A single white rose is to be left at the Scott statue in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard to mark the centenary of Scott’s ill fated expedition to the South Pole on the 17th January 1912.

Adjacent to Porter’s Lodge in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, the statue of Robert Falcon Scott stands along with one of his trusty dogs.

Scott memorial - Portsmouth. Pic Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

It was sculpted by his widow, Lady Kathleen Scott, in 1915.

The statue came to be in Portsmouth following its commission by the then Commanding Officer of HMS Vernon as a tribute to the great explorer, with all the ship’s officers helping to fund the project.

The Grade II-listed bronze sculpture is inscribed with a moving extract found in his journal on his return from the South Pole

…the gale is howling about us, we are weak, writing is difficult but for my own sake I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past.

We took risks, we knew we took them.

Things have come out against us and therefore we have no cause for complaint but bow to the will of providence determined to do our best to the end.

The statue has been moved a number of times due to the changing nature of the naval base.

It originally stood in The Parade before being moved to outside Storehouse 11, now the National Museum of the Royal Navy.

One more move sees it now between the Mary Rose Museum and Porter’s Lodge, allowing the public to freely visit it.

Norwegian Flag

When the party of five, led by Scott, reached the Pole they found a Norwegian flag and a note from Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen stating that his party had reached the area a few days earlier on 14th December 1911.

Non of the Scott’s party returned.

A tent and bodies, along with the diaries and last letters of Scott, were found eight months later by a search party led by Dr. Atkinson.

Scott was posthumously awarded a Knight Commander of the Bath and Kathleen retained the rights and privileges of the rank. A campaign was launched to raise a memorial fund to continue with the scientific work Scott had been actively involved with and the Scott Polar Research Institute was founded.

More information

About the man - Robert Falcon Scott 

Moses Carpenter died in 1889 and is buried in Linthorpe Cemetery, Middlesbrough in the north east of England.

On the face of it this seems an unremarkable story, until you go behind the name and realise he was a Native American Indian and has become part of local history.

Moses Carpenter - The Middlesbrough Mowhawk

Ska-Run-Ya-Te,  his real name, was born in a Tuscarora, Ontario, Canada in 1854, as a member of the Mohawk tribe.

He came to Middlesborough in 1889 as part of a travelling medicine show.

Moses and a few colleagues provided entertainment for the crowds as teeth were extracted and potions applied by showman Sequah, the leader of the show.

Sequah was however an Englishman, whose real name was William Hannaway Rowe.

Reports from the day indicate that the arrival of the painted caravan and associated show was quite a spectacle attracting large crowds wherever it set up camp.

Sadly for Moses he developed a fever shortly after the show arrived in Middlesbrough in the August of 1889. He died soon after, on the 15 August in the North Riding Infirmary in the town.

Three days later a funeral took place at St Pauls Church. Lining the route from the church to the cemetery was an estimated 15,000 people, thought to be one of the largest gatherings for a funeral in the town.

The poem inscribed on his gravestone was written by a local girl called Mary Charlotta Parvin.

Recent restoration work has been carried out on the gravestone following decay and vandalism.

A campaign is ongoing to get the body of Moses Carpenter repatriated.

Our thanks to the Friends of Linthorpe Cemetery for their help with this article.

Can you add to the story of the Mohawk in Middlesbrough?  Let us know via the comments area below or via the contact us page.

Further information

The Quack Doctor - Sequah – a Victorian Celebrity Quack

Surrounded by trees and hidden from view in Brampton, Cumbria, is a statue in memory of George Howard, the 7th Earl of Carlisle.

The 7th Earl of Carlisle monument is in a woodland clearing in Brampton, Cumbria

Beneath the simple local monument however is a story that links the American Confederate States, the IRA in Northern Ireland, Queen Victoria and Walt Disney.

It sounds like an ideal pub quiz question but the answers put this statue at the heart of a series of revelations not previously exposed.

The monument

The Grade II monument is positioned on one of the highest hills to one side of the town of Brampton, known as the Mote.

Sculpted in 1869 by JH Foley RA in London, it was cast in bronze by H. Prince & Co Founders of Southwark.

The carved inscription on the sandstone plinth reads:

Erected by the people of Cumberland
to commemorate
the public services and personal worth of
George William Frederick Howard
Seventh Earl of Carlisle K.C.
Born April 18 1802 Died December 5 1864

It appears that at least two variations of the same outline were made around the same time.

