KINLOCH CASTLE FRIENDS ASSOCIATION - Key Persons
Alexandra Marion Mackenzie was born on January 5th 1865 at Frances Street, Stornoway. Her father was Kenneth Mackenzie, agent of the National Bank of Scotland, Stornoway, and her mother Margaret Mackenzie nee Frith. Kenneth and Margaret had married at Kirkwall on the 2nd February 1852. John Bullough married Alex Mackenzie at St David's Church, Weem on the 9th September 1884. His age is given as 46, hers as 19. Both give their residence as Meggernie and indeed Alex continued to live in Glen Lyon after John died. They had two children, John, known as Ian, born in Accrington in 1886 and Gladys born in 1888 at Meggernie. Following John's death in 1891, Alex stayed in Glen Lyon, and married Captain John Robert Beech CMG, DSO, of the 20th Hussars and the Egyptian Army in 1892 in Edinburgh. He was a veterinary surgeon. She lived at Fasgadh, Glen Lyon. By WW1 he had attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Scottish Horse and died in Louth, Lincolnshire on the 6th November 1915.
Bertha Bullough was born on the 8th April 1872, the daughter of John Bullough and Bertha Bullough, nee Schmidlin. In April 1891 she is shown on the census in the Cavendish Hotel, Eastbourne with her aunt Lucinda, the wife of James Bullough, eldest brother of John. John had died in the February and Bertha married Charles Florance Young in All Saints Church, Eastbourne on the 21st April 1891. He was the eldest son of the late Charles Florance Young of 22 Cranley Gardens London SW and Wandsworth. His father had died in 1890 at the Cavendish Hotel Eastbourne, leaving over £300,000. Charles, the son, was born on the 16th May 1865, went to Harrow School and also went to Trinity College, Cambridge going up in 1883. The Young family were brewers in London. Charles worked in the family firm for some time and in the 1901 census his occupation is shown as ‘Brewery director'. Charles was a Private with the RASC during the First World War.
We know little about Bertha's life. In the library at Kinloch Castle is a small book by Ernst von Wildenbruch entitled ‘The Danaid: an episode from the Franco German War' translated by Bertha Young with assistance from her brother Edward. Thomas Krebs has researched this in depth. They had one son also Charles Florance Young born on the 5th February 1897 at Melbourn, Hertfordshire. He became a doctor and also learned to fly. His Aviator's certificate shows he trained on a Renault Avro, 80 HP Renault engine at the Henderson Flying School, Brooklands, and it is dated 22 September 1927. His address at that time is given as Eversley, Sydenham Rise, Forest Hill, London SE23. Bertha's husband Charles died on February 16th 1934 aged 69 years, and his probate records show him as of 27 East Drive, Brighton and of the same address as his son. He left the sum of £6092.12.8d. Bertha died aged 90 on the 21st July 1962 and Charles on the 19 November 1967. There is a plea in the newspapers asking if anyone knew of a will for Bertha. Charles' gravestone shows he was awarded the MC . Bertha and her husband are buried in Clachan Duich New Cemetery, Shiel Bridge and their son is buried in Clachan Duich Old Cemetery. If anyone can supply a reason why they are all buried here when they appear to have lived their lives on the south coast of England I'd be delighted to hear.
