"A Delightful Escape"
Juliet Alexa Maclean 1826 - 1909
A Personal Serendipity
A Forest Scene near Umhlali
-Natal Historian, Shelagh Spencer
For years, genealogists have been pursuing elusive ancestors...perhaps, at least in some cases, those ancestors have actually been chasing us!
-Jane Fletcher Fiske, FASG, Foreword to Henry Z Jones Jr, More Psychic Roots, Further Adventures in Serendipity & Intuition in Genealogy.
Why do some of us genealogists have....seemingly nonrational experiences? ....such topics as synchronicity (events that happen simultaneously with no apparent causal connection but with deep significance for those who experience them); numeracy (the mathematical probability of having a connection with any person you may happen to meet); intuition (a seeming sixth sense that a record will appear where it may or may not belong); genetic memory (the possibility that we inherit from our forebears some of the facts about our heritage)... You may not find a satisfying answer at the end of every explanatory avenue, but the very least you owe yourself, to your ancestors, and to your descendants is to investigate each one.
-Helen Hinchcliff, Foreword to Henry Z Jones Jr, Psychic Roots, Serendipity & Intuition in Genealogy.
oOo
Sometimes there crosses one's path in life a friend, a celebrity, a crisis, a book, even an obscure person from the past that is momentous, transforming, and life changing. It is almost as if such "happenstances" are destined and meant to be. There is no rational explanation for them. Or as Dante once explained...
And passing through a street, she turned her eyes thither where I stood sorely abashed; and by her unspeakable courtesy...she saluted me with so virtuous a bearing that I seemed then and there to behold the very limits of blessedness... I parted thence as one intoxicated. (Quoted by John Sanford, The Invisible Partners, p.21)
That was how the chance encounter with Juliet Alexa Maclean seemed to me. It was as if it were a glimpse of Beatrice. Perhaps it was simply the schoolboy associations of her name that conjured up forgotten memories of "star cross'd lovers". It was after all Shakespeare's Juliet who asked, “What is in a name?”
A Zulu village near Umhlali, Natal
In my previous blog, mention was made of Chief Alexander's sister, Juliet Maclean. The story of how I came to learn about Juliet was in itself, for me personally, an intriguing one, coinciding with a crisis of faith that I was about to go through but unaware of its imminent significance. In no small measure she was pivotal, as if in my engagement with her story, she was meant to accompany me through my own impending Night Storm Voyage. It came about quite fortuitously and unexpectedly in the course of my search for Alexander's grave.
I record something of how it all unfolded in my Journal...
August 8, 2007 - Wednesday:
After attempting several obsolete addresses [enquiring after Alexander Maclean] I finally received an email from the University of KZN, Pietermaritzburg…
Dear Rev Garvie Your query on the Maclean clan refers. We do have the book "The Natal diaries of Mrs. Juliet Windham (nee Maclean), 1857-59, 1860-61 and 1866". You can borrow this book via interlibrary loans. Simply go to your local library and request it from us. As far as I am aware it is not available online. Doing a quick search online I have not found anything on Alexander Maclean - it would need a good thorough search to find material. Charles Rawden Maclean, 1815-1880 is quite well covered in our library - I am not sure of his relationship with the Macleans you are researching - if at all. You are very welcome to visit and make use of our Library. Killie Campbell Africana Library in Durban is another good place to look: http://campbell.ukzn.ac.za/?q=node/42 Sorry that I have not been of more help Margaret BassSubject LibrarianUniversity of KwaZulu-Natal (Pmb)I was more than delighted. I had originally assumed from the entry in the Dictionary of South African Biography that these were possibly diaries of the son of Ashe Windham. Instead they turn out to be the diaries of Juliet MacLean, the sister of Alexander MacLean. I immediately went down to the Musgrave Library just a block away from work and was a little disappointed that I would need to go into the City Library to arrange the interlibrary loan. The Killie Campbell Library might be easier so I emailed the librarian there only to be given an old email address again. I tried another which seemed to have gone through. They might even have a copy of the diaries. I am hoping too that in their collection of newspapers they might have an obituary for Alexander MacLean. Also today after being referred to them I managed to find and order…
Warriors and Priests: History of the Clan Maclean, 1300-1570 by Nicholas Maclean-Bristol
Clan to Regiment: 600 Years in the Hebrides 1400-2000 by Nicholas Maclean-Bristol
So many little surprises seem to be coming together in this search for the MacLeans!
