Alexander Shirran, born 1829

Alexander Shirran (or Sherran or Shirron - spelling was an inexact science at the time) was born at the farm or croft of Muirstone in the parish of Tyrie before 1^st January 1855 when civil registration was introduced in Scotland, and the General Register Office for Scotland's online copies of parish records do not record his birth. We know that he was the son of John Shirran, crofter, and Margaret Gray, and was born in 1829, probably between 6^th April and 31^st August, because he was listed as twenty-six when his son William was born on 1^st September 1855, fifty-one in the census of 3^rd April 1881, sixty-one in the census of 5^th April 1891 and sixty-nine when he died on 11th January 1899. [GROS Statutory Births 1855 247/00 0081; Census 1881 223/00 005/00 005; Census 1891 223/00 005/00 009; GROS Statutory Deaths 1899 223/00 0003]

He married Jessie Tawse on 10^th March 1852 at Shandscross - this last detail appears on the registry entries for the births of their sons William and James, although not in the original parish record, which simply places them in the parish of Turriff. The winters both before and after their marriage were unusually harsh.All the entries for their children's births confirm the date of 1852 except the ones for their twin sons (born in 1869), which wrongly say 1853. [O.P.R. Marriages 1852 247/00 0030 0566 TURRIFF; GROS Statutory Births 1855 247/00 0081; GROS Statutory Births 1866 173/00 0063; GROS Statutory Births 1870 249/0B 0032; GROS Statutory Births 1869 173/00 0013; GROS Statutory Births 1869 173/00 0014] The entry for their marriage in the parish records of Turriff says the following:

Shirran & Taws On the twenty eighth day of February eighteen hundred and fifty two Alexander Shirran and Jessie Taws both in this parish were contracted in order to be married, and married on the tenth day

Alexander seems to have gone by the contraction Alex, rather than Sandy, as he signed himself Alex on the birth certificates of some of his children, of whom the couple had nine. Their eldest boy Adam was born on 24^th February 1853 at Shandscross, at which time his father was a farm servant at Cotburn - a knot of locations named Upper Cotburn, Lower Cotburn and Hill of Cotburn just east of Fintry, about three miles north-east of Shandscross. Alex and Jessie seem to have lived mostly apart for the first fourteen years of their marriage, with Jessie and the children staying at Shandscross next door to her parents while Alex worked at farms around the district - perhaps to save money so he could save up to buy his own farm.

The next son, William, was born on 1^st September 1855 at Shandscross, and on the registry entry for his birth it states that he is his mother's second child and that the couple have two boys, both living (presumably including William himself, since Alexander was twenty-three when he married Jessie, and a bit young to have had any previous officially-recognised and recorded relationships before her) - so we know Adam was their first child. [GROS OPR Births 1853 247/00 0030 0256 Turriff; GROS Statutory Births 1855 247/00 0081]

A daughter named Jessie was born circa October 1857, and a son James in 1860 or 1861, although neither child's birth is in the records. These two children both died of diphtheria at Shandscross in March 1866, in each case after an illness of about one week, Jessie on the 13^th (at 5:50am, her father being present) and James in the 22^nd (at 1pm, father not present, probably because he was at work); so James fell ill a few days after his sister's death, and then he too died. [GROS Statutory Deaths 1866 247/00 0012; GROS Statutory Deaths 1866 247/00 0013]

A fourth son, Robert, was born on 27^th June 1863 at Shandscross (and registered under the variant spelling Shirron), and the fifth, George, was born on 27^th August 1866, five months after the deaths of Jessie and James. From this point onwards Alex and Jessie seem to have been living together. The registry entry for George's birth says he was born at Bogside in the parish of Auchterless, which would suggest Bogside near Cushnie which is about half a mile south-west of Kirktown of Auchterless, near Logie Newton where Alexander Shirran was working in spring 1871. The 25-inch Ordnance Survey Aberdeenshire Map Sheet XXVIII.52, surveyed 1869 and published 1873, shows that Bogside was the farmstead now called Sunnyside, just across from the Free Kirk and its manse, now called Pinewood. [GROS Statutory Births 1863 247/00 0076; GROS Statutory Births 1866 173/00 0063; Census 1871 249/0B 002/00 006]

