William Davie (1835-1916)

WILLIAM DAVIE (1835-1916), son of James Davie and his wife Margaret Smith, was born on 9 October 1835 in Hill of Fetternear. He was baptized on the 22nd 'in the presence of Patrick Downie of Overtown and Peter Davie of Hill of Fetternear' (this latter was presumably his uncle).

At some time after 1851 he left Fetternear and went to be in charge of the Fitzclarence hounds at Etal Manor in Northumberland. He later returned home, and in 1861 he was gamekeeper at Logie Elphinstone. Soon after this he entered the service of Lord Forbes as head gamekeeper at Craigievar.

The Forbes family owned estates in Fintray, and it was a widow of 22 from Fintray, Helen Ewing, born Helen Prosser, whom he married on 11 December 1863 at Chapel of Garioch. Helen already had a two-year-old son, James Ewing, from her first marriage, and he was brought up as one of the family. (Jamie Ewing and his wife emigrated to the United States in 1890, settling in Illinois.) It is said that the Prosser family felt that Helen was marrying beneath her. At the time of her marriage, Helen was some three months pregnant.

William became a family friend of Lord and Lady Forbes. In his youth he was very musical, and was in demand both as a violinist and as a dancer. William and Helen lived in Leochel-Cushnie, at Craigievar Castle from 1863 to 1875, and the gamekeeper's house there was built specially for them. (Another version of this story in that the house at Mains of Corse was built for them while William was working at Corse.)

By 1879, though, William was a Breda House, Alford, where he was working for George McBain Farquharson, a retired MajorGeneral of the Indian Army, who had been born in Tasmania. (At another stage in his life, William returned to Etal.)

William did not spend long at Breda, for in 1881 the family was living in the Gamekeeper's House at Roseacre - perhaps the same as the two-roomed lodge in Durn Road, Portsoy, where they were in 1891. This spell as gamekeeper at Roseacre House saw most of the children grow up and marry, and only William and Helen's two youngest sons, John and George, were still living at home on Census night 1891, along with a granddaughter, young Nellie Clark. Young George learnt to swim and fish in the sea at Portsoy.

A regular visitor to the family at this time was the violinist and composer, James Scott Skinner (1843-1927). He taught the children to play.

Helen died on 10 January 1911 at Breda, Alford, while staying in the house of her daughter, Helen Littlejohn. She was buried, as she had wished, in her beloved Fintray. William survived her. He is remembered as a kindly, bearded old man. He died on 12 March 1916 at the gardener's cottage beside Grant Lodge, Monymusk, the home of George Hall. It is said that old Lord Forbes had wanted William to be buried close to the Forbes family vault, but his grave lies at Fintray with his wife.

1 WILLIAM DAVIE (1864-?1919) was born in Leochel-Cushnie at Craigievar on 15 June 1864. On Census night 1881, he was a farm servant staying with his employer, Ann Anderson and her two daughters at Baley in Fordyce. He married Naomi Wilson on 28 May 1886 at Portsoy.

The couple lived on the Fordyce Road, to the west of Portsoy, and William is said to have farmed in the neighbourhood. In 1891 William gave his profession as "gardener (domestic)". He was a gamekeeper here in 1901. He was gamekeeper at Millington Hall, Churchstoke, Montgomeryshire in 1911. He is said to have died in 1919. One story has it that it was in Cricklewood in the 1920's he committed suicide - he was found dead by his nephew George Gordon Davie. Naomi died in Glasgow on 2 February 1946, aged 79.

2 MARY DAVIE (1866-1950), also known as MARY JANE DAVIE, was born on 14 February 1866 at Craigievar Castle. She became a teacher, and six days after her twentieth birthday, on 20 February 1886, she married a Portsoy joiner and undertaker, George Clark, of Glassaugh in Fordyce. They lived at 48 Chapel Street. Mary Jane died in 1950.

2.1 WILLIAM D CLARK (1885-?), born in 1885, it would seem from the 1891 census. In 1901 he was an apprentice druggist.

2.2 MARY HELEN CLARK (1886-1977), known as NELLIE. She was born on 10 August 1886 at Roseacre Villa, Portsoy. She married a Mr Donald. He was a builder. Nell died in 1977, aged 91.

