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For the latest news from Scotland see our ScotNews feed at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/
Electric Scotland News
As you would expect still lots of talk about a second Scottish referendum and more discussions on Brexit. From what I have heardalready some 12 countries have indicated their willingness to start negotiating trade deals, including China, Australia, Malaysia, South Korea, India, USA – and there will be more to come. Such deals will offer a tempting prospect to Scottish businesses and our economy. Would Scotland, already trading nearly four times as much with the rest of the UK than it does with the EU, really want to miss out on these new opportunities when access to the single market would still be possible?
Remember that when a trade deal is done with the EU all 28 countries need to approve it. As you can imagine to get 28 countries onboard is quite a task as they all have their own unique issues. Now anyone wishing to do a trade deal with the UK only needs to work with us so deals are likely to be a lot quicker.
You often see the demand that the UK must respect Scotland's decisions but there is actually no sign of Scotland respecting England's decisions. Seems to me that Scots need to be a bit fairer as after all England is by far Scotland's largest export market taking some 70% of our exports to the EU. Also some 800,000 Scots are living and working in England.
Like the vote for Trident was 472 votes to 117 so a large majority for retaining it. We now see SNP calls for Trident to be removed from Clyde. The SNP said Scotland's decision against renewal should be respected.
So how does Scotland respect England's decisions? I have seen nothing so far to suggest Scotland is doing anything to respect England's decisions. Makes you think doesn't it?
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
Note that this is a selection and more can be read in our ScotNews feed on our index page. I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines.
PM is willing to listen to options on Scotland
But after talks in Edinburgh, Mrs May appeared unwilling to consider a second referendum on Scottish independence.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...itics-36800536
Glasgow hosts the 2016 Homeless World Cup
A specially built city centre football arena has been treated to a tournament of rain, sun, goals and smiles as Glasgow hosts the 14th Homeless World Cup.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-36787368
MPs vote to renew Trident weapons system
MPs have backed the renewal of the UK's Trident nuclear weapons system, voting 472 to 117 in favour in Parliament.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36830923
Proposals to allow stop and search of children under fire
The prospect of new police powers to stop and search children in Scotland has prompted concerns from leading law figures.
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politic...fire-1-4180451
What options would an independent Scotland have outside the UK?
Britain is headed for the exit. But some in Scotland want to stay, even if that means its own exit from the UK.
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/what-op...e-uk-1-4181222
Scottish independence would bring five years of cuts, says SNP MP
Scotland could face five years of “painful” budget cuts if it votes for independence in a post-Brexit referendum, an SNP MP involved in planning for a new Scottish currency
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politic...p-mp-1-4181483
UK Attorney General dismisses Scottish Remain vote
THE UK’s top law officer has dismissed Scotland’s vote to remain in the European Union (EU) and insisted all of the United Kingdom will leave.
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/brexit-...vote-1-4183135
Oldest map of Scotland goes on display in Edinburgh
The first ever printed image of Scotland is set to go on public display as part of a major exhibition of some of the world’s most magnificent maps.
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/heritage/peo...urgh-1-4182873
Electric Canadian
Scotch Tenant-Farmers
On the Agricultural Resources of Canada. The Reports of Mr. John Steven, Purroch Farm, Hurlford, Ayrshire; and Mr. Alex. Fraser, Balloch of Culloden, Inverness, on their visit to Canada in 1893.
You can read this at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...armscanada.pdf
Electric Scotland
Dictionary of National Biography
I have worked on bringing you some more biographies from this publication. In most cases I have added a link to these at the foot of the page for the name in our "Scottish Nation".
Agnew http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...tion/agnew.htm
Ainslie http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...on/ainslie.htm
Aitken http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ion/aitken.htm
Aiton http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...tion/aiton.htm
Alexander http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../alexander.htm
Alison http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ion/alison.htm
Allan http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...tion/allan.htm
Anderson http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...n/anderson.htm
George Forbes
Added an article and book about him to his page at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...bes_george.htm
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Got in section 2 of the August 2016 edition.
