The Aitchisons of Haddington

Contributed by Ronnie Aitchsion

Blog note - Ronnie was the first of my collaborators to offer a story for this blog. The words are unchanged from his text. All images have been inserted by me.

Mary Buchan, my grandmother was born in 1867 In Haddington, she was the second daughter of William Buchan and Annie Pearson. William was a grocer living in Haddington by this time, but had started his career as a groom, progressed to being a mason at the time he married Annie and between them they had three children.

St Mary's Haddington, the largest parish church in Scotland

William was the middle child of a large Borthwick family, his father was George Buchan and his mother Catherine Scougall they had ten children. George was a wright (probably a wheelmaker) a trade learned from his father also George Buchan who is the earliest Buchan in my tree. They were clearly a closely related family as Catherine’s father was also a wright in the same area.

Mary Buchan married my grandfather, James Aitchison in Nungate, Haddington. At the time of the marriage Mary was a dressmaker and James was a carpenter. Mary and James had a double wedding as Mary’s older sister Annie married George Purves Barbour, a blacksmith at the same time. Mary and James went on the have eleven children.

Annie, the eldest, born in 1890 lived until 1978  marrying Robert Watson in 1917.
Rosanna, (always called Rose) was born in 1891 and went to Canada in 1920 to marry Wilfred Pearce, a Canadian soldier she had met in Scotland. She and Wilfred had 4 children before she died in 1973.

James, born 1892 when the family were living in Linlithgow, served in the 7^th Royal Scots regiment and died at the Dardanelles in 1917. Previous to enlisting he had been an ironworker and plater, possibly in the shipyards at Leith. In 1897 they had a child named George Buchan who died of bronchitis.

In 1898 another boy was born and given the name George Buchan. He too served in the Royal Scots, fighting in France until 1918. He married Christina Laing Buist in 1925 and shortly after moved to Canada where he worked for General Motors, he and Christina had a girl and a boy. George died in 1968.

Catherine Buchan was born in 1894 and married a naval artificer in 1917. The marriage was not a happy one and they became divorced when living in England, I have been able to trace one daughter who was using the surname Aitchison. Catherine returned to her parent’s home and died in 1955.

In 1899 Janet was born, always called Jenny, she married Stewart Galt, a bookbinder in 1924 they had two children, James and Joyce.

On 27 June 1901 Mary was delivered of twins, William and Mary Buchan. Mary was to die in 1924. William was my father and followed his father’s trade as a carpenter, marrying my mother Jean Jones in 1937.

Thomas was born in 1902; he suffered from damage during his birth and was mentally handicapped all his life. After his parent’s death he lived in the family home with Catherine until her death after which he moved to a care home in North Berwick where he died in 1978.

The youngest child was also Mary Buchan, born in 1905 and moved to the USA in 1930 where she met and married James Vallence Cowan. They had two daughters June born 1931 and Grace ten years later. Mary (always called May) died in Greenwich, Connecticut where she was working as an electronics operator. James left the family and returned to Edinburgh where he died.

I never knew either of my grandparents and James was killed before I was born. With the exception of Rose and Mary I knew all of the others, and their children. Strictly speaking all of these people are Aitchison’s, but the Buchan name is carried by many of them as are the Buchan genes.