Clerk in Orders

Not a phrase I'd come across, "Clerk in Orders", even though I could have become one. And if you read my other blog you will know that I have more than a passing interest in matters theological. This post explores the possibility, that, as they say in these parts, I come by it honestly!

Charlotte Taylor and James Denoon Young were married (see A Change of Name) on 23 December 1851 at Holy Trinity, Brompton. The marriage certificate gives the name and occupation of James's father as James Young, Clerk in Orders. That is, James Denoon Young was a preacher's kid. The Reverend James Young would be my 4xgreat grandfather.

But this was not his first marriage being a widower. Scotland Marriages 1561-1910 from the LDS familysearch site has a record of the marriage of James D Young and Jemima J Foggo 10 July 1837 in Perth. And Scotland Births and Baptisms 1564-1950 from the same site records the following children in Perth from this marriage:
     Jemima born 17 February 1840
     Catherine Denoon born 31 October 1841
     Ann Walker born 6 July 1843
     James Denoon born 12 March 1843

As previously reported (How Many Ways to Spell Zoe?) Jemima is counted with her parents in the 1841 Scotland Census, while Jemima and James junior are living with their stepmother for the 1861 England Census. Catherine died in 1866 (BMD Death Index Jun1866 Wandsworth 1d 312 Age: 24) and was buried at Battersea, St Mary 7th April 1866, her address given as 6 Milan Terrace, Bridge Road, Battersea. James junior married Jessie Stewart Robson at All Saints, Battlebridge (Islington) 30 October 1869, and moved back to Scotland according to census returns.

This much seems certain. A recent comment - thank you, CasparV, and I encourage leads like this - suggests James Denoon Young's mother as Catherine Dinoon. The LDS familysearch.org site show three children baptized by parents James Young and Catherine Dinoon, all at Canongate, Edinburgh (Scotland Births and Baptisms 1564-1950). They are:
     Mary         born 30 Nov 1809
     James        born 16 May 1811
     Catherine   born 11 Dec 1812

I have neither confirmed nor refuted the suggestion. In fact, it seems quite plausible. Dinoon/Denoon are likely variants of the same name, while James Denoon Young and his first wife Jemima Jessie Foggo named a daughter Catherine Denoon. On the other hand Dinoon and Denoon are different spellings, and, worse, James Denoon Young's documents all point to a birth in 1812-13, not May 1811. For me, the case is still open; I would like to see more documents.

My contributor also points to a marriage 1 August 1844 in Edinburgh between Jessie Sinclair Denoon Young and David Purdie Thomson. From trade directories I can see the husband was an MD who practiced in Wrenbury, Cheshire and Everton, Lancashire - his brother was a surgeon in Wrenbury. The wife is possibly James Denoon Young's sister, and would have born about 1820. Unfortunately no father's name is given. And I could find no age records for her.

She is not the first Jessie Sinclair Denoon who I've come across. The editor of the first Norwegian-language newspaper in the United States was James Denoon Reymert, father Christian Reymert (Norwegian) and mother Jessie Sinclair Denoon (Scottish). Although he grew up in Norway, as a young man in the 1830s, James Reymert studied in Edinburgh and lived with his uncle, a Rev James Young, according to his biographers. James Denoon Reymert could be James Denoon Young's first cousin - but this is currently all speculative.

In an effort to find the Rev. James Young, I restricted an ancestry search to the 1841 Scotland Census, with a birthdate around 1785, plus or minus 10 years. It's a long list of James Youngs, but within the top ten I found the following at Drummond Place, Edinburgh:
     Mrs. Ponsonby     25   Girl's Boarding School   Midlothian, Scotland
     Jossie Young        20                                       Scotland
     James Young        53    Clergyman                   Scotland
plus others, probably students, and certainly a female servant.

Jossie (Jessie?) might be James's daughter, and would even be the right age for the Jessie Sinclair Denoon Young of the marriage to David Purdie Thomson. But these 1841 census ages are unsually rounded down to the nearest 5 years, so Jossie could be anything from 20 to 24 years old on 6 June 1841. A place of birth given as Scotland, also implies not Midlothian, so Jossie (or Jessie) was not born in Edinburgh. I have no guarantee that this James Young is James Denoon Young's father. However, extending the search for Mrs. Ponsonby revealed the following (among others) for the 1851 Scotland Census at 6 Drummond Place, Edinburgh:
     Catherine Ponsonby   34   Private Boarding School
                                            and Authoress of Religious Works  Edinburgh, Midlothian
     Henry Ponsonby        17   Son, Scholar                                 Edinburgh, Midlothian
     Jemmia Young           11   Boarder, Scholar                           Perth, Perthshire
     Catherine Young         9    Boarder, Scholar                           Perth, Perthshire

Jemmia is likely a mis-transcription of Jemima, and, if so, Jemima and Catherine Young are the right ages and born in the right place to be the daughters of James Denoon Young and Jemima Jessie Foggo. In fact, it is unlikely that they could be anyone else. And this suggests a strong link between the Youngs and Mrs. Ponsonby, and high likelihood that the Rev James Young of the 1841 census is indeed my 4xgreat grandfather.