You can download this from http://www.electricscotland.com/bnft/index.htm
Hylton Newsletter
Summer 2016 in Caithness which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...etters/hylton/
A Father's Legacy to his Daughters
By Dr John Gregory. I added a link to this book on his biography page at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...egory_john.htm
Edward Forbes
Memoir of Edward Forbes added to our Famous Scots section at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...bes_edward.htm
Robert Barclay Allardice
Added a short biography about him to this name in our Scottish Nation at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../allardice.htm
The Native Steam-Boat Companion
Embracing the Names, Etymons, and Antiquities, of every object of note on the routes from Glasgow to Staffa, Iona, Skye, Fort William, Glenco, Glen Finan, the Seat of Prince, C.E. Stuart's Monument, Glen Albin, Inverness, &c. embodying a new and most minute Historical and Descriptive Account of I-Colm-Kill, or Iona by Lachlan MacLean (1845)
You can read this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/book...steamboats.pdf
Scottish Society of Indianapolis
Got in the Summer 2016 Newsletter which you can view at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...olis/index.htm
The Story
Alexander Inkson McConnochie
Scottish Author and Chartered Accountant
I thought this week I'd provide a small biography of this famous author and having read it you can then visit his page on our site where we have managed to find several of his books for you to read.
The Works of Alexander Inkson McConnochie...
"Ben Muich Dhui and His Neighbours: A Guide to the Cairngorm Mountains" - 1885
"Bennachie" - 1890
"Lochnagar" - 1891
"Deeside" - 1895
"The Royal Dee: A Description of the River from the Wells to the Sea" - 1898
"The Book of Ellon" by James H Brown as edited by Alex. Inkson McConnochie - 1901
"Donside" - 1901
"Strathspey" - 1902
"Guide to Aviemore and Vicinity" - 1907
Alexander Inkson (1850-1936), who, by the 1871 Census, had changed his name to Alexander Inkson McConnochie, was the elder son of William Inkston Jnr. (1823-1882) [Journeyman Shoemaker] and Jane McConnochie (1829-1861) who had married on the 25th of May 1847 in Rothes, Moray, Scotland.
Jane McConnochie, christened in Rothes on the 14th of June, 1829, was an illegitimate daughter of William McConnochie [Farmer] and Janet Ledingham
William Inkston Jnr., born in Rothes on 25th September, 1823, was a son of William Inkston Snr. and Elspat Ross.
Alexander, the subject of this mini-biography, was the first-born of William Inkson Jnr, and Jane McConnochie on the 19th of February 1850 in Rothes, Moray, Scotland and he was christened there as Alexander Inkson on the 23rd of March 1850.
Alexander’s younger brother, William McConnochie Inkson was born in Rothes on the 25th of September, 1852, and his sister Helen Inkson on the 22nd of July, 1855.
No more siblings were born until, on the 24th of December, 1861, a premature baby girl arrived only to die 20 hours later on Christmas Day. Sadly, four days later, on the 29th of December, mother Jane died as a result of the problems caused by the premature birth of her second daughter.
In the 1861 Census taken on the 7th of April, Alexander Inkson was at school in Oyne, Aberdeenshire where he was living with his Aunt Helen (McConnochie) Maitland [another illegitimate daughter of William McConnochie and Janet Ledingham] and her Stationmaster husband, Erskine Maitland.
Then, in the 1871 Census, Alexander is registered as Alexander Inkson McConnochie [Law Clerk] living with his unmarried Grandmother Janet Ledingham at 75 Chapel Street, Old Machar, Aberdeen.
Meantime, Alexander’s father, widower William Inkson Jnr., had procreated an illegitimate daughter Isabel with an Isabella Burgess in 1863, but then married another lady on the 24th of May, 1864 …. nineteen year old Mary Gordon with whom he had four children in Rothes by 1871, and another four by 1881, before he died aged c. 60 in 1882.
It thus seems a reasonable hypothesis that his father’s ‘behaviour’ caused his son, Alexander Inkston, to change his surname to his late mother’s maiden surname, McConnochie.
