lot man

In the OPR of Whitsome, starting in 1769, some fathers of babies for baptism
give their occupation as lotman or lot man (it's very clear). They're

Lesley Robertson...

They don't turn up on the NAS catalogue when I run a search on any of the
Whitsome spellings. I wonder whether Borders Archives might have them?
I fell into this by accident just because I decided it was time to get the
OPR transcribed as it's the best source of info on who was where before the
census and I've started getting the farms sorted out (I've put a couple of
farms onto the web site, but they'll need to change with the new data). I'm
looking forward to getting to the first wedding register (must be on the
film somewhere!) to see where some of the women were.

I used

Lesley Robertson...

It would be lovely to find them! Mind you, at the rate I'm going, plus
conflict from little things like Christmas and a family wedding, the OPR is
going to take me to around March to complete. I've hit a really sticky patch
where 1 handwriting owner is obviously trying to keep a nice, legible
record, and then another handwriting owner has come along and tried to
insert forgotten entries into any empty(ish) place that appears - not always
with the right year, never mind the right month....
If it was easy, it wouldn't be so satisfying....
Lesley Robertson

living on the farms (until then mostly ocupied by herds or hynds, as well as
the tenants and portioners of course). However, "lotman" does not occur on
the list of occupations at Scotlands People or in the books I have. There
only seems to be 1 per farm, so I can't decide if this is an early name for
the grieve or the orraman (neither of which occur at this period) or
somethig else... Terms such as ditcher, shepherd and cattleman occaisonally
occur so it's not them.
Does anyone know?

Eve McLaughlin...

Maybe new land was cleared at this time and allocated to certain local
inhabitants. - a 'lot' can be land allocated in an enclosure, or land
allocated to relatively poor persons for their own cultivation. It is
earlier than most uses of the word i have seen in England, but certainly
around 1795 you began to get 'the poor's lot', 'a lot in the Poors Land'
in some villages where the lord of the Manor had a social conscience.
And in Lincolnshire, when the fen's were drained and the land made
avaialble in small sections, these were called Lots. (modern,
allotment, on the same principle, la]nd for the otherwise landless.)

Lesley Robertson...

Sheena Tait...

The Concise Scots Dictionary has "lot man" as a corn-thresher in the
late 18th - 19th centuries. It also has a lot (noun) as a piece of
land allotted to a particular tenant (17-e19C) or as an allowance of
corn paid to the thresher as part of his fee (late 17-18C).

I don't know, but I'd be surprised if this was a permanent job on a
farm. According to "Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland
1770-1914" - T Devine (Ed) machine threshing had been introduced by
1790. Incidentally, there's a full chapter in the book about Borders
farm workers if you're interested.

Lesley Robertson...

It's curious. In 1768 there was one in the whole parish (judging by
occupations declared by fathers or witnesses in the Register of Baptisms) -
on a farm whose name is relatively new in the records. A second one appears
in 1769. Within 2 years, most of the bigger farms had someone declaring
themself to be a lotman. Interestingly, these are the farms that have
survived - quite a few of the others had vanished beforethe start of the
19th century.
The first shepherd also appeared in 1768 (on the same farm as the 1769
lotman), although I assume that before that, some of the "herds" were
tending sheep. Maybe this is the period where they first started worrying
about fancy job titles.........

Thanks for the info - I'll move Devine to the top of my unread books pile!
I'm currently reading "The Lowland Clearances" by Aitchison & Cassell. They
draw parallels between the Improvement of the Borders and the Highland
Clearances of the next century.
Lesley Robertson

Sheena Tait...

Haven't come across that one - I'll need to add it to my "wants" list!

Thanks Eve, but I'm pretty sure that Sheena was right when she said he was a
thresher. The name arose because they originally took part of their fee as a
öt"- about 1/25 of the grain they threshed according to one source I found.

