Earlston Worthie - Rev. William Shillinglaw Crockett (1866-1945)

We are grateful to Jenny Cockburn of Redpath for contributing this article on the life of the Rev. William Shillinglaw Crockett - an Earlston Worthie

Introduction

On entering the old entrance to Earlston churchyard there stands a gravestone for a Reverend William Shillinglaw Crockett.  He lies buried with his parents and infant brothers with his wife close by.

For an ‘Old Worthie’,  his passing in 1945 is relatively recent. There will be those who will possibly recall his name from their childhood. However, for the rest of us he is relatively unknown.  Yet William Shillinglaw Crockett was Earlston’s very own home grown celebrity.  Google his name, and the results page is peppered with his works.  A search of newspaper archives including; national and local papers and periodicals provide us with a detailed record of his eventful life, lectures and writings.

In his time, he was described as “a distinguished litterateur and perhaps the most capable living writers on the Borders” His books were “eminently readable and adorned with all the literary power and grace”,  and to “Border themes he brought remarkable knowledge and charming style”. 

Needless to say, he was well respected for his expertise on the Borders, its lands, poetry, poets and folklore. One reports suggest that in addition to this remarkable intellect:

“ He was also genial, affable with a kindly disposition, though not without a modicum of gentle irony and dry humour”.  He liked to “hear a good story and could tell, any amusing anecdote himself, especially about some of the old worthies of Earlston in days gone by.  Although he had mixed with many great eminent persons he had no ‘side’ and was (as the old Scots saying aptly has it the same to a cadger as the king.”

Early LIfe
 Born on the 24^th June 1866 in Earlston, his father was William Crockett a Postmaster at Earlston whose family came from Galloway and his mother was Margaret Wood whose family belonged to Earlston. His grandparents Helen Shillinglaw and James Wood, having married in Redpath in 1817, appeared to have moved into Earlston sometime in the 1840s.

 In a speech celebrating the centenary of Redpath Village Hall, Crockett claimed his grandparents were among the founders who built the school there. He also reported that his great grandfather George Shillinglaw, a nurseryman from Redpath supplied Walter Scott with many saplings which he grew in Abbotsford, and that Joseph Shillinglaw (his great uncle) was a cabinet maker who was a constant visitor to his friend Walter Scott in Abbotsford.

Earlston was Crockett’s hometown. Sadly, in 1872 his father, died at the young age of 54, when William was 6 years old. Yet when describing his early years in Earlston, William Crockett always appeared upbeat, expressing the “love of visiting the scenes of [his] happy childhood and schooldays’.   His mother Margaret had a Grocers shop in the High Street. William Crockett was to be her only surviving son and she appeared keen to support his education. He attended the old Earlston Parish school where, his teacher was Daniel Aitkenhead. He was so fond of his teacher that they remained good friends throughout their lives until Daniel's death in 1922.  

After school,  Crockett became an apprentice to a local chemist. However, it is understood that “he did not take kindly to the pestle and mortar” (Berwickshire News)  and after qualifying,  he made the decision that being a chemist was not for him.  He therefore chose to ‘swap drugs with divinity’ and became a minister.  His mother supported him with this decision and he entered Edinburgh University to study. 

Fifteen months after he was ordained he was elected as Tweedsmuir minister for the Church of Scotland in 1894 where he remained for 50 years, celebrating his jubilee year just the year before his death.

An Author and Lecturer

In 1893 the young newly qualified Crocket wrote his first book “The Minstrelsy’s of the Merse”.  This book was a collection of verses from poets and lyricists  who were born or lived in the Berwickshire area. Crockett was able to use his expertise on their lives to provide the reader with biographies as well as their  works. The book was a hit, apparently favourably reviewed in over 50 newspapers including leading journals.

During this success in 1894 he married Mary Ross:

“What she was to her husband everyone was aware of. She was his eyes, his hands his feet, at occasions when some overstrain cast him into the depths.  She looked over his proof sheets advising or suggesting what her own wise virile perceptive mentality considered should be left out or at least refurbished.” (Scotsman Obituary,  1945)

Crockett continued to write titles including A Berwickshire Bard (1897) The Scott Country (1902,  The English and Scottish Border (1905), In the Border country (1906),  The Scott Originals (1912), In Praise of the Tweed (1899) and Lays from Leaderside (1928).  As well as this,  he was involved in writing articles for newspapers -  the Scotsman, Berwickshire News, and periodicals such as the Berwickshire Naturalist. 

In addition to his written work,  Crockett was a powerful speaker and he made a lecturing tours of the United States and Canada. During the First World War,  he preached and lectured to troops in France and in 1929 accompanied by his wife he made extensive tours of the Middle East and Europe. 

  Part of a lengthy report in the Berwickshire News on a talk 

the Rev. Crockett gave in Earlston on  9th April 1918. 