The next sight of Alexander in official records appears with his marriage to Wilhelmina Johnston Thom, daughter of Alexander Thom [Journeyman Mason] and Elizabeth (Johnston) Thom on the 27th March, 1873 at 24 Regent Quay, St Nicholas, Aberdeen. But tragedy strikes on the 24th of January, 1874 when Childbirth Peritonitis kills Wilhelmina. Thus widower Alexander has not only lost his mother in childbirth, but also his wife!
By 1881, Alexander is a qualified chartered accountant, but, as yet, there is no sign from public records that he is developing writing talent by publishing detailed descriptions gleaned from roaming the highlands and lowlands of Aberdeenshire and neighbouring shires. However, this changes with the success of his publication in 1885 of, "Ben Muich Dhui and His Neighbours: A Guide to the Cairngorm Mountains". Two more books followed … "Bennachie" in 1890, and then "Lochnagar" in 1891, when the 1991 Census shows him still following his career as a chartered accountant in Aberdeen.
1896 was a happy year for Alexander, when he married a London artist and sculptor, Catherine Henrietta Emilie SCHLESINGER, born in 1865 in Islington to Antoni Schlesinger, originally from Frankfurt, Germany, and his wife Florence, originally from Florence, Italy. The marriage took place in St. Pancras, London in the autumn of that year. Then in the 1901 Scottish Census the couple are shown to be living in the Rubislaw Parish of St. Machar District of Aberdeen, with Alexander still a chartered accountant.
No doubt while Catherine was busy with her painting and sculpting, Alexander must have been continuing with his trekking around the neighbouring countryside gathering material for the following publications …
"Deeside" in 1895 - "The Royal Dee: A Description of the River from the Wells to the Sea" in 1898 "The Book of Ellon" by James H Brown as edited by Alex. Inkson McConnochie in 1901, and "Donside" also in 1901. No children are listed with them in 1901, and again they are childless in the 1911 Census in Glasgow; not surprising when Alexander was by then 65 years of age and Catherine c. 46. The following, probably last, publications, appeared in 1902 and 1907 respectively… v.i.z. "Strathspey" and "Guide to Aviemore and Vicinity". It is clear that at some stage between 1911 and 1936 they removed to live down South, as Alexander died, aged 86 in March, 1936 in Hendon, Middlesex, England. Thereafter, in due course, Widow Catherine must have made her hometown Hove, Sussex, England, for her death, in her late 80s, is registered there in June, 1952.
We couldn't find all his books but the ones we did find are...
Guide to Aviemore and vicinity
Bennachie
Lochnagar
Royal Dee
Book Of Ellon
And you can read these at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...cconnochie.htm
To give you a little taste of his writing here is part of Chapter 1 from his book "Lochnagar"...
The mighty jewel of LochnagarWhen ye White Mounth frae snaw is clear,
Ye day o’ doom is drawin’ near.
FROM many localities in the North-East of the central division of Scotland, especially in the i* County of Aberdeen and in the valley of the river Dee, a high mountain attracts the eye, from its majestic aspect, its precipices, and its culminating ridge and peak. This mountain, popularly called Lochnagar, but more correctly the White Mounth, is situated on the South side of the Dee in its upper part—some 45 miles inland from the North Sea—and forms the highest point in a mountain range which was long known among the high lands of Scotland by the name of the Mounth, and more recently as part of a larger range called the Grampians. The mountain range of the Mounth may be deemed to extend along the South side of the Dee upwards of 60 miles in a direction W.S.W. from the sea at the Girdleness (a little south of Aberdeen), along the conterminous borders of the County of Aberdeen on the North, and the Counties of Kincardine, Forfar and Perth on the South, to Cam an Fhidleir, at the South-West corner of the County of Aberdeen, near the head or North end of Glen Tilt Here the Mounth abuts at a right angle on a great mountain range called the Dorsum Britannia or Drum Alban, which forms part of the ridge or backbone of Scotland, and acts as the watershed of the Tay and Forth, and part of the West boundary of Perthshire.
