Thomas Douglas, Baron Daer and Shortcleugh, 5th Earl of Selkirk, (20
June 1771 - 8 April 1820) was a colonizer and author. He was born on St
Mary’s Isle (near Kirkcudbright), Scotland, the son of>Dunbar
Hamilton, later Douglas, 4th Earl of Selkirk and
Helen Hamilton.
On 24 Nov. 1807, he married Jean
Wedderburn (d
10.06.1871) in Inveresk, Scotland, and they had
three children.
Thomas Douglas was the seventh
son of the 4th Earl of Selkirk, and though two of his brothers had died
in infancy he had no prospect of inheriting the title until his mid
twenties. Then, between 1794 and 1797, all four of his remaining
brothers died, two of yellow fever in the Caribbean and the others of
tuberculosis. In 1799, on the death of his father, Thomas Douglas became
earl at 28 years of age.
As a boy Douglas had been quiet
and not strong, but he was apparently well liked at the University of
Edinburgh which he entered at the age of 14. There he followed a general
course in the humanities with some studies in law. He belonged to a
lively group which included Walter Scott, who in later years remembered
him as “one of the most generous and disinterested of men”; and there
were many to testify to his charm of manner and winning smile though he
remained reserved and laconic. His education was filled out in 1792 with
some months of travel in the Highlands of Scotland, an experience which
was to influence the course of his life decisively. This journey was
followed by a period of travel in Europe until 1794. Two other matters
seem to have been of particular importance in his growing-up years. The
first was a raid on St Mary’s Isle by the American privateer John Paul
Jones in 1778, when young Tommy was only seven. Though there was no
bloodshed or brutality the boy found it a frightening experience, and in
later years he believed it had left him with a dislike of Americans that
he never wholly overcame. Secondly, though he inclined toward
intellectual pursuits, in 1796 he took up the working of one of his
father’s farms to learn what a landowner must know.
Douglas never lost interest in
the Highlands after his travels there, and he studied Highland affairs
and learned some Gaelic. He had been shocked by the effect of the
clearances with their callous, if inevitable, uprooting of helpless
people who obviously were capable and deserving of a better life. Though
he had not been in a position to help he had begun to develop a theory
of emigration that might both restore hope to dispossessed people and
strengthen Britain overseas. An opportunity to apply his theories arose
even as he came into his title and fortune. In 1798 a rebellion in
Ireland brought on by starvation and rack-rents had been put down
harshly. The young earl spent some months in 1801 travelling there to
study conditions at first hand. Everything he saw tended to confirm his
views, and in the winter of 1801–2 he put forward to the Colonial Office
a “radical cure” for Ireland’s troubles. He believed the same qualities
that had made men leaders in rebellion could be of value in a different
setting. To provide real opportunities and new challenges would change
the whole thrust of an oppressed society.
Selkirk advanced these arguments
repeatedly and with enthusiasm to the Colonial Office, but they met with
little favour. The Irish were regarded as intractable, and hopeless
prospects as colonists; moreover the government was opposed to
large-scale emigration. In this long and wearing correspondence all
Selkirk’s qualities appeared: his capacity for imaginative planning, his
energy, and a stubborn determination so intense as to become
self-defeating. Finally recognizing that the government would not
countenance the resettlement of Irish rebels, Selkirk proposed the
emigration of Highlanders instead. By the summer of 1802 he was thinking
of “the Falls of St. Mary” (Sault Ste Marie, Ont.) as a site and, since
the government was hinting at cooperation if he selected a “maritime
situation,” he offered to combine his efforts in Upper Canada with
colonization on Prince Edward Island as well. As his plans for the Upper
Canadian venture went forward it became clear that costs would be higher
than he had anticipated. The government, influenced by the strength of
anti-emigration sentiment in Britain, informed him in February 1803 that
it was unwilling to grant him special assistance. He was therefore
obliged to turn to Prince Edward Island, since he had already recruited
a number of Highland emigrants and contracted for ships and supplies. By
July 1803, when the expedition set out, it had been delayed too long for
much clearing of land or planting in the first year. Selkirk’s ship, the
Dykes, reached the Island on 9 August, two days after the Polly; the
Oughton would arrive on the 27th. Despite the lateness of the season,
hindrances from local government, and disputes over land claims and
preferences among the settlers, the colony was from the first a success
to match Selkirk’s dreams and support his arguments. By the time he left
in late September 1803 his people were well on the way to being happily
established, mainly on lots 57, 58, 60, and 62.
