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Clan Trotter

BRAVE, NOT FEROCIOUS


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English History

of Clan Trotter


Ancient heritage

As a surname, ‘Trotter’ derives from the Old French ‘trotier’, indicating a ‘runner’, or ‘messenger’ – while those employed in such a role and who would later accordingly adopt it as a surname, were present on British shores from an early date.

The ‘runners’ or ‘messengers’ in question would have been particularly fleet of foot and entrusted to carry any news of great import between settlements, villages, towns and armies.

This could have been news relating to an impending attack, allowing those concerned to prepare their defences and respond as best they could.

These ‘trotters’ would have played a role, for example in relaying intelligence on the devastating Viking raids on the coastline of not only England but also Scotland and Ireland.

It was in 789 that the sinister black-sailed Viking ships appeared over the horizon off the English island monastery of Lindisfarne, and the monastery was sacked in an orgy of violence and plunder – setting the scene for further terrifying raids.

Pre-dating the Viking invasions, those who later adopted the Trotter name were of ancient Anglo-Saxon stock.

This means that flowing through the veins of many bearers of the name today may well be the blood of those Germanic tribes who invaded and settled in the south and east of the island of Britain from about the early fifth century.

Known as the Anglo-Saxons, they were composed of the Jutes, from the area of the Jutland Peninsula in modern Denmark, the Saxons from Lower Saxony, in modern Germany and the Angles from the Angeln area of Germany.

It was the Angles who gave the name ‘Engla land’, or ‘Aengla land’ – better known as ‘England.’

They held sway in what became known as England from approximately 550 to 1066, with the main kingdoms those of Sussex, Wessex, Northumbria, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia and Essex.

Whoever controlled the most powerful of these kingdoms was tacitly recognised as overall ‘king’ – one of the most noted being Alfred the Great, King of Wessex from 871 to 899.

It was during his reign that the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was compiled – an invaluable source of Anglo-Saxon history – while Alfred was designated in early documents as Rex Anglorum Saxonum, King of the English Saxons.

Other important Anglo-Saxon works include the epic Beowulf and the seventh century Caedmon’s Hymn.

We learn from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle how the religion of the early Anglo-Saxons was one that pre-dated the establishment of Christianity in the British Isles.

Known as a form of Germanic paganism, with roots in Old Norse religion, it shared much in common with the Druidic ‘nature-worshipping’ religion of the indigenous Britons.

It was in the closing years of the sixth century that Christianity began to take hold in Britain, while by approximately 690 it had become the ‘established’ religion of Anglo-Saxon England.

But the death knell of Anglo-Saxon supremacy was sounded with the Norman Conquest of 1066.

By that year, England had become a nation with several powerful competitors to the throne.

In what were extremely complex family, political and military machinations, the English monarch was Harold II, who had succeeded to the throne following the death of Edward the Confessor.

But his right to the throne was contested by two powerful competitors – his brother-in-law King Harold Hardrada of Norway, in alliance with Tostig, Harold II’s brother, and Duke William II of Normandy.

In what has become known as The Year of Three Battles, Hardrada invaded England and gained victory over the English king on September 20 at the battle of Fulford, in Yorkshire.

Five days later, however, Harold II decisively defeated his brother-in-law and brother at the battle of Stamford Bridge.

But he had little time to celebrate his victory, having to immediately march south from Yorkshire to encounter a mighty invasion force, led by Duke William of Normandy that had landed at Hastings, in East Sussex.

Harold’s battle-hardened but exhausted force of Anglo-Saxon soldiers confronted the Normans on October 14, a battle subsequently depicted on the Bayeux tapestry – a 23ft. long strip of embroidered linen thought to have been commissioned eleven years after the event by the Norman Odo of Bayeux.

Harold drew up a strong defensive position at the top of Senlac Hill, building a shield wall to repel Duke William’s cavalry and infantry.

The Normans suffered heavy losses, but through a combination of the deadly skill of their archers and the ferocious determination of their cavalry they eventually won the day.

Anglo-Saxon morale had collapsed on the battlefield as word spread through the ranks that Harold had been killed – the Bayeux Tapestry depicting this as having happened when the English king was struck by an arrow to the head.

Amidst the carnage of the battlefield, it was difficult to identify Harold – the last of the Anglo-Saxon kings.

