John Haddon's Trip Around the World in 1882

I found yesterday's talk after the AGM very interesting.

The speaker, Andrew Haddon, told us a bit about the family tree. John was descended from Andrew Haddon (born 1690) a flesher or butcher in Selkirk.

John's father was another Andrew Haddon (1818-1894), his mother was Anne White (1821-1878) and John had 10 siblings.

Andrew showed us two books written by John, 'A Doctor's Discovery and the Elixir or Life' and 'Diary of a Trip Around the World in 1882'. The latter book was reprinted from the Hawick News.

John became a well-to-do doctor with a thriving practice in Manchester, but after an illness, he decided to go around the world to recover.

Initially, he crossed the Atlantic in the SS Parisian (it didn't look like a luxury ship). He visited various places in Canada and in the USA including Chicago, Salt Lake City, San Francisco; he was very impressed by the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and said it would one day be the best hospital in the world. He also visited the Sandwich Islands (now called Hawaii), Samoa, New Zealand and Australia. He met fellow Scots, including Kentucky senator James Burnie Beck.

There was a lot more but unfortunately my pen dried up about halfway through the talk,

MI recording at Peebles today

Just had a busy day at Peebles, recording the Monumental Inscriptions.  It was still a bit drizzly early on but by 10am, it had turned into a dry day.  Still not very warm, though.  Gloves should have been added to the kit.

We made a good start on one of the older sections, close to St Andrew’s Tower.  There are some very interesting symbolic stones, still standing after more than 200 years, and even though some of the inscriptions may no longer be legible, the quality and detail of the carving are quite remarkable.   

The stone on the attached photograph is one of the later ones, erected in memory of Agnes Cushny in 1809.  Photographs of some of the most interesting stones can be seen at http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk. 

Now all I need to do is try to decipher my handwriting and type up the MI’s  - and a few warmer sunnier days during the summer would be nice as well.  

Births, Marriages and Deaths in British India

The Families In British India Society, is building a database of intimations in the Times of India newspapers. The database currently contains births, marriages and deaths from 25th July 1859 to 1909.
It took me a long time to spot the surname search for this database, so I've ringed it in red on the picture. It would be nice to be able to search it for a place or a first name as well as a surname but that's not possible, so for a common name you may have to look through a lot of entries. Search the Times of India births, marriages and deaths for yourself.

I looked for my great grandfather, Luke Golding, but he’s not listed so that suggests that although he lived there as a young boy, he wasn’t born in India.


Our latest volume, Coldingham Monumental Inscriptions is now available.

Read our Kith & Kin column every week in the Border Telegraph and Peeblesshire News newspapers.