Newspaper cuttings towards the end of his years suggest that the Crocketts enjoyed many holidays and visits to Earlston and indeed it was reported that he bought a house in Thorn Street to retire to.  The couple appeared at many social events and William continued with his lectures and speeches around the Borders.

Later Life
In 1944 William  celebrated his Jubilee year as the Minister of Tweedsmuir. However in January of that year Mary his wife passed away. William died the next year, the day after his 79^th Birthday on the 25th June 1945 and was buried in Earlston alongside his wife, mother and father.

 Earlston Parish Church - Rev. William Crockett's burial place.

In the preface of Crockett's "Minstrelsy of the Merse", Blackie writes that:

“The name Burns occupies such a prominent position in Scottish song that persons are apt to speak of him as the creator of the lyrical art of his country………Nothing could be a greater mistake.  He was the biggest tree in the forest; but not the only tree he was not the forest and did not make the forest, the forest rather made him."

Crockett introduces us to the lyrical forest in 

Earlston, Berwickshire and the Borders.  

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Sources:
Information taken from The Berwickshire News, The  Southern Reporter and The Scotsman newspapers.

 

 In case you missed previous Auld Earlston blog posts on William Crockett:

• Memories of Earlston People and Places , by the Rev. William Crockett.
• More Memories of Earlston People and Places, by the Rev. William Crockett.
  
  

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More Memories of Earlston People and Places

INTRODUCTION

The West End of Earlston,  Haughhead and Craigsford, Thomas Weatherly, stationer & printer, John Gray, photographer, Dr. Robert Riddell and the well known Whale Family - they all feature in this the second of two posts on the memories of the Rev. William Crockett (1866-1945). 

Part One of Rev. Crockett's memories you will find  HERE. 

William Shillinglaw Crockett was born in Earlston in 1866.  On leaving school, he worked as an apprentice chemist in the village, before training in Edinburgh for the Church.  He spent most of his ministry in Tweedsmuir, Peeblesshire and was a prolific writer of  many publications on Borders life and literature. 

William Crockett never forgot his birthplace and in  a series of articles, written between 1937 and 1942 for  local magazines, he gives us a picture of Earlston life, people and places, with snippets from his pen  highlighted below. He died in 1945 and was buried in Earlston Churchyard.   

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THE WEST TOUN END 

"This is the most ancient part of Earlston,  for long it remained as a little village of its own - a community in itself.  Its weavers' cottages, its crofts, its gardens of beauty, were just an ideal old fashioned hamlet in days gone by.   Now of course, everything is changed.

Who ever heard today of "The Acre Barn" , that so popular rendezvous  for dances, kirns and penny-weddings, at which a plate was passed around to pay expenses with a gift for the bride.

One place I remember well was Mag Forrest's tramps' howff,  scene of many a grim fight or drunken  brawl.

In a house behind the White Swan (once the Beehive) pend, Thomas Bayley, who had lost a leg in the *Peninsular Campaigns,  taught his small "side school", one of many in Earlston then.  And in it Robert Carter  of New York, founder of  of the most famous bookshop in America,  began life as a teacher."

 West End, c. early 1900's

HAUGHHEAD CORNMILL "functioned  as such from a remote period .....for generations it was occupied by the Shields, a notable family in the district of whom came  Alexander (born 1661) and  Michael,  both  valiant heroes of the *Covenant.....Both brothers joined the *Second Darien Expedition  in 1699 and they never again saw Leaderside, perishing amidst the hardships of that ill-fated adventure."  

 The site of Haughhead Mill, June 2018

CRAIGSFORD  was a sort of village in itself in those distant days,with a row of cottages, beginning  with that in which James Blaikie lived. 

"A ravine of the burn hard by - the Clattering Ford,  was used  by the body snatchers,  of Burke and Hare  time, for concealment of newly buried corpses  taken from the kirkyard.  Here it is said that the body of Nance Kerss lay before it came into the hands of the notorious Dr. Knox.  When the alarm was raised, David Walker, the parish  schoolmaster and another  Earlstonian  were sent to  identify  the body at the Surgeon's Hall, Edinburgh,  "Eh, Nance, Nance", said the latter, "Ye never thocht ye wad ever be in Edinburgh".

THOMAS WEATHERLY

"A printer from Berwick, he migrated to the west of the shire (about 70 years ago) and had his  stationer's and bookseller's shop on the High Street. 

Weatherly's enterprise took him into the publishing and  newspaper field, with an eight page weekly "The Border Beacon",  followed by a second, having the rather high sounding title "The South of Scotland Live Stock Journal".  I fancy that very few, if any copies,  have survived, apart from those I have myself kept  in file those many years.  As Weatherly discovered, Earlston was scarcely the place  for a successful venture into the journalistic sphere

 

In the 1901 census, John P. Weatherly was described as a 40 years old Postmaster of 73 High Street, living with his wife, mother-in-law and  children Edward, Ellen and Margaret.  The Trade Directory two years later adds to his role that of bookseller, stationer, and printer. 

