McNEILL HERITAGE
Many thanks to Roderick Drummond of New Zealand, who has very kindly forwarded a wonderful package of McNeill materials. The list includes entries from Burke's Landed Gentry and Burke's Extinct Peerage, copies of family trees of N.Z. McNeills descended from Alexander McNeill (1834-1915), who married Mary Bryce Leighton (1840 - 1902). Also a copy of the tree of reputed descendants of Lord Colonsay (1793 - 1874) by his union with Hannah Craig. There is also a note of the issue of Sir John McNeill (1795 - 1883), and of Forbes McNeill (1801 - 1845) by Beatrice McDougall (1803-1859) - could this have been the dowager for whom Baleromindubh was built?
Other material includes notices of Major William Bannerman Craig D.S.O., R.M.O., 22nd Battalion A.I.F. and his service at the Somme, also grand-daughter of James Craig (1835 - 1910), Alison Drummond (1903 - 1984) and grand-daughter of Alexander McNeill (1834 - 1915) Thyra Acres (1910 - 1994). Alison and Thyra were both active as writers and in the fields of art. There are two family letters concerning Lord Colonsay's union with Hannah Craig, some interesting articles about Sir John Carstairs McNeill (including the auctioneer's catalogue account in connection with the sale of his V.C.) and two tributes to Alexander McNeill.
This obituary is taken from "The Ensign" April 1st 1915:
"Many of the older generation in Southland will learn with regret of the death of Mr Alexander McNeill, which occurred at Wanganul yesterday. The late Mr McNeill was born in 1833, and had therefore attained the age of 82 years. Born in Scotland, he was educated for the army and in due course joined the Royal Engineers. As a captain in that branch of the service he served through the Indian Mutiny. Some years after the Mutiny had been quelled Captain McNeill found it necessary on the score of his wife's health to leave India and he redeemed his commission and came out to New Zealand with his brother Malcolm, now Sir Malcolm McNeill, of Edinburgh. The two brothers took up the Ardlussa Estate in Southland, and though Malcolm had returned to Scotland the late mr McNeill carried on the estate until 1879 and then removed to Wanganul where he lived until his death. Upon the death of his brother, Sir John McNeill [Alexander became the senior member of the family; and after Alexander's own death] Carstairs, of Silverstream, Wellington now succeeds to that honour. Mr McNeill leaves five sons and five daughters to mourn his death, the only daughter in the South Island being Mrs Denniston Cuthbertson, Invercargill. For some years past it has been Mr McNeill's practice to spend part of the summer with his daughter here, and he thus renewed many old friendships, while those who had the privilege of meeting him will not soon forget his agreeable personality, and his interesting conversation, enriched with the experiences of a long and eventful life and enlivened from the resources of a well-stored mind."
The following article is rather more informative and is taken from a series called "The Conquerors - Saga of the Stations", written by "The Wanderer" and published on 28 January 1935 in "Southland Times".
ARDLUSSA
Captain Alexander McNeill and his brother, Malcolm, acquired Ardlussa, a station situated on the banks of the Mataura river, very shortly after the Maori Wars had died down. They were both soldiers who hailed from a family of distinguished warriors whose daring deeds and adventures are oft-times mentioned in Highland history and legend. Their brother, Sir John McNeill, V.C., was at that period equerry to her Majesty Queen Victoria, and before coming to New Zealand, CaptainMcNeill had belonged to the Royal Engineers. He and his brothers had fought through the tragic Indian Mutiny. He had a large family which are now married and settled throughout New Zealand, and he was one of the pioneer-squatters who fought and failed in early Southland. He became a runholder when the Great Slump and the Old Man flood were ahead of him, and when scab, pluer, and the "Doze" were killing off the sheep by the thousands. Then came the reign of the rabbits and with all these evils to contend with Ardlussa did not prove a paying proposition.
Captain McNeill was a big man in every way - in stature and in mind, and he was rightly proud of his illustrious family and his Highland blood. Oft-times he would be seen, striding along over his vast property, or mounted on a horse, dressed in Highland costume fashioned from the McNeill plaid, and many a queer story is told concerning him; how a man going to work at Benmore station had a great difficulty in finding his way there, and on being asked why he had not made enquiries at other stations replied: "Well, I did go up to one house a long way back, but I saw a huge woman on the verandah with a very short skirt and bared knees, and she was actually smoking. Will, I did not like the look of her, so I came away." This so-called woman was Captain McNeill in his kilts.
The Invercargill Land Office supplies the following information concerning Ardlussa and the transfer from Captain McNeill to Robert Chapman, who held the homestead block until Ardlussa run was transformed into the Ardlussa settlement:
Ardlussa - acquired in 1867 by Robert Wilson deceased, and acquired in 1869 by Alexander and Malcolm McNeill. Acquired by Australian Mortgage, Land and Finance Company in 1879 and acquired by Chapman in 1884. Run 394 - area 22,500 acres.
