Mary Gammell (Stewart) and her descendants

1799-1872

Mary Gammell, born in 1799, was the third daughter of Lt. General Andrew Gammell and Martha Stageldoir.  She was baptised on 10 July 1799 at St Giles in the Fields, Holborn.  On 1 July 1824 she married the Rev. John Stewart in Masham, Yorkshire, the home of her elder sister Martha.  John was the son of Roger Stewart, a Greenock merchant and had been ordained into the Presbyterian Church after graduating from Glasgow University.  In 1823 he was ordained and spent a year at the Scottish Church in Oldham Street, Liverpool.  Between 1824 and 1843, he was the minister at Sorn church, Ayrshire, after which he became rector of the Parish Church of Liberton, Edinburgh up until his death.  Mary like the rest of her family, inherited one seventh of her father's estate in 1815, but is not mentioned in the will of her grandfather James Gammell, the banker in 1825. Mary and John were closely involved with their grandchildren, most of whom stayed at Liberton whilst they attended their school and university in Edinburgh. Mary died at Liberton on 23 March 1872, and her husband John Stewart also died there ​on 27 December 1879. 

Mary and her husband John had three children:

A1 James Gammell Stewart was born in Sorn, Ayrshire, on 16 April 1825.  He became a doctor and was an assistant surgeon in the East India Company.  He died of dropsy caused by liver disease on 18 April 1858 at Liberton and is buried in the churchyard there.  He is also commemorated, along with his brother, by a plaque on the exterior wall of Sorn church.

A2 Harcourt Morton Stewart was born in Sorn on 21 May 1827.  In 1853 he qualified as a Master in the UK Merchant Navy.  He was drowned when the barque “Jemima Pereira” on which he was the First Officer, sank in the ​South China Sea on 1 September 1854. A memorial tablet exists on the exterior wall of Sorn Church which reads "Erected by J C Stewart M D in memory of his brother Harcourt M Stewart master mariner, second son of The Rev John Stewart, born at Sorn Manse 21 May 1827. Drowned in the China Seas 1 September 1851."

Both these sons were unmarried.

A3 Mary Gammell Stewart was born in Sorn on 18 April 1830. On 24 July 1855 at Liberton, she married the Rev. George Smyttan Davidson, the Minister at Kinfauns, near Perth, Scotland. George had been born in Edinburgh on 3 October 1816 and studied classics at Edinburgh University. He was elected to the Rectorship of the General Assembly’s Normal Institution between 1845 and 1853, when he was ordained and inducted into the church at Kinfauns on 24 January 1853, where he remained for the rest of his life. George died on 20 April 1901 and Mary on 30 September 1923. 

Mary and George had a large family as follows:

The story of these children and their descendants can he found below.

George Harcourt Davidson

George Harcourt Davidson was born at Kinfauns on 29 June 1856.  After leaving the Royal High School, he secured a post in Glasgow with a firm of Civil and Mining Engineers in August 1871. However, in August 1876, he had to give up his post because of ill health. Though by late 1877 he had recovered sufficiently to accept the offer of the post of Assistant Manager at Lugar Ironworks, East Ayrshire, but his ill health soon returned, and he died on 16 May 1880 at the Kinfauns Manse. His grave is in the Kinfauns churchyard.

James Stewart Davidson OBE, JP

James Stewart Davidson was born at Kinfauns on 13 January 1858. After studying in the faculty of Arts at Edinburgh University, he joined Gillespie and Cathcart, a well-known firm of Leith merchants.  When that firm closed, he started out on his own developing a herring export business and an agency for the supply of salt to the herring curers. These were very successful up until he closed them in 1912, just before the start of the First World War.  On 20 February 1890 he married Agnes Finlayson McLaren in St Giles's Cathedral, Edinburgh.  During the First World War, James was active as Secretary and Organiser of the County War Work Association, work for which in 1918, he received an OBE. In retirement he was a trustee of the Church of Scotland, and an active member of the Church, of the Unionist Party, and of the Deeside Field Club, as well as being a JP.  Agnes died on 2 October 1934 and James Stewart on 9 February 1950 at Cairnlea, Bieldside, Aberdeen.  Both are buried in the Kinfauns churchyard. James and Agnes had two sons:

