An Illustrated Family History Archive
On the last day of March in 1827 a girl named Jane was born in Dysart, Fife, to unmarried parents, named on the baptism record - 21 months later - as Thomas Levil Hammond and Margaret Wright. Throughout her 82 years Jane would use both names, sometimes known merely as Jane Wright, but often as Jane Wright Hammond. The late baptism came immediately after her mother had been admonished three times by the Dysart Kirk Session before being "returned to privileges" and where, again, she named Thomas Levil Hammond as the father.
So, what of the father? By the time of Margaret's admonishment and Jane's baptism, Thomas was long gone. His liaison with Margaret, the daughter of a ploughman, must have occurred around June or July 1826, but by November of that year, with Margaret four months pregnant, he had married the twenty-year old Jane Stewart Robertson of Dysart, and moved to Edinburgh. Things had probably got a bit complicated for him in Dysart as it is quite likely he was also the father of the illegitimate Susan Hammond, born in 1824 to Janet Carse, though no father was ever recorded.
Despite the almost certainly fleeting relationship between Thomas Hammond and Margaret Wright, his involvement makes Thomas my 4xg-grandfather, and introduces a particularly interesting ancestral line into my family tree.
My father's side of the family are all Scots, mostly from Fife, Perthshire and Angus - except for Thomas Hammond. He was baptised in Beverley, Yorkshire (and likely born there too), in May 1798, where his father, Francis, was stationed there as quartermaster to the Dumfries Light Dragoons.
Francis Hammond was a native of Lammas, Norfolk, situated ten miles north of Norwich, and was baptised at Lammas in June 1768 to parents Thomas and Elizabeth. In January 1794 he married Susanna Levell at Brettenham in Suffolk. Susanna was a native of nearby Kettlebaston, and three months pregnant - daughter Susan Elizabeth Hammond was baptised at nearby Thorpe Morieux in June.
Susanna's father was Stephen Levell and he'd been previously married, to one Anne Canham, before being widowed and marrying Susanna's mother, Catherine Harding in 1755. Catherine's ancestry can be taken back another three generations to John Harding of Drinkstone who left a will in 1692. His grandson, Catherine's father, was Eliakim Harding, born in 1699 and apprenticed as a cordwainer to William Sparrow in 1715, before marrying Catherine's mother, the widowed Mary Buckenham, at Drinkstone in 1724.
In June 1795, eighteen months after his marriage, Francis Hammond was appointed quartermaster to James King's troop of the Dumfriesshire Fencible Cavalry. Also known as the Dumfries Light Dragoons, the regiment had been raised in early 1794 as part of the response to the war with France and was commanded by Colonel Michael Stewart Maxwell. How Francis, a native of Norfolk and last seen in Suffolk, came to enlist with a Scottish county regiment, is an interesting question.
His brother-in-law, Thomas Levell, was also involved in the military, possibly serving alongside Francis in the Dragoons before being appointed Ensign in the Dumfries Militia and later an Adjutant of the Fifeshire Yeomanry. At the moment the earliest dates are for Francis, so whether he had any influence over Thomas's enlistment, or the other way round, is another aspect to be researched.
In October 1796 the Dumfries Dragoons rode into Yorkshire and the newly-built Beverley cavalry barracks, staying there on-and-off throughout the following couple of years. Clearly Francis had his family with him, as it was at Beverley that Thomas Levell Hammond was baptised in May 1798.
Just over a month later the Dumfriesshire Dragoons were one of several county Fencibles ordered to Ireland to help quash the rebellion that had flared up in opposition to the British Crown. For much of the time they were stationed at Waterford and Wexford, but they also saw service and action as far north as Ballyboughal near Dublin and later Drogheda.
By October 1798, and despite the United Irishmen being reinforced by French forces, the uprising was over and the British had reasserted dominance. The Dragoons would stay in Ireland for nearly two more years, relieved finally in August 1800 at the time of the assent of the Acts of Union and the imminent creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Back in October 1799 Francis and Susan had lost their eldest daughter, Susannah Elizabeth, and she is commemorated on a headstone at the now-ruined St. Patrick's Church in Wexford, noting her age of just five years, and, strangely (if correctly transcribed), her father as one "James Hammond, Q. Master in the Dumfries Lt. Dragoons". At this time there were two other children, Thomas of course, but also another girl, Mary Ann Hammond - though no baptism has yet been found, she may have been older than Thomas by a year or two, but there's also the possibility she was born in Ireland.
By September 1800 the Dumfries Fencibles had arrived at Whitehaven, in England, and were disbanded. In May 1801 another son was born, baptised at St. Andrews in Halstead, Essex, and named William Stephen Hammond. In October 1803 the last known child for the couple was born, in Mile End Old Town, London, a daughter named for her departed sister, Susan Elizabeth. This record gives the occupation of tanner to Francis, showing he'd evidently fallen back on the old family business after his military adventures - tanner was the occupation of both his father, Thomas, and his grandfather, Francis, who died and left a will in 1769.
