These are my 4 x great grandparents. William was I believe son of Donald Shearer and Margaret Brotchie, (yet to prove this)
William Shearer was Overseer to Capt Sinclair of Holborn Head, Laird of Forss. I have been told that Shearer are a Sept of the Clan Sinclair. his wife was Janet Milne , one of 8 children of Alexander Milne and Jean Kynoch of Fyfee in Aberdeen, with a lineage going back 4 generations beyond that, to the 1670's.
They were married on 27th November 1795 in Reay. Their children included James, Janet, Donald, George William and Margaret.
William was my 3 x great grandfather born 1807. He started out as a shoemaker and later became a leather merchant in Thurso , lived in Janet Street Thurso and he counted amongst his friends the local baker, Robert Dick, the famous amateur geologist and botanist and is mentioned several times in a book about the life of Robert Dick.
William Shearer married Barbara Rose Campbell in 1831
Their marriage details do not give her parents names. However her death certificate in August 1880 reveals that her parents were Donald Campbell, house carpenter and wood merchant and Margaret Campbell, nee Campbell. There were numerous Donald and Margaret Campbell families in the general area and I have not yet established which one is ours.
There was a James Campbell who witnessed a 1867 Pomeroy wedding in Liverpool , the year before Georgina Pomeroy and George Shearer were married. George and Georgiana would have almost certainly been engaged to marry at that time, so he might have been a relation but that is as yet an unknown.
I have recently had contact with a Sutherland/Shearer descendant Margaret Gilbey who is descended from William and Barbara's daughter Margaret Campbell Shearer who married Donald Sutherland., a veterinary surgeon in Thurso.
William and Barbara Shearer had 8 children, they were William Alexander Campbell Shearer , Professor of Philosophy ;Donald FrancisCampbell Shearer , a wealthy merchant and lived in Croyden in Surrey producing a large family;
George Campbell Shearer my great-grandfather a Doctor of Medicine;
James who continued to live in Thurso,the 1881 census has him with his widowed father, an unmarried draper aged 34; Francis, died in infancy;
Catherine Shearer who married Joseph Wilson a Liverpudlian corn merchant according to the 1881 census, who became a wealthy property owner in Liverpool, whose son became Lord Mayor of Liverpool in 1922-23;
Barbara Shearer who married James Rev. Gourlay ;
Margaret Shearer who married Donald Sutherland a veterinary surgeon in Thurso and produced a family of 8 children.
George Campbell Shearer born 2 May 1836 , my great grandfather, became a Doctor. and a botanist. In 1868 he married Georgiana Pomeroy, a music teacher , in West Derby in the district of Toxteth in Liverpool, daughter of Augustus Stephen J Pomeroy and Sarah Georgina Moore.
The Pomeroy Family has a long and chequered history, back to 1068 but most of the modern Pomeroys cannot as yet connect to that line. see this page
Since she contacted me in 2002 my Pomeroy Cousin Pat and I have had a wonderful time discovering our family history She decends fromGeorgiana brother James Richard Webber Pomeroy.
In 1868 Georgiana's father , Augustus Stephen Jeffrey Pomeroy was Receiver of Charges and Duty Superintendent of the Albert Dock Offices, Liverpool living at Dock House.
Soon after Dr George and Georgiana married they sailed to China where they stayed for a number of years, where they started their family. They had 7 children, the eldest 4 of whom where born in China. Dr George studied the mental health in the Chinese population, wrote papers on it before they returned to England. Whilst in China Dr Geoprge discovered a new plant that he named for his mother in law.Sarah Moore, calling it Sheareria S Moore Asteraceae.
On their return the family settled in 173 Upper Parliament Street in Liverpool. I think he had a medical practice there because he signed death certificate on several members of Pomeroy family. He died 14 March 1892 age only 54. .Georgina lived sometime after he died. The 1901 census has her living in Birkenhead with sons James and George, both working as commercial clerks and presumably living near to her sister in law Catherine Wilson whose son Frank Wilson became Lord mayor of Liverpool in 1922.
My Grandfather James Augustus Shearer was born 10th Oct 1870 in Kiukeng, in the British Concession Lower Yangtze in China. The family returned to England between 1873 and 1878 and they lived in Liverpool. In about 1906 He married my grandmother Lily Daisy Machin, (she always preferred Lillian) and they lived at 1 Clyde Road in Croyden and latterly in St Albans in Hertfordshire. Uncle Donald Shearer the merchant lived literally just round the corner in Croyden from James Augustus. My mother, who grew up in Clyde Road Croydon, and her father was an importer of gold leaf (used in picture frame gilding ) She and her siblings lived in a large house with a scullery maid, a nanny and a parlourmaid, so he must have done quite well., for a while. He later lost his money and they fell upon harder times. He died in 1950.
James and Lily Daisy Shearer (nee Machin) had 4 children. George who became a Presbyterian minister and married Mary Richardson,
Mary who married Jan Berg, He was a talented designer and interesting man of Russian Jewish descent. He was a Conscientious Objector during the war and worked on the land for the duration of WWII before returning to designing. They had 4 children .
Stella born in 1915, married Douglas Ash who was an antique dealer.They had one child and were later divorced. Stella, still alive in 2009, living on the South Coast.
Marguerite born April 1913 was my mother and she married in Portsmouth 30 Sept 1939 to Clive Randall Cook born in Hendon, Middlesex in 1907. I was the eldest of their 3 children. Anne Jacqueline born 1943; Jean Frances born 1945; and Peter David born 1949.
My Fraternal grandfather was Percy Randall Cook , and my grandmother was Alice Kate Figg. He started his working life as a railway clerk for London Central.
I have recently obtained his birth cert and he was son of Henry Randall COOK a Master butcher from Ware in Herts.
I remember my grandfather as a gentle, intellectual man who loved books, a vegetarian long before it was fashionable. My father had one sibling , a sister called Joan who married photographer, Bernard Mews and had two sons.
My father Clive was a scientist who was involved in the invention and development of RADAR as part of Watson Watts team and went on to develop his own invention RACON, whilst working for the Admiralty. He transferred to GCHQ in 1958 and was awarded an OBE just before he retired.
My mother died just before Christmas in 1982 , my father 6 months later in June 1983
We moved about because of my father's work for the Admiralty. I started life near Puttenham , then Wiltey near Chidingfold, and Godalming,in Surrey, then Hazelmere in Surrey, then Cowplain near Portsdown in Hampshire and finally Winchcombe in Gloucestershire.
I now live in Devon, a quiet life addicted to history, genealogy and photography!
my websites are at
http://geocities.com/teignimages/index and http://geocities.com/wooltucker/index
Images of the past
Images of today
Lily Daisy Machin &
James Augustus Shearer
researched
