Romance?

Ross Poldark and Demelza

In March 1863 my great-grandmother Elizabeth Wilson Clark was born in Ardler, Perthshire. Her mother Catharine Clark was a seamstress, aged 21, when she became pregnant and claimed Robert Neil Wedderburn, a local farmer, was the father.

(The background to this can be found in Lizzie’s Story I.)

I imagine them to look like Ross and Demelza from Poldark - but in this true story there is no happy ending for the young woman.

In the summer of 1862 when Elizabeth was conceived here’s what was happening in the Wedderburn and Clark families:

We know from the 1861 Census that Robert Neil Wedderburn (29) was the head of the household at Camno Mains farm, living with his sister Margaret (22) and niece Sara Ann Brodie (18). His father had died in 1855 and his mother in 1860 so he was only 23 when he had taken over the responsibility of the farm. In 1861 he was farming 211 acres and he raised cattle in addition to crops. Sara Ann Brodie was the daughter of his oldest sister Ann who died in Savannah Georgia where Sara was born. Ann had married a ship captain who took her to America. Sara returned after her mother’s death and lived with her grandparents at the farm.

Mains at Camno - home of Robert Neil Wedderburn

The 1861 Census shows the Clark family living in the hamlet of Washington, Ardler, about 15 minutes walk away from the Camno farmhouse. William Clark and his wife Janet live with their eldest daughter Catherine (18), younger daughters Jessie (15) and Christina (2) and a son William (8). Catherine and Jessie are “assistant gardeners”. William farms 15 acres.

Arthurstone Cottages, home of William Clark and family

Sara Ann Brodie and Catherine Clark were the same age so perhaps knew each other from school? Did they both go to the Ardler Primary School? The community was small so people would have known the Wedderburns as they were a prominent family. Robert Neil Wedderburn was the third generation to farm at Camno. He had 5 siblings and his father had 4 and the farm hosted many family weddings over the years.

In the summer of 1862 Catharine and Robert conceived a child - did they have a romance? or did he take advantage of her? Did she seduce him?

Birth of Elizabeth Clark March 3 1863

Was Catherine a friend of the Wedderburn family through Sara Ann Brodie?

She was a seamstress at the time of Elizabeth’s birth. Did she go to the “big house” to do sewing?

Where did she meet Robert and how long was their affair?

Did people know about it? They were 10 years apart in age and from very different backgrounds.

Was Camno a place where the young people lived without restrictions in the absence of elders?

Did Catharine think Robert would marry her? Robert’s mother Barbara Hay was a local girl who had born Robert Sr. a child several years before he married her, when they had a second child. Would Catharine have known this and imagined that she might aspire to marriage?

Was Robert guilty of leading on a young innocent girl or was he duped?

We know nothing of their characters expect that Robert went on to marry a woman from a respectable family in Dundee and Catharine disappeared - and was later cut out of her father’s will. Robert was a single man with no parents to tell him what to do. He could have married Catharine but obviously didn’t want to - unless he was under obligation to someone else.

Elizabeth, the love child, was raised by her grandparents. Her grandmother Jane Gow died when she was only 3 in 1866. In 1867 Robert married Elizabeth Wilson (30), the daughter of a butcher or “flesher” in Dundee.

The 1871 Census shows Elizabeth “Weatherburn” (8) living with her grandfather William Clark. William had helped Catherine pursue a paternity suit to force Robert Neil Wedderburn to support the child. He appealed twice and in all three instances the court ruled that he was the father and made him pay “aliment” - expenses for Catherine and ongoing monthly support for Elizabeth until she reached the age of 10.

The community must have known all this. It must have been really awkward for his wife Elizabeth Hood Wilson. They never had any children together and Robert died young in 1873 at age 41 from “paralysis”. The lease of the farm was sold and that line of the Wedderburns died out, there being no male heirs.

Robert never had any other children and he left his estate entirely to Elizabeth Hood. Elizabeth must have known him or least knew who he was, as she was called Elizabeth Weatherburn. There’s no way to know how the money was paid for her - her mother disappears and there is no record I can find of her.

She could have changed her name or made up a name and lived in Scotland, or she may have emigrated. There is a passenger record on a ship from Glasgow to New York in 1867 (the same year that Robert married) - perhaps she was heartbroken and left.