When he joined the army, however, George would claim to have been born in the parish of Monquhitter, which would suggest he was born at Bogside of Greeness (or even the tiny Bogside Croft which is six hundred yards east of Mill of Muirtack, although it is too small to appear on any but the finest-scale map). [Short Service attestation 1883] But the proximity to Logie Newton and the certificate attributing his birth to Bogside in the parish of Auchterless makes Bogside near Cushnie more likely. George lied about his age when he joined the army, so he may have lied about his birthplace too, or genuinely not known it.

view down a stream winding away through frosty heathland

View north down the River Ythan: the site of Smiston is about half a mile offscreen to the left © Iain Macaulay at Geograph

Iain MacaulayGeograph

Twin boys, Alexander Cowie Shirran and Charles Forbes Shirran, were born at Smiston, Auchterless on 21^st February 1869: Alexander was five hours older than his twin. [GROS Statutory Births 1869 173/00 0013; GROS Statutory Births 1869 173/00 0014] Smiston was probably the cottage/croft marked on old maps as Smithton: it no longer exists, but it was two miles south-south-west of Kirkton of Auchterless and just over a mile north-west of Badenscoth, roughly in the centre of a triangle bounded by Woodtown, Netherthird and Crofts of Netherthird (then called Crofts of Oldwood). [Thanks to Anne Burgess of Geograph for tracking Smiston down on the 25-inch Ordnance Survey Aberdeenshire Map Sheet XXVII.12, surveyed 1871 and published 1873]

Their eighth son and ninth child was another boy called James, re-using the name of his dead brother. This second James was born at the village of Logie Newton, three miles south-west of Kirkton of Auchterless, on 30^th May 1870. [GROS Statutory Births 1870 249/0B 0032]

There is some reason to think Alexander didn't get on with his father John. Of the couple's eight sons, at least four - Adam, Charles and the two Jameses - share their names with Jessie's father and brothers, and none is called John.

Alexander, we know, was born at Muirstone in Tyrie - the information is on his son William's birth-certificate and is unambiguous, since it says "Muirstone, Parish of Tyrie" and Muirstone is indeed near Tyrie. The census of 30^th March 1851 shows an Alexander Shirran, agricultural labourer, of the right age to be him, living as a lodger at Camalowan in the parish of Fyvie (presumably one out of the adjacent modern areas of Camaloun and Cammalown, immediately north-west of Fyvie itself). This Alexander's birthplace is given as Fyvie, which would be wrong, but the clerk who wrote it down may have had Fyvie on the brain, and misheard or misread "Tyrie". [GROS Statutory Births 1855 247/00 0081; Census 1851 197/00 006/00 005]

Then again, we know that there were at least two other Alexander Shirrans in the same area at the same time. Other researchers found there were two marriages of Alexander Shirrans within a few years of each other. An Alexander Shirran married Elspeth Clark in Monquhitter in 1848 and an Alexander Shirran married Jessie Tawse in Turriff in 1852, and they're not the same Alexander, unless he was a bigamist, or carrying on with a divorced first wife whilst married to the second (unlikely in a small, probably very gossipy community), because the Alexander who was married to Elspeth Clark had a child by her in 1853, after the marriage of Alexander to Jessie Tawse. There was an Alexander Shirran at Mill of Allathan, Monquhitter, who was probably the same one who married Elspet Clark, and there was an Alexander Shirran, son of Alexander Shirran and Jane Gordon, who was born in 1839 and lived at North Camalynes in the Parish of Fyvie.

However, and assuming that the Alexander Shirran at Mill of Allathan, Monquhitter was the one who married Elspeth Clark in Monquhitter in 1848 (that is, assuming there were "only" three Alexander Shirrans in the area, not four), the Alexander who was in Camalowan in 1851 probably was my great-great-grandfather. He was ten years too old to be the one who was the son of Alexander and Jane, and he was single, whereas the one who married Elspet Clark remained married at least from 1848-1853. [Census 1851 197/00 006/00 005]

