The Women of Brodie: a presentation by Jamie Barron, NTS, Brodie Castle

Tuesday, 11th March at 7pm: Elgin Community Centre

An audience of 27 attended the only evening meeting of Moray Field Club this winter. Jamie Barron from the National Trust for Scotland at Brodie Castle gave an excellent, entertaining and very interesting presentation based on his own original research:

The castle has been the ancestral seat of the Brodie clan since the 12th century, and home to successive clan chiefs for 400 years.

The castle would have been staffed by many women – cooks, housekeepers, laundresses, nursemaids – of whom no record remains. And only a few of these women are known by name, such as Elizabeth Clark, housekeeper, who in 1841 was the only occupant of the castle; Alexandrina Somerville, a governess in 1881; and Fanny Morris, a lady’s maid from Sussex in the late 19th century.

Information about the women who married into the Brodie Clan over the centuries is of course much more plentiful.here in brief are some of the fascinating women who have been associated with Brodie:

• Lady Mary Kerr 1640 -1708, a Covenanter who was caught up in the dangerous religious politics of the times. Her portrait survives in the carved ceiling of the dining room.
• Mary Sleigh 1704 -1760, married Alexander Brodie in 1724 in Edinburgh, and was celebrated in song and verse by Allan Ramsay. She supervised building works and improvements on the estate, as well as raising eight children.
• Emilia Brodie. Only surviving child of Mary Sleigh She was married to Macleod of Dunvegan, where she spent much of her time and where she entertained Johnson and Boswell on their tour of the Highlands
• Lady Margaret Duff 1745-1786. Daughter of Earl of Fife of Duff House. Eloped with and married James Brodie in 1768 in Leith. She did not live the lifestyle to which she had been accustomed at Duff House, and about half the estate had to be sold. Sadly she burned to death in the fireplace of her bedroom in the castle.
• Ann Storey, born to a farming family in the NE of England. Her father joined the East India Company and died in India. Ann herself set sail for Madras in 1790. On board ship she met James Brodie and was expecting his child by the time the ship reached India. The child died in infancy as did the following two children, all named James. She had seven more children, all of whom survived, and whose portrait hangs in the castle.
• Elizabeth Baillie 1818 -1914, married William Brodie, 22nd Laird and brought with her a substantial dowry, part of which was ring fenced for her children.
• Lady Eleanor Moreton,1845-1925, married Hugh, 23rd Laird and had nine children. She was known at Brodie for her charity work, organising galas and children’s activities, and making the castle and estate more accessible
• Vere Brodie, 1881-1971, daughter of the above, an excellent needlewoman, she had a distinguished war record, joining the VAD and serving in France and Flanders. She stayed in Flanders at the end of the war, and was serving in the St Pol camp from which the body of the Unknown Soldier was chosen.
• Violet Hope, 1878-1959, who grew up at Rosehaugh on the Black Isle with her maternal uncle after her parents’ divorce. In 1904 she married Ian Brodie , the 24th laird and had two sons David (1905) and Michael (1909). David died of diptheria at the age of six, and Michael died in a car accident when he was twenty seven, so it was the third son Ninian (1912) who became the 25th laird.
  Violet loved animals, and art and was an accomplished photographer, whose albums record life at Brodie in the early twentieth century

Many thanks to Jamie for such a special talk.