Memories of a Long Life by W. C. Maclean (1895) - Searchable PDF & Surname Index

Uncover a Rare Privately Printed 1895 Highland & Military Memoir of the Macleans of Boreray & Drimnin and the Macleods of Bernera, Morvern & Skye

Originally printed in Edinburgh in 1895 by T. and A. Constable strictly "for private circulation" to answer inquiries from clansmen in the United States, Canada, and Scotland, Surgeon-General William Campbell Maclean's Memories of a Long Life (1895) is an extraordinary first-hand genealogical and historical record. Spanning eighty-four years from the author's birth at Ayr in 1811 to his retirement as Professor of Military Medicine at the Army Medical School at Netley, this scarce volume preserves intimate Hebridean family pedigrees, monumental inscriptions, and eyewitness military narratives that rarely survive in public parish registers.

What's Inside This Enhanced Fairbairn's Crests Digital Edition:

• Complete 216-Page Master Digital Edition (PDF): Combines 4 pages of newly written Fairbairn's Crests Front Matter (Pages i–iv), all 207 substantive pages of the 1895 Edinburgh private edition, and a newly compiled 5-page Comprehensive Alphabetical Surname, Clan, Parish, Ship & Regiment Index.
• Artifact-Free & Archival-Preserved: All 5 non-content scan artifact pages (blank versos, library stamp flyleaves, and pencil call-number sheets) have been removed, while the original 1895 page backgrounds, portrait frontispiece, and native embedded OCR text layer remain 100% intact for instant Ctrl+F / Cmd+F keyword searching.
• Rich Hebridean & West Highland Pedigrees: Traces the Macleans of Boreray (North Uist) and Drimnin (Morvern, Sound of Mull) from Lachlan Broneach, Chief of Maclean, Donald first Maclean of Ardgour, and Neil Ban of Boreray, alongside the full Rodil Priory monumental inscription and family register of Donald Macleod ("Old Bernera", 1693–1783) of Berneray, Harris, and the renowned Macleod ministers of Fuinary Manse, Morvern.
• 19th-Century Scottish Education & Literary Edinburgh: Vivid recollections of St. Andrews University under Principal Hill and Professor Hunter, Dollar Academy under William Tennant, Edinburgh University medical classes under Dr. Robert Knox immediately after the Burke and Hare trial, and personal encounters with Sir Walter Scott, Francis Jeffrey, Lord Cockburn, and James and Alexander Ballantyne.
• East India Company, First Opium War & Court of Hyderabad (1833–1860): Detailed accounts of East Indiaman voyages to Bombay and Canton, combat medical service throughout the First China War (1840–1842) at Chusan, Canton, Amoy, Chinhai, Ning-Po, Chapu, Woosung, Shanghai, Chin-kiang-foo, and Nankin, eleven years as Residency Surgeon at Hyderabad (1844–1855), and the founding of the Army Medical School at Netley with Florence Nightingale and Sidney Herbert.

Historical & Regional Overview

For genealogists researching ancestors in North Uist, Harris, Berneray, the Isle of Skye, Morvern, Mull, Ardgour, Ayrshire, Fife, Morayshire, and Edinburgh, Chapter I provides exact birth, marriage, and death dates for eleven children of John Maclean of Boreray and Drimnin and Jessie Macleod of Bernera, together with their alliances with the Macphersons of Badenoch, Pellys, Gilberts, Cunninghames, Davidsons, Davenport, and Robertson families. Maclean also records the Jacobite rising of 1745—noting how his father's rebel uncles escaped to North America after Culloden (becoming ancestors of U.S. Supreme Court Justice John McLean) and how the collapse of the Hebridean kelp trade after 1822 transformed the estates of North Uist, Clanranald, and the Western Isles.

For families tracing ancestors in the East India Company, the Madras, Bengal, and Bombay Armies, the Royal Navy, or British Line Regiments, Chapters III through VIII name scores of individual officers, surgeons, ship captains, and civil administrators across Madras, Secunderabad, Arcot, Calcutta, Barrackpore, Hyderabad, Singapore, and the China expeditionary force of 1840–1842.

