went on from 1807 until at least 1820+?
· ‘It has been a rule upon this, as it is upon other Estates in the Country, to remove from their holdings all Offenders against the Law, upon their being convicted of Sheep stealing, Illegal Distillation, Destroying the woods, Killing the Fish in close time, or of any other depredation on the property of the Landlord or tacksman ... This rule was not abandoned on the present occasion, and persons actually convicted of these crimes before a Magistrate, amounting in number to about one hundred, one half of whom were also heads of Families were not to be retained upon the estate.’ [57]
· Very few actually emigrated to America (20 to 25 families) in response to the evictions.[58]
· ‘Before 1815 no herrings (were) caught; 1816 4000 barrels caught. By 1818 herring was worth more than the sum total of all rentals in the Estate’ (£30,000 for the herrings)
· ‘there was not a House in which the least symptom of sickness appeared but was left undisturbed and the inhabitants allowed to remain in quiet possession where many of them still are.’
· ‘if the people will throw off their former idle unindustrious habits they will earn a sufficient daily competency to keep themselves... it was certainly as necessary for the Proprietor to rid his Glens of this tenantry who required to be fed ... the indolence and unprofitable of the tenantry ... All this natural riches (of the sea) so beautifully offered were lost. And why? Because the people who ought to have been employed in the Fisheries occupied their time in preventing the useful application of the interior ... (those who don’t live on the coast lived in) filth, idleness, precarious food and clothing and all the train of ruinous consequences on health and morals ....
Okay, it’s patronising ‘the estate knows best’ and ‘don’t be a nuisance in any way or the estate will not give you anything’ – but it’s not ethnic cleansing. Contemplate the Clearances in a modern way. Imagine you rented a property and the owner said you can have the current place rent free for a year and then the owner will have organised a new place for you to live a little way from where you currently live and you can have the first year rent free there as well. That just doesn’t happen – it sounds incredibly generous. But that is basically what the Sutherland Estate offered. It’s worth noting that in the thirty years after 1817 – after the Clearances – there was only one period of famine in 1836-7 whereas famine had been acute before 1817.[59] So, one may not like the policy but it better served those on the total estate, including those relocated from inland areas to places like Helmsdale.
So, Gunns certainly were moved around by the Clearances and some suffering happened in consequence. Migration? Sure, some happened, but migration started a long time before the Clearances - one estimate suggests Scottish migration of between 85,000 and 115,000 between the 1600-1650.[60]
What the Sutherland Estate did was legal and evokes modern planning,[61] the actions were no worse than that done elsewhere and was done with an awareness of the need to improve the lives of the people on their estate. It wasn’t perfect. Mark Rugg Gunn’s view[62] that ‘the wholesale Sutherland clearances, a chapter of tragedy and inhumanity as black as any in Scottish history and nowhere did the axe fall more heavily than on the land of the Gunns’ is not sustainable. By contrast James Hunter writes ‘The Sutherland clearances, according to their originators, enabled entire communities to move from the country’s interior, where living conditions were allegedly poor, to seaside locations offering more in the way of opportunity.’[63] Another view is simple – ‘The Policy and plans put into effect in Sutherland …were very much in the spirit of the age.’[64]
And was it all as efficient / ruthless as many say? One view is ‘the obstinate people of the Heights of Kildonan … rapidly rebuilt their huts from their old timber. Reed said they simply drove their cattle out of sight when the clearing parties approached and then returned the stock to their old pastures when the constables departed.’[65]
One has to mention the Factor of the Sutherland Estate at one time in the Clearances was George Gunn (13,60), who was ‘Chief of the Clan Gunn’ in some views; Gunn certainly ‘rearranged groups of tenantry in Kildonan and Loth at Rovie and Craigton’.[66] So, no matter your view of the Clearances the Gunn hierarchy was certainly partly responsible for it. Incidentally George Gunn (13,60) was loathed by the earlier Factor, Patrick Sellar the details of which are explored in Eric Richards Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances.
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One view of the Gunns around this time –
Clan Gunn
This clan ... (lived) in a most remote and inaccessible country, they continued to live in the committal of continued breaches of the law and yet to escape punishment. This character, even to a late day, distinguished in a remarkable manner, some individuals of this Clan and district, and the people of the heights of Kildonan were long noted for being the least observant of the laws of any in the county. Indeed it is only within the last five years that the disappearance of a sherriff’s officer, who was sent up to execute a warrant in a civil process, led to the recollection of many stories of former days. Their country was peculiarly favourable for carrying on illegal distillation, and they did not neglect to take advantage of their situation. They obtained, with much ease, their grain from the corn districts of the adjoining county of Caithness, and the inaccessible and remote situations of their habitations, made it neither very easy nor advisable, for the revenue officers to follow them into their recesses. The nature of their country gave them equal facilities in disposing of their whiskey....
Being from pages 97-99 of An account of the improvements on the estates of the Marquess of Stafford in the Counties of Stafford and Salop and on the Estate of Sutherland with Remarks by James Loch Esquire, London, Longman, Hurst Rees, Orme and Brown, 1820. James Loch had been the Factor on the Sutherland Estate.
11.5 Emigration
Emigration could be either an escape route for the poor and persecuted or an avenue of advancement for the ambitious and adventurous. Often it was both.[67]
as many Lowlanders as Highlanders emigrated between 1763 and 1765[68]
The Highland Famine of 1846-1855 was significantly caused by the failure of the main subsistence crop, the potato. This famine does not stand any comparison with the Great Irish Famine but is of importance. One view of the impact of the Famine on Sutherland is ‘Sutherland had a distinctive population history… Only three Parishes Assynt, Loth and Lairg, show exceptional losses for the famine period. The rest of estimated out-migration for the county as a whole was much higher between 1831 and 1841 than in either of the famine decades. The emigration history of Sutherland was plainly primarily determined by the great clearances …’[69] So, we have famine and the Clearances helping cause migration. As well the Duke of Sutherland supported many to emigrate to British North America in the period 1847-1851.[70] But there were also positive reasons for migration such as the discovery of gold in Australia.[71]
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So what was it like to migrate to places like Canada and Australia around this time? The following[72] was written by John Gunn (14) 1836-1854, son of Barbara Gunn (13,55), describing his trip to Australia in 1853.
from Caithness
Monday July 11th Took steamer from Scrabster Roads to Glasgow and arrived there on Wednesday the 13th about 7 in the afternoon. I remained in Glasgow till 6 o'clock P.M. on Saturday when I took a steamer to Liverpool and arrived there about 8 o'clock P.M. on Sunday. Remained on shore until Thursday following when I embarked on Board the ship Tasmania which was then hauled out of the Docks and lying in the River Mersey. The ship lay here again until Wednesday the 27th July when she weighed anchor and was tugged out of the Harbour by two steam boats the last of which left the following morning at Holy-Head when we were left to beat up the English Channell - it was a fine day + we were in high spirits. On the 29th it commenced to blow right ahead and a great many of the Passengers sea sick I myself was very sick for some days. For the four following days we were beating up the English channel the wind always blowing ahead until on Tuesday the 2nd Augt when we neared the Bay of Biscay and it fell calm and continued so all day but on the 3rd a smart breeze sprung up which carried us along at a beautiful rate and from this to the 9th we had splendid weather and all passengers were again well. there are a great many Highland people on Board and we had Music and Dancing every good evening in which I joined considering it best for the health to take a little exercise. On Tuesday the 9th the wind shifted a little ahead of us. Today we saw the Island of Porto Santo which belongs to the Portuguese. It is a wild (mild?) looking spot we saw two small boats as if they were fishing between us and the shore. 10th and 11th Very calm and doing little progress. On the 12 we came in sight of the Island of Medeira and passed about 8 miles to the east of it. 13 we had little wind but on Sunday the 14th we had a .... breeze. There were a great many fishes seen today and although it was Sunday the sailors and Passengers some of which I am sorry to say were Scotch tried with hook and spear to catch some. They did catch five of them and immediately gutted and Boiled and ate them. They were called Albacors and weighed about 30lbs each. However I did not touch them. On Monday the 15th we had a nice Breeze of Fair Wind nothing between 9 and 10 knots an hour. Passed the barque Jane of Aberdeen bound for Melbourne in Lat 31 N. On 16th the splendid screw steam ship Sidney passed us. She sailed from London on the 4th Augt and was bound for Sidney and passed steaming under a cloud of Canvas about 3 O’Clock in the afternoon. On Wednesday the 17th we entered the Tropics about 11 O’Clock am. It is now getting very warm. 17th and 18th. Good Breeze of fair wind several ships in Company but we left them all in a short time. 19th. Very Calm and at night it was the most beautiful sight I ever saw there was several ships in view and the sea was as smooth as glass. Saturday the 20th. Steward was today put in irons in consequence of his refusing to execute certain orders of the Commander. On the 21st, 22nd + 23rd we had fair wind and going very well. On the 24th it rained heavily for the first time since we left Liverpool and the passengers were eagerly engaged in catching as much of it as they could for washing with it. A child died today of the measles and committed to a watery grave about 4 O’Clock in the afternoon by the Carpenter after a funeral sermon was read by the surgeon. Immediately afterwards the passengers sang a hymn. On the 25th it was very blowy with some flashes of Lightning in the evening. It is now very warm + I can scarcely sleep in my berth with my clothes at all on me. We walk the Deck with nothing but our trowsers and shirt on and still it is very oppressing the heat. I can scarcely bear to put my naked hand on any article exposed to the sun about 12 noon. The sun is now over our heads. Friday the 26th. Very calm with some showers of rain. 27th High winds not at all favourable. On the 28th, 29th, 30th we had very good weather but the heat very great and suffering a great deal from thirst the water very bad and not drinkable without vinegar or something to take away the taste and smell. We are all divided in 6 messes + take a day about in cleaning the berths and cooking for each mess. On Wednesday the 31st we were all ordered by the Captain on Deck from 10 to 12 noon to allow the 'tween Decks' to be aired. 