The couple had two sons and two daughters:

2.2.1 GEORGE DONALD (19??-?). He worked for his father until the Second World War. He was an officer in the Gordon Highlanders, and served in France (taking part in the Dunkirk evacuation), North Africa, Sicily and Italy. After the War, he became a civil servant, surveying government buildings. He married and has a son.

2.2.2 WILLIAM DONALD (19??-?). He was a carpenter. He married a local girl, and they had five daughters.

2.2.3 CHRIS DONALD (b.19??), who was a singer in a BBC Chorus. She married John Sharp, a leader of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The couple were living in Portsoy in 1984, but later moved to the Borders. After John died, she moved to the south west of England.

2.2.4 MARY HELEN DONALD (19??-20??), known as HELEN, who married Jack Stewart, and was living in Durn Road, Portsoy, in 1984, only a few yards from the lodge of Roseacre where her great-grandfather had lived. They had three daughters and a son.

2.3 CHRISTIANNA AMY CLARK (1890-1973), born at 4 Hill Street, Portsoy on 14 April 1890. She followed in her mother's footsteps as a teacher. She married David Peter Crabb, a veterinary surgeon of New Aberdour, on 17 March 1915 at 48 Chapel Street, Portsoy. David died in a drowning mishap in the late 1930's. She went to Rhodesia from time to time to visit her son. She died in 1973.

The Crabbs had two children:

2.3.1 GEORGE CRABB (19??-19??), who emigrated to Rhodesia. He later moved to South Africa. He died relatively young.

2.3.2 CATHERINE CRABB (b.19??). She was an M.A. like her mother. She married Albert Fraser. They had two daughters. One is a vet in Bristol, the other lives near Dundee. In 2004, Catherine was widowed and living in Guthrie, Angus.

2.4 GEORGE ALEXANDER CLARK (1892-1912), born in Portsoy. He died, aged 19, of pneumonia.

2.5 EDITH LOTTIE CLARK (1899-1980), known as Lottie. She married Robert Mitchell. They lived at 46 Chapel Street, Portsoy, next door to Edith's parents. Edith died in 1980. They had three children:

2.5.1 ALISTAIR MITCHELL (b.19??). He was a carpenter with his grandfather. During the Second World War he was shot through the knee in Belgium. He was evacuated, and subsequently worked in a factory, which closed after the War. He joined Cable and Wireless, and worked at Electra House in London until his retirement. He married a girl from Fraserburgh, and has two daughters, one of whom lives in Hampshire and the other in Morecambe.

2.5.2 MURIEL MITCHELL (b.19??). She married a Londoner during the War, but divorced and returned to Portsoy. She later remarried. She had no children, and was widowed before 2004.

2.5.3 DAVID MITCHELL (b.1924). He is one of the contributors to the present notes. He joined up in 1939, but was sent home because he was not yet fifteen. He later joined the RAF, and served in the Middle East and Italy. After the war he studied radio engineering, and joined G.C.H.Q. He worked for twelve years at a radio station in Fife, and then moved to Cheltenham for 26 years prior to retirement in 1985. He married a Portsoy girl in 1951, and after retirment returned to Portsoy to live. They have a daughter and a son.

2.5.3.1 LYNNE MITCHELL (b.19??). She married Tom Russell. They have two daughters.

2.5.3.2 DAVID MITCHELL (b.19??). He worked for Eagle Star in Cheltenham, but tired of it, and he and his wife were running a holiday complex near Keswick in 2004. They had a son, aged five in 2004.

3 ELIZABETH DAVIE (1868-1868), born on 12 February 1868. She died of bronchitis when only ten days old.

4 ROBERT PROSSER DAVIE (1869-1956) was born at Craigievar on 29 July 1869. He was a journeyman baker. At the turn of the century he moved to London. In 1901 he was at 2 Euston Square, St Pancras. His first wife, Jessie White Davie, was an actress. In 1911 he was at 9 Westbury Road, Westgate-on-Sea, Kent. He was living at 16 Upton Avenue, Forest Gate, Essex, when his wife died on 14 November 1918 (leaving personal estate of £181/14/11). He moved later to Cricklewood. David Mitchell recalls him being present at his wedding in 1951, and visiting him in West Hampstead in 1949. He married twice. He died without issue at Newington Lodge, Camberwell Gate, London SE5 on 26 April 1956, aged 86. His address was 41 Kingsgate Road, Kilburn. Probate was granted to Mrs Muriel Alwyn Clark, a butcher. His estate was valued at £83/1/8.

