J - James Hogg

Families all come with stories. Some have their origins in fact, and some do not.

One which I haven’t yet been able to prove right or wrong yet, is whether there is in fact a connection in my daughter’s paternal grandmother’s family to James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. Fact or fabrication, who knows ?

I have done a bit of searching sporadically over the years, collaborating with other people around the world who can trace their family lines back to the same Hogg ancestors as my daughter.

James Hogg was the second son of Robert Hogg and Margaret Laidlaw, he was born at Ettrickhall Farm, Ettrick, Selkirkshire towards the end of 1770 and baptised at the parish church on 9 December. His family had been farming in the area for generations.

His formal education lasted not much more than a year, when he was 7 his father became bankrupt and James began work as a cowherd and later a shepherd. In his late teens/early twenties he was employed as a shepherd by a relative of his mother; James Laidlaw of Blackhouse Farm in Yarrow. Here he had access to a good collection of books and taught himself to read and write. He also taught himself to play fiddle and began to make a name for himself as Jamie the Poeter, singing traditional ballads and reciting the rich folklore of the Scottish Borders.

The Laidlaw family were acquainted with Sir Walter Scott and introduced James to him in 1802. Laidlaw’s son William became Scott’s close friend and amanuensis. At this time, in 1802, Scott was collecting ballads for his Border Minstrelsy and William Laidlaw, James Hogg and his mother, who had a large store of her own, all contributed. James had printed his own “Scottish Pastorals, Poems, Songs &C.,” in Edinburgh in 1801.

He divided his time between farming and writing and in 1813 wrote his most picturesque and imaginative work, “The Queens Wake”, which was at once a great poetical if not financial success. He was friends with Wordsworth and knew Byron.

James Hogg’s most known work today is “The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner” said to have been an inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.”

James Hogg died 21 Nov 1835 and was buried at Ettick Church. At his death Wordsworth wrote “Exemptore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg.”

But is there a connection to my daughter’s family ? I am thinking, after trying to follow the lines of James’ family and of his brothers, that like my daughter’s line of descent from the Lochiel in the Cameron family, this line too might be through a daughter rather than a son.

There is a Laidlaw connection in her tree. Could Margaret Laidlaw, her 5 x great-grandmother who married Thomas Watson be the key ? Could Margaret’s father Walter be a brother of James Hogg’s mother ? Was James Laidlaw of Blackhouse his uncle ? I’m still waiting on DNA matches to help make that decision, but here’s another story to add to the mix.

James Hogg’s grandfather William O’Phawhope Laidlaw is said to have been the last man in the Border country to speak with the fairies. I know someone who will claim this fact as the evidence that holds the key.