• The Earl depicted dressed in robes of Knight Garter – in Brampton
• The Earl depicted dressed in robes of the Order of St. Patrick – erected in Phoenix Park, Dublin.

It is thought that a third statue depicting the Earl dressed in robes of the Order of the Garter, again by Foley, is to be found at Castle Howard in Yorkshire. However this is not confirmed.

The sculptor has incorporated a lot of detail into the statue

The  statue in Dublin was unveiled in a private ceremony in the People’s Garden of Phoenix Park Dublin on 3 May 1870. It was blown up by the IRA in the early hours of 28 July 1956.

George Howard

George Howard, entered Parliament in 1826 as MP for his family seat of Morpeth. The family house is Castle Howard near York. However, they had a local country residence in Cumbria, at Naworth Castle.

In 1835 he was appointed to the Privy Council and appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland

On the death of his father in 1848 he became the 7th Earl of Carlisle, and took his seat in the Lords.

In February 1855 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant (Viceroy) of Ireland.

One other connection between the town of Brampton and the Earls of Carlisle, is the railway.

The Brampton railway opened in 1775 and was also known as the Dandy line. It was used to haul coal from the Naworth Estate for onward travel to Newcastle.

Sculptor – JH Foley RA (1818-1874)

Born into a grocers family in Dublin John Henry Foley studied art. He moved to London to study at the Royal Academy in 1835.

He had his first Royal Academy exhibition in 1839.

His most famous work in Britain is the Albert Memorial in London. He was chosen as a replacement for Carlo Marochetti who died before he was able to complete the outline designs.

JH Foley. RA Sculptor

JH Foley was also responsible for designing the Great Seal of the Confederate States of America in 1864.

In April  1863,  the Congress of the Confederate States commissioned the design of a Great Seal for the new nation’s official documents.  Since no die engravers where in the Confederacy (and thus no Confederate coins) the project was  assigned  to James  M. Mason,  the  Confederacy’s diplomatic representative in London. Mason contracted with J. H.  Foley  and Joseph  H. Wyon, Chief Engraver to Her Majesty’s Seals, to design and produce the seal.

The seal was donated to the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, USA where it remains today.

Foley is also responsible for The Stonewall Jackson Monument, Richmond, Virginia (1874).

JH Foley is remembered in a statue adorning the outside of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

He is buried in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

About H. Prince & Co statue foundry

Other work of note by H[enry] Prince & Co include:-

George Howard - 18 April 1802 – 5 December 1864

A statue of Richard Green – London - Richard Green was a local ship owner and philanthropist

Works on the Albert Memorial – London, Kensington Gardens – additional statues

More about the statue foundry can be found on the National Portrait Gallery website.

The answers to the linking question-

The links between the American Confederate States, the IRA in Northern Ireland, Queen Victoria and Walt Disney are:

• JH Foley – was responsible for designing the Great Seal of the Confederate States of America in 1864
• The IRA blew up a statue of the Earl of Carlisle, by JH Foley, in Dublin in 1956,
• Queen Victoria commissioned JH Foley for the main central sculpture of the Albert Memorial in London.
• And finally – Walt Disney visited Naworth Castle, the country seat of the Howards, in 1935.

If anybody may have further information on the alleged third statue or has any more interesting information, then please contact us via the comments section at the end of this post.

Findmypast.co.uk have released a searchable database of Merchant Navy Seaman Records.

These records are index cards used by the Registrar General of Shipping and Seaman between the two world wars to produce a centralised index to merchant seamen serving on British merchant navy vessels.

The Board of Trade issued these cards and they fall into three types: CR1, CR2 and CR10. There are 998,838 cards; however, there are two or more cards for some individuals, so the total number of merchant seamen is lower than this.

These records are particularly valuable due to the wide range of people they include. It is possible to find records for British nationals, foreign British-registered men and women, experienced crewmen and young cabin crew. Whatever your ancestor’s role on the merchant ships, it is well worth searching for them in these records.

Another key benefit of these records is that you may find a photograph of your ancestor. For the first time, you could discover what your seafaring predecessor looked like.

The front of a card gives the basic biographical information about each individual – their name, their year and place of birth, their rank or rating, and so on. Initials were sometimes given rather than first names. Sometimes there is a physical description.

The front of a card may also give such other information as discharge number, health insurance number, address of kin and so on.