5 HELEN DAVIE (1871-1945?) was born on 1 September 1871 at Craigievar. She married Alexander McWilliam at the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary of the Angels, Paddington, on 29 October 1891.

Helen became a nurse, and Alex was an architect. The couple had six children, but then Alex left Helen, and went to South Africa. Helen was living at Corse, in the parish of Coull, in 1901 with her parents. She married again at Coull in 1909, to Alexander Littlejohn, who was gardener at Breda House, Alford. They remained together for 24 years, until Alex died. She is said to have married three more times. After her second husband died, she moved to London, "staying with some priests." She moved to Schoolhendry Street, Portsoy about 1942 (where she married her fifth husband, a retired farmer).

6 JOHN DAVIE (1875-1945), born at Craigievar Castle in Leochel-Cushnie on 7 October 1875. In 1895 he was a law clerk at Portsoy, but later he enlisted in the Highland Regiment. In November 1896 while stationed at Dover Castle, he married a young blonde, Rosa (or Rose) Green, the daughter of a local marine engine fitter. At some time she held the Railway Hotel in Dover.

He is said to have lived for a while on the verge of penury, 'drinking himself out of a number of jobs'. In 1901, he was at 31 Balfour Road, Dover, and gave his profession as draper's traveller. In 1911 he was living at 282 Hardgate in Aberdeen, where his sister-in-law, Forbes Davie, occasionally had to help out. "A will-of-the-wisp, and very good-looking", he served in the First World War, and later moved to Glasgow, and then to Cricklewood in London, where he was a tailor. Rosa Davie died in 1924, and John lived on in Cricklewood until his death in October 1945.

6.1 GEORGE GORDON DAVIE (1897-1936), born at Dover on 7 February 1897. He was a metallurgist and was educated at Aberdeen. In November 1919 he married Lilian Frances Wallace (known as Billie) in London. He died in November 1936. His widow survived him, and died in Gravesend on 28 March 1983.

George and Billie Davie had two children:

6.1.1 JOHN DAVIE (1920-1920), who died in infancy in 1920.

6.1.2 MARGARET EVELYN DAVIE (b.1921), born on 3 September 1921. She became company secretary to a firm of printers in Dartford. In April 1943 while in the WAAF, she married Eric Porter at Gravesend. He was a chief design engineer for G.E.C. Peggy Porter is one of the researchers of the present notes.

Peggy and Eric Porter have a daughter:

6.1.2.1 CAROLE DIANE PORTER (b.1944), born in July 1944. She became a librarian and Fellow of the Librarians' Association. She married John Beattie, a chartered accountant in 1972. They live in Kettering, and have two children:

6.1.2.1.1 DAVID BEATTIE (b.1973).

6.1.2.1.2 HELEN BEATTIE (b.1975).

6.2 JOHN ALEXANDER DAVIE (1901-), known as ALEC, was born in Dover towards the end of 1901. He worked for Rolls Razor in London, and was also a part-time professional footballer. He married Elsie W. Yaxley in the second quarter of 1932 in Willesden. They had a son:

6.2.1 BRIAN DAVIE (b.1933), born in Hendon in the third quarter of 1933. He lived in Cricklewood. His wife's name is Yvonne, and they have a son and a daughter.

6.3 DORIS HELEN DAVIE (1904-1966) was born in Dover in the third quarter of 1904. She married L. Toop, who died in 1940, and subsequently S. Hawkins. She died without issue in 1966.

6.4 WILLIAM FORBES DAVIE (1909-1979) was born on 29 January 1909 in Aberdeen. He became a chartered surveyor and was also a talented musician. He married Marjory Barber. He worked as a quantity surveyor, and so was not conscripted into the Armed Forces during the War because he was working on airfield construction. He married Joan Anne Walker about 1945 in the UK.

In 1947 he was sent to Palestine as a quantity surveyor for a British company working for the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC). He was "up and down the pipeline", from Mossul to Haifa, on building sites on the H-Line, in Baghdad and in Basra. He got out of Palestine on 15th May 1948, on probably the last plane out of Haifa airport. Being linked to IPC, he lived in the outskirts of Tripoli (Araman compound), to the north of Beirut. He played the violin and the clarinet; he even recorded a 78 rpm in Lebanon, with a group that used to play at the IPC Club.

