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Litcham s just north of Gt Dunham.

And I thinks its "stubbing of whins".

I haven't looked at the entries for some time, but there's another note about a man who died of exposure after falling into a river when trying to recover his hat and wig.  There's clearly a good reason to avoid wearing a hat anywhere near water in that area.

As an aside.......

Any "Scotsman" to my knowledge would not use the word "Scotch"....it would be "Scot/Scottish"

Would the particular Clergy have been a "non Scot"?

Annie

I feel I'm putting my (English) head in the Lion Rampant's mouth, but here goes...

In many 19th century Scottish newspapers you will find a column listing "Scotch Bills" at Westminster.  And the word was also used regularly by Walter Scott, Thomas Carlyle and most other Scottish writers.

On a related matter I also saw the speech to the men of the Black Watch by their retiring colonel (also a Scot) around 1860: he told them their actions in India (putting down the "mutineers"!) "made England proud".

Autres temps, autres moeurs

How can you have sexual intercourse with someone you see as being little better than an animal?

I hesitate to point this out, in case anyone, anywhere, ever, thinks what I'm about to say is my own opinion, but for many centuries and in many societies men in general considered women in general to be inferior humans. 

As to slavery, I have the impression that those who started the process did not see Africans as inferior in any way except for having inferior weaponry and therefore being exploitable.  Until the institution was under criticism there was no need to use racial stereotyping to "justify" slavery.

After my G G grandmother died in 1861 my G G grandfather took in a "housekeeper" and they had 3 children.  Meanwhile the housekeeper's husband was living quite nearby with another woman: they had a large family who were registered under the mother's name, but all the censuses show them as a "proper" married family, with the father's surname.  In 1900 the husband died and his (real) widow married my ancestor within a few weeks.

That's just an extreme case - I have plenty of ancestors who had at least one child before tying the knot, as well as those who were hard put to it to get the parson in before the midwife.  In some parts of the country there used to be a saying "no baby, no marriage".

In general I don't think there was much stigma attached to an established couple making the occasional slip, as long as they regularised things later.  There was a very different opinion of a woman who had a series of babies by unknown fathers - I have one of those as well.

Is there any mention of George William Kirton?  He was only briefly at Larbert from March or April 1894 before being transferred to the Insane Ward at Sunderland Union Workhouse in early May.