The Gold Section

The Golds were a family of agriculture labourers, based in the Angus farms around Edzell for seven generations, at least as far back as 1725. A name that we come across over and over again in tracing this part of our history is Dalladies, or "dallidy" as this is where many of them farmed. (Further back, in the 15th century Dalladies was written as Dullachy and in 1691 it appears as Dillydyes.) But it was not always the pleasant, peaceful farm it is today, it has a sinister past.

A family called Leighton had first appeared in the country of Forfar in 1260 and had acquired the lands of Usan from the lords of Rossy. In the middle of the 16th century Lady Leighton (Helen Stirling) was living here with her second husband John Straton and her son by her first marriage, John. According to the records, "By Leighton she had a son named John, who succeeded his father, and who, for some unknown reason, entertained a deadly hatred to his mother. At his instigation, both she and her maid-servant suffered a violent death "within the Place of Dallidy," where they were murdered in cold blood during the night of the 24th of April 1549, and the crime was aggravated by both the women being pregnant at the time". The murder had an unfortunate effect upon the fortunes of the house of Usan. It is believed that in the course of the 17th century the family ceased to have possession of the estate and John in 1619 is the last of the family that is mentioned in connection with the estate.

Probably of more direct interest is another violent story. In 1624 David Diro (Durie) was a tenant in Balbegnock who objected to James Smith, son of the JP Andrew, shooting hares and ducks and turning his horses loose on the corn of the tenantry. James struck him and left him for dead and was subsequently charged before the Council and committed to the Tolbooth in Edinburgh.

In 1849 William Gold (my g-g-grandfather) married into what was a more well-known family of farmers and brewers in Fettercairn, the Duries, when he married Isabella Durie. He was 32 and she was 22 and they were both living at Dalladies farm. They had four children but sadly Isabella died in 1860 aged only 33. She is buried in the lovely little churchyard in Pert along with her mother and father and numerous siblings.

The Duries had acquired their name in the 1260s when the younger son of the Earl of Strathearn was granted lands called Durie (whatever the word means, but possibly a Celtic word meaning "black stream") and thus became Gilbert de Durie. ... all Angus and Kincardineshire Duries descend from John Durie, the Protestant reformer, who finally gave up anoying James VI and was persuated to take the living of Montrose for a sizeable annual sum. (There was also coincidentally a family called Duray who were the dempsters to the Lairds of Edzell but they all left the district after a dispute in 1734, maybe because they were fridnely to the exiled Stuarts. (personal email from Dr Bruce Durie, shennachie to the Chief of the Duries.)

In later times Thomas Durie [my g.g.g.g.g. grandfather] was tenant of Capo, and his son Charles farmed Capo and Dalladies, and died in 1862. According to The History of Fettercairn, A.C. Cameron, 1899, p. 227: "He was long an auctioneer and land valuator, as remarkable for integrity of character as for great good-humour. His eldest son Charles, who succeeded him in the farms and died in 1869, acted as secretary to the Fettercairn Farmers' Club, and was highly esteemed alike for kind-heartedness and general intelligence. A younger brother Alexander was for some time Dean of Guild at Brechin, while carrying on the business of brewer at the North Port, where his maternal ancestors had conducted the same trade for 200 years. The youngest brother John held the farms of Dalladies and Capo till his death in 1877. In the end of last century, David Durie was tenant of Bogmill, and afterwards of Broombank, Glenbervie. His son James, who died in 1854, and grandson David as before stated, were distillers at Fettercairn. The latter died in March, 1899, at his family residence in Edinburgh. A younger brother James is a civil engineer in America." Cameron also quotes an 1837 statistical account written by a Mr Whyte, "a school at Dalladies suppported by subscriptions and school fees, was managed by the late Charles Durie the tenant, and taught by young men hired from year to year. It was given up about 1848."

William and Isobel's son Charles Durie Gold left the land and became a railway joiner and inspector, moving into Perth in the 1880s. Here he married Joan Robertson and they went on to have a large family of six daughters and three sons, but tragically Mary, Isabella, Jeannie, Margaret, and Christina died very young, leaving only Barbara Garland Gold surviving to adulthood, along with her three brothers. There is a large stone naming the little girls in Jeanfield cemetery in Perth. None of the three brothers had any family so when Barbara Garland Gold married Alfred Lamb in 1919 that was the end of that branch of the family name.

Before Barbara Gold, or Garland as she wanted to be called, was married she had been a dyer's finisher in Pullars but in 1919 she married Frederick Lamb and he moved in with her and her widowed mother to Burghmuir Road, Perth. In the late 1920s when Joan Robertson died Garland and Fred and their three daughters moved to Forteviot where he had been taken on to work for Lord Forteviot on his Dupplin estate. While here she added to the family income by running a small shop selling cigarettes, lemonade etc. at the back of their house at Cairnie Brae, Findo Gask near Forteviot. The house was on the main road from Aberdeen to Glasgow and there were a lot of people cycling along the road on their way to look for work who would see her sign on the front gate. She also used to let these travellers pitch their tents in their back garden. Sadly in 1944 her husband deserted the family, leaving them to start a new life in Greenock. Two of her daughters went through to try to persuade him to come home, but even though they did see him he stayed in the west. When their meeting was over, and ignoring the older daughter he tried to shake hands with the youngest one but she turned her back on him and left, and that was the last contact any of them had with him. Garland would not agree to a divorce but she took Fred to court over money for her and the children. Their eldest daughter was actually married and pregnant by this time but she took great care to hide this fact from him not wanting him to have the pleasure of knowing he was to become a granddad. Garland was a very gentle woman but by this time she was a broken woman and seems to have suffered some sort of breakdown, thinking people were laughing at her. When she died in 1946 the doctor told the family that she had died 'of a broken heart'.