Joan came to Lebanon in 1948, by DC3 to Lydda airport, then by Auster to Tripoli.

William then joined the Contracting and Trading Company (CAT), a very large engineering company belonging to a Lebanese, Emile Bustani, and which had links with Motherwell Bridge Company. In 1954, he resided in Beirut, off Hamra Street, then, in 1956, on Madame Curie Street. William was on building sites in Jordan (Amman Airfield), Iraq (Royal palaces in Baghdad, sites in Mossul, Erbil, Basra and especially Kirkuk), the Gulf states (Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain), Massira island (Airfield and port), Khartoum, Quetta (in Pakistan), Seychelles (the airport) and Libya.

He retired in 1972, owing to ill health (emphysema) and resided in an apartment on a hill overlooking the city. He died in 1979, at the American University Hospital in Beirut. He was cremated and his ashes were dispersed in Scotland.

By his first wife he had a son:

6.4.1 ALAN DAVIE (b.19??). His wife's name was Sylvia. They were divorced, and Alan was living in Reading, Berks, in 1987, and Sylvia in Mill Hill, London. They had two sons.

By his second wife, he had a son:

6.4.2 MICHAEL FORBES DAVIE (b.1950), born in Tripoli, Lebanon, on 20 November 1950 at the Kennedy Memorial Hospital, belonging to the Quakers.

He first went to an Italian school in Beirut, and then to the Christian Brothers school (Ecole des Frères Chrétiennes) in Beirut. He prepared his French Baccalaureate at the French Mission Culturelle. He then prepared for his "Licence" (BSc), and then a Maîtrise (MSc) in Geography at the branch of the University of Lyons in Beirut. He prepared a PhD thesis in Strasbourg (France) on part of Lebanon (1975).

He married May Fatteh, a Lebanese girl, on 23 August 1975, in Broummana (just above the city of Beirut).

May is a historian. She was born on 2 September 1950 in Beirut. She prepared a PhD thesis on the Greek-Orthodox community of Beirut in the 19th and 20th century. She is Greek-Orthodox. She has two sisters and one brother.

Michael then went to Algeria, to teach at the University of Constantine (1975-1977), then returned to Beirut to teach at the Jesuit University (Université Saint Joseph), where he was head of the department of History, Geography and Archaeology. He stayed in Beirut all through the war (with some occasional trips to Cyprus when it became too noisy...), and finally left for France in 1990. Since that date, he has been a Professor at the University of Tours, in the Geography department, and a researcher in a research centre specializing in the study of Arab cities.

Michael and May Davie have two children :

6.4.2.1 DANIELLE FORBES DAVIE (b.1980), born on 7th November 1980 in Beirut. She received a BSc in Sociology at Tours University, and is currently working on a PhD in Anthropology on the Bedouin of the Syrian Desert at the University of Nanterre.

6.4.2.2 LAWRENCE FORBES DAVIE (b.1982), born on 31 October 1982 in Beirut. After a period working part-time in the catering business in Tours, he is preparing for an MA in Hotel Management and working part itme in a chartered accountant's office in Beirut.

6.5 ROSA DAVIE (19??-) was living with her father at home in 1926. She married an artist, Frank Chester. He died in 1982. They had a daughter:

6.5.1 JANET CHESTER (b.19??), who married John Marks, a stockbroker. They live in Dawlish, Devon.

6.6 HILDA DAVIE (?1910-) was born about 1910. She married A. Dobson, who died in 1938, and subsequently A. Mann in Stevenage. He is a local councillor and worked for British Aerospace. They were living in Stevenage in 1987. By her first husband she had a daughter:

6.6.1 JEAN DOBSON (b.19??). Her husband was called Ray, and he died. They had two sons, who were living in Stevenage in 1987.

By her second husband she had a son:

6.6.2 NIGEL MANN (b.19??). His wife was called Theresa. They have two daughters and live in South Africa.

7 GEORGE McBAIN FARQUHARSON DAVIE (1879-1950), born at Breda House, Alford on 1 March 1879, of whom more anon.