Selkirk gave his next year to
travel in the United States and the Canadas, tirelessly observing,
questioning, and taking notes. He informed himself about the terrain,
crop expectations and prices, conditions of trade, and local government.
Above all he was interested in the degree and speed of adaptation by
immigrants, especially those from the Highlands. Though he found great
variations in progress as a result of differing effort and ability, he
concluded that all were better off than they would have been at home. He
had prepared himself as well as was possible through study for his
Prince Edward Island venture, but now he had the added benefit of
on-the-spot reconnaissance and of discussion in depth. It all went down
in a diary written in the evenings by candle-light or when bad weather
prevented travel by day. He was determined to be an expert on the
problem he had made his own.
Having started his travels in
Halifax, N.S., he went to Boston, Mass., then across New York State to
Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake), and on to York (Toronto), capital of Upper
Canada. He stayed there from 20 Nov. 1803 to 4 Jan. 1804, becoming well
known and well liked. Part of his time was spent in studying maps of the
western part of the province in search of a site for another colony. His
efforts were encouraged by Lieutenant Governor Peter Hunter, who had
received instructions from the Colonial Office telling him to grant
Selkirk 1,200 acres plus land for his settlers in any township of the
earl’s choice that had not already been claimed. Selkirk chose his site
– to be called Baldoon after an ancestral estate – near the junction of
Lake St Clair and the Detroit River. Then in January he left York by
sleigh for Montreal. The trip down Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence
tended to confirm his view that unless the border area was filled up
rapidly by British immigrants it would inevitably be absorbed by the
United States.
In Upper Canada he had seen and
heard much about the fur trade. In Montreal he learned more of its
importance, its glamour, and its power. Here were the great houses of
the Montreal agents and partners – led by William McGillivray – who
lived in considerable comfort and state as became the “Lords of the
North.” They were nearly all fellow Scots, glad to welcome an eminent
compatriot and to make his stay among them pleasant. Characteristically
he was full of questions about the country and about the fur trade,
which they were happy to answer at the time but later considered to have
been an indication of sinister designs by Selkirk on their business.
By late spring 1804 he was back
in York, where he engaged Alexander McDonell (Collachie), sheriff of the
Home District, as manager of the Baldoon project. Travelling toward the
site, the two men agreed on elaborate and ambitious building plans, and
construction started on their arrival in early June. The first small
group of settlers was already on the way. On 9 July Selkirk turned for
home, stopping some weeks in Prince Edward Island where his settlement
was already well rooted and prospering in little more than a year.
In Scotland he prepared
Observations on the present state of the Highlands of Scotland, with a
view of the causes and probable consequences of emigration (London,
1805), advancing his theories in the face of opposition from the Royal
Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland and the Colonial Office
and using the success in Prince Edward Island to support his claims. The
fact that there had already been warnings of disaster at Baldoon was
largely ignored. Located on swampy ground and suffering from
mismanagement, that colony was becoming a tragic and costly failure [see
William Burn], although despite sickness, death, and bad crops settlers
would remain in the area.
His rank and wealth had made
Selkirk prominent; the book, clearly and persuasively written, made him
a celebrity. Other books, both to challenge and to support his
arguments, were rushed out. In February 1806 he was invited to go as
British minister to Washington. Although he accepted, in the end the
appointment was not made. In the spring of 1806 he applied for an
immense grant of 300,000 acres in New Brunswick but attached conditions
that could not be accepted. Turning his back on his North American
interests he flung himself into domestic affairs with characteristic
energy. On 4 Dec. 1806 he was elected to the House of Lords as one of 16
representative peers for Scotland. He became involved in the abolition
of the slave trade, the problem of national defence, and parliamentary
reform. On national defence he made himself something of an expert, and
when in 1808 he published a proposal for national service his ideas were
respectfully received. On parliamentary reform he was cautious and
conservative, having been horrified by the excesses of the French
revolution and disappointed in the working of democracy in the United
States.