Eduard Schmidlin was born in the town of Rottenburg am Neckar near Tübingen on 8th July, 1808. He came from a family with a long tradition of civil servants and members of the Protestant clergy in the Kingdom of Württemberg. His father, Gottlieb Schmidlin, was an official in charge of poor relief and later a councillor in Stuttgart. Both Eduard and his elder brother Hermann (1807-1840) spent some time at the University of Tübingen, Hermann reading theology and Eduard mathematics, science, and estate management and book-keeping (cameralism). Both brothers pursued political interests and soon joined the radical ‘Feuerreiter' (fire riders) student fraternity. They attended clandestine meetings with the aim of propagating democratic ideas, especially among the workers. Two leaders of these revolutionary circles who aimed at introducing constitutional democracy in Württemberg were the bookseller Frankh and the lieutenant Koseritz. It was as their followers that Eduard and Hermann took part in an attempt to start a revolution in 1833, the ‘Frankfurter Wachensturm' (charge of the guard house). This coup failed, though, and Eduard at first managed to escape, but later he was remanded in custody and then released. Finally, after a prolonged trial he was condemned to 10 months' imprisonment in the Hohenasperg fortress in 1838. After his release from custody, he had returned back to the Royal Court Gardens to work as a gardener, but as he had received an unusually thorough training, he concentrated on writing about botany and gardening and was soon able to live as a successful author in Stuttgart, Constance, and elsewhere in the region. One of his books, ‘Die bürgerliche Gartenkunst', became a best-seller and was reprinted several times. He remained an employee of the Court until 1833, a year after the publication of his first book, ‘Flora von Stuttgart' (the first text by him that could be traced was a short article on the Butterfly Flower [Schizanthus pinnatus] published when he was just 22, in early 1830). In 1834 he started a gardening business in Stuttgart and he also worked as a private tutor teaching young men about botany and gardening. After serving his prison sentence, he lived in various places in Württemberg. In November 1841 he married Dorothea Romig, the daughter of a forest officer, in Metzingen. A daughter named Marie was born in 1842, then the mother died in that same year and the little girl a year later. In 1847 Eduard married again. His second wife, Anna Waldraff (1824-1883), was also a forest officer's daughter. They had nine children, seven of whom survived into adulthood: Bertha (1848-1913); Maria (1849 - after 1890); Hermann (1851-1881); Emil (1856-1930); Antonia (1857 - after 1890); Johanna (1859-1934); Franz (later Frank) (1861-1939). From 1848 to 1853 Schmidlin worked as estate manager and head gardener for Constantin, Prince Waldburg-Trauchburg-Zeil, who let the Schmidlin family stay in an apartment in his castle at Altmannshofen, near Leutkirch. The so-called ‘Red Prince' was the only aristocrat elected to the 1848 Frankfurt Assembly. Schmidlin, who was a great admirer of the Prince, left a handwritten document extolling his achievements and political stance hidden in a tower of Castle Altmannshofen. It wasn't discovered until 1929. In the early 1850s the Schmidlin family lived in Stuttgart, where Eduard was again busy writing gardening books - in 1855 he published a German edition of The Book of the Farm by Henry Stephens (considered the standard work on practical Victorian agriculture), which he had translated and adapted so that it would be of practical use to German readers.
Early in 1857 Eduard Schmidlin received a call from Switzerland-from the nobleman, judge and mining entrepreneur Conrad von Rappard (1805-1881), who, as a member of the Frankfurt Assembly, had been forced to flee from Prussia after the failed revolution and had ended up first in Zürich and then in the Canton of Bern. In 1854 Rappard had bought the land surrounding the Giessbach Falls in the Bernese Oberland and had a hotel built there. He entrusted Eduard Schmidlin with the landscape planning of the parks and gardens. Thus it came about that the Schmidlins left Germany with their four surviving children and came to settle in Switzerland, a country that had provided refuge to many liberal-thinking Germans after 1848. Soon Eduard also took over the management of the hotel-it opened on 1st July 1857. Four days later Anna Schmidlin gave birth to their fifth child, the daughter Antonia.
Conrad von Rappard sold the Giessbach early in 1858, but Schmidlin stayed on, now as an employee of the Steamship Company of Lake Thun and Lake Brienz who was also in charge of the hotel management, ably supported by his wife and, later, the daughters, especially the two eldest, Bertha and Marie.
Edward was born in the Hotel Bellevue, Thun on the 28th March 1880. His mother Bertha had left her husband John because of his cruelty and adultery and went on to divorce him, made absolute in 1882. At that time, the children of divorce generally stayed with the father but while the older children George and Bertha stayed with their father, Edward stayed with his mother. Bertha was of German origin and after leaving John in Accrington Bertha and son Edward ultimately settled in Dresden. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1899 taking his degree in 1902. He went on to be lecturer in modern languages at Gonville and Caius College becoming a Fellow in Italian Studies only 18 months before his death. He married Enrichetta Checchi the daughter of Eleanora Duse the great Italian actress. They had two children, Halley Edward and Eleanor Ilaria who each in time joined the Dominican Order and changed their names to be Father Sebastian and Sister Mary Mark. Edward died in September 1934 after a short illness aged just 54.
His obituar y and other appreciations in the Times of September 18 and 21 1934 give both some detail of his life and the extent to which he was held in high regard by his peers.