The reverse of the card may be blank, or may contain a list of official vessel numbers and signing-on dates, and/or a photograph and/or signature of the seamen. Sometimes a photograph is not on the reverse of the card but on a separate attached card. Where this is the case, you will see ‘Viewing Page 1 of 2′ when you open the image, with an option to click on ‘Next Page’ (which will show you the photograph). Where available, the photographs of the mariners are enormously evocative of the inter-war working class men who made the British merchant navy what it was.

Unfortunately, not all fields in each card were completed. Place of birth is not always given.

The merchant marine service drew recruits from all over the world. There are large numbers of seamen from across Britain, especially from ports and their hinterlands – a disproportionate number of sailors were from such areas as Merseyside, Southampton and Tyneside and large numbers from less obvious places such as the Shetlands.

There are merchant seamen from every continent, however, with large numbers from across the English-speaking world (notably the maritime provinces of Canada), from the West Indies and Sierra Leone, and from Scandinavia, Somaliland, China and Japan. There are even some sailors from landlocked Switzerland.

More information – Click here to go to FindmyPast.co.uk

In remembrance of the police officers of the United Kingdom who lost their lives in the line of duty.

The Police Roll of Honour Trust is registered with the Charity Commission and has the following charitable objects:

Lest We Forget

• To foster good citizenship for the benefit of the public at large by the construction and maintenance of a Roll of Honour in remembrance of every police officer killed in the line of duty.
• To advance the education of the public, and in particular the police, in the history of officers killed in the line of duty and officer safety by the maintenance of a comprehensive archive of information available to the public.
• To relieve the need, in particular the emotional suffering, of bereaved families and friends of police officers who die or have died as a result of an injury received in the line of duty, by the provision of resources and services including care and support, advice and information.

The Trust is unique in being the only charity which carries out research and aims to name and honour every United Kingdom police officer who has lost their life in the line of duty since the earliest days of professional law enforcement over three centuries ago.

They maintain a national archive on line of duty deaths, offer information and support to bereaved families, and provide the National Police Officers Roll of Honour and Remembrance for other memorial charities and national and local police organisations including: -

• The National Police Memorial Day
• The National Police Memorial
• The Scottish Police Memorial
• The Metropolitan Police

The Police Roll of Honour Trust is committed to the creation of  a National Police Officer’s Memorial, on or in the vicinity of “The Beat” at the National Memorial Arboretum, consisting of a : -

• Police Monument
• Memorial Wall inscribed with names of fallen officers
• Book of Remembrance
• Creating the National Police Officers Roll of Honour and Remembrance
• A record of public service and sacrifice

The Trust was founded in 2000 after 20 years research into the Roll of Honour, paying tribute to some 5,000 British police officers who have been killed or died, on duty or as a result of duty, since the first recorded death on duty of a Constable in 1680.

Research now includes British losses in Colonial and other UK administered overseas police forces, believed to number 1,000 or more. Ensuring newly discovered and future losses are also recorded.

The Roll includes officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty as a result of criminal acts, enemy action in air raids, misadventure whilst taking special risks to protect the public or make arrests, accidents whilst on routine patrol or travelling to and from duty, natural causes and unknown causes.

It commemorates their sacrifice in the public service and provides a focal point and visible means for family and friends to reflect on the loss of their loved ones and to know that their loss is not forgotten.

Scottish Police Memorial Trust - Founded in 2003

Through their authoritative archive of the subject they are able to provide on online, searchable database, information and advice to the public, researchers, police forces and related organisations and charities, both to remember and honour our fallen officers and to help promote officer safety by increasing knowledge and understanding of how fatalities occur.

Through Police Family Membership and links with associated charities, they are able to provide access to care and support for bereaved families and friends of deceased officers.

A National Resource

The Trust researches and maintains the National Police Officers Roll of Honour and Remembrance for the benefit of the general public and all UK Police Services. They have provided or assisted with Rolls of Honour for many national and local police services and memorial organisations including: -

Police Force Memorials – Assisting many police forces with memorial Rolls, most notably providing the first full Roll of Honour for the Metropolitan Police Memorial Book of Remembrance dedicated by HM The Queen at the Peel Training Centre, Hendon in 2001.

National Police Memorial Day - Inaugurated in 2004, an annual national memorial service is held for families and colleagues on the Sunday nearest St Michael’s Day. The Trust has provided the Roll of Honour for the commemorative booklet published at the service.