George Stewart Davidson and his descendants

B1 George Stewart Davidson was born on 24 July 1892 and brought up in Aberdeen, later attending Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh.  He graduated with a medical degree from Aberdeen University in 1916.  From then until 1919 he served as a Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps attached to the Serbian Army.  For this he was appointed to the Order of St Sava and awarded the Serbian Silver Medal for distinguished service.  On demobilisation, he returned to Aberdeen hospital, but over the next few years travelled widely whilst studying gynaecology and obstetrics.  In 1923 he returned to Aberdeen and on 22 February 1924 he married Elizabeth Todd Logan, a medical graduate from Edinburgh.  Over the following decades he became one of the country’s leading gynaecologists.  In 1950 he retired and took up residence in Jersey.  George died in London on 4 June 1960 and Elizabeth on 28 December 1995.  George and Elizabeth had five children:

B1.1 The only record of Christopher Davidson’s life is on his parents’ gravestone in Springbank Cemetery, Aberdeen which records that he died in infancy on 28 February 1926.

B1.2 Jean Lawrie Davidson was born on 10 March 1927. She trained as a doctor and on 11 January 1952 at St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, married Ronald Meredith Jackson, a Canadian doctor who was studying surgery in Edinburgh.  They went to live in Canada, where their four children, Michael Howard Jackson (1953), Judith Elizabeth Jackson (1954), Gillian Patricia Gwendoline Jackson (1957), and Peter Jackson (1959), were born. Ronald died on 5 August 2017.

B1.3 Elizabeth Stewart Davidson was born on 21 November 1929.  She married Peter Norman Furlonger in 1953 and they had 4 children, Jennifer Claire (1954), Richard Charles L (1956), Rosalind Jane (1961), and Simon W S (1963).

B1.4 James Logan Davidson was born on 30 November 1933.  In 1960 he married Patricia Jane Whittaker.

B1.5 Marjorie McLaren Davidson was born on 10 January 1939.  She married Michael R D Helm in 1961

B2 Peter McLaren Davidson and his descendants

Peter McLaren Davidson was born on 12 February 1902 and brought up in Aberdeen but evidently moved south.  In 1932 he married Gertrude Marie Shipway in Chelsea, London. Peter died in Eccleston, St Helens, Lancashire on 25 March 1993 and Gertrude in 2001. Both he and his wife were buried in Kinfauns churchyard. Peter and Gertrude had three children: 

B2.1 Peter Anthony Stewart Davidson was born in 1933. He married Rachel Margaret Barber in 1960 and they emigrated to New South Wales, Australia, where Peter was a vet.

B2.2 Ann Rosemary A Davidson was born in 1936.  In 1959 she married Thomas Michael Tayler and in 1960 had a daughter Rosemary Gaye Tayler, who in 1981 married Neil E Vancans.

B2.3 Margaret E M Davidson was born on 22 December 1938 and married John R Marchant in 1963. Margaret died in 1977.

Rev Harcourt Morton Davidson

Harcourt Morton Davidson was born on 25 January 1860 and attended the Royal High School and Edinburgh University. He was licenced in 1884 and became assistant at West St Giles and St Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh and was ordained at St Andrews Church, Dundee on 16 December 1886. 