We know that Jessie was born at Shandscross, that her father died there, that the couple married at Shandscross, that their sons William and Robert were born at Shandscross and two of their children died there in March 1866. Clearly, Shandscross was where the Tawse family home was, and Alexander and Jessie lived either with or near her parents from their marriage until spring 1866. The 7^th April 1861 census shows that Jessie, described as a ploughman's wife, was living at Shandscross with her children Adam, William, Jessie and James, next door to her parents and a grandson of theirs called George, who would have been Jessie's nephew. What is probably the right Alexander, described as a ploughman and again with his birthplace given as Fyvie, is working as a ploughman on John Walker's hundred and eighty-two acre farm at Cliftbog, three and a half miles south-west of Turriff. [GROS Statutory Births 1855 247/00 0081; GROS Statutory Births 1870 249/0B 0032; GROS Statutory Deaths 1861 247/00 0066; GROS Statutory Deaths 1866 247/00 0012; GROS Statutory Deaths 1866 247/00 0013; Census 1861 247/00 004/00 011; Census 1861 247/00 008/00 007]

At the time that they were living in Shandscross, Alexander is described in his children's registry entries as a farm labourer or a farm servant. The registry entry for his wife's death calls him a general labourer, but the entry for his son William's death calls him an army pensioner. This could be an error, since William was himself an army pensioner; but it may be that by age twenty-three, when he married Jessie, Alexander had already been in and out of the army. [GROS Statutory Births 1855 247/00 0081; GROS Statutory Deaths 1866 247/00 0012; GROS Statutory Deaths 1866 247/00 0013; GROS Statutory Deaths 1917 227/0B 0021; GROS Statutory Deaths 1925 227/0B 0001]

The census of 7^th April 1861, however, says that Alexander at that time was a ploughman at Cliftbog and Jessie, still living at Shandcross, was a ploughman's wife. [Census 1861 247/00 008/00 007; Census 1861 247/00 004/00 011]

By late August 1866 the family were at Bogside (probably Bogside of Muiresk, which is near Cliftbog), or Jessie was at any rate, since George was born there. The registry entries for George's birth and death call his father a farm servant. [GROS Statutory Births 1866 173/00 0063; GROS Statutory Deaths 1945 685/02 0421]

We see them again in February 1869, when they are at Smiston, and Alexander is again described as a farm servant, and again in May 1870 at Logie Newton. Assuming Alexander was living at the places where his sons were born, he must have been fee'd to farms in these areas. Smiston/Smithton was too small a place to be employing farm servants in its own right, really just a cottage in someone else's field: it must have been a satellite of a larger farm, and Alexander and his family were at least given this cottage to sleep in, rather than bunking up in a bothy or chaumer. [GROS Statutory Births 1869 173/00 0013; GROS Statutory Births 1869 173/00 0014; GROS Statutory Births 1870 249/0B 0032]

groups of small houses set back from a country road

Logie Newton © Steven Brown at Geograph

Steven BrownGeograph

In the census of 2^nd April 1871 the couple (under the variant spelling Sherran) are living at Logie Newton with their children Robert, George, Alexander, Charles and James. Again Alexander is described as a farm servant, and Jessie as a farm servant's wife: his brush with being a ploughman seems to have been short-lived.

By the time of the census of 3^rd April 1881, however, Alexander is the head of house of a twelve-acre croft at Greeness in the parish of Monquhitter - an area which consists of a large hill, part of which is known as Hill of Greeness, plus the slopes around it, including Newton of Greeness and Backhill of Greeness. Alexander and Jessie, their grown son William (a Chelsea Pensioner, his right knee crip[pled by gunshot) and the three youngest boys Alexander Cowie, Charles Forbes and James, all described as scholars, were all living in a single croft-house which had only two rooms with windows in. [Census 1881 223/00 005/00 005]

George at this time was working as a servant (a farm servant presumably) at a large farm at Haremoss. There are several places called Haremoss in Aberdeenshire, but the census shows that this was the Haremoss which is near Mill of Haremoss and Hill of Castle (now Castlehill), in the parish of Monquhitter. This in turn tells us that it was the Haremoss which is less than three hundred yards south of Mill of Haremoss, i.e. less than two miles north of Greeness and south-east of the famed "Barnyards o' Delgaty". Alexander and Jessie were still at what seems to be the same house at Greeness, without their offspring, at the time of the census of 5^th April 1891, and Alexander died at Hill of Greeness in 1899. [Census 1881 223/00 005/00 018; Census 1891 223/00 005/00 009; GROS Statutory Deaths 1899 223/00 0003]