1st 2nd + 3rd very varyarorable (?) weather but on the 4th we fell in with the Trade winds which are favorable. Monday 5th September. Splendid breeze going 10 + eleven knots an hour. Tuesday 6th. Blowing very strong but wind very favorable going at the rate of 14 Knots an hour and continued this way for some days but on the 12th we were oblged to go under double reefed top sails. I should have observed that that we crossed the line on the 3rd and the event was celebrated by the usual custom of shaving among the crew and passengers. 13th 14th and 15th Weather milder though the swell of the sea and the rocking of the ship made it almost impossible to walk the Decks. 16th Good weather and going well the weather is now getting colder. 17th Still good weather. 18th It commenced to blow against us and continued so for two days a tremendous quantity of sea fowl observed such as Cape Pidgeons and Albatrosses some of the latter measure from wing to wing the length of from 8 to ten feet. On the 20th we passed the Cape of Good Hope at a distance of 800 miles from it to the south. From this to the 1st of October we have very changeable and rough weather which made it very difficult to write. On the 2nd October the wind changed in our favour and we run by log the great distance of 340 miles in 24 hours but shipped several seas which washed all the decks. 3rd + 4th Very heavy sea with strong wind. Lost our main top stansail. Wednesday 5th Our our miser (?) top Gallant yard gave way and broke through the middle. The carpenters were immediately engaged in making a new one and were helped by some Carpenters and Joiners on Board. Thursday 6th Heavy sea, ship labouring much shipping heavy seas. We got our yard rigged early in the morning but about 12 noon a sea struck the ship lurching her in such a manner as to break her miser mast into three pieces + Down came itself yards and sails bringing down with it in its course our Maintop gallant and Royal yards. Nothing could exceed our Consternation + surprise when we saw our ship so suddenly disabled. All hands were immediately engaged in clearing the deck and the carpenters got such help from the Passengers that the ship was soon put to rights. 7th 8 9 + 10th Got fair wind and going very well 11th Blowing rather strong. 12th Saw a ship bound to Melbourne with Passengers 115 days out we soon left sight of her she sailed from London. 13th and 14th Fair wind + going well. 15th Passengers today collected a subscription among them for to present the Captain on their arrival at Melbourne with some token of their respect. 16th Wind rather contrary but still on the right course. 17th + 18th Fair wind. 19 + 20 Fair wind and drawing near land. 21st This morning early the ....(?) was that the land was in sight and everybody was on Deck. 22nd Coasting along the Australian shore. 23rd Early this morning came in sight of Port Phillip Light House. We then got a Pilot and sailed up the straits for Melbourne where we arrived and cast Anchor three miles from the town at 2 O’Clock in the afternoon. The Custom House Officers came immediately on Board with the Inspector. We lay at Anchor here all night and next morning and this morning Tuesday the 25th. There was steam boats come to fetch us ashore. Melbourne is a strange Place. Two men was hanged yesterday and other two are to be hanged today. Wages is very good yet. I did not get any job yet but I expect to get one soon. This is now a sketch of the Passage and I hasten to inform you of my safe arrival Dear Uncle. There was no sickness on Board but 7 children died of the measles +c and we had three Births. We arrived 2 hours after the Gildfinder (?) who sailed from Liverpool 5 days before us. McWilliamson's (?) little Neil died also on the voyage. I will write you again soon with all the news.
I am My Dear Uncle
your affect nephew
John Gunn 25th Oct 1853
I was not a day sick since I left home but a little sea sick at first. Passage 88 days.
John (14) died 10 January 1854 at about the same time his brother Donald Gunn (14) arrived in Australia; sunstroke is possible.
11.6 Gunn tartan
It was (Sir Walter) Scott who, to add “aboriginal” colour to George IV’s “jaunt” to Edinburgh in 1822, invented the cult of the clan tartan … arguably one of his finer works of fiction.[73]
'the tartan mania is not a disease which has grown less virulent over the years.'[74]
‘Originally tartan designs had no (Clan) names and no symbolic meaning …’.[75]
Following … 1822 … Gunn … selected pattern sett variations of the Green Mackay tartan…[76]
One can see how tartan of an area would occur – a person would dye wool using the plants of the district. But that district / regional tartan wasn’t named after a family. The word ‘tartan’ derives from the Celtic tuar (colour) and tan (district)[77] again showing it was cloth of an area, not of a family. So, what happened? ‘In 1842 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited Scotland. The young couple fell in love with the country, and tartan, which had been simmering for 20 years since the visit of King George IV, bubbled up again…. The brothers John and Charles Allen, calling themselves Sobieski Stuart,[78] finally published Vestiarium Scoticum, (but which was based on drafts from the late 1820s on) which introduced 75 new tartans to the delight of the trade.’[79]
Consider the Verstiarium Scoticum. The book’s authors presented the text ‘as historical proof of the connections between tartans and family clans, a link that previously had no record. The Stuarts’ claims were later found to be completely false; the tartans in the book were in fact designed by the brothers themselves. Even still, their fabrications are to this day widely accepted as authentic by manufacturers and families alike’.[80] So, a whole pile of named family tartans were invented for the Verstiarium Scoticum and given a fictional history so tourists would buy them. And Gunn tartan is in the book.[81] Now there is a chance that this Gunn tartan reflected earlier tartan worn by Gunns and others near them – that chance offers one reason why Mackay, Gunn, MacWilliam and Morrison tartans look so similar.[82] But named Gunn tartan is nothing more than a Victorian invention to get money from historically confused tourists and which continues to do so. As I have said before so much Gunn history is really mythology and named Gunn tartan is part of that mythology.
11.7 The fictional, traditional Gunn Crest badge and motto
The Lord Lyon …denies the existence of a ‘clan crest’ or a ‘clan coat of arms’. These belong to the chief alone; a clansperson may wear the crest badge only if it is encircled by a belt and buckle’[83]
'Crest badges, much like clan tartans, do not have a long history, and owe much to Victorian era romanticism...'[84]
James Logan, in 1831, does not list a Clan badge for the Gunns.[85]
Historically the Gunns never had arms issued for a Chief by Lord Lyon, in other words there were never any legally approved shield of arms or crest of the Chief. That’s because there is no such thing as a Clan coat of arms[86] – it all belongs to the Chief and should only be used with his / her permission. But historically people have (wrongly) used two different versions of a shield of arms / crest badge for Gunns.
These inventions are firstly a badge shape with the clenched fist with ‘Aut Pax Aut Bellum’; the earliest known version of this Gunn badge and motto is to be found engraved on a tea service once owned by Elizabeth Countess of Sutherland 1765-1839 but presented by her to Factor George Gunn (13,60) in 1832. The inscription on it does not say he was Chief of the ‘Clan’ Gunn. For more information about the Countess of Sutherland’s creation of a ‘Gunn Chief’ see Appendix 3. Its use on the tea service was a piece of imagination; its later use as a ‘Clan Gunn’ crest badge is unauthorised and wrong.
Secondly the arms for Gunn Munro of Braemore includes, at top, an upraised sword in a clenched fist; this may be the origin of the non-legal Clan Gunn crest badge. I have been reliably informed that ‘a quartered coat of arms was matriculated in name of George Gun Munro of Braemore on 18 November 1800 wherein he is recorded as 'the heir and Representative of the late Sir George Munro of Poyntzfield his Uncle' ... the shield of arms shown on the website[87] you mention is a reasonably accurate representation of the Arms for Gun that appear in the second quarter of the Arms for George Gun Munro of Braemore.’
So, without any Gunn chief there were no traditional coat of arms or motto for the Gunns. What has been used are either illegal borrowings or pure fictional arms / motto.
11.8 Septs
(Septs) must be regarded as a rather wonderful effort of imagination …
The very word ‘sept’ is delusive[88]
It should also be said that the various Sept lists, which are published in the various Clans and Tartan books, have no official authority. They merely represent some person's, (usually in the Victorian era) views of which name groups were in a particular clan's territory.[89]
Given Gunns are a non-related group of original settlers who never even had a Chief let alone a founding father, Gunn septs are impossible as septs spring from founding fathers and Chiefs.
Tradional Gunn myth supporters like to have septs. The problem for these supporters is all the supposed Septs derive from Coroner Gunn. This adds support for the non-existence of mythic Gunn Chiefs before the Coroner as it shows lack of evidence for earlier Gunn ‘Chiefs’ from whom Septs should have originated.
Yes, Coroner Gunn had children and a range of surnames may descend from them. But even having a surname linked to Gunn does not mean that you are of Gunn descent; various surnames have many origins. Consider the name Wilson, a name associated with Gunns but also Clan Innes, Ireland and elsewhere. Just because you have a name which is on one of the many varied - and often imaginative - Gunn sept names list does not mean you have any Gunn link whatsoever.
The question for people interested in Gunn septs is simple – are you sure you are related to one of these Coroner Gunn lines? I would be very impressed if you could prove it. And if it’s not factually able to be proved then your surname could descend from anywhere. If you cannot absolutely prove your descent from one of Coroner Gunn’s children why are you bothered with Gunn septs?
***
[1] Quoted page 86, Mark Rugg Gunn, Clan Gunn.
[2] See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Munroe accessed 21 March 1019.
[3] Page 144, Sir Robert Gordon, A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland.
[4] Page 80, Mark Rugg Gunn, Clan Gunn using Sir Robert Gordon.
[5] Page 84, Mark Rugg Gunn, Clan Gunn says the Earl of Moray was Regent at this time. That is historically wrong.
[6] Page 144, Sir Robert Gordon, A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland.
[7] Page 111, ed. K McCue and P. Perkins Women’s Travel Writings in Scotland, Volume 4.
[8] Page 143, Sir Robert Gordon, A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland.
[9] As already discussed, any Gunn event not mentioned by Sir Robert Gordon must be questioned as to the source of the much later new stories; they are generally fiction. However just because Gordon recounts them one must also consider whether they are true; the closer the events to his family I would suggest the more likely the story is to be ‘shaped’ for family propaganda. As well, note that in Gordon this Alexander had a son Alexander; this son does not appear on the 1868 / 1879 trees, the 1896 tree, nor on Mark Rugg Gunn’s Clan Gunn tree on page 158. The story has the son as a ‘bastard’ though and so he may not have remained on ‘formal’ trees.
[10] Page 174, Sir Robert Gordon, A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland.
[11] Quoted page 44, Thomas Sinclair, The Gunns.