National Police Memorial – Built by The Police Memorial Trust in London, to Honour Those who Serve, displays a Roll of Honour provided, to their criteria, by the Trust and unveiled by HM The Queen in 2005, which pays special tribute to some 1600 officers killed by criminal acts, or in acts of gallantry, attempting arrests or other hazardous duty.

Other National Memorials – The Trust assisted with the Roll of Honour for the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC Garden of Remembrance opened by HRH The Prince of Wales in 2003, and provided a Roll of Honour for the Scottish Police Memorial unveiled by HRH The Princess Royal in 2004.

The Trust is committed to producing a National Police Book of Remembrance, with citations for all line of duty deaths, displayed on a daily basis, and the inscription in stone of names on a Roll of Honour, at a new national police officers memorial.

More information

Police Roll of Honour Trust

A very simple raised flower bed is the focal point for this memorial garden in Ravenglass, south west Cumbria.

A long wooden seat with a stone curved back to remember 'Cyril'

Positioned near to the main car park entrance to the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway,
it will be passed by tens of thousands of people every year, but how many notice or ask about it’s history.

The garden consists of a long curved stone and wood seat and a raised flower bed surrounded by grass.

Carved into a small flat stone, at the centre of the seat back are the words ‘ Cyril’s garden’.

Do you know the story about the garden, how it came to be and who, or what, was Cyril?

Let us know via the comments area below or via the contact us form.

Positioned to provide a view of a tree lined vista is this wooden bench in Carlisle.

In memory of Rodney Grindley Aug 2000

A simple carved message, across the rear rail reads:

In memory of Rodney Grindley 28 June 1944 – 22 August 2000 BTCV volunteer

The bench can be found in the north of the city as part of the Kingmoor nature reserve.

Looking out across a tree lined vista in Carlisle

Based in Spencer Street in Carlisle the BTCV locally help improve the local community through the use of volunteers.

Who was Rodney, why choose this place for his memory?

Please let us know via the comments area below or via the contact us page.

The name ‘A.R.Woods’ has hit the headlines in recent months, following the start of a project to restore and protect a former military installation in Orkney, Scotland.

Rural English Scene - Pic Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership

A mysterious World War II mural at the Ness Gun Battery in Orkney is signed by A R Woods, however little is known about the person behind the painting.  This has led to a worldwide search for the artist.

AR Woods in London

One theory has emerged, following a large amount of research, that points towards a man born about 1876 in Gravesend, Kent, England.

It is thought that Albert John Rycraft Woods worked as the piermaster at Tower Pier on the River Thames. He retired in 1947 and died in 1950.

Pool of London painting - AR Woods

The discovery of picture by AR Woods, of the Pool of London, possibly points to AR Woods the piermaster, being an artist.

This painting was recently sold by a Birmingham auction house.

A military connection – I Guarded the Waterfront

Finding the elusive Orkney link is a puzzle for researchers, who have even turned to an autobiography by A.P. Woods called ‘I Guarded the Waterfront’.

It is thought that AP Woods and AR Woods are the same person.

Published 1942 by Stanley Paul in London and Melbourne, the 192 page book has a subtitle of  ’Memoirs of a London pier master’ .

On page 93, there is a tantalising military connection concerning the authors role in WWI:

‘It was at this time that I joined the Volunteers. I became a member of the Deptford Battalion, 16th Company, County of London, and before long was made a platoon sergeant. I then went to Albany Street Barracks and there, with the 2nd Life Guards, I underwent a course of training in machine-gunning. I passed out as an instructor.’

One link is made as a result of reading the autobiography. Buried within the cover is a photograph exactly like the image depicted in the Pool of London painting.

The autobiography has one other piece of information that may be of use:

 He talks of mounting guns (French .75) on the top span of Tower Bridge and firing 140 rounds  to help deter a Zeppelin attack

This could prove that AR Woods was indeed the piermaster of Tower Pier, that he was an artist and that he had military training. However, the Orkney link is still missing, as it is not mentioned in the book.

(L) Orkney mural (M) Tower Bridge (R) Port of London signatures - Click image for a larger view

In trying to explain why Orkney is not mentioned in the autobiography could be as simple as the mural painter and the London painter are two different people.

