Lizzie’s Story 1: Meigle
Camno Mains farmhouse, home of the Wedderburns
This is the story of my paternal grandmother Lizzie Clark Millar 1885-1962
The Wedderburns
In 1863 in the small parish of Meigle, Perthshire lived an unmarried cattle farmer named Robert Neil Wedderburn 1831. He was 32 at the time Lizzie’s story begins. He grew up on the land his family had leased for a hundred years, in rolling fertile countryside north of Dundee. The farm was called Camno Mains and the first Wedderburn to farm there was Robert’s grandfather John Wedderburn 1748. John had five children, four girls and a son Robert Wedderburn 1778. Robert had six children so the family were well known in the area. He died in 1855 when his son Robert Neil (we’ll call him that) was 24. His younger son John Gordon Wedderburn was not involved in the farm and moved away.
Robert Neil’s mother Barbara Hay died in 1860 when Robert was 29.
The 1861 Census shows that in April Robert Neil was head of the household and “Farmer Of 211 Acres Employing 6 Men 2 Women & 1 Boy”. Living with him were his yet unmarried sister Margaret (22), and his niece Sara Brodie (18).
The Clarks
Ardler to Camno Mains (listed as Blairgowrie on this map)
Living nearby was another farming family, the Clarks. William Clark 1813 and his wife Jane Gow 1807 had four children: Catherine 1842; William 1852; Janet “Jessie” 1845; and Christina “Jane” 1858. William was a “pendicler” - he sublet a few acres of the Arthurstone estate in the village of Washington (Ardler on the map), less than a mile from Camno Mains.
FUN FACT: Washington was named after US president George Washington. It was renamed Ardler in 1885.
The 1861 Census shows that William Clark, 50, is “a gardener farming 15 acres”. His daughter Catherine (18) is an assistant gardener.
Two years later in March 1863 Catherine has a baby girl, my great grandmother Elizabeth Clark. Elizabeth’s birth certificate lists the birth as illegitimate and gives Catherine’s occupation as “seamstress”. No father is named. Catherine tells her family that Robert Neil Wedderburn is the father and William initiates a paternity suit against his neighbor. Catherine’s little brother William, aged 10, is taking it all in.
Tenant cottages on the Arthurstone estate
The Paternity Suit
In November 1863 a judge first hears the case against Robert Neil Wedderburn. Obviously he is not cooperating by not settling with Catherine’s father. He appeals the first and second decisions against him but the following year in June he is forced to pay for the birth expenses and child support until the child is of working age plus extra legal expenses.
I was able to purchase a copy of the actual court record through the Scottish Indexes website which is a site run by the Maxwells, married professional genealogists in Scotland. (More on that later)
GO WILLIAM!
William persisted and was able to get Robert Wedderburn to pay Catherine the equivalent of 2740 pounds in todays currency - or 3700 $US.
But we will never know what happened to the money. This is the last record of Catherine I can find. She never shows up again in any census, death certificate, valuation role, or immigration record. She disappears. There is a possibility that she married or changed her name.
There are too many marriages of “Catherine Clark” to check - I have checked most of them in Scotland but there are many more in England. There is however a passenger record of a Catherine Clark (single woman) going from Glasgow to New York in 1867. Perhaps she left the country for a fresh start? This is the year that Robert Neil Wedderburn marries a woman from Dundee, Elizabeth Hood Wilson. He dies young in 1873 at the age of 41 and leaves nothing to Elizabeth Clark, his only child. So he seems to have never accepted that she was his child.
By the time of the 1871 Census William Clark’s wife (Jane Gow) has passed and he is living with his daughters Jessie and Jane - and granddaughter Elizabeth Wedderburn aged 8. This is the last time Elizabeth uses the name Wedderburn - as an adult she uses Elizabeth Clark.
In 1881 Jane and Elizabeth have left to work at the mills in Dundee where they will meet their husbands. Jessie is still at home - she will remain unmarried. And son William now 28 is back home - now working as a law clerk. Did his early experience inspire him to go into law? He will move to Edinburgh and have a successful career. He will look after his sister Jessie, and he will have a profound influence on my life.
William Clark senior dies in 1889 and leaves a will - unusual for a man of modest means. He names son William as his executor and splits his estate between William, Jessie, Jane and granddaughter Elizabeth. He specifically excludes Catherine from the will.
Did he know where she was? Did she take the money and run? What was the nature of her relationship with Wedderburn? Was he even the real father of Elizabeth?There are SO many questions that will never be answered.