I'm beginning to think that what I'm seeing is the start of what was known
in Scotland as the Improvement - something akin to the enclosure of common
land in England and with the same effect as the Highland Clearances of the
next century. Within a year or two of the lotmen turning up, I've found a
gardener, a steward, a shepherd and a couple of ditchers - all based around
the same couple of farms. Before the Improvement, ag labs were all
non-specialist peasants defining themselves as hynds or herds from the start
of the records in 1724 onwards. Somehow, once they start defining themselves
by a specialisation, they start looking more like employees and less like
sub-tenants or cottars....
I was expecting to find out who was where from the OPR, but it's proving
even more interesting all sorts of odd things turning up!
Lesley Robertson

Sheena Tait...

and earlier the same day:

Sheena Tait...

Possibly the more go-ahead farms survived & swallowed up the others?
Or did they have the better land? It could make an interesting study
in argicultural history - has anyone done a thesis covering the
Improvement? Mind you it could be a bit of a side-track from a one
place study.

Lesley Robertson...

Some got swallowed - not necessarily the smaller ones (judging size by the
number of people producing children for baptism). One of the most prolific
farms in the 18th century had vanished completely by the 2nd Stat Account
(mid 19th century). The theme of the Lowland Clearances book is that by
enclosing the land and concentrating numbers of small tenancies (paying
their rent in kind) into one bigger one (paying cash) with employees, they
actually started the movement that culminated in the Highland Clearances...
They tie the planned villages into the whole thing as well - somewhere to
stash your former tenants until you needed them for harvest.

It's one thing knowing about it intellectually, and quite another when you
suddenly see it come alive! The first things that happened were the
enclosure and drainage of the land, and the first 2 specific trades to
appear in the OPR were ditcher and mason...

I suspect that it's only so clear because Whitsome was a completely
agricultural parish - and it's making the 1-place study come alive!
Lesley Robertson

Sheena Tait...

You've got me thinking now... I'll definitely need to get hold of the
Lowland Clearances book and have a look at what was happening in
comparison in some of the Caithness parishes where my ancestors lived.
However the OPRs start later than those for Whitsome (Bower - 1770,
Halkirk - 1772) so any 18th C changes may not show up.
Sheena

Lesley Robertson...

I'm not sure that you'll have missed it - the starting period seems to have
varied across the country, I suppose depending on the landowners (and of
course the actual changes were probably beginning a bit earlier since I'm
looking at baptismal registers - unless they all arrived in the parish with
very pregnant wives...). Whitsome's changes seem to start around 1768 so you
may be on the "cusp", as it were, or even well in time as the movement
started around the Borders and gradually moved north (ending of course in
the Highland Clearances). I'm up to 1774 now, and the first person to give
their occupation as "labourer" has just appeared. There's still more hynds
and herds than others, but there's been one gardener. I need to sit down and
check names of tenants - see whether the changes are coming in with new
people, but I'm trying not to do anything like that until I've got most of
the transcription done - slow work!.

It would be very interesting to see whether the same pattern appears in the
Caithness area...

Thank heavens for the NLS and their map series! I can place most of the
extinct fermtouns (although 2 are still evading discovery).
Lesley Robertson

L Bousbaine...

Sir John Clerk seems to have been Improving Penicuik in the 1740s. In the
Additional Notes to his Memoirs (published by the Scottish History Society,
1892), there are notes on his Scheme of Improvements, dating from 1741. Of
particular interest to me are his remarks about the farm of Cuiken/Cooking
which he was obliged to let to "one of our own young bungling, disorderly,
country fellowes for a Tenant, James Willsone, who was never bred to know
any thing about the improvement of ground by inclosures, and this it happens
that the Hedges are neglected and will go to ruin unless the Genius of the

Lesley Robertson...

Well, that certainly supports Aitchison & Cassell's claim that the
landowners viewed their old-style tenants with contempt!
Lesley Robertson

Tenant improve."

Thanks to the NAS online catalogue, which includes the papers of the Clerks
of Penicuik, it looks like this James Wilson was an ancestor of mine.

Thanks to the NLS map collection I've also located the farms where James
Wilson had the tenancy at various points, including Eastfield which looks
like it's now under the Caithness Glass Visitor Centre.

Lesley Bousbaine

Lesley Robertson