He was a noted athlete and only missed out on being a rugby international because of a broken shoulder-blade.  He also shot and fished and wrote articles for local magazine about wildlife.  On 26 July 1887 he married Jane Primrose Wylie Hutchinson, the daughter of a Leith merchant.  Harcourt was the Masonic Provincial Grand Chaplain of Forfarshire and chaplain (with the rank of Lieut-Colonel) to the Tay Division of the Royal Engineers and the Royal Forfar Artillery and was awarded the Volunteer Officers' Decoration.  He was renowned as a pre-eminent preacher with ideas that were deep and true, clearly and distinctly expressed, and earnestly and impressively delivered.  He and wife were close friends of Sydney James Gammell and his wife and were frequent visitors to Drumtochty and Countesswells - they had no children, though after his brother Andrew’s death, Harcourt and Jane adopted Gordon, Andrew’s son who was still an infant, and brought him up as their own.  Harcourt ​died on 5 June 1926.  There is a memorial to him on the front of St Andrews Church and he was buried under the pulpit of St Andrews. Jane died on 30 December 1952.

Mary Gammell Davidson JP and her descendants

Mary Gammell Davidson, the only daughter of the family, was born on 11 December 1861.  She attended the Ministers’ Daughters’ College, Edinburgh and then undertook a teacher training course in London. At an early age she rebelled against the narrow theology of the Manse and developed an urge to work directly for the poor and oppressed.  Through an Edinburgh based reformer, Dr Glass, she met Edward Reynolds Pease.  They married in Gateshead Registry Office on 16 September 1889 and from about 1892 until their deaths, they lived in Limpsfield, Surrey.  They were both active in the founding of the Fabian Society and Edward was the Society’s General Secretary 1891-1913 and its Acting General Secretary 1915-1919. In 1916 he published a book on the history of the Fabian Society.  He was also a member of the Labour Party’s Executive from 1900-1913. 

Mary (who was nearly always known as Marjorie/Marjory) was a kindred spirit and threw herself into local politics and was, to a considerable degree, responsible for the unique Liberal victory in the Reigate Division of Surrey in 1906. She herself unsuccessfully contested East Surrey in the Labour interest in 1922.  But her real absorbing life interest lay in Local Government.  She was elected a Poor Law Guardian and Rural District Councillor in 1911, a position which she held without break until her retirement in 1946. Her widespread but unspectacular work for the poor, the sick, the homeless and the ​unfortunate was truly vast. Day in and day out for forty years the problems of feckless humanity poured in upon her. She was never daunted, she never gave in, she never ceased to worry, and she rarely failed in the end to find the solution for her clients. The public position that pleased her most of all, was her appointment as a J.P. in the first list of women magistrates after the removal of the sex-disqualification in 1918. She was assiduous in her attendance at the Oxted Bench and at Quarter Sessions: she served on the Lord Lieutenant’s Advisory Committee for Surrey during the whole of her time ​as a Magistrate.  Mary died on 23 February 1950 and Edward on 5 January 1955.   Mary and Edward had two sons:

C1 Michael Stewart Pease and his descendants

Michael Stewart Pease was born on 2 October 1890 in Scotland.  He undertook postgraduate work on genetics in Cambridge.  He was in Jena learning German at the outbreak of the first world war and was interned in Germany for the duration of that war.  In 1920 he married Helen Bowen Wedgwood, 1st daughter of Josiah Clement ​Wedgwood MP (later (1942) created Baron Wedgwood of Barlaston). The family lived in Cambridge, where Michael was a geneticist and later head of the Poultry Research Station.  Both Michael and Helen were very politically active and both were Labour Councillors for many years.  He was awarded an OBE for his political and public services in Cambridgeshire. Michael died on 27 July 1966 and Helen on 17 July 1981. Michael and Helen had six children:

C1.1 Noel Joanna Pease, known as Joanna, was born on 24 December 1920 and was a doctor with the Colonial Medical Service in Tanganika (now Tanzania) and in Cambridge, where she lived when she retired.  She died on 21 November 1994.

C1.2 Rendel Sebastian Pease, known as "Bas", was born on 2 November 1922.  He was a physicist working on controlled nuclear fusion and became director of the Culham Laboratory for Plasma Physics and Nuclear Fusion.  He was also a prominent member, and from 1988-92 Chairman, of the British Pugwash Group (an international group of scientists who campaign for a world free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction).  In 1952 he married Susan Spickernell and together they had five children, Rosamund Mary (1953), Sarah Frances (1955), Christopher Fabian Delves (1956), Michael Roland Wedgewood (1959) and Joanna Rowan (1963).  Susan died in 1996 and Bas on 17 October 2004.