[12] Page 86, Mark Rugg Gunn, Clan Gunn, pages 44 – 73 onwards in Thomas Sinclair, The Gunns.
[13] Page 75, Thomas Sinclair, The Gunns.
[14] Page 331 Sir Robert Gordon, A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland.
[15] Page 112, Mark Rugg Gunn, Clan Gunn, quoting Sir Robert Gordon.
[16] https://journals.openedition.org/etudesecossaises/215#ftn19 accessed 10 July 2018.
[17] Page 67, David Worthington, British and Irish Experiences and Impressions of Central Europe c. 1560-1688.
[18] Page 114, Thomas Sinclair, The Gunns.
[19] Page 114, Thomas Sinclair, ibid.
[20] Page 125-129, Mark Rugg Gunn, Clan Gunn.
[21] Page 93, Mark Rugg Gunn, ibid.
[22] Page 93, Mark Rugg Gunn, ibid. and following pages.
[23] Abstracted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Munroe accessed 9 July 2018.
[24] Page 26, Alexander Mackenzie, The Highland Clearances tells of how Sir George Gunn Munro tried to help the establishment of a Free Church in Dornoch but the Sutherland Estate stopped him from doing so.
[25] Page 209, J. D. Mackie, A History of Scotland.
[26] Page 124, Northern Scotland Volumes 7-9.
[27] Page 90, Thomas Sinclair, The Gunns.
[28] Pages 128-129, John Spalding, The History of the Troubles and Memorable Transactions in Scotland, From 1624-1645.
[29] Page 148, John Spalding, ibid.
[30] Page 243, Francis Grose, Military Antiquities, Respecting a History of the English Army Volume 1; ‘colonel … This officer is by some of our ancient military writers called coronell, crownell… crowner…’. One sees the problem again of no defined spelling for printers and just trying to spell by the sound of words.
[31] Page 173, Neil Oliver, A History of Scotland.
[32] John Haywood and Barry Cunliffe, The Historical Atlas of the Celtic World.
[33] For example, in Page 97, James Logan, The Scottish Gael, Volume 1. There is also no mention of any Gunn involvement in any of the uprisings in Murray Pittock’s The Myth of the Jacobite Clans.
[34] For example, the MacDougall Chiefs in Jean MacDougall’s Highland Postbag The Correspondence of Four MacDougall Chiefs 1715-1865.
[35] See http://chrsouchon.free.fr/muster.htm for the full song accessed 20 February 2019.
[36] http://www.electricscotland.com/history/other/021TheHighlandMusterRoll1715.pdf accessed 11 July 2018.
[37] Page 97, James Logan, The Scottish Gael, Volume 1.
[38] Page 82 and 223 of Livingstone, A. of Bachuil, Aikman, C.W.H. and Hart, B.S, No Quarter Given The Muster Roll of Price Charles Edwatd Stuart’s Army 1745-1746. Mark Rugg Gunn page 192 quotes ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ of 1746 saying that Prince Charlie, at Culloden Moor, ‘had a few of the Clan of Gunns’ but with the proviso that the Earl of Loudon – for the Hanovers - had among his men ‘120 Gunns under their chief MacKemish’. I have read the Gentleman’s magazines for that year and can find no such reference bar for one just on the Earl of Loudon which had no Gunn link. This makes me question Mark Rugg Gunn’s entry. As well, the extremely unlikely nature of one hundred and twenty Gunns being led by a Killernan when we have no record of any Killernan doing that at any time makes the account more questionable especially as the 1748 memorial has no record for the Gunns having any military strength – or even existence – as a clan.
[39] Page 217, Celeste Ray, Highland Heritage.
[40] Page 293, Col. David Stewart, Sketches of the Highlanders of Scotland Volume Two.
[41] Page 26, Col. David Stewart, Sketches of the Highlanders of Scotland.
[42] Page 107, George Rosie, Curious Scotland Tales From a Hidden History.
[43] http://www.bletherskite.net/2013/10/04/what-is-a-clan-by-dr-bruce-durie/#comment-21492 accessed 1 May 2014.
[44] John Prebble’s The Highland Clearanaces is a readable, emotional, one-sided, populist account of the period. The front cover of the Penguin 1985 (and earlier) issue highlights the ‘ethnic cleansing’ aspect of his account. The emotionality of the Strathnaver clearances in fiction is explored in Laurence Gourievidis ‘The Strathnaver Clearances in Modern Scottish Fiction: History, Literary Perception & Memory’ in J. R. Baldwon’s The Province of Strathnaver.
[45] https://roddymacleod.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/perpetuating-some-myths-of-the-highland-clearances/ accessed 2 October 2018.
[46] Page 5, David Forbes The Sutherland Clearances 1806-1820; An Introduction.
[47] The bad press is practically created by the title given to this period, namely ‘Highland Clearances’ or ‘Clearances’. The Clearances were only one part of that which went on. If the period was known as the ‘Resettlement Period’ then attitudes to the time might be considerably less emotional. Donald Sage’s Chaper 16 Memorabilia Domestica is an example of the emotional press for the 1819 clearance. For great emotional journalism covering the Gordons and the Clearances see the chapter called ‘The Gordons’ in Our Scots Noble Families by Tom Johnston CH FRSE; the book’s title is pure sarcasm. I do not deny problems and mistakes were made in the Sutherland Clearances but what was done was legal and with concern for the tenants.
[48] Pages 67-85, Eric Richards, The Highland Clearances.
[49] James Hunter’s Set Adrift Upon the World; The Sutherland Clearances, chapter 3 has a very readable account of the Kildonan uprising / riot and the text provides a careful account showing the actuality of the Sutherland Clearances, including placing the violence / forcefulness in perpective.
[50] Page lviii, R. J. Adam, Sutherland Estate Documents Volume 1.
[51] Page 56, Christine Lodge, The Clearances and the Cleared; Women, Economy and Land in the Scottish Highlands 1800-1900, being a Doctoral thesis, University of Glasgow, December 1999.
[52] Page 404, Eric Richards The Highland Clearances. Like many other estates the MacDonald Estates of North Uist also had ‘evictions’ in 1849; it also had bad publicity for what was basically the normal clearance issue – the land was not capable of supporting the increased number of tenants (not least due to the potato blight of 1847) who were three years behind in rent. The Estate offered to discharge all overdue rent, allow the tenants to sell all their own property and be moved to Canada at the Estate’s cost with the Estate providing extra food, clothing and extra supplies for the journey, and work was available on arrival in Canada. But this ‘eviction’ caused massive dissatisfaction which required police action to control. It’s the same problem as with the Sutherland Estate, but on a smaller scale – people were not coping but initially refused change on principle. See Patrick Cooper The So-Called Evictions From the MacDonald Estates in the Island of North Uist, Outer Hebrides 1849.
[53] Pages 156-157, Eric Richards The Highland Clearances.
[54] Page 171, Robert Clyde, From Rebel to Hero; The Image of the Highlander 1745-1830.
[55] Sutherland Estate papers, National Library of Scotland especially ‘Extracts from letters received by Mr Sutherland from persons resident in the North respecting the practice of “Burning out the Tenants on the Estate of Sutherland”. They were in a letter addressed to J. Lock / Loch Esq, posted 18 July 1819 to J. Lock in Bloomsbury, London.
[56] George Gunn’s letters are easy to read and detailed – an interesting social history of the Estate could be created from them.
[57] Sutherland Estate papers, National Library of Scotland, especially ‘Extracts from letters received by Mr Sutherland from persons resident in the North respecting the practice of “Burning out the Tenants on the Esate of Sutherland”. They were in a letter addressed to J. Lock / Loch Esq, posted 18 July 1819 in Bloomsbury, London.
[58] This is supported elsewhere; Page 36 David Forbes The Sutherland Clearances 1806-1820; An Introduction points out that only 83 people emigrated in 1819 whereas 2,304 were resettled on the Sutherland Estate and 889 settled elsewhere in Sutherland.
[59] Page 24, David Forbes, The Sutherland Clearances 1806-1820; An Introduction.
[60] Page 5, T. M. Devine, Scotland’s Empire 1600-1815 Penguin, 2004.
[61] ‘the Marquis of Stafford and his wife had been responsible for the kind of approach which foreshadowed modern regional planning’. Page 39, David Forbes The Sutherland Clearances 1806-20; An Introduction.
[62] Page 211. T. M. Devine, Scotland’s Empire 1600-1815.
[63] Page 260, James Hunter Last of the Free.
[64] Pages 8-9, David Forbes, The Sutherland Clearances 1806-1820; An Introduction.
[65] Page 240, Eric Richards Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances.
[66] Page 269, Eric Richards Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances.
[67] Page 32, Marjory Harper Adventurers & Exiles.
[68] Page 43, Celeste Ray, Highland Heritage.
[69] Page 76, T. M. Devine, The Great Highland Famine.
[70] Page 206 T. M. Devine, ibid.
[71] Emigration from all Scottish ports to Australia was 541 in 1852 – and 5450 the following year. Page 205 T. M. Devine, ibid.
[72] I have similar accounts for my family Gunn members going to Canada in the 1840s.
[73] http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1039746.ece accessed 15 July 2018.
[74] p. 167, Michael Brander, The Making of the Highlands.
[75] http://scottishtartans.org/downloads/fact_sheet_tartan.pdf accessed 15 July 2017.
[76] Page 8, A. W. Morrison, The Genealogy of the Morrison Origins in Scotland.
[77] Page 19, Ronald William The Lords of the Isles.
[78] They also claimed to be the grandsons of Prince Charles Edward Stuart – ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’. See page 146, Robert Clyde From Rebel to Hero: The Image of the Highlander.
[79] http://www.tartansauthority.com/research/researchers/james-grant/ accessed 15 July 2017.
[80] http://www.brooklynrail.org/2012/06/art_books/vestiarium-scoticum accessed 16 July 2017. The willingness to believe that which was not historically accurate had earlier (and later) examples; James Macpherson in the mid 1700s invented the third century Scottish bard Ossian and ‘discovered’ his poems - Scotland and Europe completely accepted them for many years.
