B691



Of the Queenamuckle (Magnus Marwick) family, William Marwick went to Edinburgh to found that family. Magnus Marwick (Mansie) and his sister, Betsy who were unmarried, remained at Queenamuckle till the end. The tales of Mansie are told by JT Smith Leask in his book A Peculiar People and other Orkney Tales. However the family version of the Hum, Mansie, Hum tale varies somewhat from the published version. Mansie had been a few days in Rousay visiting uncles and cousins and had bought a young pig to take back to Queenamuckle with him. When below Nears on the return journey, the pig got up from the bottom of the boat and went over the gunwale into the sea. Mansie, who was holding a rope tied to the pig's leg, somehow got pulled into the sea also and both disappeared under water. However with some trouble the men who were rowing the boat got control and towed man and pig to the beach where they re-embarked and were taken to Rendall. Mansie said that when he was underwater he heard the Birds of Paradise singing, 'Come, Magnus, Come’.

There are two other stories of Mansie that may be of interest. Mansie and Betsy had agreed to visit a neighbouring empty house to see that everything was okay. On one visit the neighbouring young men were in the house waiting, and when Mansie came in they came rushing downstairs. Mansie ran out of the door as it crashed shut behind him. The door caught his coat tails and held him. He immediately took out his pocket knife shouting, "Cut and run, Mansie, cut and run. What's the tail of a coat to the life of a man?" With that he cut himself free and ran for home.

Tale two. One winter's morning, immediately after Mansie had gone out to feed the cattle, he returned to the house crying to Betty, "They have done me many a dirty trick but they have done the worst one last night. They have flayed the hind quarters of my best black ox”. What had happened was that they had taken a pair of Mansie's white moleskin trousers off the yard dyke and put them on the back legs of the stirk, and tied them up over the rump. In the poor light Mansie thought that his ox had been half skinned.

Craigie Marwick was brought up at, and inherited, Breck from his uncle, William Marwick. When I knew Craigie he lived at Springfield and later at Braes, where he died. He was a very much respected man in the district.

Stewart Paterson (see) was a blacksmith and lived at Veltigar in Tankerness. Charles, Robert and Jessie Paterson used to come to Scockness to visit their uncle and cousins when I was a small boy, and Jessie continued to have a holiday every year in the 1920s and 1930s with Mother at Scockness. One of the sons, John Paterson, was in America and sent enough money each year to keep Jessie who had given the best part of her life to nursing her father.

Margaret Marwick was married to old Robbie Stevenson of Kirbist and was the mother of Robert Stevenson of Kirbist and Rothiesholm in Stronsay where he went in 1913. Robert was married to Margaret Robertson, a sister of Hugh Robertson in Langskaill. As a small boy I once was taken to Egilsay by Hugh when he went there to visit his relatives. I was taken to Kirbist and saw, sitting in strawback chairs by the fire, Old Robbie and Margaret. Both are buried in Scockness cemetery.

James Marwick who inherited Ervadale from his uncle and aunt see, moved to Hurtiso before leaving Rousay for Bankburn in South Ronaldsay with his sons. In Orkney in those days there was nearly always resentment of newcomers in any island and this was evidently very much the case in South Ronaldsay, but the boys of Bankburn, as they were known, were capable of looking after themselves. However, the story goes that in the pub in St. Margaret's Hope one night, the local policeman was exhibiting his handcuffs when by a trick he manage to get them on the wrists of David Marwick. David immediately got out of the door to the comer of the building, and putting his hands above his head, brought the cuffs down on the corner, breaking the connection between his wrists. He then went back inside after the policeman, who had by that time escaped through the back door. It was a fortnight before the policeman put in another appearance at the Hope. David must have been back in Orkney after going to America as I have heard Grandfather say that David told him that his first job in the steelworks where he worked was beside a large tub of whale oil tempering forks (graips) all day.

