Alexander and Catherine Kedslie
Alexander was the son of Alexander (snr) and Agnes Kedslie. In 1809 he married Catherine Frazer.
15th September 1809.
Kedslie / Alexander Kedslie Merchant Leith and Catherine Frazer resident in Leith Walk and daughter of William Frazer Tailor Edinburgh after proclamation of law were married 15th September 1809.
The following is from Geni.com. Note the Polish spelling for Alexander as he spent so much of his life there.
Aleksander Kedslie
Birthdate:circa February 28, 1789
Birthplace:Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Death:October 09, 1873 (80-88)
Å»yrardów, Å»yrardów County, Masovian Voivodeship, Poland
Place of Burial:Wiskitki, Å»yrardów County, Masovian Voivodeship, Poland [See gravestone photo below ].
Immediate Family:
Son of Andrew Kedslie and Anne Clarke
Husband of Jane Fraser [ see my notes]
Father of Catherine Kedslie; Andrew Kedslie; William Kedslie; Alexander Kedslie; Francis Kedslie; Agnes Kedslie; Andrew Kedslie; Adam Kedslie and Jane Kedslie
In the copied record of the family from Scotland's People compiled in February 1823, there is a different spouse name. Yet this certainly appeared to be the correct family. Was this an error in Geni.com OR was he remarried by this time? Are Jane Fraser and Catherine Frazer (note spelling) the same person? Or another family member? Based on the marriage date and names, it appeared that Catherine was the correct person.
The copied record of the family is below. For clarity I have typed it out. This is a record of the children as of February 1823; not so much a birth register, as an update. They were after all born in Poland.
Alexander Kedslie Flour Merchant. Leith. and Catherine Frazer. Sp have children as follow
1._a d.n Catherine born 16 July bap 14 August 1810.
Kedslie 2._a s.n Andrew born 31st August bap 28 September 1812.
Kedslie 3._as.n William Frazer born 22 December 1813 and bap 22 January 1814.
Kedslie 4._as.n Alexander born 22 July bap 21 August 1815.
Kedslie 5._as.n Francis born 15 September bap 10 October 1817.
Kedslie 6._ad.n Agnes. born 25 December 1819 and bap 12 January 1820.
Kedslie 7._as.n Adam Thomson, born 16 December 1821 and bap 14 January 1822.
To which Geni.com has added Andrew and Jane.
(Caution - they have a son also called Alexander Kedslie).
From this point we seem to be on firmer ground.
Agnes Kedslie married Alexander Watson and became my great great grandmother. See more about her in her own section : WATSON, AGNES (nee Kedslie). And this makes Alexander Kedslie and Catherine my great great grandparents.
Below is a photograph of Alexander taken from the album of Poland that I inherited. It is tempting to read into this face, particularly his eyes, all the hopes, trials and hardships of his time there. And below this one is a photo of Alexander with what appears to be his grandchildren.
Mona Kedslie McLeod mentions Alexander Kedslie often. She also has family ties, hence her middle name, and the documents she inherited from her Garvie family have presumably helped significantly with this family research too.
Mcleod notes Alexander's date of birth as 1786 - contrary to that in the Geni.com records, but this is evidently the correct person. She descibes him as a miller. At the time he was born, milling techniques were begining to change. For centuries corn mills had been the property of the landowners and a major source of income. Usually small, water-powered and primitive, using wooden gearing and wheels, they were leased to millers....Both the laird and the millers were entitled to a proportion of the meal ground. As the market expanded, the more ambitious millers moved into the towns. Alongside this was the development of better milling equipment and the use of metal. And from the 1780s the application of steam power was introduced.
The remains of several water powered mills can still be seen on the Water of Leith. However this picturesque scenario is not how Kedslie's mill looked. The Statistical Account of Scotland of 1791 reported that there were seventy-six mills along the Water of Leith. Mcleod notes that the family had rented one of them, the Bonnington Mills. It is impossible to tell if what we see now is the remains of "their" mill, but remnants an still be found (see link below). Steam meant that mills could be established beyond the limitations of the flowing water. Alexander's father Andrew had built a steam mill at Stockbridge between the Water of Leith and the New Town - much to the annoyance of the residents who took him to court. A leading figure in this was the painter Henry Raeburn.
This is an extract from a map by Robert Kirkwood of 1817 from the NLS website. I have marked the Kedslie grain mill just east of Stockbridge itself, with a red arrow. (Note that variations of the name occur in this case "Kedglie"). Henry Raeburn’s property to the left. While west of what is usually considered the New Town and across the Water of Leith and canal, it is evident that Raeburn is a property developer. It is not just his home that was affected, but the sales of the properties. John Lauder’s tannery at Silvermills was also nearby.
This link takes you to a fascinating paper by Karen Baston about the case.
http://file:///C:/Users/jerem/Documents/FAMILY%20STORIES/Kedslie%20mill%20vs%20Raeburn%20139857.pdf
Nothing remains of the Stockbridge Mill today except for the lade that supplied it with water and the name of the modern apartment block, Lade Court, that stands on its site in Baker’s Place. Confusingly this is actually now a building in Kerr Street, which leads into Circus Place, EH3 6SY yet very close to the Water of Leith.