[81] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tartans_from_the_Vestiarium_Scoticum accessed 16 July 2018. And is described on page 88 of the original book. It makes reference to Gunns as Ghuine which gets back to the origin of the Gunns, see chapter 1.4.
[82] http://www.tartansauthority.com/resources/archives/the-archives/scobie/territorial-tartans/ accessed 21 July 2017.
[83] Page 40, Celeste Ray, Highland Heritage.
[84] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_crest_badge accessed 15 April 2013.
[85] Pages 300-301, James Logan, The Scottish Gael Volume 1.
[86] ‘A clan cannot have a coat of arms.’ The Court of the Lord Lyon. http://www.lyon-court.com/lordlyon/255.html accessed 17 July 2018.
[87] http://www.thetreemaker.com/family-coat-g/gunn/scotland.html shows the probable shield of arms for George Gunn Munro / Gun Munro of Braemore. Search for Gunn.
[88] Page 295 F. Adams, revised Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, The Clans Septs and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands.
[89] From ‘Clans, Families and Septs’ by Sir Crispin Agnew of Lochnaw Bt. http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/clans_families_septs.htm accessed 26 March 2013.
The individual chapters can be downloaded as pdfs from latrobe.academia.edu/AlastairGunn
11.1 MacRob / Braemore Gunns
The Robson Gunns were certainly a lawless set of thieves[1]
The most visible Gunn line other than the MacHamish / Killernan line from the Coroner are the descendants of Robert Gunn, the probable second son of the Coroner. These descendants become the MacRobs (Robsons); note how MacRobs and MacHamish are both nothing more than indicators of a particular Gunn family. The MacRob Gunns and the MacHamish Gunns are both significant families which suggest inherited wealth from the Coroner. Robert’s elder son was John Gunn MacRob of Strathy. The MacRob Gunn genealogy is quite traceable.[2] The Braemore Gunns descend from Donald Gunn, the second son of Robert Gunn. Like much of the MacHamish Gunn ‘history’ the MacRob ‘history’ also suffers from many myths. See chapter 7.2 and 7.3 for some Gunn Braemore stories. The Rattoo Gunns of Ireland probably descend from the Braemore Gunns. It is useful to view the MacRob Gunns as the main Gunn family of Caithness, just as one can view the MacHamish Gunns as the leading Gunn family of Sutherland in historical times.
*****
(1) The 1565 event
Sir Robert Gordon records[3] that in 1565 Alexander ‘Gun’ of the Braemore MacRob Gunn family line was executed[4] due to an etiquette squabble worthy of the Blackadder television show. This Alexander Gunn was in the service of the Earl of Sutherland and would not give way to the Earl of Moray – who was the illegitimate son of King James V and later[5] Regent of Scotland - when the Earls of Sutherland and Huntly met the Earl of Moray in the street in Aberdeen. Alexander was ‘in service with the Earle of Southerland’ and was walking ahead of the Earls of Sutherland and Huntly and did not get off the footpath to let the Earl of Moray have right of way. The Earl of Moray was blamed for later organising Alexander’s execution on some charge. Gordon also records that this Alexander had a son Alexander, and the executed Alexander’s father was ‘John Robson … by Earl Adam his bastard daughter’.[6]
This story is questionable. This Gunn was only a servant - surely if a servant had any brains then he would let an Earl have right of way, especially an Earl who was the son of a King. But the story gets even more doubtful. This story involving Gunn is not readily found elsewhere, one would have thought that such detail should be well known and fully written as it involves the Earl of Moray who was a significant person in Scottish history as he was later Regent of Scotland and what’s more the Earl is viewed as ‘The Gude Regent’[7] implying he wasn’t in for petty squabbles. The implication is that later historians find the story questionable and lacking in primary evidence.
The event is actually extremely questionable - one needs to look at the total story in Sir Robert Gordon’s book. The Gunn story is at the end of a few pages[8] detailing how the Earl of Huntly, the Earl of Moray and the Earl of Sutherland had been clashing with each other in all sorts of major ways over a period of time. These clashes included jail, possible execution, property seizure and so on. In particular the Earl of Huntly and the Earl of Moray had massive previous reasons for hating each other and the Earl of Sutherland also had good reason to hate the Earl of Moray. And who was the Earl of Huntly? The Earl of Huntly was the historian Sir Robert Gordon’s uncle so one has to question this unsupported Gunn story written by Sir Robert Gordon, involving the otherwise liked Earl of Moray due to possible family bias on Sir Robert Gordon’s part.[9]
So this Alexander MacRob Gunn story deserves to be questioned; it needs supportive evidence before it can be accepted. Currrently it seems just a bit too close to fiction, like so much Gunn ‘history’. And it’s not clear which Alexander Gunn it is meant to be…
(2) 1569-1599 or so
Sir Robert Gordon notes a 1569 killing of important MacRob Gunns by Mackays, at Balnakeil at Durness, at the Earl of Caithness’s instigation as he did not like those Gunns support for the Earl of Sutherland, which began a long series of raids and counter raids. Gordon decided that he would ‘pass … (the many raids) over’[10] and without his knowledge it is sensible to mainly do so. By implication it was a series of minor event after minor event with everyone to blame. One can find detail of some of these events in history texts, including a fairly serious attempt by the Earl of Caithness, the Earl of Sutherland and the Mackays to get rid of the Gunns; in particular in the mid-1580s. But as Sir Robert Gordon points out it was against ‘chiefly such of that tribe as dwelt in Caithness, because they were judged to be the principal authors of those troubles and commotions which were likely to ensure in that diocese.’[11] I would view ‘Caithness Gunns’ as shorthand for MacRob Gunns and some others.[12]
Overall what one is looking at in the northern Highlands of the 1500s is not complete lawlessness beloved by traditional Gunn ‘histories’ but a time when various powers with legal rights – in particular the Earl of Caithness, the Earl of Sutherland and the Chief of Mackays - fight, at times, for control and use Gunns (and others) as underlings in a series of power squabbles. It is an area where these events are on record and a broad view is worthwhile; the minutiae is fairly tedious.
(3) The burning at Sandside
The burning at Sandside is a serious incident which ends with the removal of some Gunns from Caithness for a while…
Sir Robert Gordon records that in 1615 the Earl of Caithness – who was against Lord Forbes for all sorts of reasons - first got ‘John Robson alias John Gunn’[13] to ‘invade’ Lord Forbes land but that plan did not go ahead as Lord Forbes was away from home. The Earl then dealt (bribed? told lies?) ‘earnestlie with John Robson… and with his brother Alexander Gunn… he dealeth also with ther cousin-german (full brother) Alexander George-sone’[14] to burn the corn at Sandside, being owned by a servant of Lord Forbes. Gordon says Alexander Robson agreed to the Earl’s request and so with two others the crime was committed. This caused all sorts of problems, a law case in Edinburgh, confusion and the loss of all sorts of honours and possessions owned by the Earl of Caithness as the Robsons Gunns explained all in court. Presumably in consequence in 1619 the Earl of Caithness arranged it so all Gunns ‘were dispossessed of whatsoever lands and possession they had from the Earl of Caithness.’[15] You get the idea; Robson Gunns were not exactly law-abiding… Mind you, the Earl of Caithness was hardly on the side of the law…
Colonel Sir William Gunn was[16] a nephew of one of the arsonists. Colonel William Gunn served in the Swedish army and in France and England. He had contacts with Cromwell’s army. ‘After 1655, Gunn disappears from view in both Stuart and Cromwellian correspondence, … with little being possible to confirm other than his death at some point between 1661-1663.’[17] It is probable he had a brother Donald Gunn of Dirlot[18], a cousin (possibly brother) John Gunn in Easterdale;[19] much of the family can be traced. A fuller account can be found in Mark Rugg Gunn.[20]
(3) The Gun Munro family of Poyntzfield, being probably the senior line of the MacRobs.
Robert had at least two, possibly three sons; the two main lines are from Donald (Braemore) and John MacRob (Strathy). One view[21] is that the Braemore Gunns were senior but the MacRob (Strathy) Gunns were the more visible / violent and, in consequence, better known. There are various stories about the generations in Mark Rugg Gunn[22] and elsewhere and the genealogy can be followed in the 1896 tree. The most well known – and I think most senior - family comes from the Braemore side; the Gunn Munros of Poyntzfield. The 1896 tree has
1. Robert Gunn (2nd son of the Coroner)
2. David Donaldson Gunn
3. Alan Davidson Gunn
4. John Gunn
5. George Gunn
6. Janet Gunn married the Rev. John Munro around 1704 from whom come the Gunn Munros.
Janet Gunn and Rev. John Munro[23] - the Gunn Munros – had
1. William Gun Munro dwi.
2. Captain John Gun Munro married (1) Elizabeth Sutherland and later (2) Christian MacKenzie
3. Sir George Gun Munro married Mary (Hinde) Poyntz 1760. They had ten children. This is the start of the Gunn Munros of Poyntzfield.
4. Henry Gun Munro c1727-c1782 married Sarah Hooper in Granville Nova Scotia. Henry was a soldier before fighting and staying in North America. He became a politician.
The Gunn Munros of Poyntzfield were –
1. Sir George Gunn Munro son of Janet Gunn of Braemore and Rev. John Munro of Halkirk.
2. He was followed by his nephew George Gunn Munro, son of his older brother Captain John Gunn Munro of Braemore. George Gunn Munro died July 1, 1806. He had married Justina Dunbar, daughter of William Dunbar, Forres. They did not have children. An illegitimate son of George Gunn’s was Treasurer of the Colony of Grenada.
3. Sir George Gunn Munro's nephew Col. Innis Munro succeeded; he was also son of John Gunn Munro and Elizabeth Sutherland.
4. Upon Col. Innis Gunn Munro's death in 1827 his son, Major George Gunn Munro succeeded to Poyntzfield. He married Jemima Charlotte Graham in 1822. Major George Gunn Munro was knighted in 1842. Major, Sir George Gunn Munro[24] died at Strathpeffer Spa in 1852.
The Gunn Munro line continues and can be readily found on the internet.
