John Galt's Southannan

Southannan (Galt writes as Southennan) in Ayrshire is a place that seems to have sparked the imagination of John Galt ever since he was a young boy.  Each year in his childhood the Galt family travelled by coach from Irvine to Greenock to visit relatives.  In his Autobiography, published in 1833 John Galt writes –

“I have continued to this day to cherish my early dreams about Southennan, undisturbed by any matter of fact; pausing occasionally in the journeys of my juvenility between Irvine and Greenock, to ponder of strange things amidst the solitude of the ruins.”

He goes on to describe the area – “The situation is lone and picturesque, at the foot of a green mountain, on a little plain spreading to the sea, with a garden extending southwards, which in my imagination is still in blossom as if I saw it in the spring of the year.  I could draw the landscape still, though years and days and sadder thinks have happened to me since I was there.”

Southannan (Southennan) Ayrshire map.

While the name Southannan can still be seen in maps of Ayrshire, the area has changed considerably since John Galt’s day.  Little remains of what must have been the romantic ruins seen by Galt in the early 19^th century.  An idea of what could be seen can be found in “The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland” (1897) by MacGibbon & Ross.  Southannan Castle is described – 

“It has been an extensive structure having had a high enclosing wall, with a courtyard and an arched entrance porch to the west, defended with shot-holes.  There has been a considerable range of dwelling-house accommodation, two stories in height, along the north side, and smaller buildings on the east side, leaving a large courtyard in the centre, now forming the garden of the adjoining farmhouse.”

 In his Autobiography Galt writes -

“The origin of Southennan, is, to myself at least, interesting.  At a short distance on the south side of the village of Fairlie in Ayrshire, stands the ruins of the ancient house of Southennan.  I know nothing whatever of its history, but was told in my boyhood a vague tradition, which had something mysterious about it, and which still lingers in my recollection; namely, that the house belonged to a branch of the ancient noble family of Semple ; that the last inhabitants had been Roman Catholics, who went away into Spain at the period of the Reformation, and that they were never more heard of.”

MacGibbon & Ross write -   “The castle was much enlarged by Robert, fourth Lord Sempill, ambassador to the Court of Spain in 1596.” As Galt says, Southannan did belong to the Semple family, they had been granted the lands in 1504 by James IV.  

The Semples built a chapel dedicated to St Annan (Ennan, or Innan – patron saint of Irvine).  However Southannan fell into disrepair and as the report goes on to explain – “The old mansion was dismantled towards the end of last century, and the materials used in the erection of farm-buildings and dykes.  What remains are chiefly the outer walls to the north of the courtyard and some more ancient looking remnants at the east.” 

Galt also mentions Southannan in his 1821 novel The Ayrshire Legatees in the description of a journey by coach which the Pringle family take from Irvine to Greenock.  In a letter to her friend, Miss Rachel Pringle describes the journey from Kilbride on the road with views of the island of Cumbrae and writes:- “On the other side of the road, we saw the cloistered ruins of the religious house of Southennan, a nunnery in those days of romantic adventure, when to live was to enjoy a poetical element.”

In 1830 Galt published his novel Southennan - the story of a young man of that name and place who visits Edinburgh to witness the arrival of Mary Queen of Scots from France.  In that novel Southennan is described – 

“It was a quadrangular building, with an embattled gateway in the wall, which connected the two wings.  The orchard and garden lay along the south side of the green hills of Fairlie, at the bottom of which it stood, and on which a computable number of the beech and sycamore shook their heads few and far between.  About a score of the meagre and naked ash marked out where an avenue might have been.  On the northern side of the mansion a little sparkling brook ran, whispering from its rimples peace and felicity to the genius of the place.”

Passing these old ruins as a very young child obviously had a profound effect on John Galt.  With his fertile imagination it is easy to see how they led him to speculate and write about them many years later.

John Galt's schoolfriend William Spence

While in school in Greenock, John Galt formed a friendship with two other boys, a friendship which lasted for many years.  One of these boys was William Spence, son of a Greenock coppersmith, who from an early age showed a great interest in mathematics and science.  He was also a musician, as Galt writes in his Autobiography (Volume I), he encouraged Galt to learn to play the flute.  Galt writes of Spence - “Spence, besides being a most delicious performer was a considerable composer, and made beautiful sonatas, which had as much character as the compositions of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia.”

While young men in Greenock, Galt together James Park, William Spence formed a “monthly society” where the read various publications and wrote their own contributions.  Galt writes - “The essays of William Spence were very astronomical, we thought them profound; they were all about planets and comets, the cosmogony of the earth, the infinite divisibility of matter, and the boundless nature of premundane space; any thing of this world was too gross to enter into his speculative theories.”

While the three young men went their separate ways as far as their careers were concerned, Park and Spence visited John Galt shortly after he moved to London. 

William Spence died in 1815 at the age of 37.  In 1819 his mathematical essays were edited by John Frederick William Herschel (1792-1871).  Galt wrote a biography of Spence for this publication.  

In his Biography of Spence, Galt described him  – “His manners also were no less peculiar and his staidness was so remarkable, even before he became a mathematician, that about the age of fourteen he obtained from his companions the title of the Philosopher; and this title, although certainly not intended as a mark of respect, was undoubtedly bestowed from a sentiment of that kind mingled with something in ridicule of his constitutional gravity.”

He was so well regarded in his hometown of Greenock that a subscription was raised to mark his life with a memorial in the Wellpark Mid Kirk, Greenock.  This was widely encouraged by John Galt.

You can read more about William Spence here.

Galt and the Freedom of Irvine

Two hundred years ago, in September 1825, John Galt was awarded the Freedom of the Burgh of Irvine, the town of his birth.

Galt visited Irvine with his mother and sister to receive the honour.  He had just returned to Britain from his first visit to Canada on behalf of the Canada Company and was visiting his family.

In his Autobiography he writes –

“We had a long journey to perform in the course of that day, I stepped out of the post-chaise, at the door of the tollbooth, to wait on the magistrates, when, to my astonishment, I beheld my old friend alive, then a very venerable man, sitting in the chair.  The sight upon me for a moment was as an apparition, but I was recalled to myself by the manner in which he delivered the diploma, with an address; Provost Pawkie himself could never have said anything half so good.”

Provost Pawkie is Galt’s main character in his work The Provost.  “Pawkie” in Scots means sly or cunning and Galt describes his book as –“exhibiting a tolerably correct picture of a Scottish borough, I had in view, while writing it, a gentleman, who, when I was a boy at school, had the chief management of the borough council in my native town.”  Galt continues -“I believed he was dead, and had no scruple about choosing him for my model.”

The man being described was Robert Fullarton (1740-1835) who was a councillor in Irvine for 42 years.  Irvine Burns Club have a portrait of Fullarton which you can view here (you will need to scroll down to view it).

Aside from Galt’s surprise that the Baillie was still alive, he also had this to say about the man he met on that important September day in 1825 –

“His speech partook of his character, and evinced a degree of good sense, of tact, and taste, though delivered in the Scottish dialect, quite extraordinary.  Instead of speaking the sort of balderdash, common on such occasions, he passed over everything which related to myself, conceiving, as I suppose, that the honour of bestowing on me a burgess ticket, was a sufficient recognition of my supposed deservings; but he paid a well expressed compliment to the character of my father and mother, telling how much they were held in esteem by their townsfolk, and concluded with saying, that not the least proof of their merits was in bringing up their children to be worthy of a public testimony of respect.”

Perhaps not quite the testimonial John Galt was expecting, but presumably his mother would have been pleased to have been recognised!