JOHN GRAY, PHOTOGRAPHER 

"A printer and photographer, he was the first to popularise this art in Earlston, especially with his carte de visite  portraits. which had wide vogue at that time."

 

This photograph came into the Auld Earlston collection and was identified on the reverse as David Swanston, Post Runner, here adverting the business of James Gray, photographer in the Square.  It is one of the oldest photographs in the group's collection, as David died in 1874.  

 DR. ROBERT RIDDELL

"Here was  a man skilled in diagnosis, a very capable servant, responsive to every phase of human distress. Even if (because of his slightly humped back),they spoke of him as  "Humpy"  Riddell, it was never with any feeling of disrespect.The doctor was endowed with a big brain;  poor people said he had a heart of gold. He showed his queer habits on occasions   - a street fight fascinated him for instance.  Dr  Riddell believed in prayer and once told the minister "I always pray before I start an operation."   

THE WHALE FAMILY

"Two of Andrew Whale's sons cut notable figures in active manhood - Lancelot, Rector of the Grammar School in Kelso, where Sir Walter Scott was his most eminent pupil;  and Thomas,   originator of an enterprise which gave to his native town, a prime distinction  in the realm of commerce - the gingham industry.

It is safe to say that no article of wearing apparel  was so fashionable  in its time. Over 140 hand looms (mostly in private houses)  in Earlston and the surrounding area wer engaged in the  manufacture of these finely woven and cotton fabrics.   They were worn by all classes and in every quarter.

Much of the prosperity of the trade - and indeed its high watermark - indeed, came after Whale's day, when his two daughters - Marion and Christian succeeded to the business, extending  clientele  throughout many parts of England - and even exporting their wares across the Atlantic.

Rhymer's Lands (some nine and a half acres) was acquired by those two enterprising women, Christian and Marion Whale, of gingham celebrity. by purchase from Dr. Francis  Home of Cowdenknowes. In 1842 they rebuilt the mill on its present site,  the old structure having been destroyed by fire the previous year."

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EXPLANATORY NOTES
* Peninsular Campaigns 
The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was a military conflict between Napoleon's empire (as well as the allied powers of the Spanish Empire), the United Kingdom and  Portugal, for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars.

* Covenanters were people in Scotland who signed the National Covenant in 1638 to confirm their opposition to the interference by the Stuart kings in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

*The Darien Scheme  was Scotland's ambitious attempt to become a world trading nation by establishing a colony called "Caledonia" on the isthmus of Panama on the Gulf of Darien  in the late 1690s. Thousands of ordinary Scots  invested money in the expedition, to the tune of approximately £500,000. Five  ships sailed from Leith in July 1698 with 1,200 people on board. 

But  the project was beset by poor planning and provisioning, divided leadership and finally disease.  Seven months after arriving, 400 Scots were dead.   More ships set sail from Leith in November 1699 loaded with a further 1,300  pioneers,unaware of the fate of the earlier settlers. The colony  was finally abandoned in 1700 after a siege by Spanish forces, 

Only one ship returned out of the total of sixteen that had originally sailed.  With the  loss of the £500,000 investment,  the Scottish economy was almost bankrupted. 

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SOURCES:

• The Rhymer's Town:  Some Notes on Earlston's Past, by Dr. W.S.Crockett. In "The Southern Annual: 1937. 
• The Rhymer's Town:  More  Notes on Earlston's Past, by Dr. W. S. Crockett.  In "The Southern Annual:1941. 
• The Rhymer's Town:  Further Notes on Earlston's Past, by Dr. W. S. Crockett. In "The Southern Annual:1942. 
• The Rev. W. S. Crockett:  Preacher and Litterateur (interview and biographical notes), by John North. In "Border Magazine" July 1905.

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Do you have memories of growing up in Earlston or 
know stories passed down by your parents or grandparents.  

If so, we would like to hear from you.  

 E-mail: auldearlston@aol.com

Memories of Earlston People & Places, by Rev. William Crockett. (1866-1945)

  INTRODUCTION

William Shillinglaw Crockett was born in Earlston in 1866, the youngest child of William Crockett and Margaret Wood.   On leaving school, he worked as an apprentice chemist in the village, before training in Edinburgh for the Church.  He spent most of his ministry in Tweedsmuir, Peeblesshire and was a prolific writer of  many publications on Borders life and literature. 

William Crockett never forgot his birthplace and in  a series of articles he wrote for local magazines, he gives us a picture of Earlston life, with snippets from his pen  highlighted below. He died in 1945 and was  buried in Earlston Churchyard.  