11.2 The ‘Covenanters’, especially 1639-1640
The Scottish covenanting movement was essentially about Presbyterians keeping their Presbyterianism and renunciation of anything and everything Roman Catholic. It’s a problem if you supported it as although for a while it was successful - it was for a while a sort of government and had its own army - when Charles II regained the throne he rejected the whole covenant idea.
In the troubled time of the Covenanters ‘Aberdeen ... and most of the Highlands – stood aloof’[25] and there is no reason to suppose Gunns overall behaved differently from the majority of the Highlands. I have, though, found one reference to some Gunns as covenanters in 1647.[26] Sinclair has the Gunns ‘taking the side of the landed proprietors’[27] which makes sense; one does not want to offend the landlords as otherwise one ends up homeless. Of interest is that in 1639 there was a battle at Aberdeen[28] (a Roman Catholic town) between Catholic and Presbyterian forces; and ‘crowner Gun, with diverse other English captains and officers’[29] – crowner[30] meaning here a colonel - was there on the Roman Catholic, English side. Who ‘crowner Gun’ was though is unknown.
The whole covenanting story is complex, partially merges with the English Civil War but its relevance to Gunns as a whole is minimal.
11.3 Jacobite rebellions and Gunn non-involvement
Given the non-commitment of the Gunns to the Stuart cause and the strength of the Sutherland Estate one should view the Jacobite rebellions as basically irrelevant to the Gunns…
Neil Oliver[31]
The Jacobite rebellions all had the same aim; restoring the last Catholic King of England and Scotland. These rebellions included the 1689-1690 (including the Glencoe massacre) period, the 1715 uprising where the ‘Old Pretender’ James Stuart arrived in Scotland and led an uprising but later fled. Finally there was the 1745 uprising of Bonnie Prince Charlie which also failed. The emotional appeal of the Jacobite rebellions is undeniable and is the stuff of many a film. Bonnie Prince Charlie, in particular, has had great propaganda. Real history, however, is markedly different from the movies.
The first point about these rebellions is the major issue of religion. The Highlanders were most commonly Presbyterian but the Stuarts were Catholic (although with some Episcopalian support). To support the Jacobites as a Highlander was to go against the dominant religion and risk losing all one’s possessions, including land as the landowners were all basically Protestant. The Sutherland Estate landowners were Protestant; if Gunns fought with the Jacobites they could expect serious problems as they lived on the Sutherland Estate. At least one map[32] has everything north of Inverness in the 1689 rebellion as either neutral or pro-government. Gunns are down as pro-government. The accompanying authorial comment is ‘Jacobitism was indelibly tainted by Catholicism and this ensued it had little appeal for most Scots’. So, logic and religious culture were against the Gunns having any role in the support of the Jacobite rebellion.
This is supported by evidence. I cannot find Gunns listed as supporting the 1715 rebellion.[33] Material relating to Chiefs of some Clans and their involvement in 1715 can be found;[34] the lack of Gunn reference again strongly suggests lack of Gunn involvement, not least due to the Gunns not having a Chief. However, in the folk song ‘The Chevalier’s Muster-Roll’ there is a list of those supporting the rebellion with the line ‘Donald Gun and a’s coming.’[35] If the mentioned Donald was meant to refer to Donald Crotach Gunn (9,15) of Killearnan / Badenloch then that Donald was dead by 1715 – see the discussion in his life. So if the song is meant to provide history there is no known Donald Gunn around as a potential leader. It has to be viewed as just a later written song, not an historic record – it was first known printed in 1803[36] which is a long time after 1715 so this song should be ignored as history. It is worth noting that the Lord Sutherland could have one thousand men out in support of the Hanoverian – and against the Jacobite - cause[37] which, one assumes, would include some Gunns.
There is no support for the Gunns having anything more than a token involvement in the 1745 uprising. The Gunn muster in Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s army was four; Angus Gunn a husbandman of Lairn, Donald Gunn of Caithness (being a deserter from Lord Loudon’s), Donald Gunn a husbandman of Dunbeath and John Gunn of Stoneywood.[38] Worth noting that it is estimated that under one third of the potential Highland fighting force did fight on the side of “Prince Charlie’ – the idea that all Highlanders were Jacobites is not supported by fact.[39] However, we know Alexander Gunn (10,19) of Badenloch, was one of the ‘List of Officers of Independent Companies raised in the year 1745’[40] as part of the anti-Jacobite military forces; he was there as an individual; his company was not a Gunn company. He was serving for the Government (and really the landowner). For more detail on his involvement see his life.
There is a detailed historical document of 1748 – a ‘Memorial, said to be drawn up by the Lord President Forbes of Culloden was transmitted to Government detailing the force of every clan, the tenures of every chieftain, and the amount of retainers which he could bring into the field ... Besides the clans enumerated in this in this curious document, there were a number of independent gentlemen, who had many followers, but being what were called broken names, or small tribes, they are omitted in the Lord President’s report.’[41] This document was about the potential for military action – one way or another - by the Highlanders; the Gunns were not mentioned at all with the implication they were, at most, but a small tribe (and certainly not a clan) and of no military significance.
The Gunns, in essence, took no part in support of the Jacobite rebellions and the main MacHamish Gunn quite logically supported the Government of the time.
And was the Jacobite rebellion all that the movies have made it to be? Another view is that ‘Jacobitism was right-wing, backward-looking, intellectually regressive, morally bankrupt and financed by foreign tyrants. The much-romaticized Jacobite rebellions … were essentially attempted right-wing coups d’etat.’[42]
11.4 The Clearances
There is no doubt that some Highland estates were “cleared” of tenants and their subsistence crofts or tenanted small-holdings, usually to provide room for sheep grazing and/or deer-shooting. This is still keenly felt in many areas of the Highlands. It also resonates with the Scottish Diaspora overseas, even against evidence to the contrary. It is not unusual to meet descendants of émigré Scots who, their descendants claim, were “forced out of Scotland”. This is often given an overlay of religious persecution, class warfare, unjust criminal sentences and so on, and an image is conjured up of entire crofting communities being herded onto boats for exportation to the Colonies … and no evidence to the contrary will change the mind of the convinced..... Dr Bruce Durie[43]
If you go the bother of actually reading up about the Highland Clearances, not in rubbish like John Prebble’s book[44] and similar, but in the scholarly literature, the real picture is revealed as being far from the popular myth of tens of thousands of persecuted Highlanders who had their houses brutally torched and who were then forced to flee to Canada, Australia and elsewhere.[45]
The popular view tends to be grossly over-simplified and, at worst, becomes caricature…[46]
The Highland Clearances of 1790-1855 have been extremely well covered by historians over many years and those wishing for the full detail should explore their texts. Simplistically the key question is; was it ‘ethnic cleansing’ or had the process merely suffered from a bad press?[47] Or was it something in between? As far as it impacted on the Gunns – and it was a wide process involving much more[48] than just Gunn lands – I think it is best viewed as forceful / violent, Victorian, well-meaning paternalism with appalling consequences for many. Yes, serious mistakes were made in the actual process; for example the Kildonan riots[49] of 1813 were caused by too hastily requiring people to move[50] - although at least one suggestion for the reluctance of the Kildonan people to move ‘was attributed to their whisky smuggling activities which were sure to be restricted’[51] when they settled elsewhere - but this haste was not deliberate policy, more inexperience. The point is clear; the people did not want to move but the land was not theirs. Violence was certainly used, but ‘The level of violence was less than in similar events in contemporary Ireland.’[52]
Why did the Sutherland Estate get involved with Clearances? ‘Two ideas loomed large in the thinking of the Sutherland estate… The first was the growing conviction that the estate… was capable of spectacular economic advance … The second…was about the poverty of of the common people… A fundamental rearrangement of the foundations of their lives was imperative.’[53] In other words, sheep would pay more and allow for improvements on the Estate a lot of which would be for the good of the ‘common people’. Yes, the policy underpinning the Sutherland Estate clearances had as one of its two key points spending money to remove poverty. There may also have been antipathy to those on the Estate due to the poor response to raising the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders in 1799.[54]
Now what did this mean in practice on the Sutherland Estate around 1820?[55] The points and some of the language are from Factor Francis Suther’s letter to the Editor of ‘The Scotsman’ 13 August 1819 and from George Gunn’s (13,60) letter[56] of 21 July 1819 responding to ‘The Scotsman’ of 10 July 1819. -
· The Sutherland Estate tenants had notice in November 1817 that they would be removed starting 1 May 1819. The last year was rent free and arrears of rent were ignored.
· This information was regularly repeated including by local Ministers and personal communication.
· Tenants were offered lots at Helmsdale in replacement of between one or two Scots acres, or at Brora with lots of two acres with land already ploughed and ready for cultivation. Coastal allotments for the first year were rent free. They could, therefore, live in the old houses whilst building the new.
· For those who thought such land too small six to twelve acres were offered on Dornoch Moors and Five Pounds given for every acre brought into cultivation.
· Timber was furnished for the new houses free of charge.
· With regard to the burning of the houses ‘The account of their being burnt out of their huts is equally untrue, in those instances indeed where the tenant either did not, or from the distant situation of his hut, could not carry away the timber, it was burnt, but not until after valuation of two sworn appraisers, in order to prevent them being reoccupied ...’
· These arrangements went on from 1807 until at least 1820+?
· ‘It has been a rule upon this, as it is upon other Estates in the Country, to remove from their holdings all Offenders against the Law, upon their being convicted of Sheep stealing, Illegal Distillation, Destroying the woods, Killing the Fish in close time, or of any other depredation on the property of the Landlord or tacksman ... This rule was not abandoned on the present occasion, and persons actually convicted of these crimes before a Magistrate, amounting in number to about one hundred, one half of whom were also heads of Families were not to be retained upon the estate.’ [57]
· Very few actually emigrated to America (20 to 25 families) in response to the evictions.[58]
· ‘Before 1815 no herrings (were) caught; 1816 4000 barrels caught. By 1818 herring was worth more than the sum total of all rentals in the Estate’ (£30,000 for the herrings)
· ‘there was not a House in which the least symptom of sickness appeared but was left undisturbed and the inhabitants allowed to remain in quiet possession where many of them still are.’