C1.3 Jocelyn Richenda Gammell Pease, known as Chenda, was born on 22 October 1925.  In 1947 she married Andrew Fielding Huxley, (later Sir Andrew Huxley, 1962 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology).  They had six children, Janet Rachel (1948), Stewart Leonard (1949), Camilla Rosalind (1952), Eleanor Bruce (1959), Henrietta Catherine (1960) and Clare Marjory (1962). Chenda died on 29 March 2003 and Andrew on 30 May 2012.

C1.4 Marion Rachel Wedgwood Pease, known as Rachel, was born on 13 December 1928 but died of scarlet fever aged five on 15 April 1934.  

C1.5 Rosamund Dorothy Benson Pease, known as Dora, was born on 20 March 1935.  She was a senior civil servant and Under Secretary at the Department of Health between 1989 and 1995. She lived with Timothy Edward Nodder and they had a son Benjamin Josiah Nodder Pease (1976) . Dora died on 30 October 2019.

C1.6 Roger Fabian Wedgwood Pease, known as Fabian, was born on 24 October 1936.  He married Caroline Ann Bowring in 1960 and shortly after he had completed his PhD at Cambridge in 1964, they emigrated to California where he worked both in universities and the private sector on electrical engineering and became a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University. Fabian and Caroline had three children, Emma Ruth (1961), Joseph Henry Bowring (1963) and James Edward (1969).

C2 Nicolas Arthington Pease and his descendants

Nicolas Arthington Pease was born on 27 November 1894. In the First World War he gained the rank of Captain and was awarded the Military Cross and bar. In 1924 he married Muriel Ada Pullan.  Following the war, he chose not to go to university.  At the time of the 1939 Register he was living in Limpsfield and his occupation was as a produce brokers clerk. Muriel died on 19 November 1978 and Nicholas on 15 February 1984.  Nicholas and Muriel had 2 children:

C2.1 Veronica Muriel Pease was born on 22 May 1925 in Willesden.  On 16 August 1947 she married Douglas Faunce Farrington and they went to live in the United States where she became naturalised.  She died in New Hampshire on 6 October 2013. Veronica and Douglas had four children, Lee Faunce (1950), Roger Douglas (1952),  Edward Pease (1955) and Jennifer Stewart (1957).

C2.2 Martyn Edward Pease was born on 23 February 1927.  On 24 February 1951 he married Rosemary Rachel Derbyshire in Middlesbrough. He was a geologist and director of a company with mining interests in Peru.  Martyn died on 5 April 2018.  Martyn and Rosemary had 5 children, Nicholas Clive (1951), Mark Thomas (1953), Ruth Marian (1956), Stephen Fry (1958) and Luke Basil (1961).

John Stewart Davidson

​John Stewart Davidson was born on 7 November 1863 in Kinfauns.  He attended the Royal High School and on completion of his secondary education, was apprenticed to the Commercial Bank of Scotland, where he served for 5 years.  On 21 June 1886 Jack as he was known to his family, left Kinfauns to emigrate to Melbourne, Australia.  Despite his parents having presumed that they would never see him again, on 1 June 1894 he returned to the Manse and joined his brother James’ herring and salt trading businesses. On 14 January 1909 he married Marie Louise Heuston, the younger daughter of a small landed proprietor near Tipperary and on his retirement from business in 1913, settled down in Innisshannon in County Cork.  A daughter, Mary Elizabeth Ailsa Davidson, was born on 31 July 1919. When “the troubles” came in 1921 they returned to England and settled in Twyford, Berkshire.  Unfortunately, on 8 September 1922, Mary died aged only three, and a year or two after that, they moved to Bournemouth where John died on 20 December 1952 and Marie on 2 March 1953.

