Duncan Forrester of New South Wales Corps

When ‘Robert Forrester, First Fleeter’ was tried at the Old Bailey in London in 1783 he said he was a stranger in that city. Looking for clues about his origins, at first I wondered whether the New South Wales Corps soldier Duncan Forrester was somehow connected to Robert. 

NSW Corps Re-enactment, Ebenezer 2009, © Louise Wilson

Many coincidences tempted me to think this way. After Robert was transported with the First Fleet to Sydney, arriving there in January 1788, Duncan enlisted in the newly-formed NSW Corps on 8 August 1789 and arrived in Sydney with the Second Fleet in June 1790. Once Robert was a free man, he and Duncan both travelled to Norfolk Island on the Atlantic, arriving there on 4 November 1791, and both sailed from Norfolk Island for Sydney on the Kitty in 9 March 1793. Robert did not move from Sydney to the Hawkesbury until after Duncan's burial in Sydney on 20 June 1794.

Yet, if the men had been connected through kinship, surely Robert would have named one of his sons in honour of Duncan.

No age was given when Duncan Forrester was buried in Sydney on 20 June 1794, so tracking his likely place and date of birth is problematic. Of the very few Duncan Forrester births listed various online parish records, only two are listed in the time frame 1740-1780, both siblings from the same family in Scotland. The first Duncan died young. If the second surviving Duncan became the soldier Duncan Forrester, he would have been 44 years of age when he died.

Duncan Forrester of Caltown, South Leith, Edinburgh

The two Duncans and their siblings were born at Caltown and baptised at South Leith, the harbour area of Edinburgh, Midlothian, all being children of a heelmaker named William Forrester. The witness for the baptisms was a shoemaker named John Forrester of Caltown. This was another tempting clue, as many of Robert’s circle in Australia were shoemakers. The only other Forrester appearing in the baptism registers for South Leith between 1740 and the end of 1770 was Ralph Forrester, a bottle blower of Leith.

These three Forrester men are likely to have been the brothers John (born 1715), William (born 1722), and Ralph (born 1728) who were christened in Glasgow, Lanarkshire as members of the large family of Alexander Forrester and Mary Govan.

After the brothers moved from Glasgow to Edinburgh, William married his first wife Margaret Smith in South Leith on 9 December 1742. William was recorded as a heelmaker in Caltown at the baptisms of his children, who were:

1. William Forrester, born in Caltown on 17 November 1743 and christened in South Leith on 21 November 1743.
2. Jean Forrester, born in Caltown on 11 December 1745 and christened in South Leith on 15 December 1745. Jean died in infancy, before 1752.
3. Duncan Forrester, born in Caltown on 11 November 1746 and christened in South Leith on 14 November 1746. The child was possibly named after an Andrew Duncan, another Caltown heelmaker, who might have been his father’s business partner. Young Duncan died before May 1750.
4. John Forrester, born in Caltown on 11 October 1747 and christened in South Leith on 13 October 1747.
5. Duncan Forrester, the second child in the family with that name, born in Caltown on 12 May 1750 and christened in South Leith on 16 May 1750. 
   Presumably he was the Duncan Forrester who married Jean Proven on 2 December 1775 at Linlithgow, West Lothian, not far away.[1] One child is recorded for them in the IGI - Agness, born on 26 September and christened on 6 October 1776 at Linlithgow.[2] Her father was described as a ‘workman at Kingscavell’, which was a small town just outside Linlithgow on the road towards Edinburgh. Witnesses to the baptism were Alex. Murray and Andrew Graham, who witnessed a number of baptisms and were probably parish officials. Parish records contain many baptisms for the children of ‘Dragoon in 10th Regiment’, and ‘soldier in South Fencibles’ and mention is also made of the ‘1st Royal Regiment of Dragoons’.
   Online parish records indicate that no more children for Duncan and Jean Forrester were baptised in this parish, or any other Scottish parish, suggesting that one of the parents died, or the father was absent from home. Duncan’s wife and daughter still seemed to be alive, so did Duncan enlist as a soldier and fight in the American War of Independence?
6. Jean Forrester, born in Caltown on 31 January 1752 and christened in South Leith on 7 February 1752.

The South Leith parish records I consulted did not contain relevant burial records, but it seems that as well as several of his infant children, William Forrester’s first wife Margaret died young.

Robert Forrester of Caltown, South Leith, Edinburgh

After the death of his first wife Margaret, William Forrester married his second wife Anne Hamilton in South Leith on 7 January 1756. They had three children:

1. Barbara Forrester, born in Caltown on 30 November 1756 and christened in South Leith on 12 December 1756. She married Murdoch Campbell in South Leith on 11 August 1792.
2. Thomas Forrester, born in Caltown in March 1758 and christened in South Leith in March 1758. The specific dates were unreadable on the microfilm I consulted.
   I did not track his life but he seems NOT to have been the Thomas Forrester who was buried on 13 March 1806 at St John's Parramatta, NSW.[3] This man was an adult who lived at Parramatta, and was therefore most unlikely to be related to Robert Forrester, as a close relative would surely seek to live near Robert at Windsor, NSW. Thomas Forrester of Parramatta was not classified as either a soldier or a convict when he was buried, and was not included in the 1800 - 1802 Muster, suggesting that he arrived after 1802. He was probably the convict named Thomas Forrester who arrived aboard Coromandel on 7 May 1804, to serve a sentence of fourteen years imposed at his trial at Warwick on 24 March 1803. No further details are contained in the relevant convict indents.
3. Robert Forrester, born in Caltown on 8 June 1761 and christened in South Leith on 15 June 1761. This baptism record does not exactly fit with the known facts for Robert Forrester of the First Fleet, whose date of birth was most likely between 1757 and 1759.

This 1761 Robert was definitely a younger half-brother of the 1750 Duncan Forrester, who is presumed to have arrived in Sydney as a soldier in 1790 and died there in 1794. But was the 1761 Robert 'our' Robert, the First Fleeter? It seems not.

DNA testing conducted in 2018 has yielded the surprising tentative result that ‘Robert Forrester, First Fleeter’ is most likely the Scottish-born son of an unmarried Forrester woman and a man named John McGaw. Further Y-DNA testing is underway. If true, Robert appears to have adopted his mother's surname. Final conclusions about Robert's origins will be published in the Second Edition of 'Robert Forrester, First Fleeter'.  

Having now decided to scrap the theory that Duncan and Robert might have been related, I won’t be including Appendix 4 from the First Edition of ‘Robert Forrester, First Fleeter’ within the Second Edition of the book. It will free up space for new material located during the past ten years. But, just in case it might help other researchers, my genealogical research into Duncan is preserved here in this blog post.

Please email me if you'd like to join the waiting list for the updated version of the book.

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[1] PRs, Linlithgow, West Lothian, Marriages, LDS Film 1066634

[2] PRs, Linlithgow, West Lothian, Births & Baptisms, 1674-1799, LDS Film 1066632

[3] NSW V18062037 Reel 2A/1806