· ‘if the people will throw off their former idle unindustrious habits they will earn a sufficient daily competency to keep themselves... it was certainly as necessary for the Proprietor to rid his Glens of this tenantry who required to be fed ... the indolence and unprofitable of the tenantry ... All this natural riches (of the sea) so beautifully offered were lost. And why? Because the people who ought to have been employed in the Fisheries occupied their time in preventing the useful application of the interior ... (those who don’t live on the coast lived in) filth, idleness, precarious food and clothing and all the train of ruinous consequences on health and morals ....
Okay, it’s patronising ‘the estate knows best’ and ‘don’t be a nuisance in any way or the estate will not give you anything’ – but it’s not ethnic cleansing. Contemplate the Clearances in a modern way. Imagine you rented a property and the owner said you can have the current place rent free for a year and then the owner will have organised a new place for you to live a little way from where you currently live and you can have the first year rent free there as well. That just doesn’t happen – it sounds incredibly generous. But that is basically what the Sutherland Estate offered. It’s worth noting that in the thirty years after 1817 – after the Clearances – there was only one period of famine in 1836-7 whereas famine had been acute before 1817.[59] So, one may not like the policy but it better served those on the total estate, including those relocated from inland areas to places like Helmsdale.
So, Gunns certainly were moved around by the Clearances and some suffering happened in consequence. Migration? Sure, some happened, but migration started a long time before the Clearances - one estimate suggests Scottish migration of between 85,000 and 115,000 between the 1600-1650.[60]
What the Sutherland Estate did was legal and evokes modern planning,[61] the actions were no worse than that done elsewhere and was done with an awareness of the need to improve the lives of the people on their estate. It wasn’t perfect. Mark Rugg Gunn’s view[62] that ‘the wholesale Sutherland clearances, a chapter of tragedy and inhumanity as black as any in Scottish history and nowhere did the axe fall more heavily than on the land of the Gunns’ is not sustainable. By contrast James Hunter writes ‘The Sutherland clearances, according to their originators, enabled entire communities to move from the country’s interior, where living conditions were allegedly poor, to seaside locations offering more in the way of opportunity.’[63] Another view is simple – ‘The Policy and plans put into effect in Sutherland …were very much in the spirit of the age.’[64]
And was it all as efficient / ruthless as many say? One view is ‘the obstinate people of the Heights of Kildonan … rapidly rebuilt their huts from their old timber. Reed said they simply drove their cattle out of sight when the clearing parties approached and then returned the stock to their old pastures when the constables departed.’[65]
One has to mention the Factor of the Sutherland Estate at one time in the Clearances was George Gunn (13,60), who was ‘Chief of the Clan Gunn’ in some views; Gunn certainly ‘rearranged groups of tenantry in Kildonan and Loth at Rovie and Craigton’.[66] So, no matter your view of the Clearances the Gunn hierarchy was certainly partly responsible for it. Incidentally George Gunn (13,60) was loathed by the earlier Factor, Patrick Sellar the details of which are explored in Eric Richards Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances.
****
One view of the Gunns around this time –
Clan Gunn
This clan ... (lived) in a most remote and inaccessible country, they continued to live in the committal of continued breaches of the law and yet to escape punishment. This character, even to a late day, distinguished in a remarkable manner, some individuals of this Clan and district, and the people of the heights of Kildonan were long noted for being the least observant of the laws of any in the county. Indeed it is only within the last five years that the disappearance of a sherriff’s officer, who was sent up to execute a warrant in a civil process, led to the recollection of many stories of former days. Their country was peculiarly favourable for carrying on illegal distillation, and they did not neglect to take advantage of their situation. They obtained, with much ease, their grain from the corn districts of the adjoining county of Caithness, and the inaccessible and remote situations of their habitations, made it neither very easy nor advisable, for the revenue officers to follow them into their recesses. The nature of their country gave them equal facilities in disposing of their whiskey....
Being from pages 97-99 of An account of the improvements on the estates of the Marquess of Stafford in the Counties of Stafford and Salop and on the Estate of Sutherland with Remarks by James Loch Esquire, London, Longman, Hurst Rees, Orme and Brown, 1820. James Loch had been the Factor on the Sutherland Estate.
11.5 Emigration
Emigration could be either an escape route for the poor and persecuted or an avenue of advancement for the ambitious and adventurous. Often it was both.[67]
as many Lowlanders as Highlanders emigrated between 1763 and 1765[68]
The Highland Famine of 1846-1855 was significantly caused by the failure of the main subsistence crop, the potato. This famine does not stand any comparison with the Great Irish Famine but is of importance. One view of the impact of the Famine on Sutherland is ‘Sutherland had a distinctive population history… Only three Parishes Assynt, Loth and Lairg, show exceptional losses for the famine period. The rest of estimated out-migration for the county as a whole was much higher between 1831 and 1841 than in either of the famine decades. The emigration history of Sutherland was plainly primarily determined by the great clearances …’[69] So, we have famine and the Clearances helping cause migration. As well the Duke of Sutherland supported many to emigrate to British North America in the period 1847-1851.[70] But there were also positive reasons for migration such as the discovery of gold in Australia.[71]
***
So what was it like to migrate to places like Canada and Australia around this time? The following[72] was written by John Gunn (14) 1836-1854, son of Barbara Gunn (13,55), describing his trip to Australia in 1853.
from Caithness
Monday July 11th Took steamer from Scrabster Roads to Glasgow and arrived there on Wednesday the 13th about 7 in the afternoon. I remained in Glasgow till 6 o'clock P.M. on Saturday when I took a steamer to Liverpool and arrived there about 8 o'clock P.M. on Sunday. Remained on shore until Thursday following when I embarked on Board the ship Tasmania which was then hauled out of the Docks and lying in the River Mersey. The ship lay here again until Wednesday the 27th July when she weighed anchor and was tugged out of the Harbour by two steam boats the last of which left the following morning at Holy-Head when we were left to beat up the English Channell - it was a fine day + we were in high spirits. On the 29th it commenced to blow right ahead and a great many of the Passengers sea sick I myself was very sick for some days. For the four following days we were beating up the English channel the wind always blowing ahead until on Tuesday the 2nd Augt when we neared the Bay of Biscay and it fell calm and continued so all day but on the 3rd a smart breeze sprung up which carried us along at a beautiful rate and from this to the 9th we had splendid weather and all passengers were again well. there are a great many Highland people on Board and we had Music and Dancing every good evening in which I joined considering it best for the health to take a little exercise. On Tuesday the 9th the wind shifted a little ahead of us. Today we saw the Island of Porto Santo which belongs to the Portuguese. It is a wild (mild?) looking spot we saw two small boats as if they were fishing between us and the shore. 10th and 11th Very calm and doing little progress. On the 12 we came in sight of the Island of Medeira and passed about 8 miles to the east of it. 13 we had little wind but on Sunday the 14th we had a .... breeze. There were a great many fishes seen today and although it was Sunday the sailors and Passengers some of which I am sorry to say were Scotch tried with hook and spear to catch some. They did catch five of them and immediately gutted and Boiled and ate them. They were called Albacors and weighed about 30lbs each. However I did not touch them. On Monday the 15th we had a nice Breeze of Fair Wind nothing between 9 and 10 knots an hour. Passed the barque Jane of Aberdeen bound for Melbourne in Lat 31 N. On 16th the splendid screw steam ship Sidney passed us. She sailed from London on the 4th Augt and was bound for Sidney and passed steaming under a cloud of Canvas about 3 O’Clock in the afternoon. On Wednesday the 17th we entered the Tropics about 11 O’Clock am. It is now getting very warm. 17th and 18th. Good Breeze of fair wind several ships in Company but we left them all in a short time. 19th. Very Calm and at night it was the most beautiful sight I ever saw there was several ships in view and the sea was as smooth as glass. Saturday the 20th. Steward was today put in irons in consequence of his refusing to execute certain orders of the Commander. On the 21st, 22nd + 23rd we had fair wind and going very well. On the 24th it rained heavily for the first time since we left Liverpool and the passengers were eagerly engaged in catching as much of it as they could for washing with it. A child died today of the measles and committed to a watery grave about 4 O’Clock in the afternoon by the Carpenter after a funeral sermon was read by the surgeon. Immediately afterwards the passengers sang a hymn. On the 25th it was very blowy with some flashes of Lightning in the evening. It is now very warm + I can scarcely sleep in my berth with my clothes at all on me. We walk the Deck with nothing but our trowsers and shirt on and still it is very oppressing the heat. I can scarcely bear to put my naked hand on any article exposed to the sun about 12 noon. The sun is now over our heads. Friday the 26th. Very calm with some showers of rain. 27th High winds not at all favourable. On the 28th, 29th, 30th we had very good weather but the heat very great and suffering a great deal from thirst the water very bad and not drinkable without vinegar or something to take away the taste and smell. We are all divided in 6 messes + take a day about in cleaning the berths and cooking for each mess. On Wednesday the 31st we were all ordered by the Captain on Deck from 10 to 12 noon to allow the 'tween Decks' to be aired. 1st 2nd + 3rd very varyarorable (?) weather but on the 4th we fell in with the Trade winds which are favorable. Monday 5th September. Splendid breeze going 10 + eleven knots an hour. Tuesday 6th. Blowing very strong but wind very favorable going at the rate of 14 Knots an hour and continued this way for some days but on the 12th we were oblged to go under double reefed top sails. I should have observed that that we crossed the line on the 3rd and the event was celebrated by the usual custom of shaving among the crew and passengers. 13th 14th and 15th Weather milder though the swell of the sea and the rocking of the ship made it almost impossible to walk the Decks. 16th Good weather and going well the weather is now getting colder. 17th Still good weather. 18th It commenced to blow against us and continued so for two days a tremendous quantity of sea fowl observed such as Cape Pidgeons and Albatrosses some of the latter measure from wing to wing the length of from 8 to ten feet. On the 20th we passed the Cape of Good Hope at a distance of 800 miles from it to the south. From this to the 1st of October we have very changeable and rough weather which made it very difficult to write. On the 2nd October the wind changed in our favour and we run by log the great distance of 340 miles in 24 hours but shipped several seas which washed all the decks. 3rd + 4th Very heavy sea with strong wind. Lost our main top stansail. Wednesday 5th Our our miser (?) top Gallant yard gave way and broke through the middle. The carpenters were immediately engaged in making a new one and were helped by some Carpenters and Joiners on Board. Thursday 6th Heavy sea, ship labouring much shipping heavy seas. We got our yard rigged early in the morning but about 12 noon a sea struck the ship lurching her in such a manner as to break her miser mast into three pieces + Down came itself yards and sails bringing down with it in its course our Maintop gallant and Royal yards. Nothing could exceed our Consternation + surprise when we saw our ship so suddenly disabled. All hands were immediately engaged in clearing the deck and the carpenters got such help from the Passengers that the ship was soon put to rights. 7th 8 9 + 10th Got fair wind and going very well 11th Blowing rather strong. 12th Saw a ship bound to Melbourne with Passengers 115 days out we soon left sight of her she sailed from London. 13th and 14th Fair wind + going well. 15th Passengers today collected a subscription among them for to present the Captain on their arrival at Melbourne with some token of their respect. 16th Wind rather contrary but still on the right course. 17th + 18th Fair wind. 19 + 20 Fair wind and drawing near land. 21st This morning early the ....(?) was that the land was in sight and everybody was on Deck. 22nd Coasting along the Australian shore. 23rd Early this morning came in sight of Port Phillip Light House. We then got a Pilot and sailed up the straits for Melbourne where we arrived and cast Anchor three miles from the town at 2 O’Clock in the afternoon. The Custom House Officers came immediately on Board with the Inspector. We lay at Anchor here all night and next morning and this morning Tuesday the 25th. There was steam boats come to fetch us ashore. Melbourne is a strange Place. Two men was hanged yesterday and other two are to be hanged today. Wages is very good yet. I did not get any job yet but I expect to get one soon. This is now a sketch of the Passage and I hasten to inform you of my safe arrival Dear Uncle. There was no sickness on Board but 7 children died of the measles +c and we had three Births. We arrived 2 hours after the Gildfinder (?) who sailed from Liverpool 5 days before us. McWilliamson's (?) little Neil died also on the voyage. I will write you again soon with all the news.
