Hopetoun or Southern Fencibles

[12885m]

Hello Harry,
                  you say you had the records of the regiment checked and found your ancestor. Where did you find the records?
I remember Language schools on Wilbury Road, Church Road and Old Shoreham Road. A friend of mine had one in Brighton which he opened in the 80's or 90's and sold a few years ago.
Alan

[hdw]

Hello Harry,
                  you say you had the records of the regiment checked and found your ancestor. Where did you find the records?
I remember Language schools on Wilbury Road, Church Road and Old Shoreham Road. A friend of mine had one in Brighton which he opened in the 80's or 90's and sold a few years ago.
Alan

I wrote to the Public Record Office, Kew, in 1987. In their reply they say "The Public Record Office holds the muster rolls of the Southern or 7th Fencibles for the period March 1793 - April 1799 under the reference WO 13/3942 and 3943. ... The first muster roll, which covers the period from 1 March - 23 June 1793, lists Thomas Welsh as attesting on 16 May 1793, but does not state where this oath was taken. The muster roll was counter-signed by the Justice of the Peace for Banff on 18 November 1793 ..."

My wife and I taught in the English Language Centre, 33 Palmeira Mansions, Hove.

Harry

[12885m]

The Stations of the Hopetoun Fencibles lists them being at Banff from October 1793 until June 1794 when they moved to Dumfries after being set up in Linlithgow. When I visited Kew, there were no records available but it might be because they are listed as 'Southern or 7th Fencibles'.  Is there much detail and is it possible I might find my ancestor on the lists?
Our first flat in 1962 was in Landsdowne Place. Steve Ovett, who was a Brighton Athletic club mate of mine had his first flat in Palmeira Square, when he married.
Another coincidence, our youngest son, the reason we returned to Scotland, has a TEFL degree and teaches in Edinburgh having spent his early teaching days in Brazil and Chile where he met his wife.
Alan

[hdw]

I've scanned the letter I got from Kew and attached it to this post.

When my wife and I were teaching in Hove, in 1972-3, we lived in Over Street in the Kemptown area of Brighton. In '73 we moved to Bournemouth, where we got married, and immediately after that we moved to Glasgow to new jobs. Stuck it there for 4 years, then 2 years teaching in Germany, then from 1979 until early retirement at 55 in 2001, I had a job at Edinburgh University. We live in Barnton, in the west of Edinburgh.

Harry

[12885m]

Thanks for all your help. I am getting a researcher to look up details at Kew as I now live in the Borders and it is too far. It was 10 years ago that I drew a blank on the Hopetoun Fencibles at Kew. It is a pity there was nobody there with sufficient knowledge to advise me.
Alan

[hdw]

Yes, it helps to know that their official title was the 7th or Southern Regiment of Fencibles.

Harry

[waipalass]

I believe they were in Glasgow in 1795 then removed to McDuff in Aberbeenshire between 1797-1799 when they were disbanded. They were guarding the northern coast from the French!

[12885m]

A rather belated update to our correspondence. I checked the Muster Rolls and found that my GGG Grandfather, Alexander Buchanan, was listed as a Private at Fort George in 1797 leaving as a Sergeant, to join the Ross Militia in 1799. The final entry states he was "from Genaders", which I take as a miss spelling of Grenadiers and that he was formerly with the Breadalbane Fencibles who had a Grenadiers Company and were based at Fort George until 1797 when the were replaced by Hopetoun's Fencibles. This also fits in with Alexander being born at Kilmahog in the Trossachs, on the fringes of the Breadalbane recruiting area.
Alan Buchanan

[Chilliwack]

I then did some research on that regiment, e.g. I sat in the Scottish Room of the Central Library in Edinburgh for days on end and copied out every reference to that regiment that I could find in the pages of the Edinburgh Evening Courant from 1795 to 1799, when the regiment was disbanded at Hopetoun House, Linlithgow. By coincidence, I was then living in Linlithgow. My notes run to five pages of A4. I'll be glad to share them with anyone who is interested, but I will need your email or snail-mail addresses to send them to, as there's too much to summarise. I also have a photocopy of the picture of the 3rd Earl of Hopetoun in Kay's Edinburgh Portraits, in the uniform of the regiment.

Hi Harry

I've just been reading this thread with enormous interest and am wondering if I could ask for your help.  I'm trying to establish whether a chap called Samuel Player ever served in the Hopetoun Fencibles at the same time as one of the Hopetoun Captains, one Thomas Durham.  Samuel Player joined the Fifeshire Fencibles when it was first raised by James Durham (I believe this was Thomas's brother) in 1795, and I think Thomas went to the Fifeshires too at that time, becoming a Lt Col under his brother, the Colonel.

The Hopetoun period I'm interested in, therefore is from its inception in March 1793 to the middle of 1795 when James Durham (I think) took his brother Thomas with him to his own new regiment, and possibly a private called Samuel Player too. 

I will go to Kew armed with the reference they gave you in the letter you kindly shared with this forum regarding their Muster Book holdings for the Hopetouns in WO 13 to look for Samuel's name, but you have done such an admirable amount of work on all this already, I was just wondering if by any chance Captain Thomas Durham, or even Private Samuel Player, had in any way impinged upon your consciousness already?

I'd be so grateful for any thoughts you may have.
Many thanks
Claire