Captain McNeill, like other squatters, imported rabbits and bred them as a hobby, and it is a fact that he sacked a man he employed for the great crime of shooting one of his pets. When the Old Man flood came down and swept over the land, Captain McNeill was heard to remark that there was no doubt what-so-ever that this flood would cause a great deal of havoc but he added "If it will drown some of these damned rabbits, it will do more good than harm." In an old hotel called the Pyramid many men were sitting on the raised verandah watching the many waters swirl past, and with rakes and sticks were hauling in rabbits by the score as they were swept by in the raging flood. Every time they succeeded in making a good haul, it was drinks all round, shouted for by the lucky angler. The old Pyramid Hotel has long since gone from the land, but there still remain a few of the men who remember and repeat the great times and merry meetings which would take place there. Amongsat the men who knew Ardlussa and the surrounding district in the oild days is Mr S Stevens, of Mossburn, one-time shepherd at Ardlussa, who relates the following narrative:
"I left England for New Zealand in 1874, and arrived at Lyttelton at the end of that year. I first of all settled up near Lake Coleridge, and worked there, but afterwards hearing about Southland, I decided to come down and see this new province. I arrived here in 1877, and obtained work at Ardlussa. I remember that the old residents of Southland were still talking a bout the Old Man flood of 1863, and telling me that there had never been anything to equal it. But saw the 1878 Old Man flood, and that was enough for me. Ardlussa was a beautiful place. The house was situated on a spur above the Mataura river; below they had a boat. Captain McNeill would have two gardeners working to beautify his home, and they put in plantations of trees for shelter-belts, orchard and strawberry beds and flower garden. Captain McNeill was a fine upstanding man who had been through the Indian Mutiny, and he and his family were all great riders. He had a splendid horse named Tasman.
"At the station when I was there, was a certain Sergeant McPherson who had been through the Indian Mutiny with Captain McNeill, and on one occasion, when quelling an attack, they had been very hard pressed and had stood back to back to protect each other from the enemy. Sergeant McPherson afterwards became the first schoolteacher in Lumsden. On Ardlussa there were about 20,000 half-bred Merino sheep, and many cattle; but many of the cattle had gone wild. I will remember the great Old Man flood of 1878. The snow started falling in early Julu, and the thaw did not set in until September. It was really a series of floods from then until well on into October. I used to go for the mail once a week and the snow was breast-high, but before the thaw set in, one of the McNeill children was born, and I had to go all the way to Waikuia for the doctor. A slow journey it was, and when I got there the doctor wondered if we could manage to return to Ardlussa, and we did, though the snow was breast-high on the horses. There were wonderful animals bred in the old days, and they plunged and plodded on, and we eventually arrived at the station in good time. The thaw started with a warm nor'-wester one afternoon in early September, and I remember an old rabbiter telling Captain McNeill that if the wind continued they would have a bigger flood than they had in 1863 by next morning. Captain McNeill said: "Good luck if it's from terrace to terrace, so long as it plays havoc with the rabbits." Next morning from the heights of the Ardlussa homestead all around was a hunge inland sea. People reported great catches of rabbits, especially from the verandah of the old Pyramid Hotel where, armed with hooked sticks and rakes and forks, they were scooping up rabbits by the score as the flood waters rushed by. Shortly after this flood went down, we had another flood, and still more, and there was absolutely no hope whatever of saving the sheep.
"In 1879 Captain McNeill disposed of Ardlussa to the Australian Mortgage, Land and Finance Company, and he and his family went down to Invercargill, where they resided for a while at Kenilworth, the old home of the well-known McKellar family. The McNeills afterwards went up north to the Wanganul district, where they remained until the death of both Mrs and Captain McNeill, and now the large family who were at the Ardlussa Station are scattered all over New Zealand."
Note: The original Ardlussa, in Jura, had been purchased from John McLean of Loch Buie by Donald McNeill of Colonsay in 1737. It became attached to the Colonsay estate and was included in John McNeil's purchase of 1805. When his son Alexander married, in 1830, John McNeill settled Colonsay upon him, to accompany Gigha which had been gifted by his new father-in-law; Alexander completed the set when he purchased Ardlussa from his father in 1835. Unhappily, the Colonsay part of the estate was by now saddled with enormous and increasing debt, so as soon as his father died Alexander sold Colonsay to his brother Duncan. Although Duncan had hitherto occupied Ardlussa and had built the present mansion house, ownership of Ardlussa was retained by Alexander.
When Alexander, together with his wife and two daughters, was lost in the wreck of the "Orion" in 1850, Ardlussa fell to be administered by trustees, with limited succession to Alexander's nineteen year old son, John Carstairs McNeill. His orphaned siblings included sixteen-year old Alexander and eleven year old Malcolm as well as two others. Things went badly with Ardlussa under the trustees - it failed first as a sheep farm, then as a deer forest, then again under sheep, was then sold in 1854, then re-purchased by the family in 1858 and was only finally sold off in 1874. As far as the youngsters were concerned, it had been lost whilst they were still in their minority and it must have been a heavy blow for the younger Alexander McNeill when he lost the second Ardlussa too, after the disastrous Old Man flood.