Mr. Skene, however, in his Celtic Scotland, says :—
“The Mounth extends in nearly a straight line across the island from the Eastern Sea, near Aberdeen, to the Western Sea at Fort-William, having in its centre and at its western termination the two highest mountains in Great Britain—Ben Muich Dhui and Ben Nevis .... If the Mounth is now known as the range of hills which separates the more southern Counties of Kincardine, Forfar, and Perth, from those of Aberdeen and Inverness on the north, it was not less known to the Venerable Bede, in the eighth century, as the steep and rugged mountains which separate the provinces of the southern from those of the northern Picts."
While about a dozen of British mountains reach a higher altitude than Lochnagar, it yet holds a distinctive place alike in fact and in fancy. It has much to offer to the student, the lover of nature, and even to the ordinary sight-seer—more than many of its nominal superiors. In the popular mind Lochnagar has had adventitious aids to its prominence. One who afterwards became a great poet lived under its shadows when he was young, and became so impressed with its wild crags and its frowning glories, that in after years he sang of them in undying strains—strains that have spread its name and its fame through all lands. Then for more than forty years, one who has been even greater as a Queen than Byron was great as a poet, has delighted to dwell at its base, and has often climbed to its summit. Thus Lochnagar has attained special distinction for itself, and through those who have been associated with it; and one may therefore be pardoned who seeks to take up the story of the mountain, and to tell, as best he can, of its configuration and its features, its peaks and its precipices, its corries and its lochs, its surroundings in glen and river, its legends and traditions as they still linger (though ever growing more indistinct) in the memories of those who have their homes within its influence. The writer hopes that he may be able to present an interesting and in some degree instructive account of the mountain which, more than any other, ever comes before the mind as essentially and characteristically Scottish, and yet having associations that seem to make it the common property of every man, woman and child, throughout the world, who has any acquaintance with English literature and history.
And that's it for this week and hope you all enjoy your weekend.
Alastair
http://www.electricscotland.com/
Electric Scotland News
As you would expect still lots of talk about a second Scottish referendum and more discussions on Brexit. From what I have heardalready some 12 countries have indicated their willingness to start negotiating trade deals, including China, Australia, Malaysia, South Korea, India, USA – and there will be more to come. Such deals will offer a tempting prospect to Scottish businesses and our economy. Would Scotland, already trading nearly four times as much with the rest of the UK than it does with the EU, really want to miss out on these new opportunities when access to the single market would still be possible?
Remember that when a trade deal is done with the EU all 28 countries need to approve it. As you can imagine to get 28 countries onboard is quite a task as they all have their own unique issues. Now anyone wishing to do a trade deal with the UK only needs to work with us so deals are likely to be a lot quicker.
You often see the demand that the UK must respect Scotland's decisions but there is actually no sign of Scotland respecting England's decisions. Seems to me that Scots need to be a bit fairer as after all England is by far Scotland's largest export market taking some 70% of our exports to the EU. Also some 800,000 Scots are living and working in England.
Like the vote for Trident was 472 votes to 117 so a large majority for retaining it. We now see SNP calls for Trident to be removed from Clyde. The SNP said Scotland's decision against renewal should be respected.
So how does Scotland respect England's decisions? I have seen nothing so far to suggest Scotland is doing anything to respect England's decisions. Makes you think doesn't it?
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
Note that this is a selection and more can be read in our ScotNews feed on our index page. I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines.
PM is willing to listen to options on Scotland
But after talks in Edinburgh, Mrs May appeared unwilling to consider a second referendum on Scottish independence.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...itics-36800536
Glasgow hosts the 2016 Homeless World Cup
A specially built city centre football arena has been treated to a tournament of rain, sun, goals and smiles as Glasgow hosts the 14th Homeless World Cup.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-36787368
MPs vote to renew Trident weapons system
MPs have backed the renewal of the UK's Trident nuclear weapons system, voting 472 to 117 in favour in Parliament.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36830923
Proposals to allow stop and search of children under fire
The prospect of new police powers to stop and search children in Scotland has prompted concerns from leading law figures.