Again from Mona McLeod : Kedslie was one of a new generation of millers. His family had been small landowners in Lauderdale in the Borders since the twelfth cenutury. His father Andrew, who was a younger son, moved to Leith where he became a corn merchant and miller and a burgess of Edinburgh. Alexander's burgess ticket was issued in 1807 'by right of his father'. By family tradition, Alexander started to study medicine at Edinburgh University and made contact there with Counct Aleksander Ptocki during his firts visit to Scotland in 1803.
But in 1806 Napoleon's Continental System blocked the ports of France and its allies to British trade. Britain retaliated by preventing France from trading with neutral countries. Corn prices in Scotland soared. But Kedslie managed to get through the double blockade by getting two cargoes of Scottish goods into Danzig on the Baltic. The corn that he brought back was sold at Leith when the prices were very high and he did very well out of it. The two years later after Waterloo the blockades were lifted and corn prices sunk. He lost a substantial amount of money.
So when Count Potocki invited him to manage the steam mill at Solec at Warsaw he jumped at the opportunity.
Life there seems to have got off to a good start. The Kedslies were just one of many families that settled there. Our Watsons included. The promising circumstances that earlier immigrants had found was beinging to wane.
The case of Aleander Kedslie is worth quoting as an example of the type of harassment to which British citizens were being subjected. Kedslie, an engineer and miller from Edinburgh, had come out in 1829 to manage the Warsaw steam mill for Prince Potocki. In 1835 he rented Rosancie, a farm on the Zamoyski estate on the border of Austrian Galacia. In June 1838, writing from Warsaw, he complained to the consul about the seizure of papers by officials who refused to show any authorisation for their actions.
This is the gravestone of both Alexander Kedslie and his son Andrew. It lies scattered with others and overgrown. I found this online while randomly using Google Images to find illustrations. It comes, not from a history or geneaology website, but one on cycling. The name of Alexander is almost hidden, but the photographer identifies it and other details. I am grateful to him for giving permission to use it here. Tomasz Kuran - meteor2017. He wonders : The most interesting gravestone is this one, subtitles in English, Alexander Kedslie, born in Edinburgh, died in Zyrardów. It seems that the Scot - in fact, along with other nations that could be found in Zyrardów, also the Scots were mentioned ... since he came to Zyrk from such a distance, he probably occupied a high position in the factory, who knows maybe he lived in palaces, and the tombstone looks better. And why the grave in Wiskitki, and not in Zyrardów? Because back then there were no churches or cemeteries in Zyrardów.
Alexander Scott Watson had had similar treatment with regard to travel documents and it was presumably a common experience for all immigrants. While they had arrived with very favourable terms, the politics had changed considerably. As Poland was rearranged and became a puppet state of Russia, there was both hindrance and intimidation.
PERSPECTIVE
My New Zealand family contact provides the following which gives better perspective of who is who. Water of Leith and Stockbridge to the west of it were beyond the New Town of Edinburgh (and nwo absorbed by it). Although both families were millers and their eras seemingly concurrent, we need to differentiate between them something that needs further research.
With regards to: Alexander and Jane Kedslie.
Our Agnes m to Alexander Scott Watson bap. 12 Jan. 1805 was actually the sister of Alexander. They were both part of a large family born to Andrew Kedslie and Agnes Thomson all from Stockbridge .
Our Agnes was 70 when she died in Plymouth in 1870.
There was also another Alexander Kedslie married to a Catherine in the same area.
Agnes Stevenson was the daughter of Alison, another sister. The Agnes who kept on working was Alexander's daughter.
Also see : https://www.myheritage.com/names/john_kedslie
POSTCRIPT
In doing research on Scotland's People for this I came across a death register which has the name of a Alexander Kedslie, a child :
5th August 1841.
Alexander Kedslie Son of ? Alexr Kedslie 1yr 7mnths 9 Deanhaugh Street Stockbridge Fever.
What is striking is that of the 25 names on this page (July and August) 18 were children. Reasons for death of these children include Fever for little Alexander to Scarlet Fever, Measles, Dropsy, Decline, Water in the Head and Disease of the Spine.
Deanhaugh Street is now an alley near the Water of Leith and possibly then to do with the mill that Alexander senior was connected with before going to Poland. This gives credence to the suposition that this person was connected to our our known family member. Health condition were directly tied to living conditions. Edinburgh in 1841 was at the point of tremendous improvements, but even if his family was poor and had limited dietry range and quality, simply living in proximity to those with such problems increased the risk of them too.
Bonnington Mill remains : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnington,_Edinburgh ; https://canmore.org.uk/site/148282/edinburgh-newhaven-road-bonnington-mills-granary and https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2828367
Graves in Poland: Besides the reference by the person who took the picture of the gravestone depicted above is this reference https://genealodzy.pl/PNphpBB2-printview-t-17451-start-0.phtml Not much detail, but we can note that local people are taking an interest. Wikipedia gives more detail of the cemetry itself and names both Alexander and Andrew. https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cmentarz_protestancki_w_Wiskitkach