These "little surprises" were to turn into a startling, breath-taking life-change event!
The next reference to Juliet occurs a few days later...
August 12, 2007 - Sunday:
....Ken and Eleanor G had yesterday gone to the Archives Depot in Pietermaritzburg and they kindly copied for me the estate papers for Ashe and Juliet Windham (nee MacLean) including a photo of Ashe Windham for which I was very grateful.
Early Will of Juliet Windham
Then...
September 19, 2007 - Wednesday:
I heard from the City Library that Juliet Windham’s Natal Diaries had arrived. Not a large book I started photocopying it for my own MacLean archives.
The "book" was a copy of the original typed manuscript. I started reading it a few days later. On September 29, 2007 - Saturday, I emailed Coll historian, Nicholas MacLean-Bristol, in which I explained something of my excitement in acquiring the Natal Diaries...
Sir
I presume my earlier email has been forwarded on to you but just wanted to let you know that I did eventually receive a typed copy of Juliet Wndham, nee MacLean's Natal Diaries through Interlibrary Loan from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg and reading it with great interest and delight.
What was exciting was that by sheer coincidence I received the Diaries on the 150th anniversary of Juliet leaving home and sailing on the 24th September 1857 to visit her brother "Alister" in Natal! That is the date of her first entry in this diary. What a remarkable synchronicity!
I still haven't located Alexander MacLean's grave here in Durban but I will keep looking.
Slainte!
Colin G Garvie
September 24, 2007:
I had not mentioned that the 24th was also the birthday of my wife, Sylvia Adam, who was of Clan Gordon descent. Furthermore, the coincidence of an anniversary and a birthday forged a link between the two. The following day I sent an email off to the cousin who had copied the Windham papers for me…
Hi Eleanor
Did I tell you that I made a curious discovery? The diary of Juliet MacLean the sister of Sandy MacLean of Coll that I got arrived a few days before the 24th September, Sylvia's birthday. So what? you say. Well, she starts her diary sailing from England for Natal on the 24th September! Isn't that remarkable? No? Yes! 1857!!!! I get her diary on the 150th anniversary of her diary! Wow!
She starts....
It has long been a wish of mine dating from the days of childhood and the reading of Robinson Crusoe to know what it would be like to live far away from civilization, and later on I have longed to live where there should be neither calling nor returning of calls, neither church nor clergymen. To live quite too far from thy church, as I would say....
I think I like this girl! A dram to the Maids of Coll!
Colin
Juliet described it as "a delightful escape".The more I read the more fond I grew of Juliet. The intention was, of course, to glean information about her brother, Alexander "Alick" Maclean but the further I read, the more I admired this determined, independent Hebridean woman, "Jupiter's Child!"
Crashing Waves...No one Spoke a Word
Little did I then know that within days I too would be "leaving" the church disenchanted and disappointed in and by the ecclesiastical order, sailing, like Juliet, into what seemed were very stormy turbulent waters, "...waves seemed really 'mountains high.' I could not have believed it unless I had seen them, they kept coming up against us like great black walls, and it seemed as if each wave must come down right on top of us, and crash the masts, but instead of this on getting pretty near they always seemed to go under the ship... The noise of the wind was great and it was pretty dark, the waves seemed to get even larger. The sensation I experienced was that it was very frightful but that I was not frightened, as the sailors did not seem to be. No one spoke a word" (October 4th, 1857).
