Harvey Roulston

This looks to be your family in the 1831 census, at which time there were 10 in the household, 5 males and 5 females, so it looks as though there may have been a few more children over and above the 4 you know about. Up to 8, though obviously there could be the odd spinster aunt or mother in law in there too.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1831/_/_/Templemore/Wapping_Lane/3/

Photos of Wapping Lane taken in the last 9 years (these are not the houses that would have been there in the 1830s):

https://www.geograph.ie/photo/6160327

https://www.geograph.ie/stuff/list.php?title=Wapping+Lane%2C+Derry+%2F+Londonderry&gridref=C4316

It should be fairly obvious that farmers don’t normally live in the centre of a city. So, if Harvey’s father was a farmer, I would question whether the Wapping Lane family is the right one.  I looked in Pigots Directory for Londonderry in 1824 and Slaters for 1846. There’s no Roulston listed, so that points to the family as likely being labourers and weavers. They can be hard to trace sometimes as they often moved to follow available work.  Wapping Lane was an area where labourers and weavers would have lived, but not farmers. Harvey isn’t a very common first name. I couldn't find any other Harvey Roulstons in Ireland, so the Wapping Lane family is probably the correct one. Perhaps the occupation of farmer in Australian records is inaccurate? Particularly if it came from a death certificate. Death certificates often contain errors because obviously the information is not first hand. The informant is often unlikely to have met the deceased's parents. Getting some of their details slightly wrong is common.

As to the Roulston family’s origins, I agree that the denomination points to their being of Scottish origins (something that many of the population of the area share) and I also agree that MacLysaght (The Surnames of Ireland) says it’s an English name. (Though it’s common in Scotland too, so it’s not exclusively English). It’s certainly a settler name, so you can be fairly confident they arrived in the 1600s. I’d favour Scots origins personally. That seems more probable to me. Craig is convincingly Scottish. MacLysaght just says: “This Scottish name (from crag) is very numerous in Cos Antrim, Derry & Tyrone.” 

There was one Ralston (John) in Donegal in the 1630 Muster Rolls but none in Co. Londonderry then so it looks as though the family arrived in the area post 1630. There were many Craigs and Craggs in Co Derry in 1630.

I searched the marriage indexes for the city of Londonderry registration area for 1845 – 1865 for Roulston marriages. There were only 7. The only one with a father named John was this one in 1851, where the groom David was living outside the city. He married in the Church of Ireland but tradition was to marry in the bride’s church so that doesn’t tell us his denomination. He could well have been Presbyterian. I don’t know if it’s your family, merely that he was a labourer with a father named John who was a weaver, so that broadly fits the limited information we have.

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1851/09412/5409910.pdf

There was a John Roulston shipowner & merchant in Londonderry in 1861 but I doubt it’s the same family:

https://www.lennonwylie.co.uk/PT_Lpage620.htm

1851 has a ship-owner family and an agency for servants (again I don’t think it is the same family):

https://www.lennonwylie.co.uk/1852PD3.htm

I note that several trees on Ancestry have Harvey’s date of birth as 18.10.1827 in Londonderry.

I looked for possible deaths for John & Nancy. Death registration only started in 1864 so if they died before that then there will be no record. I did not find any likely deaths for Nancy. Two possibles for John though the 1893 death would be too young. However ages were mostly guesses at that time and for someone in their 70s it could be out by up to 10 years. 

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1872/020718/7269124.pdf

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1893/06002/4707855.pdf

According to Griffiths Valuation, the family were not listed in Wapping Lane in 1859. I can’t see them anywhere in the county, so I suspect they had either died or moved away from the area.

Hi Elwyn, thanks very much for all this information.  You have raised many things that I have wondered about for quite a while.

Firstly, I have long suspected that there were more children in this family.  If Harvey's baptism record is missing, then so could those of some of his siblings. I would have thought that most families were large back then and the children we can see are quite spread out.

Re Wapping Lane, it is clearly in Derry city and I presume this was the case, even back then.  The 'farmer' information does come from Harvey's death certificate, but it was also on his marriage certificate, when he was very much alive!  I think the most likely explanation is that he liked the sound of that better than 'labourer' or something similar, or alternatively, as you suggest, that the family moved around and maybe worked on the land at some time other than when they lived in Wapping Lane. I noticed that in the Flax Growers List of 1796, there were Roulstons in Donaghmore and Taughboyne parishes in Donegal, which are very close to Derry. Do you think it's possible that the family could have worked on those areas before or after they lived in Wapping Lane?  Either way, I presume John Roulston senior, would not have been a land owner. The 1796 list had Craig's all over the place, both in Derry and Donegal, but there were no Roulstons in Derry.

Re Harvey's birth date, that comes from his obituary. He established newspapers in Australia and this obituary was in the family paper, so it could be correct.  However, it is not consistent with his age on his marriage certificate, or on the his eldest son's birth certificate, both of which would make him born around 1831.  
 

I noticed on Roots Ireland that there was another Roulston family having children in the same timeframe who also attended the First Derry Presbyterian Church. There was a Mary, bap 1832 and an Archibald born in 1835, both with the father Oliver. You'd think the families would have known one another at least and, although we can't prove it, could be related in some way, such as John and Oliver being brothers or cousins. Also, quite by accident, I came across another Harvey Roulston in Lancashire, England, born in 1849, when searching on Ancestry. He was definitely not ours, but he had a son also called Harvey.  I worked backwards on Ancestry and found this Harvey's father was Charles Roulston, born in Londonderry. Charles was also a Presbyterian and married Eliza Clark in Carsile Road Parish.

