White, Stewart Fulton

[Ian999]

I would appreciate any information on an ancestor:
Stewart Fulton White, born about 1806 in Ireland according to the 1841 England Census.
He married an Ann Rae (Ray/Wray sp??) also from Ireland and same age.
He joined a cavalry regiment and along with 12 members of his troop was discharged in August 1832 in London, England to join the Mounted Guard section of the Customs & Excise Service. I have him everywhere after that but I do not know where he was born.

Stewart White is a rare name, and combined with the Fulton middle name would indicate Ulster, perhaps Co. Tyrone, or Antrim.
Thanks in advance.

Ian

[sanqhar]

Customs and Excise were separate until 1909 (when the Excise was 'removed' from the Inland Revenue and joined with the Customs).

I have not come across a reference to a 'Mounted Guard', but there were certainly 'Riding Officers' in the Excise.

For the period you are referring to refine your searches to either Customs or Excise and not Customs and Excise.

tom

[Ian999]

Tom, you are correct in saying that Customs was separate from Excise until 1909.

To help others who may be working in this area, this is the history as I understand it:

a.   Riding Officers (later termed Landguard) were created in 1690 to guard against illegal import and export of goods. They were mounted customs officers under the Board of Customs. Subsequently a small water based guard was added and known as the Waterguard.
b.   In 1809 the Preventive Water Guard was created with the primary purpose being to prevent smuggling. This operated under the Admiralty.
c.   Starting in 1822, the Preventative Water Guard, the customs waterguard and the Riding Officers were merged and named HM Coast Guard under the direction of HM Customs. It appears that most of the water based officers came from the Navy and most of the land based officers from the cavalry or police.
d.   The detailed records for the Coast Guard for the period 1816-1947 are listed in the National Archives at Kew in ADM 175.
e.   In particular, ADM 175 77 shows the “nominations” i.e. movements of personnel between coast guard stations in 1832 and has a distinctly separate section for “Mounted Guard”, which I presume is the term they used for the old Riding Officer title.

Much of the history is unclear and I may be corrected on the detail, but that is essentially what happened.

However, that is no help to me in my search. I specifically said that my ancestor joined the Mounted Guard in August 1832 and that I had him everywhere after that. I said that I was looking for where he was born.
I am concentrating on the Londonderry/Newtownstewart areas but as we all know, the Irish records are a challenge.

Tom, thanks for your interest.

[crimea1854]

Ian

Given that your man joined the Mounted Guard from a cavalry regiment, I wonder if there is any mileage in tracing his army career using the muster books, assuming you actually know which regiment he served with, and that the muster books survive?

Martin

[Ian999]

Martin,  I appreciate all the assistance and advice I can get on this search and your comment is a very sensible one.

In 2012 I engaged a professional genealogist to search the muster records in WO12. We went through 10 cavalry regiments for the appropriate time period and found no reference to my ancestor. We did find a few references to men who had joined the Coast Guard but there was nothing available for their history.

The 10 regiments were chosen intelligently (I think) and searched in declining order of likelihood. Then with no real prospect of success, even if the name was found, I cut the search short.

Also, the Chelsea Pensioner records did not show him since they only record those whose service was long enough to get a pension from the army.

Any other ideas ??

Ian

[Mandyc100]

HI

Stewart Fulton White is also my ancestor - other threads on this site suggest he may have come from Ardstraw in Co Tyrone, and the family may have been leather dealers originally from Wigtownshire in Scotland. I’m about to investigate this lead.

[Kiltaglassan]

Welcome to RootsChat 

Just linking the location of Ardstraw in Co Tyrone.

https://www.townlands.ie/tyrone/strabane-lower/ardstraw-strabane-lower-portion/churchlands/ardstraw/
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/5482956#map=12/54.7516/-7.4436

[Ian999]

Amazing !! A response after 10 years.

Mandy, where do you fit into the Stewart Fulton Tree??

Not that I am very active on this tree but my working hypothesis is that the family were originally in Newton Stewart, near Wigtown, and the local Lord was a Fulton.
Fulton was granted lands in Northern Ireland after 1690 so long as he could fill them with tenants. So he persuaded a number of locals to move.
SF White is listed in the 1841 census claiming a father called John and he was a farmer in Ireland.
I remember seeing a list dated about 1830 showing a Humphrey White in Newtownstewart Ireland with the occupation of shoemaker. I thought at the time that we do not have Humphreys in my family so that must be another White family.

This might tie in with your leather worker thoughts.
Note that the parish was Ardstraw but that covered a fair area including the small town of Newtownstewart.

Be aware and wary of a Junie43 researching this area as she has been quite unreliable.

[Mandyc100]

Hi Ian, how nice to hear from you. Are you a White family member yourself? I am wondering if you might be a removed cousin of my Dad’s. Stewart Fulton White is my 4th Great Grandad (I think!) via his daughter Jane White. Jane had a boy called Harry Clifford White who is my Dad’s grandad. We started searching because we discovered letters from Henry William White who emigrated to Queensland during the gold rush and are addressed to My Dear Father (Stewart Fulton White) and sister (Jane). There is an additional shorter letter from his wife Annie Lees White. The letters were very lengthy and vividly descriptive and are now housed in the National Library of Australia, so piqued our interest in the family history. There is a line or two written on the letter by Stewart Fulton White as he forwarded it to Jane, asking her to return it when read, though she clearly never managed to as they remained in Jane’s and then Harry’s estates. Let me know if any of this is of interest and I will send you a link to the archived letters.