I used the LDS familysearch.org, to find records for Henry Ponsonby, born Edinburgh about 1834 to mother with first name Catherine and father with surname Ponsonby. Scotland Births and Baptisms 1564-1950 has Henry James Ponsonby, born 11 April 1832, baptized at St Cuthberts, Edinburgh. His parents are Adolphus Frederick Ponsonby and Catherine Young. Scotland Marriages 1561-1910 has the marriage of Adolphus Ponsonby and Catherine Young 2 May 1831 at St Cuthbert's, Edinburgh. The name of Catherine's father is James Young. From this, I would guess Catherine is the Rev. James's daughter, although Mrs. Catherine Ponsonby's year of birth calculated from the census is about 1816, and not the 1812 of the daughter of James Young and Catherine Dinoon.

Searching ancestry.com for Henry Ponsonby, born about 1832, shows a 9 year old in the household of Maria Young, age 30, Boarding School Teacher during the 1841 Scotland Census for Linlithgow. Is this the school of another daughter of the Rev. James Young?

Related to this, in a search for James Denoon Young, I found who appeared to be his son (of the same name) in the 1851 Scotland Census. The father, a widower, was staying in London at the time. The Peddie household at 6 Grove Street, Edinburgh St Cuthberts has the following:
     Robert A Peddie, 48, born in Stirling,
          "Manufacterer of Iron Wire Work Also Procurator In Sherriff
               And Lartice [Justice] Of Peace Courts Of Stirling
                   And Bengh [High] Court Of Do [ditto, i.e. Stirling]
                         But Not Practising"
     Maria D Peddie, 41, born in City, Edinr [Edinburgh]
          followed by their own four children, and then,
     James D Young, 5, born in Perth, "Son Of Brother In Law",
          which to anyone else would be a nephew.

Scotland Marriages 1561-1910 records the marriage of Robert Peddie and Maria Denoon Young on 13 April 1845 in Stirling. Although no father's name is given, this must be the same family as the 1851 census just reported above.

Later census returns for Robert Peddie concentrate on his iron manufacturing. He died between the 1881 and 1891 Scotland Censuses. Maria has one more census, the 1891 Scotland Census, now a widow, describing her occupation as "authoress and secretary". Her great opus, available to the likes of me thanks to googlebooks, is The Dawn of the Second Reformation in Spain: Being the Story of its Rise and Progress From the Year 1852 (London 1871). She was the Honorary Secretary of the Financial Committee for collecting funds for the Spanish Evangelization Society. From the perspective of the Society, Spain needed to be liberated from "popish superstition" to hear the "true gospel". Page 225 in the Appendix notes one of the movers behind the Society was a Dr. James Thomson. I wonder if he is David Purdie Thomson's father or brother.

As to the works of Catherine Ponsonby, "Authoress of Religious Works", I found a periodical, The Christian Family Advocate that appeared in the 1850s in at least five annual volumes. She was editor and major contributor, but another major contributor was the Rev. James Young, who I'm now presuming is her father, while articles on "Women in the Bible" and "The Cemetries [sic] of Liverpool" were written by David P Thompson M.D. This was very definitely a family affair! There is even reference to a Sunday School Hymn written by Ann Young - perhaps James Denoon Young's 12-year-old daughter. Alas! Those pages appear to be missing from the ebook.

Volume III, page 47 (published February 1854; it appears to be a monthly) has "A Practical Annotation on the 130th Psalm" by the Rev. James Young. The article is prefaced with something of a eulogy for him by Catherine Ponsonby, since the "pious and venerable author" had recently died. She writes how the Rev. Young on his deathbed asked repeatedly to hear this psalm, and how it gave him great comfort to hear it. We also learn from here that he wrote The Apocalypse Unveiled, recorded by googlebooks.
As a caution, the googlebooks oeuvre of Rev. James Young (of Edinburgh) includes at least one title I can confirm is by a different Rev. James Young. Life of J. Welsh... advertises a biographical sketch of the author, which on reading, shows this minister's dates as 1800-1865.

Confirmation of the father-daughter relationship between the Rev. James Young and Catherine Ponsonby comes from page 11 of Volume V (January 1856) of The Christian Family Advocate and Literary Review with this title:
                    The Slaying and the Resurrection of the Two Witnesses
                    Rev. xi. 7-11
                    by the late Rev. James Young,
                    author of "The Apocalypse Unveiled."
                    Edited by his daughter Catherine Ponsonby.

Also, I found two more possible sons to keep in mind, William and Charles Denoon Young. For a while they had an ironworks partnership, but it appears from bankruptcy proceedings that Charles speculated a little too much with his creditors' money and spent some time in debtors' prison. Their years of birth would be William 1813-1818 and Charles Denoon 1820. As well as their name, they have in common with James Denoon Young an interest in iron manufacture and sales. Without more evidence, I cannot confirm them as sons of the Rev. James Young.

From the above, I can give some of the family of the Rev. James Young as:
     Maria Denoon 1809/10
     James Denoon, born 1813
          possibly William, born 1813-1818
     Catherine born 1816
     Jessie Sinclair Denoon, born 1817-1821
          possibly Charles Denoon, born 1820

Although the names James and Catherine are correct, the years of birth require some explaining if they are the children of James Young and Catherine Dinoon recorded at Canongate, Edinburgh. Maria Denoon might be the same as Mary. So I am not sold on the suggestion, although I have not totally ruled it out. As always I'd be really grateful if someone could point me toward more evidence.