Other theories could be that AR Woods was prevented from writing about Orkney due to the Official Secrets Act or maybe, he felt his time in Scotland was not worthy of his autobiography.

AR Woods in Orkney

The missing part is still, who painted the very large mural in the Ness gun battery mess hall?

Commentators have reported that the scenes appear to be in the style of an idyllic village in Kent. So could they have been painted by someone longing for home.

If you then add to the mix that a number of auxiliary vessels such as barges, tugs, floating cranes etc. were used in support of the Royal Navy in Scapa Flow, and some were brought from the Thames.

Could all this point towards AR Woods the pier master?

AR Woods in Canada

Tower Bridge by AR Woods

As with all good detective stories this one has a twist, to cause some new questions to be asked.

Recently discovered in an auction in Ontario, Canada is a painting of Tower Bridge.

It is signed A.R Woods and appears, to the uneducated eye, to be in a similar painting style to the Orkney mural and the pool of London image.

The signatures on the Pool of London and the Tower bridge paintings certainly seem to match.

How did this painting come to be in Canada and is it by the same A.R.Woods as the Orkney mural and the Pool of London painting?

Who was A. R. Woods ?

Can you add to the history of AR Woods? Maybe you have the Orkney link or can confirm any of the story?

Please let us know via the comments area below or via the contact us page.

William Armstrong of Kinmont, immortalised by Sir Walter Scott in his ‘Ballad of Kinmont Willie’, was the most notorious Scottish Border Reiver of the 16th century.

Sark churchyard in Dumfries

He raided the lands of English Tynedale in Northumberland on many an occasion, one time stealing over two thousand cattle and sheep, in another leaving many men dead.

He was a thorn in the side of the English West March Wardens, the men set in place by royal appointment to defend the English Borders against the relentless incursions of the Scottish Border Reivers.

Kinmont’s raids into England were organised and always one step ahead of English authority. He was loathed by the English, adored by the Scots and renowned by both for his fierceness and martial prowess.

The English under the guidance of Henry Lord Scrope of Bolton, West March Warden for over thirty years to the early 1590’s, endeavoured by every legal means to secure Kinmont’s capture with no success.

Thomas Lord Scrope memorial

By 1596 the son of Henry Lord Scrope, Thomas, was English West March Warden. He was a young man of twenty six and embraced his new position with relish, determined to succeed where his father had failed.

Capture and release

In March 1596 Kinmont Willie Armstrong was illegally captured following a ‘Day of Truce’ and confined in the castle of Carlisle. His capture broke the principle of Border Law that granted safe conduct to all men called as witnesses to the trials of the criminals apprehended and brought to the ‘Truce’ for sentencing.

The young Thomas Lord Scrope rebuffed all the legal efforts by the Scots to set Kinmont free.  Even the two monarchs of England and Scotland became involved.

The tortuous diplomacy achieved nothing and Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, Keeper of Liddesdale resolved to attack Carlisle castle and free Kinmont.
This he achieved with ease, aided and abetted by English Lords who had little time for Thomas Lord Scrope. Both they and Buccleuch committed treason in the rescue but were never brought to trial.

Thomas Lord Scrope, ridiculed and embarrassed by the ease of the rescue, went on to become a Knight of the Garter in 1599.
Kinmont Willie carried on his reiving and all was as normal in the tumultuous times of the Border Reivers.

Sark

Kinmont disappears from history about 1603 and is thought to have died in his bed, a wonderful end for a man who was the scourge of the English for decades. He is buried, it is said, in the ancient churchyard of Sark near where once stood his fortified tower of Morton Rig in the Debateable Land. His memorial lies under the sod but was exposed in the latter half of the twentieth century, if only for a short while.

Thomas Lord Scrope died at Langar, a village in Nottinghamshire, in 1609.  His memorial is magnificent. The effigy surmounting his tomb portrays him in the robes of a Knight of the Garter. His wife, Philadelphia Carey lies at his side. Their son Emmanuel kneels between them.

This article was written for us by Tom Moss, author of “Deadlock and Deliverance” the story of the capture and rescue of Kinmont Willie Armstrong.

More information

Deadlock and Deliverance - Book Review

Carlisle Castle – Official English Heritage web pages

Reiver History- Find out more about the Border Reivers

A large memorial marks the grave of William Armstrong of Sorbitrees in the ancient border cemetery of Ettleton, Castleton.