His efforts as parliamentarian,
colonizer, and author were bringing Selkirk some of the pleasant rewards
of prominence and service. In 1807 he was made lord lieutenant of the
Stewartry of Kirkcudbright; he was shortly to be elected a fellow of the
Royal Society of London and to become a member of the prestigious Alfred
Club in that city. And in 1807 came the greatest reward of all. The shy,
rich, and distinguished bachelor of 36 was married to Jean Wedderburn,
aged 21. His attractive, intelligent, and courageous wife was to be the
source of most of his future happiness and an unfailing and invaluable
support in the troubles that lay ahead. The marriage also brought him
two strong future allies, Andrew Wedderburn, Jean’s brother, and John
Halkett, her cousin, who was later to marry Selkirk’s favourite sister,
Katherine. Though with his marriage and involvement in government
Selkirk appeared to have put aside any interest in the emigration
question, he probably never entirely lost sight of it. But the most
obvious area, Upper Canada, seemed closed to him; the failure of Baldoon
and the attitude of the ruling clique made it hopeless to try further in
that province. There remained Red River, which he had proposed back in
April 1802 for an Irish settlement. He had been told then that it could
not be discussed as a site since it was in the territory of the Hudson’s
Bay Company. By 1808, however, the loss of free markets in Europe due to
the Napoleonic Wars had seriously reduced the value of HBC shares, and
this devaluation seems to have revived his hope of colonizing Red River,
since it provided a favourable opportunity for him to secure an interest
that would get him a hearing. In July he began to buy HBC stock on his
own, and also jointly with Sir Alexander Mackenzie, whose objective –
though Selkirk could not have known it at the time – was to gain
influence for the rival North West Company. In the next year Wedderburn
and Halkett also began to buy the stock at its attractive price, and at
about this time Wedderburn became a member of the HBC’s governing
committee. Thus Selkirk and his allies, although they never came close
to a controlling interest in the company, gained a strong voice.
The idea of the company’s
developing an agricultural settlement at Red River as a refuge for
retired fur traders and a source of food that had otherwise to be
brought from England had already been discussed by the committee and had
some support. It was against this background that Selkirk early in 1811
put forward his plan, which called for a large grant of land anchored to
a substantial settlement. When news of the proposal reached the NWC the
partners did not take the settlement idea very seriously but considered
that if it should succeed it might destroy their trade, for the site was
astride their route to Athabasca and they were already in financial
difficulty through loss of markets and rising costs. (And indeed the HBC
had recently considered a proposal by former NWC partner Colin Robertson
that it should initiate serious competition via Montreal for the rich
Athabasca trade.) Too late the NWC attempted to block the grant. In June
1811 agreements were signed by Selkirk and the HBC under which, in
return for founding an agricultural settlement and some other
considerations, he was to have some 116,000 square miles – an area five
times the size of Scotland and much of it magnificent land – for 10
shillings. Lady Selkirk would later call it, with playful bitterness,
his Kingdom of Red River.
The Red River colony, if not
absolutely ill-conceived, as the Nor’Westers asserted, was born under an
unlucky star. For ten years it was to be the focus of the mounting
struggle between the two great fur-trading companies, a struggle that
cost many lives, ruined the NWC, destroyed Selkirk’s great fortune, and
contributed to his early death.
During his earlier tour of Upper
Canada Selkirk had met Miles Macdonell, brother-in-law of Alexander
McDonell, and now the earl chose him to superintend operations in the
Red River colony. The HBC officially named him the first governor of
Assiniboia in June 1811, and he arrived with the first colonists late in
the summer of 1812. Both Selkirk and Macdonell had been warned that the
Nor’Westers would not tolerate the settlement, but its initial crises
came from natural causes: lack of adequate shelter and of a stable food
supply. When Macdonell, to meet the food crisis, forbad the taking out
of provisions from the grant, which had traditionally provided most of
the pemmican for the fur brigades, the Nor’Westers regarded the measure
as the declaration of war they had been expecting. Though in 1814, the
first year of the ban, a mutually creditable compromise was reached with
John McDonald* of Garth, a leading winterer, senior NWC partners such as
William McGillivray considered compromise beneath their dignity, and
there were to be no more reasonable dealings at Red River.