Surnames & Families Indexed in This Volume:

Aitken, Alison, Andral, Anstruther, Armstrong, Baird, Baker, Balfour, Ballantyne, Barrow, Beecher, Bell, Béranger, Bernard, Birdwood, Blücher, Bonaparte, Boswell, Bremner (Bremer), Burke, Burnes, Burns, Bushby, Butler, Byron, Caddell, Caird, Cameron (of Fassifern), Campbell (of Ainsay, Strond, Lord Clyde), Canning, Chadds, Chamberlain, Cherry, Chinnery, Chomel, Churchill, Clark, Cockburn, Coleridge, Collins, Collinson, Colonsay, Constable, Cooper, Cotton, Courtney, Craigie, Cringletie, Cumberland, Cumberlege, Cunninghame, Currie, Dalhousie, Daltry (Dealtry), Davenport, Davidson, De Beriot, De Caen, De Chaumont, De Grey, Dent, Dickens, Dodds, Donnacha Cheobair (Duncan the Shepherd), Donnelly, Dost Mohammed, Douglas, Doveton, Duggan, Durand, Eldon, Ellenborough, Elliot, Elphinstone, Faraday, Fawcett, Fayrer, Fergusson, Finlayson, Foulis (Fowlis), Fox, Fraser, French, Froude, Fyffe, Gabbett, Gallie, Gibson, Giffard, Gilbert, Glenelg, Godwin, Gordon (of Drimnin), Gough, Grant, Graves, Gray, Gregory, Gribble, Grimes, Grisi, Haines, Hardinge, Hare, Harris, Hastings, Helpman, Herbert, Herries, Hewett, Hill, Hillier, Hogg, Home (of Cowdenknowes), Hope, Hosta (Maclean of Hosta), Hughes (Hughes le Fleming), Hume, Hunter, Jardine, Jeffrey, Johnston, Jones, Keats, Keene (Keane of Gaznee), Kenny, Kerr, Keyworth, King, Kitchen, Knox, Kuper, Lablache, Lawrie, Lawrence, Lin, Lisfranc, Liston, Little, Lockhart, Longmore, Lothian, Low (of Clatto), M'Andrew, M'Carthy, M'Griger (McGrigor), M'Kinlay (McKinlay), M'Nab (McNab), M'Naghten (Macnaghten), Macaulay, Macdonald (of Arkernish, Clanranald, Glenaladale, Sleat), Macfarlane, Mackenzie, Mackersie, Mackintosh (of Mackintosh), Maclean (of Ardgour, Boreray, Drimnin, Duart, Hosta, Hythe Hill, Westfield), Macleod (of Bernera, Berneray, Campbeltown, Dalvey, Drynoch, Dunvegan, Fuinary, Govan, Greshornish, Harris, Morvern, St. Anne's Soho), Macpherson (of Badenoch, Cluny), Maitland, Malcolm, Mant, Matheson, Maxwell, Meade, Metcalfe, Middleton, Milne, Monro, Montgomerie, Moore, Morehead, Mortimer, Morton, Mountain, Munro, Murray, Napier, Nelson, Nightingale, Northey, Nott, Ochterlony, Oglander, Paganini, Parker, Parkes, Pears, Peel, Pelly, Playfair, Pottinger, Quain, Raglan, Randall, Reynolds, Ripon, Robertson, Roux, Rubini, Rundle, Russell, Salar Jung, Sarasate, Schoede, Scotland, Scott, Seaforth, Senhouse, Shand, Shanks, Sharpey, Shaw, Sherriff, Shubrick, Shums-ool-Oomrah, Silver, Smith, Somerset, Sooraj-ool-Moolk, Stanley, Stark, Sterling, Stewart, Strachan, Strange, Stuart, Sutherland, Symonds, Tamburini, Tenant (Tennant), Thackeray, Thiers, Thompson (Thomson), Tomlinson, Tweeddale, Veale, Velpeau, Vivian, Wakley, Walker, Wallace, Webb, Wellesley, Wellington, White, Wigston, Williams, Wood.