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politic...fire-1-4180451
What options would an independent Scotland have outside the UK?
Britain is headed for the exit. But some in Scotland want to stay, even if that means its own exit from the UK.
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/what-op...e-uk-1-4181222
Scottish independence would bring five years of cuts, says SNP MP
Scotland could face five years of “painful” budget cuts if it votes for independence in a post-Brexit referendum, an SNP MP involved in planning for a new Scottish currency
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politic...p-mp-1-4181483
UK Attorney General dismisses Scottish Remain vote
THE UK’s top law officer has dismissed Scotland’s vote to remain in the European Union (EU) and insisted all of the United Kingdom will leave.
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/brexit-...vote-1-4183135
Oldest map of Scotland goes on display in Edinburgh
The first ever printed image of Scotland is set to go on public display as part of a major exhibition of some of the world’s most magnificent maps.
Read more at:
http://www.scotsman.com/heritage/peo...urgh-1-4182873
Electric Canadian
Scotch Tenant-Farmers
On the Agricultural Resources of Canada. The Reports of Mr. John Steven, Purroch Farm, Hurlford, Ayrshire; and Mr. Alex. Fraser, Balloch of Culloden, Inverness, on their visit to Canada in 1893.
You can read this at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...armscanada.pdf
Electric Scotland
Dictionary of National Biography
I have worked on bringing you some more biographies from this publication. In most cases I have added a link to these at the foot of the page for the name in our "Scottish Nation".
Agnew http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...tion/agnew.htm
Ainslie http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...on/ainslie.htm
Aitken http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ion/aitken.htm
Aiton http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...tion/aiton.htm
Alexander http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../alexander.htm
Alison http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ion/alison.htm
Allan http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...tion/allan.htm
Anderson http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...n/anderson.htm
George Forbes
Added an article and book about him to his page at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...bes_george.htm
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Got in section 2 of the August 2016 edition.
You can download this from http://www.electricscotland.com/bnft/index.htm
Hylton Newsletter
Summer 2016 in Caithness which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...etters/hylton/
A Father's Legacy to his Daughters
By Dr John Gregory. I added a link to this book on his biography page at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...egory_john.htm
Edward Forbes
Memoir of Edward Forbes added to our Famous Scots section at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...bes_edward.htm
Robert Barclay Allardice
Added a short biography about him to this name in our Scottish Nation at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../allardice.htm
The Native Steam-Boat Companion
Embracing the Names, Etymons, and Antiquities, of every object of note on the routes from Glasgow to Staffa, Iona, Skye, Fort William, Glenco, Glen Finan, the Seat of Prince, C.E. Stuart's Monument, Glen Albin, Inverness, &c. embodying a new and most minute Historical and Descriptive Account of I-Colm-Kill, or Iona by Lachlan MacLean (1845)
You can read this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/book...steamboats.pdf
Scottish Society of Indianapolis
Got in the Summer 2016 Newsletter which you can view at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...olis/index.htm
The Story
Alexander Inkson McConnochie
Scottish Author and Chartered Accountant
I thought this week I'd provide a small biography of this famous author and having read it you can then visit his page on our site where we have managed to find several of his books for you to read.
The Works of Alexander Inkson McConnochie...
"Ben Muich Dhui and His Neighbours: A Guide to the Cairngorm Mountains" - 1885
"Bennachie" - 1890
"Lochnagar" - 1891
"Deeside" - 1895
"The Royal Dee: A Description of the River from the Wells to the Sea" - 1898
"The Book of Ellon" by James H Brown as edited by Alex. Inkson McConnochie - 1901
"Donside" - 1901
"Strathspey" - 1902
"Guide to Aviemore and Vicinity" - 1907
Alexander Inkson (1850-1936), who, by the 1871 Census, had changed his name to Alexander Inkson McConnochie, was the elder son of William Inkston Jnr. (1823-1882) [Journeyman Shoemaker] and Jane McConnochie (1829-1861) who had married on the 25th of May 1847 in Rothes, Moray, Scotland.