Selkirk had from the first
planned to visit the colony once it was established, and he had even led
Macdonell to believe that he would appear in 1813 at the head of a force
of soldiers – to protect the settlement against the Americans, with whom
Britain was at war. Although in the first three years there seemed to
have been little to show for his enormous expense, by the autumn of 1814
the earl felt the worst was over. But in a letter written from Montreal
at that time Colin Robertson, whose plan for competition in the
Athabasca country had now been approved, advised him that the senior NWC
partners were openly rousing natives against the settlement. Selkirk
asked the Colonial Office to provide protection for the settlers and
made arrangements to go out himself in September 1815. The government
refused its support, and when he reached New York in late October he
heard that the colony had been destroyed. The Nor’Westers had frightened
or seduced 140 of the settlers from their loyalty to Selkirk and carried
them down to Upper Canada. The remainder were driven away, their crops
and houses destroyed. Macdonell, who had given himself up on a promise
of amnesty for the settlement, was arrested on a dubious warrant and
taken as a prisoner to Lower Canada. With his wife Selkirk went directly
to Montreal to challenge the Nor’Westers on their own ground. Through
the autumn and winter of 1815 he gathered information on the events and
prepared to go to Red River himself, strongly supported and with the
powers of a justice of the peace for the Indian Territory, in the spring
of 1816. He also found time to complete a book entitled A sketch of the
British fur trade in North America; with observations relative to the
North-West Company of Montreal (London, 1816). The work was an
indictment of Nor’Wester methods that was never answered. In the end it
may have harmed Selkirk more than the NWC since it revealed little that
had not been well known, and officially overlooked, for a long time; but
it did suggest a more active concern with the fur trade than was
consistent with Selkirk’s professed aims as a disinterested colonizer.
In fact Selkirk, whom the Nor’Westers took to calling the Trading Lord,
did have an official capacity in the trade, being authorized by the HBC
to open negotiations for amalgamation with the NWC. The talks were to be
confidential and conducted through a third party, but since each company
argued from a fixed position unacceptable to the other, the negotiations
served only to sharpen existing tensions; and they were soon common
knowledge in Montreal, bearing an interpretation injurious to both
Selkirk and the HBC.
In March 1816 came astounding
news. A messenger from Colin Robertson at Red River – Jean-Baptiste
Lagimonière – had come 1,800 miles on foot in the depth of winter to
report that the colony had been restored. Robertson had met the fleeing
settlers and led them back to Red River; and Robert Semple, the new
governor, had arrived with another group of settlers. The colony was as
strong as before and more determined than ever to survive. The news
presumably sharpened North West resolve even as it raised Selkirk’s
spirits. Both parties seem to have concluded that this summer would be
decisive for the settlement. Because of Colonial Office direction and
threats against Selkirk’s life the acting governor, Sir George Gordon
Drummond, provided him with a small force of regular soldiers, and
Selkirk recruited an additional 90 men from the disbanded De Meuron’s
Regiment.
The departure of the NWC spring
brigade from Montreal for Fort William (Thunder Bay, Ont.) was an annual
event. In 1816 a larger party than usual left, and advance elements had
gone ahead with clear instructions to finish off the settlement,
preferably with a front of Indians, but by storming the fort if
necessary. Close behind the main body of Nor’Westers came Selkirk’s
flotilla of soldiers with 12 boatloads of supplies and arms for the
colony. But they were already too late.
At Sault Ste Marie on 25 July
Selkirk learned that the colony had been broken up by the Métis [see
Cuthbert Grant*]. Governor Semple and about 20 colonists had been killed
at Seven Oaks (Winnipeg) and the rest driven away, except for a few who
were prisoners at Fort William. Selkirk, roused to passionate anger, led
his force straight to Fort William, risking a pitched battle, and in mid
August arrested nine of the NWC partners after a preliminary hearing. He
then decided to occupy their fort for the winter, impounded their furs,
and sent the partners off as prisoners to Montreal, including William
McGillivray himself. A search of the fort under warrant disclosed the
NWC’s complicity in the crimes at Red River. Until this point Selkirk’s
steps had been at least correct in form; the law had formed the basis of
all his arguments and of his instructions to Miles Macdonell. Reckless
of opinion he now entered into a dubious transaction with the one
remaining partner at the fort, Daniel McKenzie, a notorious drunkard.
Under it he bought the company’s furs and all the supplies at the fort
in return for a distant and non-liquid asset, one of his estates in
Scotland. He was later to refer to his “ill judged conduct” at Fort
William, and certainly it lost him sympathy and further impugned the
purity of his motives as a colonizer.
More serious, though more
understandable, he twice refused obedience to warrants for his arrest
which reached Fort William from Upper Canada in the late autumn. The one
he believed to be spurious and the other no longer valid; he compounded
the offence by locking up a constable who sought to use force. He
undoubtedly was also influenced in his refusals by hearing that Owen
Keveny, one of his agents, had been murdered after submitting to an NWC
warrant. However justified his refusals may have been, they were to be
given more weight in Quebec and in London than all the tragic acts in
the mounting dispute.