Parishes, Townships, Regiments & Ships Indexed:

Parishes, Estates & Locations: Abbotsford, Achnacraig (Isle of Mull), Afghanistan, Agra, Allahabad, Alloway, Amoy (Xiamen), Anjeer (Java), Arcot, Ard a Bhòrain (North Uist), Ardgour, Arkernish, Arnee, Ayr (Blackburn House), Badenoch, Balliol College (Oxford), Bangalore, Baroda, Barony Parish (Glasgow), Barrackpore, Bengal, Bernera (Berneray, Harris), Berwickshire, Biarritz, Birmingham, Bolarum, Bombay, Boreray (North Uist), Bristol, Budiwal, Burgie, Burma, Cabul (Kabul), Cairo, Calcutta, Campbeltown, Candahar (Kandahar), Canton (Guangzhou), Cape Comorin, Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town, Constantia, Wynberg), Cawnpore, Ceylon (Galle), Chapu (Zhapu), Chatham, Cheltenham, Chin-kiang-foo (Zhenjiang), Chinhai (Chinghai), Chusan (Zhoushan), Clackmannanshire,Constantinople, Corunna, Covent Garden, Cowdenknowes, Craigcrook, Crimea (Alma, Sebastopol), Cuddapah, Culloden, Dalvey, Deccan, Delhi, Devon (Northam, Torquay), Dollar (Dollar Academy), Drimnin (Morvern), Drynoch (Skye), Dunans, Dunvegan, Edinburgh (Castle Street, Deanbank House, Edinburgh Academy, Frederick Street, Lynedoch Place, Nicolson Street, Royal Infirmary, St. Stephen's, Stockbridge), Elgin (Elginshire, Hythe Hill, Westfield), Falkirk, Flushing, Forres, Fort Pitt, Fort St. George, Fuinary (Manse of Fuinary), Futtehpoor Sikra, Gaznee (Ghuznee), Glasgow (Govan), Glencoe, Golden Island, Golconda, Gordon Castle, Greshornish (Skye), Gwalior, Hampshire (Lyndhurst, Netley, Portsmouth, Southampton, Southsea), Harris (Rodil Priory), Hebrides, Hilton (Inverness), Holland, Homburg, Hong-Kong, Hyderabad, Inverness (Inverness-shire), Isle of Wight (Motherbank, Ryde, Spithead), Java (Java Head, Krakatoa, Straits of Sunda), Jubblepore (Jubblepur), Killigray, Kolansoo, Kurnool, London (Chalk Farm, Moorfields, Soho, Somerset House, South Kensington), Macao, Madeira, Madras (Palaveram, St. Thomas' Mount), Maharajpore (Maharajpur), Malacca, Manchester, Masulipatam, Mauritius, Morayshire, Morvern, Moulmein, Moy Hall, Nagpore (Nagpur), Nankin (Nanjing), Nilgherry Hills, Ning-Po, North Uist (Loch Hosta), Odessa, Orkney, Oude, Oxford, Paris (École de Médecine, Invalides, Quay St. Michel), Parell, Pondicherry, Quatre Bras, Rewah, Rydal Hall (Westmoreland), Secunderabad, Shanghai, Shetland, Sikri, Singapore, Sirhind, Skye, Sound of Mull, St. Andrews, St. Helena (Longwood), St. Kilda, St. Vincent, Strond, Tristan d'Acunha, Versailles, Vizagapatam (Waltair), Waterloo, Whampoa, Winchester, Woosung, Worcester, York.
Regiments & Ships: 78th Highlanders (Ross-shire Buffs), 92nd Highlanders, 26th Cameronians, 18th Royal Irish, 49th Regiment, 55th Regiment, 98th Regiment, 1st Madras Fusiliers (102nd Regt.), Scots Greys, 13th, 32nd & 37th Madras Native Infantry, 6th & 7th Madras Light Cavalry, Madras Artillery & Engineers, E.I.C.S. Upton Castle, Marquis Camden, Orwell, Lord Eldon, John Stamp, Rustomjee Cowasjee, Mahommed Shah, Eagle, P.&O. Hindustan, H.M.S. Wellesley, Blenheim, Cornwallis, Nimrod, Alligator, Cruiser, Blonde, Cambrian, Columbine, Conway, Steamer Nemesis & Tenasserim.