Family Smith

Robert Smith, son of John Smith, married Mary Walker on 10 March 1805 at Oxnam, Roxburgh, Scotland. Oxnam, or formerly Ousenam lies prettily in its valley, surrounded by rolling hills just a few miles from Jedburgh. Oxnam's charming little Church-on-the-Hill, white-washed crisp on the green sward, has a pair of "jougs" still fixed to one wall, evidence of the kind of punishment meted out to minor delinquents in less "permissive" days than ours.[1]

Mary Smith, their daughter, married first, Thomas Rutherford on 5 December 1826 and they had issue:

Mary Rutherford m 1st John Oliver
     William Oliver m Margaret Robina Affleck (cousin)
     Robert Rutherford Oliver
     Alexander (Sandy) Oliver m Annie Robertson (note: Annie's brother John Struan Robertson married 1st Mary Jane Smith [daughter of Adam and Jane Smith], then after his death Mary Jane Smith m 2nd Agar Wynne)

Mary Rutherford m 2nd Thomas Guthrie

     Thomas Oliver Guthrie m Jessie Blackwood Hannah

     Arthur Donaldson Guthrie

     James Francis Guthrie m Mary Isabel Wright

     Mary Gray Guthrie m Phillip Russell

     Isabella Catherine Guthrie

     Agnes Ethel Guthrie m Norman Johnson

     Catherine Rutherford m David Affleck

     David Affleck m Irene Ella Hutton

     Robert Rutherford Affleck m 1st Francis Mary Morton, 2nd Amy Anne Lewis

     James Guthrie Affleck m Georgina Morton

     Isabella Mary Anne Affleck m Caley Webster

     Margaret Robina Affleck m William Oliver (cousin)

     Mary Smith Affleck m David Reid

     Catherine Rutherford Affleck m Thomas Hope Smith (cousin)

     Elizabeth Jane Affleck m Roland Graham

     Isabella Rutherford m James Affleck

     James Rutherford Affleck m Margaret Gordon Laidlaw

     Mary Ann Affleck

     Adeline Catherine Affleck m William Burrow Cumming

     Isabella Cecelia Affleck m Samual Furneaux Mann

     Rutherford Albert Affleck m Constance deLittle

     Edith Florence Affleck m 1st Duncan Graham McKell, 2nd Sir Thomas Peel Dunhill (surgeon of Harley Street, London)

     Eleanor Jamesina Affleck m James Alfred Finlay

Extract from letter from Robyn Hodgson: "Adam Smith was the youngest of the family and was born at Swinside Farm. His elder sister Mary married Thomas Rutherford. Daughters of this marriage married Affleck's and Oliver's and a second marriage of Mrs Oliver to Thomas Guthrie. Grandfather (Archibald Eugene McEachern, husband of Alice Margaret Smith)  was cousin to Thomas Guthrie through this second marriage and Guthrie's son, Thomas Oliver, was the late Senator Guthrie. Grandfathers sister, Mary married John Robertson first and her second husband Agar Wynne, Attorney General in Commonwealth Parliament. It does seem as though Rutherfords, Olivers, Afflecks, Armstrongs and Smiths have been very much mixed together."

Robyn then goes on to mention that "Lewis Barker said that a brother of A.D. Hope (the poet) was in his army command. There has been also a strong suggestion that our Hope family are distant kinsmen of Lord Hopetoun the first Governor General here. I will get away from the very "wide" connections of the family, for Sir Hugh Gra... our top lawyer in Canberra during the war had a son who married one of the Cattanach's, descended from Sarah Smith;, and another Cattanach in Victoria, married Alex Fraser, whom Lewis says was a brother of the former Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Fraser's grandfather.

"One could go on almost indefinitely, but I shall return to Grandfather. He was a good cricketer when young and a first class rough rider and amateur rider. He was often riding against Adam Lindsay Gordon, the poet, who mentions him in some verse. "on the field at Coleraine", a noted steeplechase over ordinary country. I have seen the monument put up to commemorate Gordon's ride there from 1866-1869. Going back it seems thus, John Smith, tenant Swinside, son Robert Smith and his son Adam. The tenancy of these places went to the eldest son right down. John Smith was born about 1755, Robert 1770-1848 and Adam, 1815-1876. The enclosure of the origin of the Waterloo Coursing Cup is self explanatory.

The same William, grandfather Robert's brother, also owned a little mare, Isis, which won the Grand National. In the early twenties I remember her at Hynam. She had foaled a colt at thirty years of age. Their lives during this period must have been almost Utopia. Lovely country and surroundings, and leisure time to take up almost anything they wished. Hynam was really comparatively small at 39,000 acres, but it was good, with very fine natural watering places. There was never any clearing to be done, being natural park land. There were no expert horsemen in grandfather's family but his sons were excessively good at ball games.[2]