The feeing markets at Turriff were held at Whitsuntide (the seventh Sunday after Easter) and Martinmas (11^th November) so if George was working at Haremoss on 3^rd April 1881, he must have been there at least since the previous November. That he had a place working less than two miles from the family croft somewhat suggests that the croft came first - that the family were living at Greeness and from there, the son went to Haremoss - so we can say that Alexander probably acquired his croft after April 1871, when the census shows the family at Logie Newton, and before November 1880. [The New Statistical Account of Scotland (1845), Volume XII - Aberdeen, Parish of Turriff; Census 1881 223/00 005/00 018; Census 1871 249/0B 002/00 006]

Information that might pin down the exact location of the Shirran family croft comes from several sources. Alexander's own 1899 death certificate states that he died at Hill of Greeness [GROS Statutory Deaths 1899 223/00 0003], and the army records of his son Alexander Cowie Shirran, who enlisted in 1888, describe his next of kin as "Father Alexander Hillgreness Turriff Aberdeen" [ACS Military History summary as at 1900]. There is an actual specific croft called Hill of Greeness, but we cannot simply say that this and no other was the family croft, because a woman named Jessie Keir Merson was born at Hill of Greeness in 1885. Since the Shirrans lived in a two-room house it's not likely another family were living with them in 1885, and the Valuation Rolls show that the Shirrans were living in the same place in 1884/85 that they were living in right through until Alexander died - that is, they didn't move to Hill of Greeness after 1885 - so there must have been more than one house, and household, described as being at "Hill of Greeness" in the 1880s.

In the military records of George Shirren, who enlisted in 1883, his father Alexander is listed as his next of kin, residing at "Newbrae, Cummingstone, Aberdeenshire" [GS Military History summary as at 1905]. There is no Cummingstone in Aberdeenshire (although there is a Cummingstone in Morayshire), but there is a Cuminestown about three miles from Greeness.

view of road running out across low rolling hills dotted with small houses and farms

Road by North Redbriggs: the first groups of houses to both left and right are part of North Redbriggs itself, the next house is Easter Ewebrae and Ewebrae Farm is a white dot in the distance. Ewebrea Croft is just out of sight over the curve of the hill. © Des Colhoun at Geograph

Des ColhounGeograph

There is no Newbrae at Greeness either, but there is an area called Ewebrae on the side of the hill at Greeness, comprising Ewebrae Farm, a smaller farm called Easter Ewebrae, a croft called West Ewebrae and Ewebrae Croft, then called Meddons of Ewebrae. The army records for Alex's son William show that when he was discharged in summer 1880 he intended to reside at Ewebrae (although it wrongly places it in the parish of Turriff) [WS description on discharge], so it seems clear that the Shirran family croft was really at "Ewebrae, Cuminestown, Aberdeenshire", at least from 1880-1883, and the Army clerk misheard it. Examination of the census, however, shows that Alex's croft was not Ewebrae Croft itself, which is listed separately and is in any case too small, since Alex is described as a crofter of twelve acres, and Ewebrae Croft seems to be about seven acres. Easter Ewebrae, West Ewebrae and Ewebrae Farm are all also listed separately.

view across fields with a small group of buildings up a slope in the right distance

Ewebrae Croft at top right, viewed from the east, adapted from Google Maps

The Valuation Rolls for Monquhitter [] (which run from Whitsun to Whitsun) show Alexander Shirran as the tenant of a croft at Burnside of Idoch at a rent of £4 a year from some time in the valuation year 1881/82 until Alexander's death in 1899. The Shirrans are not listed by name before that date, although both the family's army records and the census show that Alexander was a crofter in the area prior to Whitsun 1881. Prior to Whitsun 1881 Alexander must be one of the ten un-named tenants at Greeness [] who paid rents of less than £4 a year.