Jane McConnochie, christened in Rothes on the 14th of June, 1829, was an illegitimate daughter of William McConnochie [Farmer] and Janet Ledingham
William Inkston Jnr., born in Rothes on 25th September, 1823, was a son of William Inkston Snr. and Elspat Ross.
Alexander, the subject of this mini-biography, was the first-born of William Inkson Jnr, and Jane McConnochie on the 19th of February 1850 in Rothes, Moray, Scotland and he was christened there as Alexander Inkson on the 23rd of March 1850.
Alexander’s younger brother, William McConnochie Inkson was born in Rothes on the 25th of September, 1852, and his sister Helen Inkson on the 22nd of July, 1855.
No more siblings were born until, on the 24th of December, 1861, a premature baby girl arrived only to die 20 hours later on Christmas Day. Sadly, four days later, on the 29th of December, mother Jane died as a result of the problems caused by the premature birth of her second daughter.
In the 1861 Census taken on the 7th of April, Alexander Inkson was at school in Oyne, Aberdeenshire where he was living with his Aunt Helen (McConnochie) Maitland [another illegitimate daughter of William McConnochie and Janet Ledingham] and her Stationmaster husband, Erskine Maitland.
Then, in the 1871 Census, Alexander is registered as Alexander Inkson McConnochie [Law Clerk] living with his unmarried Grandmother Janet Ledingham at 75 Chapel Street, Old Machar, Aberdeen.
Meantime, Alexander’s father, widower William Inkson Jnr., had procreated an illegitimate daughter Isabel with an Isabella Burgess in 1863, but then married another lady on the 24th of May, 1864 …. nineteen year old Mary Gordon with whom he had four children in Rothes by 1871, and another four by 1881, before he died aged c. 60 in 1882.
It thus seems a reasonable hypothesis that his father’s ‘behaviour’ caused his son, Alexander Inkston, to change his surname to his late mother’s maiden surname, McConnochie.
The next sight of Alexander in official records appears with his marriage to Wilhelmina Johnston Thom, daughter of Alexander Thom [Journeyman Mason] and Elizabeth (Johnston) Thom on the 27th March, 1873 at 24 Regent Quay, St Nicholas, Aberdeen. But tragedy strikes on the 24th of January, 1874 when Childbirth Peritonitis kills Wilhelmina. Thus widower Alexander has not only lost his mother in childbirth, but also his wife!
By 1881, Alexander is a qualified chartered accountant, but, as yet, there is no sign from public records that he is developing writing talent by publishing detailed descriptions gleaned from roaming the highlands and lowlands of Aberdeenshire and neighbouring shires. However, this changes with the success of his publication in 1885 of, "Ben Muich Dhui and His Neighbours: A Guide to the Cairngorm Mountains". Two more books followed … "Bennachie" in 1890, and then "Lochnagar" in 1891, when the 1991 Census shows him still following his career as a chartered accountant in Aberdeen.
1896 was a happy year for Alexander, when he married a London artist and sculptor, Catherine Henrietta Emilie SCHLESINGER, born in 1865 in Islington to Antoni Schlesinger, originally from Frankfurt, Germany, and his wife Florence, originally from Florence, Italy. The marriage took place in St. Pancras, London in the autumn of that year. Then in the 1901 Scottish Census the couple are shown to be living in the Rubislaw Parish of St. Machar District of Aberdeen, with Alexander still a chartered accountant.