Some sources assert William ordered his body to be thrown into the sea, while others state it was secretly buried at Waltham Abbey.

What is known with certainty, however, is that William in celebration of his great victory founded Battle Abbey, near the site of the battle, ordering that the altar be sited on the spot where Harold was believed to have fallen.

William was declared King of England on December 25, and the complete subjugation of his Anglo-Saxon subjects, such as the Trotters, followed. Those Normans who had fought on his behalf were rewarded with the lands of Anglo-Saxons, many of whom sought exile abroad as mercenaries.

Within an astonishingly short space of time, Norman manners, customs and law were imposed on England – laying the basis for what subsequently became established ‘English’ custom and practice.

It is in the northeast of England, in present day County Durham, previously known simply as Durham, that records of the Trotter name are first found.

A Robert Trotter is recorded in 1050, holding the trusted and powerful post of tenant-in-chief to one of England’s most noted kings, Edward the Confessor.

Born in about 1003 and regarded as the last Anglo-Saxon king of the Royal House of Wessex, the pious Edward ruled from 1042 until his death in January of 1066.

Canonised by Pope Alexander II, he was regarded as the national saint of England until 1350, when Edward III adopted Saint George as the nation’s patron saint.

Three years after the battle of Hastings, with Norman power fully consolidated in the south, the Normans had been slowly and methodically making their way to the wild and rugged north.

The city of Durham was taken, but the Norman earl placed in control there, Robert de Comines, was killed in a revolt that had spread like wildfire throughout the north.

What followed, during the winter of 1069/ 1070 was what is known as the Harrying of the North, when the rebellion was ruthlessly suppressed.

It is estimated that the bulk of the population were either killed, died of starvation or became refugees.

Some of those forced to flee found refuge in nearby Scotland and ‘Trotter’, indeed, remains a common surname in the Scottish borderlands.

Sources stress, however, that the name was already present here for a considerable time before the Harrying of the North.

Enduring legacies

Bearers of the Trotter name figure prominently in the often turbulent historical record.

Born in 1760 in Melrose, Roxburghshire, Dr Thomas Trotter was the Scottish physician responsible for the introduction of many important medical reforms in the Royal Navy.

Having studied medicine at Edinburgh University, he served for a time as a surgeon’s mate in the Channel Fleet before being appointed, at the age of only 22, as a full Royal Naval surgeon.

By 1793 he was appointed physician to the Royal Hospital at Portsmouth and, a year later, physician to the Channel Fleet.

Four years before this appointment, he had already published his pioneering Review of the Medical Department of the British Navy, which led to sweeping reforms to the medical attention seamen received, in addition to examining ways of combating what was then the scourge of scurvy.

But his medical interests went beyond the high seas – publishing his Essay on Drunkenness in 1804 and, two years later, a study of how to tackle the danger of firedamp in coal mines.

A poet in addition to physician, Trotter contributed to a number of literary periodicals and published his own volume of poetry.

Also a vociferous critic of the slave trade, whose horrors he had witnessed when at sea, he died in 1832.

Still on the high seas, Henry Dundas Trotter rose to the rank of rear-admiral after first entering the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, when he was aged only 13.

Born in 1802 in Dreghorn, near Edinburgh, in 1819 he was part of the naval expedition under Captain Collier against pirates in the Persian Gulf.

His rise through the naval ranks was rapid: made commander of a sloop in 1826, seven years later he was instrumental in the capture of a Spanish slave schooner, the Panda that had committed an act of piracy on the American vessel the Mexican.

The Panda’s captain, Pedro Gilbert, had seized the Mexican and its crew, but Trotter managed to recover both vessel and crew – an act for which he received the grateful thanks of the American government.

Appointed captain of the steamer Albert, he was in command of an expedition to the Niger in 1841 – an expedition that led to the vast majority of the seamen, including Trotter, ending up severely incapacitated by fever.

It was through the ill health brought on by this fever that in later years he was forced to turn down three separate offers of high and lucrative office – the governorship of New Zealand, the command of an Arctic expedition and command of the Indian Navy.

Appointed rear-admiral on the retired list in 1857, he died two years later.

Not only an officer in the Royal Engineers but also an explorer of Central Asia and an author, Colonel Sir Henry Trotter was born in 1841.

