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Clan Donnachaidh Society of Florida

by: Gordon Robertson, Clan Historian

March 2007

The story of Clan Donnachaidh to the best of my recollection:

The first mention of our Clan seems to have been from the original five Clans of the Caledonia, recorded by Josephus, the famous Roman historian who was with Hadrian during the attempts to conquer all of Britain.  The first known connection we have is to the first Celtic kings, which were the Duncans, with Duncan II being so famous since he was the one who was killed by MacBeth and made famous, but not completely accurate, by William Shakespeare. 

We do know that his son was, Malcolm Canmor, Malcolm of the “Big Head”, and that his second wife was Margaret Athling, who was the niece of Edward the Confessor, and whose brother was sixth in line to the throne of England in 1066.  Her mother was from Hungary and when William the Conqueror attacked England, they made plans to return to Hungary, due to the fact that it was not safe for any member of the royal family, especially one in line to be King of England, to stay around after the Conqueror took over in England.  It seems that they were knocked out of way by a storm and the ship was wrecked off the coast of Dunkeld in Scotland, which at the time was the capital of Scotland, where Malcolm had his headquarters.   Dunkeld was also famous as being the home of Andrew Carnegie and his brother, Thomas, who made so much money in Pennsylvania with U.S. Steel.  Margaret was a very beautiful woman and Malcolm fell in love with her and wanted to marry her, but she was also very pious and refused since the church in Scotland was run by the King, and the bishops were appointed by the King for the purpose of raising armies to fight on the King’s behalf whenever he felt it necessary.  Malcolm was very insistent and finally made a deal with Margaret that if she would marry him he would let her return the church back to Rome and be run as it should have been by religious leaders rather than by the fighting Bishops.  They did get married and in their travels, Margaret spent a lot of her time helping the poor and giving away Malcolm’s money.  She built the cathedral in St. Andrews, which is still partially there with the two towers sticking up directly down from the home of golf and the old course.  She had a fairly good life and had five sons, each of them becoming Kings of Scotland in their turn.  They were the historic Davids and Alexanders.

Margaret did push Malcolm to continue his attacks on England with the purpose of putting her brother on the throne, when he could throw William out of England, which of course never happened.  As a matter of fact, he died attempting this and three months later, Queen Margaret died at Edinburgh Castle and was buried at the Cathedral in Dunkeld, which is the same cathedral where Robert the Bruce was later buried.  For her works and her saintliness she was beatified by the Pope and later became Saint Margaret of Scotland and the church where she is buried has some beautiful stained glass windows depicting her life as does the local Catholic church.  The reason for this is that at the church where she was buried originally was changed to protestant during the Reformation and her body was dug up and moved and later dug up again and lost.  So no one knows where Saint Margaret was finally interred.  To this day, the oldest part of the castle at Edinburgh is Saint Margaret’s Chapel which dates back to the eleventh century and was there at the time that she died. It is said by Struan that Saint Margaret was the first saint of the family and the last, and no one has come close since.

This is the stained glass window in St. Margaret’s Chapel at Edinburgh Castle. Click for the full sized version.

I will attempt to account for the many Clan members who became famous in their own right, though not so famous that they are known by everyone.  

The first hero of the family is someone who changed history and may well have saved the free world by his actions, although he is never given credit by anyone but the man whose life he saved.  In the Boer War, on the way to Ladysmith, South Africa, Winston Churchill was a lieutenant of the Light Brigade.  He got ahead of the troupe in an open area where there appeared a dozen of the Boers.  He tried to mount his horse, but the saddle twisted and went under the horse, slipping underneath of the animal, and it broke away from him and bolted.  He was barely 100 yards from the enemy with the rest of the scouts 200 yards away by now and no cover for a mile around.  Churchill’s position seemed hopeless but as he ran to dodge the bullets, a scout came riding across his front.  In Churchill’s own words, as he described the incident to the Morning Post, the tall man with the scull and crossbones badge and on a pale horse, Churchill shouted to the scout, “Give me a stirrup”.  To his surprise, he stopped at once and took hold and told him to get up behind him.  Churchill ran to him and mounted and they ran out of the way of the Boer bullets but not before the scout’s horse had been hit.  Churchill stated that the man had saved his life even though the scout was more interested in the fact that his horse had been shot.  The person who saved his life was Trouper Clement Roberts for whom Churchill tried to get considered for the Victoria Cross for his bravery in saving Churchill’s life.  Had our kinsman not been there at that time, there was no doubt in Churchill’s mind, or the minds of those around him, that Churchill might have been killed, thus taking away one of the greatest leaders in the world during the Second World War. 

 Another person who was similarly not well known was a connection to one of Britain’s greatest Prime Ministers, William Ewart Gladstone, who lived from 1809 – 1898, and was the fourth son of Sir John Gladstone, first Baronet, and Ann, daughter of Andrew Robertson of Dingonvall in Scotland.  Gladstone went on to be three times Chancellor of the Ex Checker, four times Prime Minister, Member of Parliament for Newark, Oxford University, South Lankardshire and Greenich and Midlothian, Scotland, and author of numerous works of religion and philosophy.  