I am My Dear Uncle
your affect nephew
John Gunn 25th Oct 1853
I was not a day sick since I left home but a little sea sick at first. Passage 88 days.
John (14) died 10 January 1854 at about the same time his brother Donald Gunn (14) arrived in Australia; sunstroke is possible.
11.6 Gunn tartan
It was (Sir Walter) Scott who, to add “aboriginal” colour to George IV’s “jaunt” to Edinburgh in 1822, invented the cult of the clan tartan … arguably one of his finer works of fiction.[73]
'the tartan mania is not a disease which has grown less virulent over the years.'[74]
‘Originally tartan designs had no (Clan) names and no symbolic meaning …’.[75]
Following … 1822 … Gunn … selected pattern sett variations of the Green Mackay tartan…[76]
One can see how tartan of an area would occur – a person would dye wool using the plants of the district. But that district / regional tartan wasn’t named after a family. The word ‘tartan’ derives from the Celtic tuar (colour) and tan (district)[77] again showing it was cloth of an area, not of a family. So, what happened? ‘In 1842 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited Scotland. The young couple fell in love with the country, and tartan, which had been simmering for 20 years since the visit of King George IV, bubbled up again…. The brothers John and Charles Allen, calling themselves Sobieski Stuart,[78] finally published Vestiarium Scoticum, (but which was based on drafts from the late 1820s on) which introduced 75 new tartans to the delight of the trade.’[79]
Consider the Verstiarium Scoticum. The book’s authors presented the text ‘as historical proof of the connections between tartans and family clans, a link that previously had no record. The Stuarts’ claims were later found to be completely false; the tartans in the book were in fact designed by the brothers themselves. Even still, their fabrications are to this day widely accepted as authentic by manufacturers and families alike’.[80] So, a whole pile of named family tartans were invented for the Verstiarium Scoticum and given a fictional history so tourists would buy them. And Gunn tartan is in the book.[81] Now there is a chance that this Gunn tartan reflected earlier tartan worn by Gunns and others near them – that chance offers one reason why Mackay, Gunn, MacWilliam and Morrison tartans look so similar.[82] But named Gunn tartan is nothing more than a Victorian invention to get money from historically confused tourists and which continues to do so. As I have said before so much Gunn history is really mythology and named Gunn tartan is part of that mythology.
11.7 The fictional, traditional Gunn Crest badge and motto
The Lord Lyon …denies the existence of a ‘clan crest’ or a ‘clan coat of arms’. These belong to the chief alone; a clansperson may wear the crest badge only if it is encircled by a belt and buckle’[83]
'Crest badges, much like clan tartans, do not have a long history, and owe much to Victorian era romanticism...'[84]
James Logan, in 1831, does not list a Clan badge for the Gunns.[85]
Historically the Gunns never had arms issued for a Chief by Lord Lyon, in other words there were never any legally approved shield of arms or crest of the Chief. That’s because there is no such thing as a Clan coat of arms[86] – it all belongs to the Chief and should only be used with his / her permission. But historically people have (wrongly) used two different versions of a shield of arms / crest badge for Gunns.
These inventions are firstly a badge shape with the clenched fist with ‘Aut Pax Aut Bellum’; the earliest known version of this Gunn badge and motto is to be found engraved on a tea service once owned by Elizabeth Countess of Sutherland 1765-1839 but presented by her to Factor George Gunn (13,60) in 1832. The inscription on it does not say he was Chief of the ‘Clan’ Gunn. For more information about the Countess of Sutherland’s creation of a ‘Gunn Chief’ see Appendix 3. Its use on the tea service was a piece of imagination; its later use as a ‘Clan Gunn’ crest badge is unauthorised and wrong.
Secondly the arms for Gunn Munro of Braemore includes, at top, an upraised sword in a clenched fist; this may be the origin of the non-legal Clan Gunn crest badge. I have been reliably informed that ‘a quartered coat of arms was matriculated in name of George Gun Munro of Braemore on 18 November 1800 wherein he is recorded as 'the heir and Representative of the late Sir George Munro of Poyntzfield his Uncle' ... the shield of arms shown on the website[87] you mention is a reasonably accurate representation of the Arms for Gun that appear in the second quarter of the Arms for George Gun Munro of Braemore.’
So, without any Gunn chief there were no traditional coat of arms or motto for the Gunns. What has been used are either illegal borrowings or pure fictional arms / motto.
11.8 Septs
(Septs) must be regarded as a rather wonderful effort of imagination …
The very word ‘sept’ is delusive[88]
It should also be said that the various Sept lists, which are published in the various Clans and Tartan books, have no official authority. They merely represent some person's, (usually in the Victorian era) views of which name groups were in a particular clan's territory.[89]
Given Gunns are a non-related group of original settlers who never even had a Chief let alone a founding father, Gunn septs are impossible as septs spring from founding fathers and Chiefs.
Tradional Gunn myth supporters like to have septs. The problem for these supporters is all the supposed Septs derive from Coroner Gunn. This adds support for the non-existence of mythic Gunn Chiefs before the Coroner as it shows lack of evidence for earlier Gunn ‘Chiefs’ from whom Septs should have originated.
Yes, Coroner Gunn had children and a range of surnames may descend from them. But even having a surname linked to Gunn does not mean that you are of Gunn descent; various surnames have many origins. Consider the name Wilson, a name associated with Gunns but also Clan Innes, Ireland and elsewhere. Just because you have a name which is on one of the many varied - and often imaginative - Gunn sept names list does not mean you have any Gunn link whatsoever.
The question for people interested in Gunn septs is simple – are you sure you are related to one of these Coroner Gunn lines? I would be very impressed if you could prove it. And if it’s not factually able to be proved then your surname could descend from anywhere. If you cannot absolutely prove your descent from one of Coroner Gunn’s children why are you bothered with Gunn septs?
***
[1] Quoted page 86, Mark Rugg Gunn, Clan Gunn.
[2] See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Munroe accessed 21 March 1019.
[3] Page 144, Sir Robert Gordon, A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland.
[4] Page 80, Mark Rugg Gunn, Clan Gunn using Sir Robert Gordon.
[5] Page 84, Mark Rugg Gunn, Clan Gunn says the Earl of Moray was Regent at this time. That is historically wrong.
[6] Page 144, Sir Robert Gordon, A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland.
[7] Page 111, ed. K McCue and P. Perkins Women’s Travel Writings in Scotland, Volume 4.
[8] Page 143, Sir Robert Gordon, A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland.
[9] As already discussed, any Gunn event not mentioned by Sir Robert Gordon must be questioned as to the source of the much later new stories; they are generally fiction. However just because Gordon recounts them one must also consider whether they are true; the closer the events to his family I would suggest the more likely the story is to be ‘shaped’ for family propaganda. As well, note that in Gordon this Alexander had a son Alexander; this son does not appear on the 1868 / 1879 trees, the 1896 tree, nor on Mark Rugg Gunn’s Clan Gunn tree on page 158. The story has the son as a ‘bastard’ though and so he may not have remained on ‘formal’ trees.
[10] Page 174, Sir Robert Gordon, A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland.
[11] Quoted page 44, Thomas Sinclair, The Gunns.
[12] Page 86, Mark Rugg Gunn, Clan Gunn, pages 44 – 73 onwards in Thomas Sinclair, The Gunns.
[13] Page 75, Thomas Sinclair, The Gunns.
[14] Page 331 Sir Robert Gordon, A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland.
[15] Page 112, Mark Rugg Gunn, Clan Gunn, quoting Sir Robert Gordon.
[16] https://journals.openedition.org/etudesecossaises/215#ftn19 accessed 10 July 2018.
[17] Page 67, David Worthington, British and Irish Experiences and Impressions of Central Europe c. 1560-1688.
[18] Page 114, Thomas Sinclair, The Gunns.
[19] Page 114, Thomas Sinclair, ibid.
[20] Page 125-129, Mark Rugg Gunn, Clan Gunn.
[21] Page 93, Mark Rugg Gunn, ibid.
[22] Page 93, Mark Rugg Gunn, ibid. and following pages.
[23] Abstracted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Munroe accessed 9 July 2018.