Awarded a commission in the Royal Engineers in 1860, from 1863 to 1875 he served on the geographic survey known as the Great Trigonometric Survey of India.

By 1876 a captain in the Royal Engineers, the well-travelled Trotter spent some time in China as a member of the special service that served Britain’s commercial, military and diplomatic interests there.

From China, he was despatched to Turkey, serving as assistant military attaché at Constantinople, now Istanbul, during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 to 1878 – a conflict between the Ottoman Empire of Turkey and a coalition of Balkan countries led by Russia.

Present at the fall of the Turkish city of Erzurum to the Russians, a year later, by this time a major, he was appointed Consul for Kurdistan.

Back in Turkey from 1882 to 1889, he served as military attaché at Constantinople, before serving as British-Consul General in Syria.

Retiring from public service in 1906 after nearly forty years serving British interests in foreign parts, he worked with the Central Asian Society and served as its president from 1917 to 1918; knighted for his services to the nation, he died in 1919.

One distinguished military family of the Trotter name was one founded by Major General Sir Henry Trotter, born on the family estate of Mortonhall, Edinburgh, in 1844.

Commissioned into the Grenadier Guards when he was aged 18, he went on to become Major General commanding the Brigade of Guards and General Officer Commanding the Home District.

Also serving for a time as Deputy Lieutenant of Berwickshire, he died in 1905.

He was the father of Lieutenant Colonel Edward Henry Trotter who, in common with his father, was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards.

Awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) during the Second Boer War of 1899 to 1902, he commanded the 18th Battalion, The King’s (Liverpool Regiment) during the First World War.

Before embarking for France, the battalion became known as “Trotter’s Greyhounds” – because of the gruelling daily exercises that not only the rank and file, but also Trotter himself, subjected themselves to.

The high peak of physical fitness achieved under Trotter’s guidance meant they were frequently the winner in inter-battalion sport competitions.

But physical stamina was no match for the German machine-guns that viciously opened up on the battalion on the first day of the Somme offensive in July of 1916.

Subject to relentless fire as they advanced across no-man’s-land, the battalion suffered up to 500 casualties on that first terrible day – while Trotter was killed a week later when a shell landed in the entrance to brigade headquarters.

One of his brothers, Reginald Trotter, had meanwhile been killed about a year earlier while serving with the Cameron Highlanders.

From the battlefield to the much different world of art and missionary work, Isabella Lilias Trotter, better known as I.L. Trotter, turned her back on a highly promising career as an artist in favour of a life as a Christian missionary.

Born in London in 1853, she was aged 23 when she travelled with her mother to Venice, making the acquaintance there of the famed English art critic John Ruskin.

Taking Isabella out sketching with him, he was so impressed with her own artistic efforts that he predicted that “if she would give her life to painting, she could become the greatest painter of the nineteenth century.”

But Isabella, fired with Christian zeal, devoted most of her time back in London helping the Young Women’s’ Christian Association (YWCA), and only a small amount of time to painting.

Ruskin and she nevertheless remained firm friends, corresponding with each other after Isabella settled in Algeria to preach the Christian message to Muslims.

It was here that she remained until her death in 1928, having nearly forty years earlier founded the Algiers Mission Band – incorporated in 1964 into Arab World Ministries.

Isabella, however, had not totally abandoned her passion for art.

She wrote a number of books, including Parable of the Cross and The Way of the Sevenfold Secret – which she also illustrated.

One bearer of the Trotter name whose legacy survives to this day, in areas that include market research and workplace relations, was the British neurosurgeon Wilfred Trotter, born in 1872 in Coleford, Gloucestershire.

It is through his in-depth studies on social psychology that he is best known, having developed the concept, first formulated by the French sociologist Gustave Le Bon, of what he termed the ‘herd instinct’, or ‘herd mentality.’

This is when the will of the individual is submerged in favour of the will of a particular group as a whole.

First outlined by him in 1908, while he was a surgeon at University College Hospital, London, he later expanded the concept in his landmark book The Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, first published in 1916.

Considered to represent a major advance in the study of group behaviour, the book remains popular to this day.

A Fellow of the scientific think-tank known as the Royal Society, he died in 1939.

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Family History Mini Book


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