All the details we know of Mary is contained in the paragraph about her father’s life above.

William Smyttan Davidson and his descendants

William Smyttan Davidson was born on 16 March 1867.  He followed his elder brothers to school in Edinburgh, and took up law as a profession, qualifying in 1890 and practiced as a solicitor in Perth. On 24 July 1895, he married Catherine (Kate) Alice Riach, the youngest daughter of the Rev W Lyon Riach, the minister of Grange Parish Church, Edinburgh.  William’s practice as a solicitor was clearly successful, since in 1906 he was able to move from a semi-detached suburban villa into a substantial modern residence, standing in ample grounds overlooking the Tay on the outskirts of Perth.  Unfortunately, he did not live to enjoy his new estate, since a few months later, on 29 October 1906, he died suddenly of appendicitis. Following the death of George, Kate moved to London and ​later to Worthing where she died on 20 June 1952. 

William and Catherine had three children:

D1 George William Smyttan Davidson was born on 16 February 1897 in Perth, Scotland. During the First World War he joined the Cameron Highlanders and was killed in action on ​25 September 1916.  He is buried at the Flatiron Copse Cemetery, Mametz, Picardie, France.

D2 Mary Gammell Stewart Davidson was born on 2 February 1900 in Perth.  On 7 June 1921 she married Theobald Blake Butler in Chelsea, London.  They had two children James Roland Blake Butler and John Stewart Blake Butler, but in 1930 they divorced and in 1931, Mary married Norman Roy Fox-Andrews but there were no children from this marriage. Mary died on 27 September 1970 in Kent.

D2.1 James Roland Blake Butler was born on 24 March 1922 in Kensington.  In 1939 he changed his name to Fox-Andrews. In 7 October 1950 he married Angela Bridget Swift. He was a barrister, QC and circuit judge.  James died in Kensington on 15 September 2002. James and Angela had two sons, Jonathan Mark P Fox-Andrews (1952) and Piers Norman James Fox-Andrews (1954)

D2.2 John Stewart Blake Butler was born on 14 July 1923 in Kensington.  On 13 December 1947 he married Stephanie Elizabeth Swann in Westminster.  They had one son, Samuel Thomas Blake Butler (1949). John died on 7 October 1957 in Kensington.

D3 Betty Kathleen Riach Davidson was born on 26 December 1904. In about 1926 she married Alfred Henry Norris, probably whilst in Brazil.  They had a son Michael Stewart Norris, but evidently they separated and in January 1932 she travelled out to Brazil with Douglas Errol Hay Thompson possibly to finalise a divorce, since on 31 May 1932, Betty married him in Kensington.  However, he died on 13 August of that same year. In 1934 she married John William Francis Crewdson, again in Kensington, but it seems not to have lasted and she is living on her own again by 1938.  There were no children by these last two marriages and Betty died on 2 January 1962 in Uxbridge.

D3.1 Michael Stewart Norris was born on 20 December 1927 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  He was an accountant and travelled regularly between Brazil and the UK.  In 1956 he married Daphne Elizabeth Mary Owen in Kensington. She, like him, has been born in South America (Uruguay).  In 1959 they returned to the UK by ship with their son, Michael Anthony Norris (born 20 March 1958).

Rev Roger Stewart Davidson and his descendants

Roger Stewart Davidson was born on 17 February 1869.  He attended the Royal High School and graduated from Edinburgh University in Arts and Divinity.  During his stay in Edinburgh he took up rugby, eventually winning an international cap in 1893.  In the season of 1902-3 he became President of the Scottish Rugby Union. On 16 June 1897 at St Nicholas, Aberdeen, he married Janet Drummond McLaren, who was a sister of his brother James Stewart’s wife. He was a keen gardener and an active sportsman; shooting, fishing and curling and represented the Carse of Gowrie on Perthshire County Council for several years. When on 26 July 1894 his father retired as Minister of Kinfauns, he was able to record the ordination and induction of Roger as his assistant and successor and Roger’s ministry at Kinfauns extended from then until his death, 61 years later.  In August 1954 Roger’s health began to fail and on ​18 February 1955 he died.  A few months later, on 1 September, Janet followed him. 