My Grandfather, Robert Marwick of Feelie Ha, Cruannie, Woo, Scockness, and Langskaill. Grandmother, Ann B Hourston, was from Tankerness but her grandfather, I think, had come from Sound in Egilsay. The story of his encounter with the Press Gang is told by Mackintosh in Round the Orkney Peat Fires. The family version of that story is rather more detailed. The frigate, on which he was caught by Craigie of Meaness in Egilsay and the Press Gang, went to Scrabster, and was to go west about Cape Wrath. After a long beat to windward along the north coast of Sutherland, the ship met a hurricane just before she reached Cape Wrath and had to lie to under bare poles as no sail could be carried under these conditions. She was driven eastwards on to the west coast of Orkney . The officers had no idea where they were when the Black Craig was sighted in the morning light. The Captain called the crew together to see if any of them recognised the land. Hugh Hourston stepped forward and took charge and sailed the ship into Stromness through Hoy Mouth and anchored her in Cairston Roads. He then returned to the crew's quarters. That evening he was summoned aft to see the captain who said, "Because of what you did today in saving the ship and crew I'm giving you a day's leave. We sail the morning after that at 8 o'clock so you have to be back by then. If you are not, we will not wait for you." Hourston was put ashore and immediately set off across the West Mainland and Rousay for Egilsay, where he went back into hiding. He was never pressed again. It was after reading Round the Orkney Peat Fires that I asked Grandfather about it. He told me Hugh Hourston was a direct forefather of my own. I think he must have been my gg-grandfather.

Grandfather always said that the Marwicks of Scockness came from Langskaill and the Gibsons of Langskaill from Scockness. In the pre-gap registers 1733-46 there were certainly Marwicks in Langskaill (c1734-9) as well as in Saviskaill and Banks in Sourin, as in these registers the Marwicks of Saviskaill and Banks are given as witnesses at baptisms in Langskaill. Sir James Marwick, Town Clerk of Edinburgh and later of Glasgow was a descendant of the Saviskaill branch. Sir James was the father of James Marwick who founded the firm of international accountants Peat, Marwick and Mitchell, now KPMG.
My first clear memory that I can put a date to is in 1906 when I was 2½ years old. My aunt Jessie had taken me up to Essaquoy to see her Uncle David and Aunt Ann. When passing Broland, Janet (Skethaway), wife of John Gibson, came to the door and called out to Aunt Jessie, "Is that the bairn? Bring him across here till I see him," She stood in the doorway and a small boy, Peter Corsie, came out of the house and peeped past her skirts. That was my first meeting with a life-long friend. The point of the story is that Uncle David of Essaquoy, later at Quoys, moved to Quoys in Wester in 1906. The above incident happened in the summertime when I was 2½ years old. I have a dim memory of seeing an old man sitting in the window of the shop at Guidal. This was always known as Old Isaac's chair, as it was where he worked at his shoe-making. If my memory is correct, I can claim to have seen one of the Ten Devils. It is possible, as Isaac died in 1906.

William Marwick b.1820. Of this family, I knew only Magnus, my uncle by marriage, and Joseph who used to come to Scockness with his two elder sons on holiday. I also knew Katherine (Aunt Kate to my cousins) who was married to a man Catchpole, an architect in her brother Tom's practice.

Robert Marwick, son of Isaac Marwick, was chief clerk to the works manager of Bruce Peebles, Electrical Engineers in Edinburgh . After my time at Heriot Watt College I served my practical Student Apprenticeship at Bruce Peebles.

Hugh Marwick of Guidal was for a time in the Fiji Islands during his time in New Zealand . While in Fiji he built a South Seas schooner. I have often heard him refer to this incident. It seemed to have been the high point in his shipbuilding life.

William Marwick, son of Mary Ann Marwick went to Australia in 1921 with Magnus Marwick and another ‘stickit’ doctor. The rest of Magnus's family followed in 1922. William was met off the boat by a farmer from upstate New South Wales , a place called Kyogle near the Queensland border, and took a job with him. This man was a farmer and auctioneer who had 4 or 5 daughters but no son. Bill married one of the daughters and succeeded his father-in-law in business. He became mayor of Kyogle later. He never returned to this country but his wife came over after Bill died (I think in the 1960s). They had no children.

Betsy Ann Horne, ms Marwick When I was a small boy Betsy Ann's children spent a great deal of time with their grandparents at Guidal. The girls went to the Sourin School . Alice , known as Toola, was in the same class as I was. Old Hugh had built a small flat-bottomed boat for the boys and many a sail we had in the big pool below the bridge that crosses the Sourin bum at the mill.

John G Marwick I remember your (RCM's) father Johnnie o' Knarston very well. My last clear memory of him was driving the cattle stock from Knarston to Innister when they moved there (in 1911). I was a small boy at school and can clearly picture the scene as the herd of animals went past Sourin School

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