No doubt while Catherine was busy with her painting and sculpting, Alexander must have been continuing with his trekking around the neighbouring countryside gathering material for the following publications …
"Deeside" in 1895 - "The Royal Dee: A Description of the River from the Wells to the Sea" in 1898 "The Book of Ellon" by James H Brown as edited by Alex. Inkson McConnochie in 1901, and "Donside" also in 1901. No children are listed with them in 1901, and again they are childless in the 1911 Census in Glasgow; not surprising when Alexander was by then 65 years of age and Catherine c. 46. The following, probably last, publications, appeared in 1902 and 1907 respectively… v.i.z. "Strathspey" and "Guide to Aviemore and Vicinity". It is clear that at some stage between 1911 and 1936 they removed to live down South, as Alexander died, aged 86 in March, 1936 in Hendon, Middlesex, England. Thereafter, in due course, Widow Catherine must have made her hometown Hove, Sussex, England, for her death, in her late 80s, is registered there in June, 1952.
We couldn't find all his books but the ones we did find are...
Guide to Aviemore and vicinity
Bennachie
Lochnagar
Royal Dee
Book Of Ellon
And you can read these at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...cconnochie.htm
To give you a little taste of his writing here is part of Chapter 1 from his book "Lochnagar"...
The mighty jewel of Lochnagar
Ye day o’ doom is drawin’ near.
FROM many localities in the North-East of the central division of Scotland, especially in the i* County of Aberdeen and in the valley of the river Dee, a high mountain attracts the eye, from its majestic aspect, its precipices, and its culminating ridge and peak. This mountain, popularly called Lochnagar, but more correctly the White Mounth, is situated on the South side of the Dee in its upper part—some 45 miles inland from the North Sea—and forms the highest point in a mountain range which was long known among the high lands of Scotland by the name of the Mounth, and more recently as part of a larger range called the Grampians. The mountain range of the Mounth may be deemed to extend along the South side of the Dee upwards of 60 miles in a direction W.S.W. from the sea at the Girdleness (a little south of Aberdeen), along the conterminous borders of the County of Aberdeen on the North, and the Counties of Kincardine, Forfar and Perth on the South, to Cam an Fhidleir, at the South-West corner of the County of Aberdeen, near the head or North end of Glen Tilt Here the Mounth abuts at a right angle on a great mountain range called the Dorsum Britannia or Drum Alban, which forms part of the ridge or backbone of Scotland, and acts as the watershed of the Tay and Forth, and part of the West boundary of Perthshire.
Mr. Skene, however, in his Celtic Scotland, says :—
“The Mounth extends in nearly a straight line across the island from the Eastern Sea, near Aberdeen, to the Western Sea at Fort-William, having in its centre and at its western termination the two highest mountains in Great Britain—Ben Muich Dhui and Ben Nevis .... If the Mounth is now known as the range of hills which separates the more southern Counties of Kincardine, Forfar, and Perth, from those of Aberdeen and Inverness on the north, it was not less known to the Venerable Bede, in the eighth century, as the steep and rugged mountains which separate the provinces of the southern from those of the northern Picts."
While about a dozen of British mountains reach a higher altitude than Lochnagar, it yet holds a distinctive place alike in fact and in fancy. It has much to offer to the student, the lover of nature, and even to the ordinary sight-seer—more than many of its nominal superiors. In the popular mind Lochnagar has had adventitious aids to its prominence. One who afterwards became a great poet lived under its shadows when he was young, and became so impressed with its wild crags and its frowning glories, that in after years he sang of them in undying strains—strains that have spread its name and its fame through all lands. Then for more than forty years, one who has been even greater as a Queen than Byron was great as a poet, has delighted to dwell at its base, and has often climbed to its summit. Thus Lochnagar has attained special distinction for itself, and through those who have been associated with it; and one may therefore be pardoned who seeks to take up the story of the mountain, and to tell, as best he can, of its configuration and its features, its peaks and its precipices, its corries and its lochs, its surroundings in glen and river, its legends and traditions as they still linger (though ever growing more indistinct) in the memories of those who have their homes within its influence. The writer hopes that he may be able to present an interesting and in some degree instructive account of the mountain which, more than any other, ever comes before the mind as essentially and characteristically Scottish, and yet having associations that seem to make it the common property of every man, woman and child, throughout the world, who has any acquaintance with English literature and history.
And that's it for this week and hope you all enjoy your weekend.
Alastair