It is doing no more than stating the obvious to say that north Northumberland lies adjacent to the Scottish Border. However, many beginners at family history research seem to regard that Border
as having been permanently “closed”: that is, that families never crossed it.
Nothing could be further then the truth, as something like half the 19th-century population of north Northumberland
had Scottish roots. Various reasons have been put forward for this, from
depopulation following the mediaeval Border Wars and the depredations of the Border Reivers of Tudor days to Jacobite refugees
after Culloden, but the main reason is likely to have been, as ever, economic. The drift of population throughout the whole of the NE of England and SE of
Scotland has always been from north to south, as people followed the chance of making a better living a few miles down the
With them, these incoming Scots brought their own brand of religion: Presbyterianism. The
activities of, amongst others, the redoubtable John Knox had ensured that the Church of Scotland was firmly Presbyterian. In “Episcopalian” England Presbyterians were not entirely welcome
at first but such were their numbers in north Northumberland that a modus vivendi
was soon established. At various times during the 19th century
Presbyterian churches were set up in centres throughout north Northumberland, from the larger towns which, like Berwick upon
Tweed or Wooler, may have had several such churches, to tiny hamlets like Warenford or Branton. There was never anything like a formal “parish” system, and Presbyterians would sometimes
travel great distances, perhaps passing several other churches, to attend the one of their choice. They were allowed to hold regular services of Worship and to baptise their children, but following
Hardwicke’s Marriage Act, which became Law in 1754, and in practice for many years before that, right up to 1837, marriages
were not allowed in Presbyterian churches. Presbyterians
wishing to marry had to either swallow their pride and be married in the local Church of England parish church or else make
a journey to Scotland, where they could have either a Presbyterian ceremony in a church or else a civil ceremony at eg a Border
Marriage House. Burials were not normally held either, not because there
was any Law against it, but because in practice the only burial ground in any (C of E) parish was the local parish churchyard.
As with Methodists, Presbyterians were noted for their many schisms and splits, with occasional re-unifications. Hence we have the “English”
Presbyterians, more often found in local ports, and the “Scottish” ones (“Scotch” churches)
and the various “Associate” and “Secession” congregations.
Then, to confuse us further, there were the “Burger” and the “Anti-burger” congregations.
Many local Presbyterian baptism registers lay neglected and little-used until in the 1970s the late Don Mason, in a
mammoth effort, transcribed many of them and deposited copies in local reference libraries and County Record Offices, thus
making available a vast amount of useful information. Like most church
registers, the earlier ones (no earlier then the mid-18th century in this case) tend to be very sparse but, as
a rule, entries became more informative as time went on, and some registers have entries as good as, if not better than, the
“Barrington” or “Dade” entries of the Church of England.
Anyone tracing a north Northumberland family, then, and whose researches in Church of England sources come to a halt,
could do a lot worse then to look at a variety of local Presbyterian registers.
In north Northumberland Presbyterianism was often carried into a family when someone married a Presbyterian, and once
it had been adopted as the “family affiliation” it seems to have had a permanent staying power, unlike the situation
in the more southern towns and ports of our region, where in the author’s experience Presbyterianism tended, with many
exceptions, to be a “first and second generation only” connection.