By December he has work to fill the following two months, which was to earn him £200, and expected more.īefore his nineteenth birthday he was earning enough to be able to send money home and to consider setting up in trade on his own account. He was looked after by his relative Lachlan Cumming, who found him surveying work with some of his friends and recommended his appointment as a ‘colonial land surveyor’. He is a lad of a very promising appearance.'Įlgin Courant, and Morayshire Advertiser, 5 April 1898 quoting letter in Rose Papers I have just received a letter down the coast mentioning that another passenger of the Herbert's lies at the point of death. 27-Two of the passenger that came out in the same vessel with me have been rather unfortunate, the one having already gone to his grave and the other returned home in a very bad way a few days after arrival. For Heaven's sake, let slip no opportunity of writing me. Mr Donaldson, whom you also know, is dead. Grant, the brother of Mr Grant, in Glasgow, some distant friend of ours, is dead. 'I arrived here in perfect safety on the 2nd curt. By June he had found a Mr Richardson who agreed to teach him the basics of land-surveying and, having acquired this skill, he sailed for Demerara, aged only 17, in September of the following year. Main source: The domestic papers of the Rose family (1926) with full text on .uk at this pageĪndrew Rose (1783-1832) went to school in Banff and, after a brief time in Edinburgh, was placed, early in 1799, in the counting house of James Connell, a Glasgow merchant who had ‘a most extensive business with Demerary and the West Indies’. William and his wife Mary Robinson, who was once described as an exceptionally beautiful woman, had 12 children. The Earl was reputedly very fond of his factor and liked to tease him about his love of food and dislike of exercise. He lived at Montcoffer House by the River Deveron, which he renovated c1774/5. His mother was Anne Cuming of the Craigmiln family, the aunt of Thomas Cuming and also related to Lachlan Cuming. William Rose (1740-1807) was factor to James Duff, 2nd Earl of Fife, at Duff House, Banff, from c1763 to 1795. For family tree see Ancestry (subscription required)

Slaves and Highlanders by David Alston