Therein was a parable for me. In a way, leaving the church, was for me "a delightful escape" too but which was like "great black walls" crashing down on me at times.
Night Skies...Dark Black Places
Once the skies cleared Juliet remarked on the night sky that were to become her canopy for the next, almost three decades ... "We are now halfway between South America and South Africa. I am disappointed in the 'Southern Cross.' It is not like one, more like a little kite, string and all. Megallan's clouds and Cape clouds are very pretty, made of stars but appearing to be a pair of small misty soft white clouds quite near each other. Also there is a queerlooking black place in the sky, and far from them, called by the sailors 'the entrance to Hell.'" (October 22nd, 1857)
A Church Gone Dumb
Juliet was an avid reader. One of the books she took with her and read while at sea was Thomas Carlyle's satire, Sartor Resartus. One place Carlyle writes...
...every conceivable Society, past and present, may well be figured as properly and wholly a Church, in one or other of these three predicaments: an audibly preaching and prophesying Church, which is the best; second, a Church that struggles to preach and prophesy, but cannot as yet, till its Pentecost come; and" third and worst, a Church gone dumb with old age, or which only mumbles delirium prior to dissolution.
-Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, "Church-Clothes"
Interrupted Solitude
For Juliet, life and church had become a "delirium". I also thought my church had “gone dumb with old age.” No one spoke a word. My church had lost its prophetic voice...gone dumb. Juliet sought new adventures, the need to assert herself and forge a new identity far away from her impoverished past. But escape the church, she could not. She had hardly gone ashore at Port Natal when there was the inevitable visit from the Colonial Chaplain, the Rev. Lloyd. Juliet travelled north and joined her brother at Umhlali hoping there to find the solitude she was seeking but...
...the Bishop had thought fit to get up church services and to send a clergyman to this place which is a great “sell” for me, as I had hoped to realise my old idea of happiness to live “far away beyond the reach of any church!” … The clergyman it seems is Archdeacon of Maritburg [Charles F Mackenzie later Bishop of central Africa], and only on the coast for a time. He lives on the Umhlali... Alick says he is sure I shall find them all worth knowing (15th January 1558 at Umhlali)... Alick tells me the Archdeacon and his sisters are all good and agreeable and well worth knowing people. They are coming to see us. I am glad that they are good and do good, and that they are High Church. But alas for my anticipation for real solitude. What! Visitors after all and a church! (24th January 1858) ...The Archdeacon called....I thought to myself. “Now let us have it out. I shall say exactly what I think. I choose to be my real self and show that I believe that I have a right to my convictions as well as any Church Christian to his.” So we both spoke quite openly. I liked him, and find him, for a clergyman, rather reasonable. And I once even made him laugh... (1/2nd March 1858)
Nicholas MacLean-Bristol devotes a chapter and more to this remarkable Maclean woman, Juliet Alexa Maclean, in his monumental, From Clan to Regiment, which I heartily recommend. It should be on the shelves of every Highlander of Scottish descent!
Umgeni River on the way from Durban to Umhlali
On arriving in Durban, Juliet had made her acquaintance with St Paul's and the Rev. Lloyd. Juliet was far from escaping the church. Her brother Alexander encouraged her and nurtured those vital connections they had as youngsters on Coll. She eventually enjoyed a long standing friendship with Bishop John Colenso of Natal and shared his liberal views. Her diaries describes life in the Colony with her husband and children. Her affection and longing for her brother, Alick, continued till his early death at the age of 47.
She found love in Natal and married Ashe Windham, the Magistrate of Greytown. Natal Historian, Shelagh Spencer, wrote: "Windham, who was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, came to Natal with Bp Colenso, his former tutor. According to the Natal Witness of 26 Aug. 1859, Windham married Ms Maclean at his residence Bishopstowe on 19 Aug. 1859. They were married by Bp Colenso."