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EARLY LIFE

"My father conducted the postal affairs of the parish and district until his death in 1872.  Dauvit Swanson ran the outgoing mail to Melrose  twice daily, bringing back the incoming mail, my father delivering  the letters around the town.   Dauvit Trotter was the country runner  with whom I (a little lad) was often taken in his crudely built pony-trap  to Morriston and Legerwood. He had been a joiner and had had a bad accident to his left hand, necessitating immediate amputation, performed (without anasthetic) by Dr. Riddell.  

"In 1870 the telegraph was introduced.  An official from Edinburgh taught my father the manipulation of the old Morse instrument. The trial messages  were frequently news of the Franco-Prussian War  then raging.  This was my furthest back recollection". 

 "I went to Earlston School when I was four years old.  Mr Daniel Aitkenhead was the teacher, one of the best of the "old Scottish parochial" who has done, perhaps more than any other tvo mould the Scottish character that has so many admirers over all  the world.  He was a strict disciplinarian and many a good round of the tawse I have had from him" 

I left school when I was fifteen years old and was keen to become a medical missionary. For four years I was apprenticed to a chemist and had the ignominious fate of being plucked more than once for what was chiefly my bad handwriting.  I suppose then I was a "stickit druggist”. At last, I turned my back on the chemist's  life and entered Edinburgh University".

THE SQUARE

"Earlston must always be proud of its Square - the centre and heart of the little town.  Around its ancestral green, laid down when   the place became a burgh of barony  in the time of James IV, the village saw its row of thatched cottages springing up  until a complete square was formed and fairs were the order  of the day.   Robert Burns  was here in 1787, when he dined at an inn kept by a miller."

"On the Corn Exchange site  stood a two-storied inn, tenanted by James Shiels, who moved into "The Swan"  a few yards from his door and renamed it "The Red Lion"  with a flamboyant representation of the Lion Rampant as his sign."

"If the Pump Well  of 1815 was a bit of an eyesore to the moderns, it had happy memories to the boys and girls who gambolled round its old grey stones, and who jumped the "poles"  which then circled the Green".

 

The Old  Pump Well in Earlston's Market Square.    
The Well was demolished  in 1920 to make way for the War Memorial.

 

"Poles" around the Square 

"Aitkenhead's School  was just across the Square,  and out of its unforgettable walls, the Co-operators constructed  their emporium."

THE WEST END 

"What is now New Street and Arnot Place  was open ground - little more than a broad  green meadow stretching  up from the Leader and known as "Wilson's Lands”. In olden times it went but a short distance to the Leader.

Arnot Place was named after Margaret Arnot,  wife of Thomas Kerr of Craighouse,  who came to reside in Earlston after her husband's death.  She built the house in New Street  known as Kinneswood.  I recollect  her well - a tall masculine  looking woman,  kenspeckle in her always sombre garb of widowhood with  its white streamers waving in the wind. What a deep voice she had!" 

 

Arnot Place,  on the A68 road, in the 1930's. 

 "The Black Bull Inn was the first house on the present long  street, with the Manse opposite, built in 1814 - restored since.  Thorn House was built by John Spence, a Melrose lawyer. 

New Street/Thorn Street, with Thorn House on the corner

"Kirkgate  (very ancient people called it the Kidgate) was by far the prettiest In part of Earlston with its thatched cottages  and gardens of delicious  blooms"

Copyright © A R Edwards and Son,  Selkirk.    (Cathy Chick Collection).   
All Rights Reserved

 TRAVEL AROUND EARLSTON

"Until the coming of the railway in 1863, there were few comings and goings between  the nearest towns in the neighbourhood  and to the vast majority of inhabitants Edinburgh was a veritable 'terra incognita".

 Earlston Station

"The making of new and better highways  within the Tweed and Leader valleys, as well as the completion,  by way of Mellerstain Estate,  of a more direct route to Kelso were other happy undertakings which opened up the district to commerce and travel.   Such roads that had  existed before were so poorly surfaced, hilly and winding that one wonders that they had ever been conceived of." 

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TO FOLLOW:
Further snippets of William Crockett' s memories will focus on People, including the Whale Family of Earlston Gingham fame, James Gray, photographer, and Dr. Riddell. 

SOURCES:

• The Rhymer's Town:  Some Notes on Earlston's Past, by Dr. W.S.Crockett. In "The Southern Annual: 1937. 
• The Rhymer's Town:  More  Notes on Earlston's Past, by Dr. W. S. Crockett.  In "The Southern Annual:1941. 
• The Rhymer's Town:  Further Notes on Earlston's Past, by Dr. W. S. Crockett. In "The Southern Annual:1942. 
• The Rev. W. S. Crockett:  Preacher and Litterateur (interview and biographical notes), by John North. In "Border Magazine" July 1905.

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