Friend of Scotland’s Churches Trust, Graham Cooper has been kind enough to write this blog about the Rev Walter Syme (1722-1758), and his descendants, who was once minister of Tullynessle Church.

Graham grew up in the North East of Scotland and graduated in medicine from the University of Aberdeen, later becoming a surgeon. After retiring, he learnt Gaelic at night school and became a keen local historian and author. Read more about him here.

The Rev Walter Syme was minister of Tullynessle parish from 1722 until his death in 1758. He is recorded as having been born in Banff in 1692 and may have been the son of one of the schoolmasters there.

The people of Tullynessle held Walter Syme in high esteem, but he is of historical interest for two particular reasons: he played a part in the aftermath of the Jacobite uprising of 1745; and his descendants, through four generations, made a remarkable and distinguished contribution to life in Scotland and beyond.

Tullynessle seems a quiet backwater of rural Aberdeenshire nowadays, although when the Rev Thomas Birnie of Alford wrote his contribution to the Old Statistical Account of 1795 he described the road passing from south to north through Tullynessle glen as the ‘Great Northern Road’. It had been a section of one of the routes from Edinburgh to Inverness for centuries before it was developed as a military road under the supervision of Major Caulfield in 1761.

 Just a mile west of Tullynessle church was the estate of Terpersie, owned by one of the Gordon families with distant kinship to the Gordons of Huntly. The castle at Terpersie had been built in 1561 – since then, the fortunes of the Gordons living there had waxed and waned. The family had remained staunchly Roman Catholic but were clearly very much involved in the life of Tullynessle parish and given to charitable work among the people – several Gordons are recorded as having been ‘buried in the church’.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Gordons of Terpersie had Jacobite leanings, and Charles Gordon, the Sixth Laird of Terpersie, was a lieutenant in the company of Gordon of Glenbuchat in the 1745 uprising. He arrived in Edinburgh shortly after the victory at Prestonpans, marched as far south as Derby, and fought on Culloden field. After Culloden, he escaped back to Terpersie and hid out on the Correen hills above the castle as the Hanoverian army searched for him.

In the late summer of 1746, Charles Gordon was apprehended by a group of Redcoat soldiers. According to tradition – recorded by numerous scholars including the Rev James Paull DD, Moderator of the Church of Scotland in 1846 – he was taken to his close neighbour, the Rev Walter Syme, for identification. Charles Gordon may have been dishevelled and bearded after spending months hiding out on the moor – whatever the reason, Walter was unable to confirm his identity to the Redcoats. Unfortunately for the captive, his young daughter betrayed him by running towards him shouting ‘Daddy’. He was hung, drawn, and quartered at Carlisle on the 15^th of November 1746.

Walter Syme wrote a letter on behalf of Charles’ teenage son, James, who had also been arrested. Clemency was shown towards the lad – he seems to have spent the remainder of his life in Jamaica as a mahogany cutter. The Terpersie estate was forfeited to the Crown and bought by the York Buildings Company.

In 1722, Walter married Elizabeth Gordon, daughter of the Rev James Gordon, formerly minister of Rhynie parish, deposed in 1716 because of his Jacobite sympathies. The couple had five children, four of whom survived to adult life. Walter’s wife, Elizabeth, seems to have died within months of the birth of the youngest daughter, Isabella. Walter remarried some years later, but the marriage was not a success, and he had no further issue.

Walter and Elizabeth’s eldest son, James, married Mary Robertson and had a daughter, Eleanora, before his death at the age of 30 years. Eleanora married Henry Brougham of Brougham Hall, Westmoreland. They had two sons, the first of whom, Henry Peter Brougham, First Lord of Brougham and Vaux, rose to be the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. He played a prominent role in passing the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. 

The Syme’s youngest daughter, Isabella, married the Rev James Forsyth, minister of Belhelvie, Aberdeenshire. Their son, Alexander John Forsyth, who followed his father as minister of that parish, was a talented man who invented the percussion lock device for firing muskets. This invention made it possible to fire musket rounds rapidly. It is believed that Napoleon offered him a fortune for the device which had the potential to be a huge advantage in war. Alexander Forsyth rejected Napoleon’s approach and instead offered his invention to the British Army. He spent some months in London working on the percussion lock but if he received any monetary reward for this during his lifetime it was a paltry one.

Isabella and James Forsyth’s daughter Mary Margaret married the Rev John Scott of Glenbuchat, and their daughter Elizabeth Mary Scott married the Rev William Reid, minister of Auchindoir, Aberdeenshire. They had nine children, eight of whom are known to have survived to adult life. Given the era in which they lived, we only know of the successes of the four surviving males: Alexander John Forsyth Reid KCB rose to the rank of Major-General; Robert William Reid was Professor of Human Anatomy at Aberdeen University; William Reid was the Medical Superintendent of the Aberdeen Royal Asylum; Charles Reid was a surgeon with the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Little is known of Walter Syme’s later life. It would have been a comfort to him that his daughter Margaret had married the Rev Alexander Johnston of nearby Alford in 1751. 

Walter was buried beside his wife Elizabeth in Tullynessle churchyard.

I am grateful to Jennie Renton for charting the Syme family tree – this was first published in Gaelic in the novel ‘Am Prionnsa’ written by the author of this blog (Luath Press, 2025).

Our thanks to Graham for sharing this carefully researched piece with us, do please get in touch if you would like to blog on any similar topic relating to Scotland’s religious heritage too.