Eileen O'Moore married Robert Mitchell on the 12th October 1899 on board the Rhouma. She was born Lydia Elizabeth Doyle in Australia in 1873, the daughter and 8th child of Charles Edward Doyle and Emily Rosalie nee McKay.
KCFA member Helen Holmes wrote an article in the KCFA Newsletter of May 2005 which gives an insight into his life and that of his wife and children.
John Bullough, who was always known as Ian, was born in Accrington on the 13th February 1886. He was the son of John Bullough and his second wife Alexandra. Two years later, his father bought the island of Rum but was not to enjoy it for long as he died on the 25 February 1891 when Ian was just 5 years old. In the 1891 census taken in April 1891, Ian was staying on Rum with his mother Alex and Elizabeth and Francis Robertson. Sister Gladys, then aged 2, was in Oswaldtwistle with George Bullough and his cousins Tom and Will along with the Robertson's small son also 2 and appropriate staff.
On his father's death, Ian inherited a large sum of money and the Meggernie estate in Perthshire. On the 1st December 1892 Alex married Captain John Robert Beech and Ian gained a step father. Some of their time was spent at Meggernie but some also in Ireland where John Beech had property. Horses and dogs were both very important in Ian's life.
In 1907, Ian joined the Coldstream Guards but on his marriage to actress Maudi Darrell on the 25th March 1909 he had to leave the Guards as at that time Guards were not allowed to marry actresses. Maudi was ill throughout much of their short marriage and died on the 31 October 1910. She is buried at Innerwick in Glen Lyon and her gravestone reads ‘Kindness in another's trouble, courage in her own'.
In June 1911 Ian was appointed a Captain in the Scottish Horse, and the following November, 1911 he married Lily Elsie (Elsie Cotton) another star of stage. In November 1912 he was appointed Master of the Muskerry Hounds. They lived in Redmarley d'Abitot, Gloucestershire where Ian followed his brother George to be Master of the Ledbury Hunt.
John Bullough was born about 1837 and baptised in Blackburn on the 20th December 1837. He was the third son of James Bullough and his wife Martha. John was sent to Queenwood College in Hampshire where an education for a young engineer was given. Queenwood College had been set up by Robert Owen, but by the time John Bullough went there it was run by George Edmondson who had lived at Tulketh Hall, Preston and who advertised the college in Lancashire local newspapers. The 1851 census shows John and his older brother William both at the school and by 1852-3 John was editing the Queenwood Observer the school newspaper. It is unknown if their eldest brother James also attended. John went on to Glasgow University but it appears that he did not graduate and as yet the reason is unknown. By this time his sister Elizabeth (Bessie/Betsey) had married James Gray and was also living in Glasgow.
In February 1869, John Bullough married Bertha Stephani, nee Schmidlin, in the Reformed Church, Brienz, Switzerland. She was the daughter of Ed uard Schmidlin of German origin, who had worked as gardener and landscaper at the Hotel Giessbach . He had created paths and viewpoints in the woods, waterfalls and mountain side around the hotel and had been the first to put lighting effects behind a waterfall. He had risen to be hotelier on behalf of the owner. The hotel had been visited by Ruskin who had admired not only the beauties of the landscape but also the beauties of Schmidlin's daughters. Bertha's first husband Otto Stephani died soon after their marriage and at her second marriage she was still only aged 20. John Bullough was 32.
He brought his new bride back to Accrington where they settled in The Laund, a commodious house in Baxenden overlooking the town. Their first son George was born on February 28th 1870 and daughter Bertha two years later. John had travelled quite widely for the business which by this time was selling machinery all over the world. They travelled to New York together probably combining business with some pleasure, but later trips John took without Bertha. His love for Scotland by this time was developing. It was very fashionable at this time, following the partiality of Queen Victoria, but John's love for Scotland was deep and genuine. In 1879 he started to rent the shooting rights for Rum. He was patron of Edwin Waugh the Lancashire radical poet and in 1880 Waugh visited Rum at John's behest for his health. He wrote up the journey and subsequent visit in ‘The Limping Pilgrim on his wanderings' which gives a clear and accurate picture of life on Rum at that time. The people he talks about are clearly to be identified in the 1881 census taken shortly afterwards.