Meanwhile, the course of events
had caused the new governor-in-chief at Quebec, Sir John Coape
Sherbrooke, to appoint commissioners of inquiry in October. Their task
was to represent the crown in the Indian Territory and “to quiet the
existing disturbances.” Selkirk had been asking for such a commission
repeatedly but he was to find the Nor’Westers claiming the credit for
it. In the spring of 1817 the NWC came west in force, including the
partners released on bail. They found Fort William intact, and the
supplies purchased from McKenzie left behind under caretakers, whom they
promptly arrested and sent to Montreal under guard. Lord Selkirk had
left for Red River on 1 May. Behind the Nor’Westers came the
commissioners with a small detachment of troops, and behind them a
further detachment of De Meuron’s along with more supplies for the
colony.
Mail which reached Selkirk on his
way chilled his optimism. The tone of Sherbrooke’s letters and even more
that of a proclamation in the name of the Prince Regent made him
apprehensive. The latter called for a cessation of hostilities and a
restitution of property. It assumed throughout that the struggle was
purely a trade war in which the parties were equally guilty; it took no
notice of Selkirk or the settlement as special factors.
At first Selkirk believed that
the senior commissioner, William Bacheler Coltman, would prove wise and
just, but Coltman’s conduct fulfilled the letter and followed the spirit
of the Prince Regent’s proclamation. Moreover, he expressed the gravest
doubts of the validity of the HBC charter though prominent lawyers
re-examined and confirmed its soundness in 1811. If the charter was not
valid neither was the grant to Selkirk, and the acts of Miles Macdonell
as governor were of doubtful legality. To this assessment Coltman added
doubts about the feasibility of the settlement, since like many he had
accepted NWC propaganda about the unsuitability of the soil for crops.
And if the settlement was not feasible its creation could only have been
a tactical move in a fur-trade war.
Though there was much
satisfaction for Selkirk in the weeks at Red River, and though his
settlers returned to fine crops and felt at last secure in his presence
among them, the future was full of uncertainty. A purchase of land from
the Indians had been arranged, but Selkirk could not give clear title to
the settlers. Too much depended on Coltman’s report.
In his hope for justice from the
commission Selkirk was frustrated and bitterly disappointed. He himself
was charged for his actions at Fort William, but the obvious instigators
of the killing at Seven Oaks, Archibald Norman McLeod and Alexander
Greenfield Macdonell, were allowed time to get out of reach before
Coltman saw fit to charge them. When Selkirk announced his intention of
returning to Montreal through the United States, for a variety of
reasons including fear of assassination, Coltman angrily imposed £6,000
bail for his appearance in court in Lower Canada. The Nor’Westers spread
the word that the Trading Lord had escaped justice and would not again
be seen in the Canadas.
Selkirk made an immense circuit
through the United States; he arrived at York on 10 Jan. 1818 and then
went on to the assizes at Sandwich (Windsor), Upper Canada, to answer
the warrants he had originally resisted. In these proceedings and in all
that followed he felt himself hopelessly entangled in a web of perjury,
postponements, and manipulation of justice that was both maddeningly
frustrating and deeply shocking. The trip to Sandwich saw no trials
completed but he was bailed for £250 on the same offences for which
Coltman had imposed bail of £6,000. During the winter and spring,
preliminary hearings at Quebec on offences by the Nor’Westers found true
bills in nearly all cases to do with the murders of settlers and
destruction of Selkirk’s settlement. But a dozen prisoners and key
witnesses escaped or jumped bail and slipped away to the Indian
Territory, among them Cuthbert Grant, leader of the Métis at Seven Oaks.
Selkirk, whose health had been
robust under the rigours of a year and a half of hard living and travel,
now sickened under months of the law’s delays. In February 1818 it was
decided that all the cases from Quebec would be moved to York for trial
at the request of the NWC partners, on the plea that Lower Canadian
juries would be hostile. In York, still a small village, there was some
doubt that a competent jury could be empanelled. In August Selkirk went
the 700 miles to Sandwich from Montreal for his own trials. There, after
a bitter wrangle, just as he and his lawyer, Samuel Gale, believed he
was about to be acquitted, Chief Justice William Dummer Powell adjourned
the court sine die. At that moment a local newspaper carried word that
for the first time since 1806 he had not been elected as a
representative Scottish peer; this news would certainly be interpreted
in the Canadas as a loss of favour with the British government. He was
sick of justice in the Canadas, and having seen by accident Colonial
Secretary Lord Bathurst’s letter of 11 Feb. 1817 that had resulted in
his official persecution, he determined to return to England to confront
the Colonial Office.