In 1861 Juliet and Alexander's father died. They visited home in 1862 but returned to Natal again. In 1867 her brothers Hugh and Willy died. In 1875 Alexander died of dysentery with Juliet nursing him. Juliet eventually returned to England with her husband in 1884 and died in 1909 three months after Ashe at the age of 84 in Norbury, Surrey. The Windhams left three children: Ashe, William, John, and Katherine Jane who was named after Ashe and Juliet's mothers.
Death Notice: Juliet Alexa Windham
Juliet's death was announced in "South Africa Magazine: Domestic Announcements, December 11, 1909"...
WINDHAM - At Norbury, Surrey, in her 84th year, Juliet Alexa WINDHAM, widow of the late Ashe WINDHAM, of Wawne, Yorkshire, and daughter of the late Colonel Hugh MACLEAN, Scots Guards, of Coll, Argyleshire. Cremation at Woking today (Saturday). Funeral train leaves private station, Necropolis Company, 121, Westminster Bridge Road, at 11:50 a.m.
oOo
Serendipity
Helen Hinchcliff speaks of synchronicity, numeracy, intuition, and genetic memory. As I reflect on my encounter with Juliet Alexa Maclean I feel deeply affected by that experience...
- "synchronicity (events that happen simultaneously with no apparent causal connection but with deep significance for those who experience them)": As described in my previous blog, "Search for a Forgotten Grave", the quest was accompanied by a number of serendipities and synchronicities. Receiving Juliet's Natal Diaries "out of the blue" at the time of the 150th Anniversary of the Diary was significant. That it also coincided with the September Equinox (Mabon 21-24 September) would have meaning to one of Celtic mind. Also being the birthday of Sylvia, my wife, the Juliet-Sylvia connection was serendipitous.
- "numeracy (the mathematical probability of having a connection with any person you may happen to meet)": The odds that one should be presented with historic source material within days of its 150th Anniversary struck me as unusual and significant. The statistical probability might not be of much consequence to others in general but to me it had huge import.
- "intuition (a seeming sixth sense that a record will appear where it may or may not belong)": That I had communicated at "just the right time" with a particular institution hoping to find further relevant information was both an obvious as well as unconscious act. I was seeking information relating to Alexander Maclean and to my surprise my attention was directed increasingly to Juliet Maclean.
- "genetic memory (the possibility that we inherit from our forebears some of the facts about our heritage): Some call it "ancestral memory". I rather prefer describing it as "genetic resonance". I only had unsubstantiated family traditions to go on that there was a Garvie-Garbh-Maclean connection. Neither source documentation nor yDNA matching has to date yielded any confirmation that there is any substance to what might only be legend. It is more a "feeling" or an "affection", whether ancestral or simply association, that somehow there exists a common connection between the two familiy branches. Nevertheles, the Garvies are a recognised Sept of Clan Maclean.
oOo
Links:
Alexander Maclean: http://ichthyscybernetics.blogspot.com/2013/07/in-search-of-forgotten-grave-alexander.html
Juliet Maclean: http://ichthyscybernetics.blogspot.com/2013/07/juliet-alexa-maclean-1826-1909-personal.html
Lost Clan Documents: http://ichthyscybernetics.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-lost-documents-of-coll.html
Sources:
Many assisted me in this search and I want to acknowledge especially Nicholas Maclean-Bristol, Shelagh Spencer who was most helpful, Ken and Eleanor Garvie, the Staff of local Parishes and Libraries. Their generous help was much appreciated. Photos are from J Forsyth Ingram's, Colony of Natal, An Official Illustrated Handbook, 1895.
Journal of James Robertson, Sherriff Substitute at Tobermory 1844, Introduction to the Journal of James Robertson 1799-1876
Nicholas Maclean-Bristol, From Clan to Regiment.
Dictionary of South African Biography, Vol.V, Smith-Windham, Ashe
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