NEWS FROM RON ARMSTRONG
Dear Kevin and Freens at Colonsay,
It is a wee while since I brought up the Colonsay page on my
computer, so I was pleasantly surprise (delighted in fact) when I saw
such an ambitious and informative website, much more so than the last
time I scanned the Colonsay website. I did not even know about the
Corncrake, l but I remember seeing and hearing a corncrake when we were
staying in the Baptist Manse and by dint of patience and slow creeping
round corners of the house, we frequently saw the beautiful creature.
I hope his descendants are still around.
Well this is Ron Armstrong, Baptist Minister, and frequent
visitor to the island, but not lately I am afraid - the trouble is that
ten years ago we retired and came to live in Somerset, near Bristol.
We love our wee retirement house here, but we are sorry to be so far
away from all our kith and kin friends, including many on Colonsay. I
hope we can make it soon again.
I contacted Eleanor McNeil about a month ago, but it seemed the
Baptist Manse was fully booked for this year. Rita and I would love to
come, but it is now 600 miles each way, and that is a lot of mileage to
tackle in a wee car and we are now both in our Seventies. We have been
flying to Edinburgh a couple of times to see our families, but that
means we are stuck without a car which then limits our mobility to
places like Colonsay. I keep meaning to enquire about the feasability
of putting the car onto the train which would deliver us right to the
keyside at Oban. This would be expensive but it would enable us to
visit the island we love, so I am still making enquiries. [Sadly - no longer an option - Editor]
Some of the senior citizens on Colonsay will remember the
Armstrongs. We paid our first visit to the Baptist Manse about 1958/9
- we were nearly cheated of that holiday because there was a seaman`s
strike announced just the day after we planned to come across...so we
immediately brought the date of travel back two days and managed to get
to Colonsay. The clerk at the MacBrayne`s office where I was making
the booking said severely "Well the boat is sailing on Wednesday, but
the strike takes place the next day and we don`t know how long you will
have to wait at Colonsay to return". I said, "Look I need a holiday and
so does my family and we are not going to be cheated out of our Colonsay
holiday by a little thing like a nation-wide N.U.S. Strike". "But,
but..." he protested...I continued "So long as we get to Colonsay OK, I
don`t care how long we will be stranded there - I wouldn`t mind being
the Baptist minister on Colonsay for a couple of years". So we
hastily packed, got the train to Greenock (we lived in Glasgow then)
and caught the boat OK. We spent that night tied up at Mull - the
captain insisted we leave the boat overnight since she was not licenced
to carry sleeping passengers (!).
So he radioed ahead to book us two beds at Port Askaig, we got to bed
at the hotel at 1 a.m. we were wakened by the alarm clock (kindly
loaned by the manager) at 6 am. By the bedside was a thermos full of
tea, with a few biscuits and the bill - a note said, "Just leave the
money on the table".
When we arrived Finlay was able to squeeze us and our pram onto
his bus, and delivered us at the Baptist Manse. There was hardly any
food in the pantry, we didn`t have a car, so Rita and the bairns went
to bed for a couple of hours, and I shouldered my rucksack and hiked up
over the hills by the shortcut to Scalasaig. Two shoppers were
asking (in Gaelic) the position about sugar and salt if the strike
was going to last. I managed to buy a few essentials and hiked back
to my starving family.
We had a great holiday, even if some foodstuffs ran a bit low
during the strike (porridge three times a day is very satisfying).
Unfortunately the strike did not last, and we had to return to Glasgow
at the scheduled time I was due to finish my holiday (shame).
So thanks Kevin and all others who are busy preparing the
website, and thanks for those beautiful photographs - I just feel like
getting the next train to Oban and catching the boat in the morning.
Family news - we had two children when we first arrived on
Colonsay, Duncan and Helen. The first is now a computer wizard with
his own company and lives in Edinburgh with our only grandson Colin and
wife, Jaqui. Helen married Douglas Drysdale and they begat two
daughters (our granddaughters). Douglas and Helen worked as missionaries
for seven years in Zaire (now Congo), and then they came home again to
Dunfermline where I was minister.
One of those granddaughters gave birth to our only great-grandchild last
year, wee Matthew Thompson. Douglas is a social worker, Helen is
nurse in a clinic at the West of Fife main hospital, Esther is a
dental nurse-receptionist (she is mother of Matthew), and Joanna is
finishing her training to be a childrens` nurse quite soon, she is
living in Edinburgh.
While we working at Cathcart Baptist Church our next two bairns
were born, but I will tell you more about them next time (if Kevin
agrees) - suffice to say the oldest one is a teacher living near us
here in the south, they have no children, it is great that we see
Martin quite a lot. Our no. 4 child, Andrew who was bright as a
button, died of leukaemia after two weeks illness only. That was in
1986 and he was only 24, married for 18 months " and our hearts are
still aye sair".
Rita is calling me to dinner - so that`s all for now ffffolks.
Blessings on you all and greetings to all who remember
us.
Ron and Rita Armstrong
