BBC "Who Do You Think You Are?" Anne Reid (WDYTYA Series 12 Episode 6)

[frostyknight]

I was surprised too. Maybe it ended up on the cutting room floor, who knows what Anne Reids reaction was.
Frostyknight

[Beeonthebay]

I'm sure I saw in an interview with Anne Reid she said there was enough material for 3 episodes.......not sure if I'd tune in to see her again, though I've not heard of anybody having more than one programme done on them.....

[Clarkey500]

I found the episode alright, but there have definitely been better episodes. Most of the research was not done by her and she was just presented it, unlike Gareth's last week! However, I enjoyed finding out more information about the convicts (shame I couldn't get a free holiday though! )

[Millmoor]

There is an interesting article in the Fife Herald 30 Sept 1841 which helps to answer Looby's question re David Reid. Having forged David Husband's signature, John Reid presented the bill to David Reid , Cruvie, and "having obtained the said David Reid's signature, did, on the 9th January 1840, within the banking office ...of the British Linen Company at Cupar , utter as genuine the said forged bill of exchange".

Other articles/notices in the Fife Herald in 1841 indicate that John Reid faced bankruptcy preceedings in that year. In June his various properties were put out to public auction - 7 Scotch acres of improved land with dwelling houses, three dwelling houses in Logie village, further lots of an acre and three quarters and an acre and a half and eight to nine acres to the north west of Logie Village with dwelling houses, stable and shed.

Another article in September refers to his neglect of duty and shows that the presbytery were he not to be convicted of forgery" will find much difficulty in ejecting him" It goes on to say" The state of parochial school law is wretched".

William

[hdw]

We Scots like to boast, with some justification, of our historical parish school system which ensured higher standards of literacy and numeracy among the working classes than were common in most other countries. But not all teachers were up to the job, and there were not a few like John Reid. Someone once wrote: "In those days it was the custom in Scotland that whosoever was thought not fit to be any thing else, was judged good enough to be a teacher, and destined accordingly; and thus it too often happened that our parochial seminaries were Bethesda pools, surrounded by the lame, the halt and the paralytic, waiting for the friendly hand of patronage to lift them into office when a vacancy occurred."

In my home parish of Kilrenny in the East Neuk of Fife, the parish schoolmaster James Fleming was said in 1854 to be totally unfit for office due to his addiction to drink. But it took another seven years to get rid of him. Undeterred, in 1861 he persuaded Lord Ormidale in the Court of Session to issue an interdict prohibiting the heritors of Kilrenny from appointing another master in his place, coolly stating that he would happily resign if they agreed to pay him his full salary for the rest of his life!

But then the neighbouring parish of Anstruther produced my distant relative William Tennant, crippled since childhood by polio, who became parish schoolmaster at Dunino but ended up as professor of Oriental Languages at St. Andrews University purely on the basis of his self-taught knowledge of languages, never having taken a degree. And then there was Alexander Moncrieff, the sickly son of a Cellardyke fisherman pressed into naval service who never came home again. Mr. Moncrieff, tho' unable to go to sea himself, taught navigation to young fishermen in Cellardyke and got more of them through their seamanship exams. than any other navigation teacher on the coast.

Harry

[ankerdine]

Harry, thanks for that additional information. You really get the understanding of what went on there during those times. Teachers, then and now, have the power and trust to inform their pupils, whether children or young people trying to improve their future lives.

A most interesting addition to this thread. Thanks again. 

Judy

[Seoras]

All in all, a woman whose views of the featured ancestor were simply delusional.

I'll second that

[djct59]

On the other hand, under the parish appoinment system, good teachers could be removed from office in unusual circumstances.

There was a truly bizarre situation in the parish of Durness in 1823 when the Reverend Findlater refused to grant a certificate to schoolmaster William Ross of his suitability to study for Divinity at Aberdeen University, although he had been the village schoolmaster since 1811, when he was aged sixteen (1). William's brother George was the schoolmaster in the next parish where he was also secretary to the minister, who was an alcoholic.

William was duly sacked from his teaching post for his fraud in proceedings that were wholly irregular, and sued. He lost in the Sheriff Court, appealed, and won in the Court of Session. That decision was appealed to the House of Lords in 1826, but Ross was again successful. So why did Rev Findlater take against the schoolmaster? Local historian Graham Bruce explains a plausible version, that the Reverend Findlater's wife, a noted local beauty, had attracted the affections of the seventh Lord Reay, and that her progeny including the father of the later Victorian novelists Mary and Jane Findlater, were born out of wedlock and that it was to suppress this information from becoming more widely known that steps were taken to discredit the schoolmaster.

[andrewalston]

I've done a little bit of research on female convicts to VDL and so far not one has been transported for their first crime, in fact they were all repeat offenders.

In my ONS, I have a few transportations.
One is for Highway Robbery in 1819 - the culprit had already spent 3 months in prison the previous year for assault.
The others seem to be first offences. The VDL chap in 1830 had his sentence commuted from death for Horse Stealing. He turned his life around and became a pillar of the community.