[24] Page 26, Alexander Mackenzie, The Highland Clearances tells of how Sir George Gunn Munro tried to help the establishment of a Free Church in Dornoch but the Sutherland Estate stopped him from doing so.
[25] Page 209, J. D. Mackie, A History of Scotland.
[26] Page 124, Northern Scotland Volumes 7-9.
[27] Page 90, Thomas Sinclair, The Gunns.
[28] Pages 128-129, John Spalding, The History of the Troubles and Memorable Transactions in Scotland, From 1624-1645.
[29] Page 148, John Spalding, ibid.
[30] Page 243, Francis Grose, Military Antiquities, Respecting a History of the English Army Volume 1; ‘colonel … This officer is by some of our ancient military writers called coronell, crownell… crowner…’. One sees the problem again of no defined spelling for printers and just trying to spell by the sound of words.
[31] Page 173, Neil Oliver, A History of Scotland.
[32] John Haywood and Barry Cunliffe, The Historical Atlas of the Celtic World.
[33] For example, in Page 97, James Logan, The Scottish Gael, Volume 1. There is also no mention of any Gunn involvement in any of the uprisings in Murray Pittock’s The Myth of the Jacobite Clans.
[34] For example, the MacDougall Chiefs in Jean MacDougall’s Highland Postbag The Correspondence of Four MacDougall Chiefs 1715-1865.
[35] See http://chrsouchon.free.fr/muster.htm for the full song accessed 20 February 2019.
[36] http://www.electricscotland.com/history/other/021TheHighlandMusterRoll1715.pdf accessed 11 July 2018.
[37] Page 97, James Logan, The Scottish Gael, Volume 1.
[38] Page 82 and 223 of Livingstone, A. of Bachuil, Aikman, C.W.H. and Hart, B.S, No Quarter Given The Muster Roll of Price Charles Edwatd Stuart’s Army 1745-1746. Mark Rugg Gunn page 192 quotes ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ of 1746 saying that Prince Charlie, at Culloden Moor, ‘had a few of the Clan of Gunns’ but with the proviso that the Earl of Loudon – for the Hanovers - had among his men ‘120 Gunns under their chief MacKemish’. I have read the Gentleman’s magazines for that year and can find no such reference bar for one just on the Earl of Loudon which had no Gunn link. This makes me question Mark Rugg Gunn’s entry. As well, the extremely unlikely nature of one hundred and twenty Gunns being led by a Killernan when we have no record of any Killernan doing that at any time makes the account more questionable especially as the 1748 memorial has no record for the Gunns having any military strength – or even existence – as a clan.
[39] Page 217, Celeste Ray, Highland Heritage.
[40] Page 293, Col. David Stewart, Sketches of the Highlanders of Scotland Volume Two.
[41] Page 26, Col. David Stewart, Sketches of the Highlanders of Scotland.
[42] Page 107, George Rosie, Curious Scotland Tales From a Hidden History.
[43] http://www.bletherskite.net/2013/10/04/what-is-a-clan-by-dr-bruce-durie/#comment-21492 accessed 1 May 2014.
[44] John Prebble’s The Highland Clearanaces is a readable, emotional, one-sided, populist account of the period. The front cover of the Penguin 1985 (and earlier) issue highlights the ‘ethnic cleansing’ aspect of his account. The emotionality of the Strathnaver clearances in fiction is explored in Laurence Gourievidis ‘The Strathnaver Clearances in Modern Scottish Fiction: History, Literary Perception & Memory’ in J. R. Baldwon’s The Province of Strathnaver.
[45] https://roddymacleod.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/perpetuating-some-myths-of-the-highland-clearances/ accessed 2 October 2018.
[46] Page 5, David Forbes The Sutherland Clearances 1806-1820; An Introduction.
[47] The bad press is practically created by the title given to this period, namely ‘Highland Clearances’ or ‘Clearances’. The Clearances were only one part of that which went on. If the period was known as the ‘Resettlement Period’ then attitudes to the time might be considerably less emotional. Donald Sage’s Chaper 16 Memorabilia Domestica is an example of the emotional press for the 1819 clearance. For great emotional journalism covering the Gordons and the Clearances see the chapter called ‘The Gordons’ in Our Scots Noble Families by Tom Johnston CH FRSE; the book’s title is pure sarcasm. I do not deny problems and mistakes were made in the Sutherland Clearances but what was done was legal and with concern for the tenants.
[48] Pages 67-85, Eric Richards, The Highland Clearances.
[49] James Hunter’s Set Adrift Upon the World; The Sutherland Clearances, chapter 3 has a very readable account of the Kildonan uprising / riot and the text provides a careful account showing the actuality of the Sutherland Clearances, including placing the violence / forcefulness in perpective.
[50] Page lviii, R. J. Adam, Sutherland Estate Documents Volume 1.
[51] Page 56, Christine Lodge, The Clearances and the Cleared; Women, Economy and Land in the Scottish Highlands 1800-1900, being a Doctoral thesis, University of Glasgow, December 1999.
[52] Page 404, Eric Richards The Highland Clearances. Like many other estates the MacDonald Estates of North Uist also had ‘evictions’ in 1849; it also had bad publicity for what was basically the normal clearance issue – the land was not capable of supporting the increased number of tenants (not least due to the potato blight of 1847) who were three years behind in rent. The Estate offered to discharge all overdue rent, allow the tenants to sell all their own property and be moved to Canada at the Estate’s cost with the Estate providing extra food, clothing and extra supplies for the journey, and work was available on arrival in Canada. But this ‘eviction’ caused massive dissatisfaction which required police action to control. It’s the same problem as with the Sutherland Estate, but on a smaller scale – people were not coping but initially refused change on principle. See Patrick Cooper The So-Called Evictions From the MacDonald Estates in the Island of North Uist, Outer Hebrides 1849.
[53] Pages 156-157, Eric Richards The Highland Clearances.
[54] Page 171, Robert Clyde, From Rebel to Hero; The Image of the Highlander 1745-1830.
[55] Sutherland Estate papers, National Library of Scotland especially ‘Extracts from letters received by Mr Sutherland from persons resident in the North respecting the practice of “Burning out the Tenants on the Estate of Sutherland”. They were in a letter addressed to J. Lock / Loch Esq, posted 18 July 1819 to J. Lock in Bloomsbury, London.
[56] George Gunn’s letters are easy to read and detailed – an interesting social history of the Estate could be created from them.
[57] Sutherland Estate papers, National Library of Scotland, especially ‘Extracts from letters received by Mr Sutherland from persons resident in the North respecting the practice of “Burning out the Tenants on the Esate of Sutherland”. They were in a letter addressed to J. Lock / Loch Esq, posted 18 July 1819 in Bloomsbury, London.
[58] This is supported elsewhere; Page 36 David Forbes The Sutherland Clearances 1806-1820; An Introduction points out that only 83 people emigrated in 1819 whereas 2,304 were resettled on the Sutherland Estate and 889 settled elsewhere in Sutherland.
[59] Page 24, David Forbes, The Sutherland Clearances 1806-1820; An Introduction.
[60] Page 5, T. M. Devine, Scotland’s Empire 1600-1815 Penguin, 2004.
[61] ‘the Marquis of Stafford and his wife had been responsible for the kind of approach which foreshadowed modern regional planning’. Page 39, David Forbes The Sutherland Clearances 1806-20; An Introduction.
[62] Page 211. T. M. Devine, Scotland’s Empire 1600-1815.
[63] Page 260, James Hunter Last of the Free.
[64] Pages 8-9, David Forbes, The Sutherland Clearances 1806-1820; An Introduction.
[65] Page 240, Eric Richards Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances.
[66] Page 269, Eric Richards Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances.
[67] Page 32, Marjory Harper Adventurers & Exiles.
[68] Page 43, Celeste Ray, Highland Heritage.
[69] Page 76, T. M. Devine, The Great Highland Famine.
[70] Page 206 T. M. Devine, ibid.
[71] Emigration from all Scottish ports to Australia was 541 in 1852 – and 5450 the following year. Page 205 T. M. Devine, ibid.
[72] I have similar accounts for my family Gunn members going to Canada in the 1840s.
[73] http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1039746.ece accessed 15 July 2018.
[74] p. 167, Michael Brander, The Making of the Highlands.
[75] http://scottishtartans.org/downloads/fact_sheet_tartan.pdf accessed 15 July 2017.
[76] Page 8, A. W. Morrison, The Genealogy of the Morrison Origins in Scotland.
[77] Page 19, Ronald William The Lords of the Isles.
[78] They also claimed to be the grandsons of Prince Charles Edward Stuart – ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’. See page 146, Robert Clyde From Rebel to Hero: The Image of the Highlander.
[79] http://www.tartansauthority.com/research/researchers/james-grant/ accessed 15 July 2017.
[80] http://www.brooklynrail.org/2012/06/art_books/vestiarium-scoticum accessed 16 July 2017. The willingness to believe that which was not historically accurate had earlier (and later) examples; James Macpherson in the mid 1700s invented the third century Scottish bard Ossian and ‘discovered’ his poems - Scotland and Europe completely accepted them for many years.
[81] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tartans_from_the_Vestiarium_Scoticum accessed 16 July 2018. And is described on page 88 of the original book. It makes reference to Gunns as Ghuine which gets back to the origin of the Gunns, see chapter 1.4.
[82] http://www.tartansauthority.com/resources/archives/the-archives/scobie/territorial-tartans/ accessed 21 July 2017.
[83] Page 40, Celeste Ray, Highland Heritage.
[84] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_crest_badge accessed 15 April 2013.
[85] Pages 300-301, James Logan, The Scottish Gael Volume 1.
[86] ‘A clan cannot have a coat of arms.’ The Court of the Lord Lyon. http://www.lyon-court.com/lordlyon/255.html accessed 17 July 2018.
[87] http://www.thetreemaker.com/family-coat-g/gunn/scotland.html shows the probable shield of arms for George Gunn Munro / Gun Munro of Braemore. Search for Gunn.
[88] Page 295 F. Adams, revised Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, The Clans Septs and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands.
[89] From ‘Clans, Families and Septs’ by Sir Crispin Agnew of Lochnaw Bt. http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/clans_families_septs.htm accessed 26 March 2013.