John and Bertha's marriage was not a happy one and details are in the divorce papers, the originals of which are to be found in the National Archives under ‘Bullough v Bullough and Nentwig'. Bertha petitioned for divorce from John citing his adultery and cruelty and John counter petitioned citing her adultery with Albert Nentwig. At that time, a husband could divorce his wife for adultery only but a wife had to show evidence of two causes such as adultery and cruelty, bigamy etc. The cruelty had to be physical and to have taken place on at least two occasions. Bertha was able to cite several cases of actual cruelty, the worst of which caused her to lose a baby at five months. For her to have left her husband to go back to Switzerland at that time had to be for very sufficient reason, as by doing so she lost rights to her children. It would appear that as soon as she found she was pregnant again, she left, back home to her parents. By this time, they had moved first back to Germany, their place of origin, then back again to Switzerland but this time to the Hotel Bellevue, Thun, which Schmidlin was managing and it was here that Edward Bullough was born in 1880. She also cited John's adultery on several occasions, in a ‘House of ill repute' in Troy USA; in Russia when he caught a venereal disease he passed on to his wife, but most upsetting for Bertha, regularly with the housekeeper at Rhyddings, Sarah Frankland. It would appear that once the judge had heard Bertha's case, he granted the divorce without hearing John's counter petition. We have as yet been unable to trace Albert Nentwig. Despite Bertha appearing to win her case, she was only granted custody of Edward. She was allowed to see George and Bertha for only a week before they had to go back to school and she went back to Switzerland. There is no reference to this divorce in the Accrington newspapers other than a brief mention by the Rev Charles Williams in a letter to the paper. The only mention in the Times is within the listing of the divorce petitions granted decree nisi.
John bought the Meggernie estate in Glen Lyon, Perthshire, in 1883 and at that time it was said to be the third largest estate in Perthshire. As well as an ancient castle, it had extensive lands with good farming, shooting and was also well stocked with trees.
In September 1884 he married, at Weems, Alexandra Marion Mackenzie, the daughter of a Stornoway banker, both giving Meggernie as their usual residence. John gives his age as 46, Alex 19. Son John, always known as Ian, was born in Accrington in 1886 and daughter Gladys was born at Meggernie in 1888.
But in 1891, John was taken ill in London and he died on the 25th February 1891 aged 54. His remains were brought back to Accrington for interment in the family vault at Christ Church alongside his parents.
Soon after George turned his attention to providing a suitable resting place for his father on Rum, apparently according to his father's wishes. Harris was John's favourite part of the island and it was here that George first created a Mausoleum dug into the hillside and lined with tiles and mosaics. It is said that a friend likened the result to a public lavatory so it was dynamited and the existing much grander Mausoleum was built containing a sarcophagus for John's remains. These were removed from the vault at Christ Church Accrington and brought by rail and boat over to Harris where they were reinterred. The Mausoleum and area immediately around it remain the only part of the island owned by the Bullough Trustees.
John's will had been made as recently as the December before he died, but was surprisingly poorly drawn up for such an astute businessman. He left money to Alexandra his wife, and a sum each to his two daughters but the wording was so ambiguous that both later brought court cases to clarify the meaning. He left an annuity to his ‘old housekeeper, Sarah Frankland' who had been cited in his divorce from Bertha. He left £20,000 each to Tom and to Willie (and using those names and not their more correct Thomas and William that you would expect in a legal document); Tom was also executor but as he also was one of the witnesses he was unable to inherit which was surely not the intention of John as Tom of all the family had given and continued to give, the most to the family business. The residue was left between George and Ian with George being given Rum and Ian, Meggernie. Edward got no mention at all. At John's suggestion the firm was made a limited company in 1891 and a public liability company in 1894. Tom was managing director and continued to take an active role for many years.