Now our Harvey also handed his name to his eldest son (my great grand father). The name lasted about four generations before it petered out. It seems a sufficiently unusual name to me that I suspect ( but once again can't prove) some connection, especially as it has handed down in two separate families. From the English 1861 census, Charles would have been born around 1825, so could possibly have been a cousin or brother of our Harvey. I wondered if Harvey could have once been a surname in the Roulston family, for example John Roulston's mother's maiden name. Is Harvey a surname or first name that appears much around Derry?

In summary, it looks like the the Roulston and Craig families were immigrants to Ireland from Scotland around the time of Plantation, but arrived in Derry after 1630.  They were probably weavers or labourers, not land owners and may possibly have moved around the area. It is also likely that most of Harvey's generation left Ireland as young adults, ending up in the US, Australia and possibly England. We also know from Australian records that "the family were hardworking and painstaking Presbyterians and the tone of the Journal (their newspaper) was never tepid. It's editorials we're forthright, beautifully written and uncompromising. There is no doubt it must have annoyed many people......"

Again, thanks for your input.

Sally 

Sally,

Yes I agree that most families in the 1800s were large. Having 8 or 10 children was very common.  Quite a few children died young though, and so that can account for apparent gaps in the years of birth. You can search the 1901 & 1911 Irish censuses by number of children. I searched 1901 for households with 15 children, and found 1865. There were 44 with 20 children. It makes you think.

Yes Wapping Lane was inside the city then. (The city has a set of walls right around it, that are still complete today, and Wapping Lane was always inside the walls). I thinks Harvey probably did “promote” his father from labourer to farmer myself.  I have come across that before. In a way that’s a pity because farmers are generally a bit easier to find. They tended to stay put and they show up in records like the tithes. But a farmer normally has to live on the land he/she works. Animals need fed and watered and looked after. Cows need milked twice a day etc etc.  I have never heard of anyone not living on the farm (save sometimes where they have 2 separate farms, which you did get a bit with small farms, but even then they lived on one of them).

Yes it’s possible that the family lived in Taughboyne or Donaghmore at some time. No easy way of determining. I agree John Roulston would not have been a land owner. Most farmers rented.  Inability to get the freehold for your land was a big source of resentment in Ireland for hundreds of years. Most of the big landowners did not want to sell. They wanted the rental income instead. Very frustrating if you were a farmer who spent 30 years improving your farm only to have the rent raised because it was now more valuable (because of your efforts) and always facing the potential threat of eviction, though by the mid 1850s, eviction was much harder so long as you paid your rent. Various guarantees were introduced by Parliament that gave some security but you were still renting. It was 1903 before legislation came in that allowed most farmers to buy their freehold if they wished.

I’d be careful about assuming there were no Roulstons in Derry in 1796 because there are none on the flax growers list. To be on the flax growers list you needed some land to grow flax. Someone living in a city would not routinely have any agricultural land, so wouldn’t be on the list.

Harvey is not a common forename in Ireland. In the 1901 census there are about 23 people with the forename (out of 4.5 million). There were 2 in Co Derry, and one of them looks to be someone having a joke because the surname is Earl.  So it’s a sort of pun on the Earl Bishop of Derry who was named Harvey. He was a very famous Bishop who led a fairly interesting life.  He died in 1803. All the Hotel Bristols around the world are named after him because his name was synonymous with luxury. His family were big wine importers (on a commercial basis) and there is a famous sherry – in Britain anyway – called Harvey’s Bristol Cream. That’s his family. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Hervey,_4th_Earl_of_Bristol

I would say that the name Harvey in your family may have come from someone naming their child after him as the Earl family probably did. (There was a similar burst of children named Winston in Dundee after Winston Churchill became MP for the city). Presbyterians often use a surname as a forename.  Lots of Scots have forenames like Campbell, Fraser, Gregor and so on. Sometimes taken from a mother’s maiden name and in other cases after someone the family respected eg the local Minister or a relative with no children, so their name would be kept going. So the surname Harvey being used as a forename fits with that tradition.

I would agree with your analysis of the likely family background.

The description of the family as hard working, painstaking Presbyterians and the uncompromising editorials in their paper sounds very typical. Presbyterians in Ireland (and Scotland) have a reputation for being hard working (folk here sometimes talk about the Protestant work ethic) and they are also known for their bluntness, and occasional apparent lack of a sense of humour.  Today they often hold quite strong views on human rights issues, same sex marriage & abortion and have been known to get into trouble with the authorities when  they start protesting about things.  The dour Ulster-Scot is often seen as a very different type from others in Ireland. Though they may have lived in Ireland for 400 years now, the early Scots settlers came with an equal number of women, so did not need to intermarry with native Irish families, as some other settlers did. There was always a tradition of marrying within their own community and their sense of a separate identity remains very strong today. (It’s one of the reasons why Ireland remains two separate countries. The majority of Ulster Scots don’t really see themselves as Irish at all, and instead identify strongly with Scotland and the rest of the UK). Here’s a link to the Ulster-Scots Agency which has a bit of history on it, as well as a fine recipe for Scotch Broth, I see!

https://www.facebook.com/UlsterScotsAgency/

Elwyn,

Once again thank you for all this information. Our Harvey does sound a bit similar to your description.  He married a Scottish Presbyterian lady in Australia and in later life got himself into quite a bit of strife with the law when he reacted very strongly to a perceived insult in a pub.

I also noticed the red,white and blue kerbs in your photo of Wapping Lane and I gather that it is in an area that in more recent tones has been at the centre of Protestant and unionist (with the UK) activity.

Lots of information, lots to think about!

Sally

Sally,

Yes painting kerbstones to indicate your loyalties has long been a popular pastime in this part of Ireland. It’s similar to dogs marking their territories.