Roger and Janet had two sons:

E1 Roger Alastair McLaren Davidson, known as Alastair, was born on 6 February 1900.  On 9 October 1928 he married Elsie Stuart Stronach in Edinburgh.  Roger was Director of Education in Nigeria from 1944-51 and Inspector-General of Education there from 1951-53, for which work he was awarded the CMG in the 1947 Honours list. He was then Secretary of the Scottish Universities Entrance Board from 1953-1966.  Alastair died on 9 August 1983 in St Andrews. Alastair and Elsie had two children, Eilidh Margaret Stewart Davidson (1930-2001) and Roger Ewan Smyttan Davidson who was born on 27 December 1932.  On 20 April 1966 in Largs, Ayr, Scotland, he married Margaret Park Anderson.  They emigrated to Canada.  A son, Roger Alastair Stewart Davidson died aged 8 in 1978, and a daughter, Catherine, is mentioned in his son’s death notice. Roger died on 9 November 2009 and Margaret on 11 January 2021.

E2 John Harcourt Stewart Davidson, known as Jock, was born at Kinfauns on 17 March 1903.  He too spent time in West Africa, though as a trader and he was later a deputy superintendent livestock insurance.  In 1956 he married Isabella Hepburn (née Cameron).  John died on 8 December 1964 and Isabella on 23 August 1995.  They had no children.

Andrew Gammell Davidson and his descendants

Andrew Gammell Davidson was born on 25 May 1872 but by the time he was of school age, the Liberton Manse was no longer available to enable him to attend the Royal High School, Edinburgh. Accordingly, he lived at home and attended Perth Academy until he attained the age of 18 years. Early in 1891 he joined Messrs Wallace and Nimmo (Wright’s), the leading brewery in Perth. In 1895 he moved to Leigh in Lancashire, where he became a brewery manager. On 23 September 1899, Andrew married a widow, Annie Oldham (nee Reade), who had a family by her first husband. Andrew and Annie had four children, Gordon, Reginald, Ralph and Beatrice. Unfortunately, Andrew died suddenly of pneumonia on 16 November 1907, leaving his wife penniless.

The relatives of the children by her first marriage made themselves responsible for them, whilst Andrew’s four children were brought up with help from their uncles ​and aunts.   Annie died on 13 October 1918.

F1 Reginald Harcourt Davidson was born on 8 August 1900 in Prestwich. After his father’s death, he attended a school for orphaned boys in Kent. In 1919 he emigrated to Canada and sometime in the early 1920s, married Helen Manther.  Shortly thereafter he travelled to the United States where he became naturalized on 9 September 1936.  He worked in Minneapolis, but seems to have retired to New York state, where Helen died on 20 April 1962 and he died in May 1982.

F2 Ralph Stewart Davidson was born on 29 April 1902 in Prestwich. He too was in the Kent school for orphans with is elder brother. He was a telegraphist and tobacco salesman.  In 1939 he married Elsie Poynter and on 5 December 1943 they had a daughter, Sandra Lydia Davidson.  Elsie died in 1970 and Ralph on 27 December 1977 in Bury, Lancashire.

F3 Beatrice Davidson was born on 11 December 1903 in Manchester.  After her father's death, she appears to have stayed with her mother in Manchester.  

At the age of 16, she was a stewardess on the transatlantic passenger ship “Ulua”, but by the time of the 1939 census, she was a newsagent in Manchester and was single. Nothing more is known about her life except that she died in Manchester on 15 August 1978, but her death certificate shows that she remained single and was a medical instrument maker.

F4 Gordon Davidson was born in Manchester on 11 July 1906.  After his father's death he was adopted by his uncle Harcourt. On 21 August 1943 he married Phyllis May Butcher in Bournemouth.  He died in Carnoustie on 30 November 1982.