One of the most unusual father/son combinations was the son of General Sir Abram Roberts and his wife Isabella, who was Fredrick Sleigh Roberts, born in 1832 and died in 1918, who won the Victoria Cross thereby becoming the first father & son to be awarded the highest Honor for Valor in British history.  The father won the Victoria Cross in the India Mutiny of 1858 and his son won his posthumously in South Africa.   Fredrick Roberts was Commander in Chief in India from 1885 to 1893, became Field Marshall and Commander in Chief of Ireland in 1895 – 1899 and Commander in Chief of South Africa from 1899 to 1900.  He received the Knight Commander of the British Empire in 1879, Grand Commander of the British Empire in 1880, Baronet in 1881, became Baron Roberts of Kandiher in 1892, Earl Roberts of Kandiher and Victoria in 1901. 

Another great among the family, William Robertson, Baronet, Field Marshall and Commander of the Imperial General Staff during the First World War.  Field Marshall Robertson is known to be the only person in the history of the British Empire to have gone from the lowest rank to the highest rank in the Armed Forces.  He enlisted as a Private in November of 1887 and was promoted to Field Marshall and Chief of the Imperial Staff in March of 1920.  Besides his many decorations from the British government, he also received the Distinguished Service Medal from the US government, the L’Ordre De La Couronne and the Croix deGuerre from Belgium, the Order of Chia Ho, First Class from the Chinese, The Legion of Honor and the Croix deGuerre from France, the Order of Saint Maurice and Saint Lazarus, the Order of the Crown of Italy from Italy, the Order of the Rising Sun from Japan, the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky, with swords from Russia and the Order of White Eagle, First Class, with swords from Serbia.  The interesting thing was that the Russian Order was the one of the last of its class to be bestowed on a foreign officer by the late Czar.  The American medal was presented by General Pershing and the Legion of Honor was received from General Jaffrey, of the French Army.  The records of the rise of Field Marshall Robertson from Private to Field Marshall is in the Clan Donnachaidh Clan Museum in Scotland and this writer has one of the only other copies known.  It was first published in 1923. 

A little known member of the family but whose workings are now quite famous was born in Baltimore, Maryland.  His name was Alexander E. Duncan, who founded the Commercial Credit Corporation, America’s largest factoring firm in 1912.  He died in 1972 at the age of 93, and leaving his business with four billion dollars in assets.

A John Duncan designed Grant’s Tomb and the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch at Grand Union Plaza, Brooklyn, New York. 

Jonathan Duncan was a very successful Governor of Bombay from 1795 – 1811 after founding the first Sanskrit University in 1788. 

 In 1900, George Reid was the leading politician in New South Wales, Australia, and was called the “Architect of the Commonwealth of Australia”.

The most interesting of all our clansmen is Hugh Reid who was born in Scotland and was a student of Cambridge.  He came to Los Angeles in 1834.   After marrying the daughter of an Indian, he opened a store and a boys’ school and became a member of the Los Angeles City Council.  Styling himself as “Don Perfecto” Hugo Reid, he acquired the huge Rancho Santa Ana, comprising about one half of the present-day Pasadena, including the site of the Santa Ana Racetrack, and Hugo Reid Park in what is now Arcadia.  Hugo Reid was one of the members of the California State Convention and spent the last two years of his life, having lost most of his fortune, writing an account of the Gabriel Eno Indians, his wife’s tribe.  His adobe house, built in 1840, was rebuilt as an official state landmark in 1961.  Don Perfecto Hugo Reid was the alcalde or mayor of Sonoma and San Rafael. 

 Of the first practical philosophers in Scotland was Thomas Reid, along with Adam Ferguson and Dugald Stewart were the leaders of the “common sense” philosophy.

This philosophy proceeded from the common sense of the ordinary people that the world, as we experience it, exists and that the hot and cold, color, sound, and so forth are real and is in no need of proof.   Thomas Reid held that certain moral truths were self evident, words now familiar to all Americans, while Adam Ferguson believed  that Great Britain’s colonial subjects in America were endowed with the same natural rights as enjoyed by all Englishmen. 

 On the Portuguese island of Madeira, off the coast of Africa, the island’s legendary hotel, Reid’s, was founded in the 19^th Century by William Reid.  Twelve years after he had left Killmarock, Scotland, with five pounds in his pocket.

 Jacob Robertson, a native of Scotland in the town of Struan, where our chieftain gets his title, was a noble in 1635 where he served as physician to Gustavos Adolphus King of Sweden. 

Another unknown, but a person of some interest, was Jesse Duncan who is named in a historical marker in Johnson, Tennessee, bearing the testimony to his bravery and stating that near this site, Jesse Duncan became the first white man to be scalped and killed by Indians in this vicinity in 1765.   Nashville, Tennessee, the first settlement in that area, was founded in 1779 by James Robertson and to this day Robertson Boulevard is the longest road in Nashville.  There is also a Robertson County named after him in northern Tennessee. 

Charlotte Reid was one of the foremost pottery designers in the 1930s using brigat wares.  Her pottery is now collected all over the world.

The story of how the Clan Donnachaidh lands in Scotland were lost:

The loss of Clan Donnachaidh lands was two fold.  The first was our family’s support of the three uprisings and always being on the losing side.  The last straw, and along with mismanagement, caused the Chief to have to sell the last properties in the 19^th century.  The current Clan Donnachaidh Society bought back from the Duke of Atholl, the land where the Clan Centre now stands.