Family Group Sheet

Notes: Seaman (merchant service) living at 72 Salamander Street, Leith, 1867 [address apparently now redeveloped as retail park?]; William Swanney Wholesale and Retail Wine and Spirit Merchant business, 55 Victoria Street, Kirkwall, established 1875 (source: advert, ? 1930s or 1940s? under proprietorship of R. S. Cumming); Grocer living at 38 Victoria Street, Kirkwall, 1881 (son from first marriage to Betsy Wards, William, 12 yrs, living with his aunt Mary Swanney and her husband John Tait, grocer, at Wellington Street, Kirkwall, 1881); Licensed Grocer and Commission Agent living at Victoria Street, with premises at 55 Victoria Street, Kirkwall (Wine & Spirit Merchant business ‘William Swanney’ established 1875), at death in August 1913; left total Estate in UK worth £2,288: 0: 3 (Orkney Archives SC11/38/21, 24 Nov 1913) (worth £161,351.56 in 2007 prices www.measuringworth.com; executrix was Miss Jane Ann Wilson, stepdaughter of William Linklater Swanney; whole estate was left to this Jane Ann Wilson in WL Swanney’s will dated 22 Dec 1911 registered Orkney Sheriff Court 18 Sep 1913. Included in Estate was sailing boat ‘”Thomas Henry” in Lerwick (official number 93139, registered in Hull in 1888) and valued at £500 (http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/IBON90,000-94,999.htm). The boat may have been named after Thomas Henry Ismay (1837-1899), founder of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company (White Star Line) or Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895), botanist, or both. 

Notes:

Notes: William Swanney b.1868 was brought up by Mary Tait (b. 23 July 1835 on Eday, Orkney), his aunt, the older sister of William Linklater Swanney, and her husband John Tait (b. 24 August 1834 on Eday, Orkney).  Like his brother-in-law William Linklater Swanney, who became a licensed grocer in Kirkwall after working as a sailor in the merchant navy, John Tait became a Kirkwall grocer after having worked as an “agricultural labourer” (farm servant?).  The Taits lived and kept shop in Wellington Street. 

CHECK BURIAL RECORDS FOR BETSY WARDS AND WILLIAM L SWANNEY (LOCAL PRESS, COUNCIL). 

References:

1. Material supplied by Maureen Hunter, g grand daughter of William Linklater Swanney, living at 8 Hillpark Crescent, Edinburgh EH4 7BG (tel 0131 336 4835) (contact details current at 5/11/2008) in 1997: inventory, confirmation and will of William Swanney; OPR index pages for Orkney; pedigree chart & drop-line chart; photos of WLS …
2. Margaret Shearer (widow of Robert Halcrow Swanney) was visited in the late 1940s by Mum and the family.  Mum remembers her as Auntie Maggie; in fact she was her father’s step-uncle’s widow, the wife of her grandfather William Swanney’s half brother. 
3. According to Maureen Hunter, Barbara Horne had previously been married to Jack Swan (who had changed his name from Swanney).  Barbara Horner’s marriage certificate states, however, that she was a spinster, aged 27 years.  Perhaps she married Jack Swan after Charles Swanney died?

Notes.