The monument to William Armstrong of Sorbietrees towers above those of others in the small cemetery

Market day

In April 1851 William Armstrong of Sorbietrees, a man on the right side of forty years of age, married with four children, rode to Brampton, on the English side of the Border, a market town of considerable antiquity, to conduct negotiations for the purchase of some property.

It was market day and Armstrong soon met up with friends and acquaintances from his home lands, specifically the Elliots of Liddesdale.

Parsonage

Business completed, on their way home, they passed the hostelry which is now Cambeck Cottages. Armstrong, high in spirit, determined to leave his travelling companion, Elliot, and ride up the lane to Walton.

At the parsonage there worked one, Anne Glendinning, a lady fairly advanced in years: a friend and former employee of the Armstrongs of Sorbietrees.

On reaching the parsonage, nigh on eleven o’clock, Armstrong was confronted with a quandary. Should he openly rap at the door at a time when most country folk, known for their early rising, would be languishing in the land of Nod, or should he, hoping that maybe the servants of the place were still up, tap at the window next to the main door. He chose the latter course.

Rev Joseph Smith

‘Now the incumbent of Walton was the Rev. Joseph Smith, a small man with the valour of a mouse. He lived in the parsonage with a wife and four

..."To the great grief of the neighbourhood"

children, a pupil and two or three female servants; and what was he, one bit of a man, among so many weaker vessels?’ Just after eleven o’clock ‘the reverend master of the house remaining still below (when all others had retired) was stricken with horror by a noise. Somebody was knocking at the study window.’

‘Smith obeyed the first impulse that arose to him as a timid minister of the gospel – seized his revolver ( bought recently in Carlisle after a spate of robberies in the area), rushed to the street door, opened it rapidly, and before any alarm could be communicated to the person standing by the window, fired briskly one after another three volleys at him, or in the direction whence the noise had come, and then slammed the door and rushed up to his wife, as an affrighted hare to cover.’

Body

Next morning, early, the milkmaid, on approaching the parsonage, was astounded and terrified to find a dead man within the gate. The Rev. Joseph Smith was immediately summoned and openly proclaimed his guilt.

Sixteen miles to the north and over the Border to Scotland, a wife and four bairns were beside themselves with worry as a result of the absence of a loving husband and father. Imagine their horror then when, from papers found in the dead man’s pocket and the identification of Anne Glendinning, they were eventually to learn of the extra-ordinary death of him whom they held so dear.

Etteleton Cemetery

Armstrong was buried in Ettleton cemetery; that he was well thought of and sadly missed is evident from the memorial that stands head and shoulders above all others in this ancient churchyard.

He is buried in the vicinity of the ashes of his fore-fathers, the men who ruled in Liddesdale for centuries: the men who were feared by all, be they Scots or English.

Trial

And what of poor Joseph Smith, the incumbent reverend of Walton parish in north-east Cumbria?

He was tried for manslaughter before the illustrious judge, one Baron Platt. The facts were easily determined yet Platt, from the onset referred to the defendant as the ‘reverend gentleman’ rather than the prisoner at the Bar.
Smith pleaded not guilty.

Baron Platt, in summing up said: ‘After weighing the evidence it is for you (the Jury) to say whether, upon the occasion referred to, Mr Smith, bona fide, believed robbers were about to attack his house. If a man so conduct himself by making noises at untimely hours as to cause the inmates of the house to believe that it is going to be broken into, it is precisely the same as if the burglary was committed; and no question a man has a right to go forth and alarm persons so acting, either by shooting over their heads or in the direction in which he fancies they are, to prevent the burglary’.

The Reverend Joseph Smith was acquitted.

It is said, though there is no evidence that it was so, that Joseph Smith and his family left Walton soon after his acquittal.

Ettleton Cemetery Records

It is not currently known whether a project has been undertaken to record the graves in Ettleton cemetery, so if anybody is aware of such an undertaking we would be keen to hear from you.  We can be contacted via the comments section at the end of this post or the contact us button.

More information

ReiverHistory.co.uk – This article was written for us by Tom Moss. Author of “Deadlock and Deliverance“.  The story of the capture and rescue of Border Reiver, Kinmont William Armstrong.

Ettleton cemetery, Castleton -Location and information on this ancient border church or kirkyard which is the resting place of many Border Reiver families.

Sorbietrees B&B Newcastleton – A popular place for visitors to the border region to stay.