Sadly the next recorded date in the family's story is the death of Francis, in March 1804 when he'd have been just about 36 years old. His place of death and burial are currently unknown, but coming just a few months after his last daughter's birth, we can perhaps assume it was London. Wherever it occurred, the event was devastating for Susan and her remaining four children, and it prompted their move all the way up to Scotland, to Dysart, where her brother, Thomas Levell, had settled after his retirement from the Fifeshire Yeomanry the previous year. As a Dumfries militiaman he had been stationed for a while at Kirkcaldy and Dysart, his likely introduction to the area.
Thomas had secured his position quite well, not only drawing a pension from his military service, but also becoming the Surveyor of Customs at Kirkcaldy. Also in Dysart was Thomas and Susanna's elderly mother, Catherine Levell (née Harding), who had been widowed in Suffolk in 1801, and their older sister, Catherine, who had married William Ager at Halstead, Essex back in 1795 (where William Stephen Hammond had been baptised). Mrs Levell died in Dysart in February 1815 at the age of 86.
In September 1817 Mary Ann Hammond married Henry Charles Frederick Johnston at Kirkcaldy. Henry must have been at least ten years Mary's senior, born in Bengal in 1786 and the son of Major George Johnston of the Bengal Artillery (he'd died two years previously, in London in 1815). Between 1819 and 1832, Henry and Mary Ann had seven children, and thanks to Henry's lineage they became relations of various titled and well-to-do persons: Sir Thomas Reid of Reid, Irving & Co., chairman and director of the East India Company and the 1st Baronet of Ewell Grove and Graystone Park was a cousin; his aunt was the Honourable Susanna Monson, wife of Sir George Henry Monson, son of the 2nd Baron Monson of Burton; another cousin had married into the highly-regarded Stenton family of Southwell.
Most of Henry and Mary Ann's children were born in London where Henry worked as a clerk at East India House, though Henry died and was buried in Dysart, in 1834 at the age of 48. Mary would die thirteen years later in Glasgow, in January 1847, leaving a will and a number of valuable family heirlooms to her surviving children. She also named her brother, Thomas Levell Hammond, by then a legal writer in Dundee, as one of the executors - though, intriguingly, he declined the position, "for reasons unnecessary here to mention".
Despite the connections of Mary Ann and the respectable occupation of her brother Thomas, their mother, Susanna Hammond, was struggling financially. In 1833 she wrote a letter to the 'Secretary of State for the War Department' (probably the Secretary at War, Edward Ellice) in the hope of being awarded an annuity based on her late husband's service. She explained how she had been under the financial protection of her brother, Thomas Levell, but that now he had died (in Jan 1833) and his army half-pay stopped, she was left destitute, with an unmarried daughter (Susanna Elizabeth) and an older sister (Catherine Ager) as dependants. She explained how she had never drawn a penny on her husband's name, despite the fact that a fellow widow of a Dumfries Fencibles quartermaster, John Tait, was able to benefit from his allowance after his death.
Susannah didn't mention her more affluent children, Mary Ann and Thomas, but did briefly note the death of her other son, William Stephen Hammond. William had ended up in Dutch-controlled Java on behalf of the merchant house Miln Haswell & Co. at Batavia (now Jakarta), and was at Samarang in September 1825 when the Javanese rebelled against their colonial interlopers. While the Javanese numbered in their thousands, the Dutch cobbled together a force of about 180, including about 60 Englishmen, chiefly sailors, but also a small number of non-military merchants who were formed into a makeshift cavalry of about twenty-five 'gentlemen'. At 'Deenackee' (Demak) the Dutch commander ordered the cavalry to attack, which they attempted, but the horses were frighted at the sound of gunfire and chaos ensued, with a number of the Englishmen being killed, including 24-year old William Stephen Hammond.
At the time of Susanna's letter her sister, Catherine, widowed since 1825, was 75. Daughter Mary Ann was possibly back in Scotland or, if not, soon would be. Son Thomas was in Edinburgh with his family, at the time consisting of his wife Janet and four young children. And youngest daughter Susan Elizabeth was 30, and likely remained unmarried due to being the main carer for her mother and aunt.
It would be interesting to know how much, if at all, they were aware of Thomas Levell Hammond's 'illegitimate' daughter, Jane Wright - and maybe also Susan Hammond - both living locally. In 1833 Jane would be six years old. Thomas's mother, Susanna died at Dysart in 1839, aged 72, and her sister Catherine died a year later at 82.
Daughter Susanna Elizabeth Hammond would eventually marry in May 1847, in Glasgow, to the Reverend James Young - she was 43. James was 47, and in his younger years he had been a missionary, travelling on horseback through the United States, preaching at various stations. For a while the couple lived in Devon before returning to Scotland and Monifieth in Angus.
Around the time of his mother's appeal Thomas Levell Hammond moved from Edinburgh to Dundee. As mentioned, he had four children with his wife, Janet, namely William Stephen, Francis Alexander, Jane Preston, and Susannah Elizabeth Levell. In Dundee they added six more: Jane Thomasina (living only a few months), Thomas Monro, James Henry, Alexander Robertson, Charles Robert, John William, and a second William Stephen after their first son of that name had died of a heart condition, age 16, in 1843.