Marie Schmidlin, who was often referred to as ‘Marie of the Giessbach' by British visitors, became friends with John Ruskin, who stayed at the hotel several times in the 1860s and wrote about both sisters in his autobiography Praeterita. One chapter which Ruskin intended for this was to be called ‘The Rainbows of the Giessbach'. (This chapter, compiled from John Ruskin's materials by Bernard Richards, was privately published in Oxford in 2010). Ruskin corresponded with Marie over the next few years, but none of their letters have survived. In April 1868 Eduard Schmidlin and his family became naturalised citizens of their adopted country and it looked as if they were going to stay at the Giessbach. In 1870, though, the Hotel Giessbach, which had been made famous by Schmidlin, was sold to the Hauser brothers, well-known Swiss hoteliers, for a very large sum, and Eduard Schmidlin had to look for new employment at the age of 62. After a brief stint back in Germany, where he took over the recently reopened health resort of Bad Teinach in the Black Forest, he returned to Switzerland and became the manager of the Hotel Bellevue at Thun, which still belonged to the Steamship Company. He successfully ran this hotel for the next ten years and was highly regarded as a hotel director and tourism expert. When a large new hotel was built in Thun in 1874, his advice was sought by the planners.
With the closing of the season of 1882 Eduard Schmidlin retired from hotel management and he and his wife went to live with their youngest daughter in Dresden, Saxony. This was Johanna, born 1859, who married Karl Schall in Dresden in 1887. Karl Schall was an instrument maker and pioneer of medical technology who had set up his own business in London in 1888. The Schall family became British subjects in 1893. Karl Schall's brother-in-law, Franz Schmidlin, the youngest of the Schmidlin children, who had emigrated to Australia in 1892, made that country's first X-ray image in 1896 and became the sole representative in Australia of Karl Schall's firm. The eldest daughter, Bertha, was also living in Dresden at the time.
Robert Mitchell, George Bullough ‘s companion and secretary throughout his world tours and beyond, was born in Keighley, West Yorkshire on the 5th April 1858. The son of John Mitchell, born in Steeton and Sarah nee Holgate, from Keighley, the 1861 census shows them at Eastwood Row, Keighley. John is shown as cordwainer and provision dealer. A cordwainer was a term for a shoemaker. Robert was the youngest of four children. The eldest Thomas, 12 in 1861, Mary, 9 and Rose, 6 are all scholars. The family are at the same address in 1871 with John shown as grocer and shoemaker, son Thomas by then 22 is a cabinet maker, daughter Rose, aged 16 is a grocer's assistant presumably helping out in the family shop. Robert is a scholar and also in the household is Welberry Holgate, stone mason aged 16, their nephew from just over the border in Colne, Lancashire. By 1881, Robert is staying in Langley Park, Sutton, Epsom with his sister Mary and her husband Ambrose Willis whose occupation is given as ‘demonstrator in Mechanics Dept, Robert is shown as an undergraduate in Science and a William Thomas, visitor, has an occupation of ‘scientific man in solar physics' . Obviously a very scientific family and a family who have risen out of a more humble background to improve themselves.
By 1891 Robert is staying with his widowed father and sister Rose at Eden Cottage, Steeton. He is shown as a tutor in Magnetism and other physical sciences.
In January 1895, George Bullough and Robert Mitchell are shown on the passenger list of the Ville de la Ciotat sailing from Noumea to Sydney. Their names in this list appear to be linked with those of HH Richard and AL Allen. Later in 1895 George Bullough aged 25 and Robert Mitchell aged 38, along with William Cockburn, valet, are to be found in the passenger lists of the Majestic sailing from New York to Liverpool.
Robert Mitchell gave copious reports to the Accrington Gazette about their exploits on their travels but the reports become increasingly political in tone and then cease abruptly and despite ending ‘To be continued' they are not, lea ving one to suppose the editor had had enough. The art icles gi ve a fascinating view of the travels and begin by describing some of the cont ents of Rhyddings Hall, Oswaldtw istle where some of the items on display in Kinloch Castle were first exhibited. These include the br onzes in the Great Hall of the monkey eating eagle and the incense burn ers.
On the 12th October 1899, on board the Steam Yacht Rhouma at Rum, Robert Mitchell, aged 41, was married to Eileen O'Moore , aged 25, of Kew Gardens, Kew. Robert elevates his father to ‘Gentleman'. The witnesses were George Bullough and HC Hinton. Eileen O'Moore gives her parents as Cyrus Edward Doyle and Emily Rosalie Doyle maiden surname McKay and there is a faint footnote showing that Eileen had changed her name from Doyle to O'Moore. Eileen was an adventurous soul who joined her husband and George Bul lough when they journeyed to South Africa to give support to the British troops by turning the Rhouma into a hospital ship.