1. Presumably Robert Swanney was captain of the previous vessel to the [MV] NLB [Northern Lighthouse Board] vessel ‘Pole Star’, lighthouse tender, pictured here at NLB pier in Stromness in 1967 (http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/imagelibrary/picture/number11289.asp, consulted 4 January 2010) and photographed here at lighthouse pier, Stromness, 1981 (http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/imagelibrary/picture/number1773.asp, consulted 4 January 2010) and here at ferry pier, Stromness, probably in 2001 (http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/imagelibrary/picture/number2624.asp, consulted 4 January 2010) and here at her pier in Stromness when newly built in 1961 (http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/imagelibrary/picture/number2806.asp, http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/imagelibrary/picture/number3101.asp, and former NLS pole Star crew in 2007 (http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/imagelibrary/picture/number22557.asp, all consulted 4 January 2010; the fourth Northern Lighthouse Board, 84 George Street, Edinburgh, NLV Pole Star was completed in a Glasgow shipyard in 2000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLV_Pole_Star, consulted 4 January 2010); photo taken in 2009 at (http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/imagelibrary/picture/number22569.asp, consulted 4 January 2010); and not “The Captain of The Polestar” in the Victorian ghost novel of that name by Arthur Conan Doyle!  According to the second website reference above, the MV Pole Star was built in 1961 by Caledon yard in Dundee and later operated as a cruise vessel in the West Indies before being scrapped.
2. Did “Charlie Swanney’s shed”, in Kirkwall Harbour, 1969, belong to Robert Swanney’s son Charles, or his brother Charles?  Or no relation?  See photo at (http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/imagelibrary/picture/number3442.asp, consulted 4 January 2010)
3. William Linklater Swanney was living at 38 Victoria Street, Kirkwall, Orkney Islands (modern postcode KW15 1DN) UK, with his wife Jane and sons Robert and Charles, in 1881, but by 1903 was living at 53 Victoria Street (second wife Jane’s death certificate); his shop was at 55 Victoria Street, about 50 yards further south down the street from number 38 (the shop location is given in 1881, 1913 and in later adverts for it under new management). 
4. William’s and Jane’s home address at 38 Victoria Street was about 300 yards south-south west of St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall.  Originally, whether you were an Uppie or a Doonie depended on your place of birth, those born north of the Cathedral being Doonies with Uppies those born to the south (www.orkneyjar.com/tradition/bagame/index.html, retrieved 4 January 2010).  This doesn’t necessarily mean, apparently, that William or his sons Robert and Charles would have been “Doonies” in the Ba Game!  (Up-the-Gates or Doon-the-Gates) The sides friends or family played on, or the route taken on their first arrival in Kirkwall, amongst other variables, are determining factors (www.bagame.com/bahistory.html, retrieved 4 January 2010).  William’s son from his first marriage, William Swanney, lived with his aunt at Wellington Street, across Junction Road from the continuation of Victoria Street, about 700 yards south west of the cathedral. 

In 1919 Jane Ann Wilson assigned the Bond for £200 by Obadiah Sutherland to William Swanney, which she had been left in William's will, to William Sinclair, merchant and Registrar, Finstown, parish of Firth, the deed being recorded in the Register of Sasines  and dated 30 July 1919 (Book 199/92).  By the same deed, she also assigned to Sinclair "the Hotel or Inn, described in titles as the Manor Place and Dwelling House and Piece of ground at the Shore side, all in Saint Margaret's Hope, in Island of South Ronaldsay" (under exception). 

Updated by Peter Symon 23 January 2010 and 18 April 2015.

Captain Robert Swanney made repeated attempts during a southern gale to land his Northern Lighthouse steamer Pole Star at Pentland Skerries lighthouse to bring medical aid, in the person of Dr Cromarty, to the principal lighthouse keeper, Mr Wood, one of the three lighthouse keepers, who had been ill for a week ("Isolated Scots Lighthouse Keeper Ill For over a Week", Courier and Advertiser, p.7, Wednesday, 20 February, 1929).  The alert was raised by Morse lamp signals to Mr Budge, the boatman at Brough Ness, five miles away at South Ronadlsay.

Robert Halcrow Swanney's will

Robert Swanney, son of William Linklater Swanney and Jane Halcrow Wilson, died in 1937, testate, leaving a widow (Margaret "Maggie" Shearer or Swanney) and five sons.  His will was confirmed along with the inventory in Kirkwall Sheriff Court the same year.  The inventory comprised:

Household furniture and personal effects                                                                                                       £76.9s.9d

Saloon motor car                                                                                                                                                       £170

Sum due to deceased by Northern Lighthouse Board in respect of pension to date of death        £3.6s.8d

Income tax repayable by Inland Revenue                                                                                                         £18.18s.10d

Total    £268.15s.3d

The will left his whole property to his two sons Charles Edward and Bryce Leask Swanney in trust for his wife Maggie Swanney and her to have liferent of the same during her widowhood and on her second marriage or death the whole property to be realised and the proceeds equally divided among his five sons.

(Information supplied by Orkney Archives, 23 April 2015, with thanks.)

An article by Maureen Hunter about her research into her grandfather Robert Swanney's reports to the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB) was published in the Newsletter of the Orkney Family History Society in 2010 (issue no. 53, March 2010, pages 16-18, published online in PDF). The correspondence presented in the article concerns repairs to the NLB's ship Pole Star, which was under the command of Captain Robert Swanney, and covers the period August 10th, 1916, to August 13th, 1934, by which time the ship was under different command, Captain Swanney having been taken to Chalmers Hospital in Edinburgh on Sunday, April 22nd, 1934, with a serious illness which led to leave of absence. Most of the correspondence reproduced in the article relates to the period 1927-1931 and concerns the replacement of the ship and the commissioning of a new vessel, also called Pole Star.  Robert Swanney (1878-1937) died three years after taking leave of absence and relinquishing command of the llighthouse ship.