So, we know the Shirran family were at Ewebrae in 1880 and 1883, and at Hill of Greeness in 1888 and 1899, and at Burnside of Idoch from 1881/82 until 1899. The census shows that in April 1881, prior to Whitsun, the Shirrans were close neighbours of families called Moir, Alexander and McDonald and in 1891 of Moir, Alexander and Duguid [Census 1881 223/00 005/00 005; Census 1891 223/00 005/00 009], strongly suggesting that the family did not move house between 1881 and 1891, and the Moir, Alexander and Duguid families, all with the same heads of house as in the two censuses, all appear in the Valuation Rolls as neighbours of the Shirrans when they were at Burnside of Idoch. These families are all described in the Valuation Rolls as occupying crofts at the settlement of Teuchar. Furthermore, the 1881 census lists the Shirran croft as next but one after Netherton of Greeness, a small farm in between Rosebrae and North Redbriggs at the southern end of Teuchar. [Teuchar isn't exactly a village - more a loose cluster of farms and crofts and mills strung along a stretch of road.]

It seems fairly clear, therefore, that the various addresses of Ewebrae, Hill of Greeness and Burnside of Idoch all refer to the same place, which was close to Teuchar, and that the reason Alexander didn't appear as a named tenant prior to 1881/82 was because it was only in 1881/82 that his annual rent increased to £4, rather than because he moved house that year. The Valuation Rolls also show that after Alexander died, the rent was increased and the tenant who replaced him was charged £5 per annum []!

That the Shirran family croft could be described as being simultaneously at Ewebrae, Hill of Greeness and Burnside of Idoch and close to Teuchar narrows its location down to one of only a handful of crofts immediately north and north-east of Ewebrae Croft.

Chapter XVII of The Ballad and the Plough: A Portrait of Life in the Old Scottish Farmtouns by David Kerrcameron speaks of "Heartbreak Crofts" crammed into the marginal land between the big semi-industrialised farms, the "farmtouns" of the North-East, where freedom was an illusion, where subsistence farmers were dependent on their larger neighbours for the hire of a plough and pair and where they could survive only by having a second job, or by hiring out their labour by the day to the bigger farms. The independent crofter "was a man forever dancing on a fine wire and always in double harness; if he could not get a day's labour fairly often at the neighbouring farmtouns he had, as in the North-West, to find his second job at the fishing, as postman, or shoemaker, or helper at the pier when the boat came in. He was strait-jacketed from the outset: whenever his croft needed him, whenever his corn was ripe for the scythe, he was contracted elsewhere. His plight was that he was master and servant both. He lost his own harvest while working other men's fields. In time he lost hope as well." Nevertheless, twelve acres is a good-sized croft and Alex seems to have survived on it without needing a second job.

small farm with tiny white farmhouse, viewed in the distance across brown and green fields

Ewebrae Farm viewed from the south: Ewebrae Croft is off-screen immediately to the left, extending up the slope in the background © Des Colhoun at Geograph

Des ColhounGeograph

In November 1886, the registry entry for William's marriage calls his father a ploughman, which might indicate a step down in life, but the marriage entries for George and for Charles Forbes call their father a crofter, and the entry for William's death calls his father a crofter as well as an army pensioner. And we know Alexander was still at the house at Greeness at the time of the census in April 1891, and when he died, he died at Hill of Greeness and his own death certificate calls him "crofter". [GROS Statutory Marriages 1886 227/0B 0014; GROS Statutory Marriages 1892 055/AF 0063; GROS Statutory Marriages 1892 154/00 0002; GROS Statutory Deaths 1925 227/0B 0001; GROS Statutory Deaths 1899 223/00 0003]

So it seems clear that some time between 1871 and 1880 Alexander went up in the world and got his own croft - a fairly large one for an area where the census shows msot crofts to be from two to seven acres - and he kept it until his death. The reference to his being a ploughman may have been a boast rather than an indication of loss of status. Coming from an area where ploughmen fixed tall frames hung with bells to their horses' collars, and "champion ploo-boys" competed for prizes for the one who could plough the straightest furrow, perhaps the niece who registered William's death would rather call his father a ploughman than a crofter.

Alexander died at Hill of Greeness - presumably at the family croft - at 10:30am on 11^th January 1899, of chronic nephritis. His son William was present when he died, and registered the death. He was survived by his wife Jessie. [GROS Statutory Deaths 1899 223/00 0003]