Isabella Culbertson

Isabella was known as Bella.  I deduced this from the 1851 census where mother and daughter are listed as Bella and Isabell even although they were both christened Isabella.  This is to allow the Scottish re-use of Christian names whilst allowing each a different name to answer to.  Her surname was Culbertson but sometimes Cuthbertson.  This surprises me as the names are pronounced differently.  I've used Culbertson as it's the version which appears most often in the records.

Bella was born in Craiglockhart in Colinton parish but the family moved to Leith, like so many others, presumably for the work opportunities at the thriving port.  Craiglockhart was a farm built around a ruined castle, of which only the bottom walls of a tower remain today in the grounds of Napier University.  The farm itself disappeared in the late 1800s to be replaced by the Craiglockhart Hydropathic although some surviving buildings just appear in this photo.  This was an institute where clients could undergo water treatments for health purposes.  The building then became a war hospital for shell-shocked officers including the war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.  It then became a convent then a Catholic teacher training college before becoming part of Napier College which then became a University.

According to the Scottish Church Records index, Isabella married Thomas Hunter on 22nd October 1812 in the Canongate in Edinburgh but also on 23rd October in Inveresk, which is the Musselburgh parish.  There are two entries for the Canongate event, one for Culbertson and one for Cuthbertson.  The Inveresk one reads

Hunter Thomas Carter and Isobel Cuthbertson daughter of Thomas Cuthbertson Porter in North Leith were irregularly married at Leith on the 23rd Octr 1812 - The parties compeared before the Session on the 10th April 1814 were (something illegible) and had their marriage confirmed by the Rev Innes Fergusson

It was a difficult read from the scan and of the old handwriting but it clears up the situation a bit.  It seems the couple were married irregularly in Leith in 1812 and retrospectively entered into the parish registers of their home parishes at a later date.  Referring to the Canongate wording on the right of this page and the transcript above I think we can deduce the following - the Cuthbertsons/Culbertsons moved from Craiglockhart to North Leith where father Thomas found work as a porter in the docks.  His daughter Isabella met and irregularly married Thomas Hunter, a carter from Inveresk/Musselburgh who would presumably be carting goods to and from the port.  An irregular marriage signified that vows had been exchanged and witnessed but not by the clergy.  At the time of the marriage both partners were cohabiting in the foot of Young's Street.  This street, which initially took the name from Dr Young who had a house right on the Canongate, became New Street and run down to North Back of Canongate and it's at that end that they were living.  It wasn't the best area of town.

Not all of their children were recorded.  I know this as some appear in censuses but not in the Church Records.  She was married at the age of 22 so presumably she would have had her first child around 23.  However, in the 1851 census she has a 7 year old daughter Elizabeth and she is noted as being 59.  That would make her 52 at the birth which is pretty unusual.  It was not unknown for an illegitimate grandchild to be brought up as the couple's own child but there is no evidence of that and the only unmarried daughter in the house is our Isabella and she is 19 so would have been 12 at the birth which rules her out.  Bella wasn't really 52 though, she was 54 according to her birth date!  Make up your own mind.

She finished her days in Fisherrow, the part of Musselburgh to the west of the River Esk with its pretty harbour.  Unfortunately the maps of Musselburgh don't indicate where the closes are and her last address was just High Street, Fisherrow so all locations are a bit vague.