Sir John Wedderburn, 5th Baronet of Blackness

Sir John Wedderburn, 5th Baronet of Blackness, was a Perthshire gentleman who joined the 1745 rebellion of Charles Edward Stuart. He was captured at the Battle of Culloden, taken to London, and convicted of treason. He was hanged, his estates were forfeit to the Crown, and his family was attainted. The Blackness in his title is Blackness House in Dundee[1] rather than Blackness in Lothian just west of Edinburgh. His son John Wedderburn of Ballendean fled after his father's death to Jamaica, where he re-established the family's fortunes via slave sugar, and eventually regained his father's title.

Sir John Wedderburn
Born
Died28 November 1746
NationalityScottish
Occupationlandowner
Known forThe "Forty Five"

Early life

Wedderburn was the son of Alexander Wedderburn, the 4th Baronet, "who had been deposed from his office as Clerk of Dundee in 1717 for supporting the Stuarts in the previous uprising of 1715"[2] (the Jacobite rising of 1715 in support of the Old Pretender).

John Wedderburn had a sister, Elizabeth, who married Alexander Read of Logie, Dundee in 1715;[3] their daughter Catherine Read was a noted portrait painter[4] and their son Alexander Read was the grandfather of "Bold" Webster, husband of Frances Annesley, and friend of Lord Byron.[5]

Wedderburn's expectations of an inheritance were not fulfilled, and he fell on hard times. He raised his family in "a small farm with a thatched house and a clay floor, which he occupied with great industry, and thereby made a laborious but starving shift to support nine children who used to run about in the fields barefoot".[6]

The "Forty Five"

Execution of rebels following the Jacobite rebellion in 1745-1746. Published in London in 1746 by M. Cooper.

In 1745 Sir John joined the rebellion of Charles Edward Stuart against the Hanoverian Crown,[7] serving as a colonel in the Jacobite arm. He was captured at the Battle of Culloden and taken to London to face trial.[7] He was indicted for treason at St Margaret's Hill, Southwark on 4 November 1746, and was found guilty, despite arguing in his defence that he had not personally taken up arms against the Crown. He was executed at Kennington Common on 28 November 1746.[6]

Marriage and descendants

According to the genealogist Joseph Foster, Sir John married in 1724 Jean Fullerton, who lived till 1766. Foster only records details of two sons, John and James.[8] He also had daughters, for they are recorded as having been taken in charge by the aforementioned Catherine Read, the portrait painter, after his execution.[9]

References

  • Oliver, Neil, A History of Scotland, Phoenix, London (2010) ISBN 0753826631
  • Rothschild, Emma, The Inner Life of Empires: An Eighteenth-Century History Retrieved June 2012

Notes

  1. Baxter, Kenneth; Whatley, Patricia; McKean, Charles (2013). Lost Dundee : Dundee's Lost Architectural Heritage. Birlinn. ISBN 9781780271064.
  2. "FDCA - Sir John Wedderburn". www.fdca.org.uk. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  3. Elliot, Alexander (1911). "7". "Lochee" - As it was and is. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  4. O'Donoghue, Freeman Marius (1896). "Read, Catherine". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 47. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  5. Stewart, John (2008). "2". Byron and the Websters : the letters and entangled lives of the poet, Sir James Webster and Lady Frances Webster. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. ISBN 9780786432400.
  6. Cobbett, William, p.429 Cobbett's Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings, Volume 18 Retrieved June 2012
  7. Oliver, p.326
  8. Foster, Joseph. textsThe peerage, baronetage, and knightage of the British Empire : for 1882 (1883 ed.). Nicols & Sons. p. 646.
  9. Miss Katherine Read, Court Paintress, A. Francis Steuart, The Scottish Historical Review, Vol. 2, No. 5 (Oct., 1904), pp. 38-46 (abstract)
  10. Malcolm Chase, ‘Wedderburn, Robert (1762–1835/6?)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008 accessed 17 Oct 2016
  11. McCarthy, Bill (12 March 2012). "Obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 October 2016.
  12. The Gentleman's Magazine (Volume 92, Part 2 ed.). 1822. p. 479.
  13. Legacies of British Slave-ownership. Peter Wedderburn Ogilvy (23rd Sep 1781 - 30th Mar 1873)
Baronetage of Nova Scotia
Preceded by
Alexander Wedderburn
Baronet
(of Balindean)
1744–1746
Forfeit
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