Leaving his clever and courageous
wife to watch his interests from Montreal, he returned to London. Though
now seriously ill he continued the fight from his sick-bed, informing
and arousing his friends. The whole miserable controversy was set out in
what was to be his last book, A letter to the Earl of Liverpool . . .
([London], 1819). In addition he kept a watch over the affairs of his
settlements at Prince Edward Island and Red River, adjudicating disputes
and forwarding supplies, though his own finances were approaching ruin.
His health at first improved but the stress was too great and at last
produced a dangerous haemorrhage. By mid May 1819 it was reported that
he was “far advanced in a deep consumption”; by August this news was
known at Red River and beyond, to the grief and dismay of his supporters
and the undisguised glee of the Nor’Westers.
Nevertheless, his efforts were at
last having some success. His brother-in-law, Sir James Montgomery, had
won in February 1819 a motion in parliament asking for papers on the Red
River controversy. When presented they contained Coltman’s report along
with Colonial Office correspondence and amounted to a massive exposure
of NWC methods. It was a vindication of sorts, but only a few friends
and enemies were much interested, and Selkirk was no longer able to
follow up effectively.
In June his family returned from
Montreal and plans were made for a journey to a warmer climate in search
of health. By mid September preparations were complete, and what Selkirk
referred to as their “caravan” wound its way toward the south of France.
Early in October they reached Pau, found it charming, and settled in for
the winter. Though it was not the right climate for a chest complaint
Lord Selkirk’s health appeared to improve. There was a constant stream
of news from England, and word of a probable amalgamation of the fur
companies, both of which were now in serious financial trouble. There
was a tempting NWC offer for Selkirk’s HBC stock, a sale that would have
helped his desperate financial affairs. But he would countenance no
arrangement that would not provide for the well-being of his settlers.
Selkirk’s health was now steadily declining. He still wrote on Red River
affairs, and spoke sadly of the colony as the place “where we had the
prospect of doing so much good.”
On 8 April 1820 he died in Pau,
and he was buried in the Protestant cemetery at nearby Orthez.
Selkirk did not live to see the
amalgamation of the HBC and the NWC, only a year away; nor would such a
controversial figure have a place in the memory of the new company,
though to his supporters he remained a hero, and to his settlers a noble
legend. Lady Selkirk, in a letter to his sister Katherine, wrote, “I
feel confident if we have patience he will have ample justice, and when
the North West Company are forgotten his name and character will be
revered as they ought.” The Montreal Gazette of 8 June reported his
death and commented: “It may be said of this nobleman that the
endowments of his mind as well as his other qualifications made him be
as much respected as the exalted rank he inherited from his ancestors. .
. . Perhaps some people would deduct something from his worth on account
of his rage for colonization.”
A flat monument at ground level commemorates the life of Thomas Douglas,
the Fifth Earl of Selkirk, who settled in the Eldon area of Prince
Edward Island with Scottish settlers in 1803. The monument is situated
at the entrance of Lord Selkirk Provincial Park.
In the grounds of St Cuthbert's parish Church, Kirkcudbright,
there is a memorial plaque commemorating Thomas
Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk. It was erected by the Historic Sites
Advisory Board of Manitoba.
1817 Mary Wedderburn [b. 1786 in Jamaica,2nd d. of John Wedderburn of
'Spring Garden' Jamaica, & Wedderburn & Co., London & Mary Wisdom
Bedward, m. 1782 in Jamaica] m. on 7/6/1817, at Marylebone parish
church, the Rev. John Wellings, M.D., chaplain to the Countess of
Selkirk (née Jean Wedderburn, d. of James W. 'of Inveresk', who m.
Thomas 5th Earl of Selkirk in 1807. - W.B. p. 307) Mary & her husband
(who was a doctor before he took Holy Orders) had 'by this marriage' an
only child, Katharine Mary Wellings (b. in London on 27/12/1818) who m.
her first cousin, John Stirling of Kippendavie (b. 19/8/1811) the e.s.
of Mary's younger sister, Catherine Georgina, & her husband Patrick
Stirling (m. 1810, q.v.).]
Notes:
1. Thomas Douglas's daughter, Lady Isabella Helen Douglas, married
Captain John Hope of St. Mary's Isle ( born 30 January 1843) whose son
Sir Charles Dunbar Hope-Dunbar, 6th of St. Mary's Isle, has a coat of
arms in the Parish Church of Kirkcudbright.
See also:
Fort Douglas
Earls of Selkirk
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