The family in Berwick

John Dagleish (b1873)

An Englishman with two Scottish grandparents and at least one Irish grandparent. I don’t know where his remaining grandparent, James Drummond, was from. This means we only have to go back 200 years to find Scottish Dagleish’s! I had no idea it was so recent!

Peter Dagleish (b1840) and his father William (b1807)

William Dagleish and his family lived in the Greenses area of Berwick where William earned his living as a seaman. Unfortunately the census doesn’t give a street name in the Greenses. The 1851 census states that William was born in Berwickshire Scotland. This is interesting, whereas Berwick is in England, Berwickshire is in Scotland. So our Scottish ancestors could be more recent that I had imagined. Unfortunately I don’t know where in Berwickshire William was born. He may have died in 1852 as there is a death record in Berwick for someone by that name.

James Drummond and Jane McAllister

The 1851 census lists Catherine Drummond living in Tweedmouth (Berwick) in the same household as her widowed mother, Jane Drummond who was born in Ireland. I can’t find Jane, Catherine or James on the 1841 census and have relatives to thank for Jane’s maiden name and her husband’s name. James, therefore, is a bit of an enigma. Likewise I’m not sure when or why Jane moved from Carrickfergus in Ireland to Berwick but according to Christopher Dagleish’s records she had a brother who died at the battle of Waterloo.

There are still more questions than answers on this branch of the family tree.

More about Berwick

The Greenses area

“To the north of Berwick-upon-Tweed, in a natural bay you find what remains of the Greenses harbour. The sea fishermen of the Greenses and their families once lived nearby in the area known as Low Greens

Until the First World War ‘The Greenses’ were cut off from the rest of Berwick-upon Tweed by the Elizabethan Walls and formed a separate neighbourhood”

Taken from http://www.worldrover.clara.net/berwick/greenses.htm [13/10/2009]

English or Scottish?

“Today the visitor to Berwick can be forgiven for believing it to be a Scottish town, as after all it stands on the northern bank of the River Tweed, an entirely Scottish river and it does seem to have a rather Scottish appearance. Berwick is also the name of a large Scottish Burgh and the old county of Berwickshire (of which Berwick was not part !) was in Scotland. Furthermore Berwick, is a little bit more closer to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, than to the North East's regional centre of Newcastle upon Tyne.

The belief that Berwick is Scottish is also reinforced by the fact that most of the commercial banks in the town are Scottish and that the local football team plays in the Scottish league. Dialect also leads to the belief that Berwick is Scottish as to most Englishmen the local `Tweedside' accent spoken in Berwick sounds Scottish, although most Scots would recognise the Northumbrian influence.

The Scottish claim for Berwick is certainly strong but the English influence upon the area is also very significant. Berwick as already stated began as an English or at least an Anglo-Saxon settlement, in the Kingdom of Northumbria and although for four hundred years it regularly changed hands between England and Scotland it has remained in the former part of the United Kingdom for the past five centuries. Berwick's policeman and laws are therefore English, and its most senior councillor is an English mayor not a provost as in the Scottish system of local government. Berwick town also has an important status, as the administrative centre for the Northumberland County District of Berwick upon Tweed.”

From www.northeastengland.talktalk.net [26/09/2007]

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