The family lived on Paton's Lane, Dundee, and Thomas's career as a legal writer and agent looks to have been very successful, acting for a number of years as clerk for the Nine Incorporated Trades in Dundee, as well as an accountant and agent for various insurance schemes, share sales, lettings and auctions.
At either the very end of the 1840s or as late as 1850, Thomas and his family left Scotland and emigrated to Toronto in Canada. There he became, at some point, the Surveyor of Customs at Caledonia, Haldimand, following in the footsteps of his much-respected uncle and namesake, Thomas Levell. At this time the Grand River was bustling with activity and trade, though from the mid-1850s and into the 60s it would start to decline as the railway came into prominence.
There was some tragedy for the family with the loss of several of the Hammond children once overseas. In 1855 they lost their three youngest, Charles and John dying of scarlet fever within a day of each other, aged 12 and 10, and then just over a month later William Stephen of the same malady, aged 8. In October 1856 the 27-year old Francis died in a railway accident on the Buffalo and Lake Huron railway, and then in July 1858 the 17-year old Alexander died from congestion of the lungs. This left just four children from the original 11, two girls, Janet and Susannah, and two boys, Thomas and James.
In February 1860 Thomas Levell Hammond himself died at Caledonia in Haldimand. The news made it back to Scotland, with the Dundee, Perth & Cupar Advertiser noting his passing, and remembering him as "nephew of the late Thos. Levell, Esq., Adjutant of the Yeomanry Cavalry and Surveyor of the Customs for many years in Kirkcaldy".
It's possible the news reached his illegitimate daughter, Jane, if her mother knew and if she passed it on - Margaret Wright was 61 at the time and would live until June 1880. Maybe even the other suspected daughter, Susan Hammond, learned the news - if she had any idea who her father was, though she would die five months later, in July 1860, age 36 and unmarried (her mother had died four years previously). But perhaps the fact that Jane's 1852 marriage recorded her father's name as [blank] Hammond, and her 1909 death certificate, with information supplied by daughter Nellie, included no father's name, indicates any connection had been lost, with only the Hammond name as a legacy.
After her marriage to James Ewing in Dysart, in 1852, Jane went on to have eight children, six of whom survived into adulthood and four of whom would have descendants of their own (read more about the Ewings here). For a short while in the 1930s my grandfather, James Ewing, lived in Paton's Lane, Dundee, just a couple of doors away from where his then unknown great-great grandfather Thomas Levell Hammond and family had lived almost a century before.
As for the rest of Thomas's family, his widow, Janet Robertson, died in Toronto in 1887. Daughter Janet married a fellow Scot and civil engineer, draughtsman and architect, Charles Robb, in 1853. Susannah Elizabeth married an English banker, Charles Henry Wethey; she died in 1911 and her husband returned to England to live in Devon, where he died in 1920 after a protracted illness. Of Thomas Monroe I've not been able to discover much, except that he was still around in 1868. Son James Henry seems to be one of the few, if not the only of Thomas and Janet's line to bear descendants, marrying Anna Powers and having a daughter and then grandchildren still in Canada. He'd returned to Scotland for a while to continue medical studies he'd begun at McGill College in Quebec, and was admitted into the Royal College of Surgeons in 1870.
One of the few other lines to continue the Hammond DNA into modern times was through Thomas George Johnston, the son of Mary Ann Hammond and husband Henry. He had two marriages to sisters - Louisa Steel in 1850, and Mary Steel in 1862, having children with both. At one point, he got into a legal wrangle with his own sister, Susanna Julianna Johnston over their father's estate. Thomas George died in Corbridge, Northumberland, in 1866, and Susanna died in Broughty Ferry, unmarried, in 1877.
She died at the home of her aunt, and the last remaining child of Francis and Susanna Hammond, Susanna Elizabeth Hammond. She had been widowed after the death of the Rev. James Young in 1882, and lived on in Broughty Ferry until December 1891, when she died at the grand age of 88. Her obituary paints a picture of an individual and fascinating character - highly educated (as all the Hammond children seem to have been), speaker of several languages, playing piano and singing in French or Italian, an artist and painter and, practically blind in old age, telling stories of her younger days, riding her pony on Kirkcaldy beach, and being present when the gallery fell at Kirkcaldy church, killing a number of the congregation (this tragedy happened in June 1828, resulting in 28 dead and over 150 injured).
The Hammond line exists in my family all thanks to a liaison that may have lasted as little as a single evening, though it's also possible a relationship was formed and then abandoned after a short while. It has not been one that's full of prolific lines of descent, except for a couple, including that of my 3xg-grandmother, Jane Wright Hammond.
The Hammonds are full of interesting, colourful characters that did interesting things, from the flats of Norfolk, all across England and into Scotland and Ireland, as far afield as Canada, the USA and Indonesia, and offering many avenues of research still to explore.
