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Jean Traill and Thomas Neil

Jean Traill married Thomas Neill, an Exciseman, from Edinburgh.  They had a son:

  • Patrick Neill

B H Hossack in his "Kirkwall in the Orkneys" makes reference to Thomas Neill and his Orkney connection:

A small garden near the head of the  Strynd was, in the middle eighteenth century, the Botanic Garden of Kirkwall.  Neil refers to it in his "Tour":- "Having been informed that a  Dr Sutherland (long ago deceased) , a pupil of the great Boerhaave, was in the frequent practice of resorting to a small glen, called the Guills of Scapa,  to gather simples, which he dispensed  in his medical practice, curiosity led me to carefully to examine the spot.  I observed a large bed of distort (polygonum bistorta), a remnant I presume of the Doctor's dispensary."  It may be stated that Mr Thomas Neill of Cannonmills House, Edinburgh was married to Jean Traill, daughter of Patrick Traill of Elsness, hence his interest in Orkney, and that he was a leading member of the Royal Botanical Society, hence his interest in "the little kail-yard possest by Hugh Sutherland, M.D."

Kirkwall In The Orkneys (1900), B H Hossack, p197

It is likely that Dr Hugh Sutherland mentioned is the one whose son, William Sutherland, married Henrietta Fea.

In 1766, Patrick briefly revived the litigation in respect of the Elsness estate.

A Dr Patrick Neill who wrote the "Tour Of Orkney and Shetland", which appeared in book form in 1806.  It had in 1804/05 appeared in serial form in the "Scots Magazine." There is some confusion of sources over which Patrick Neill this was.

Although the author visited Stronsay on a number of occasions, he also still had some difficulty in untangling his Fea relations as shown by a letter to the Misses Fea at Airy, the unmarried daughters of Patrick Fea of Airy and Stove.

Dear Ladies,
We missed Lieut. Gourlay's cutter but I hope we shall catch Mr Urquhart going down in another cutter - You are now in my debt at least one letter.  I never learned whether you received a pamphlet on Orkney which I sent you.

Could you inform me who Mr Fea Surgeon was, who wrote on Orkney and Fisheries about twenty years ago.  Is he still alive?

Dear Ladies,
Yours Truly,
Pat Neill.

From Tales of An Island (1987), W M Gibson,, p116

The Neill descendants of Thomas Neill were printers in Edinburgh.



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