The Death of Queen Esther

Yetholm History Society recently had a query passed on to us by Hazel Woodsell from Kelso Heritage Society about where exactly Queen Esther Faa Blythe died. The 1871 and 1881 censuses show that Esther was living in the Gipsy Palace in Kirk Yetholm with her daughter Ellen Tait (1). However, when she died in July 1883, she was living in Kelso. Her death certificate gives her name as Esther Faa Rutherford, “Queen of the Gipsies” (widow of John Rutherford, Mason and Plasterer) and that she died at 12.20 pm on the 12th of July, aged 78 – the place of death is given as “The Castle”, Horsemarket, Kelso. But what and where was “The Castle”?

David Welsh of Morebattle suggested that The Castle was a building that once stood at the foot of Horesemarket, at the junction with Bowmont Street. This is almost certainly correct. Close scrutiny of the door of the house currently standing on this corner reveals that it is called Castle Nook. Subsequent rummaging in digital newspaper archives has turned up a picture of ‘The House where Esther died’ (see above – from The People, Sunday 18th September 1898), which confirms that Castle Nook preserves a dim memory of the earlier building. This newspaper picture suggests, however, that the exact place where Esther died was located not right on the corner, but on the site of Ivy Neuk, the house now standing between Castle Nook and The Contented Vine Restaurant (see photograph on the left, at that date the restaurant was the United Presbyterian Church). Houses once stood directly in front of the UP church and rough stonework visible in the newspaper drawing shows where these demolished buildings once stood. All that seems to survive today of these earlier buildings is the low stone wall which once ran in front of the church.

Esther’s death was noticed in newspapers throughout Britain and, as we shall see, further afield. The Scotsman 13th July 1883, puts it this way – ‘Yesterday forenoon there died, in a second storey room of a dilapidated house at the foot of Horsemarket, Kelso, Esther Faa Blythe, Queen of the Yetholm Gipsies.’ The picture shown in The People (which describes the building as a ‘rude tenement’) certainly looks like it has seen better days  and is two storeys high, which fits with The Scotsman’s claim that she died in ‘a second storey room’. Censuses show that this once grand building, like many in Kelso at that date, was occupied by several families. It seems to have been demolished soon after Esther’s death. Ivy Neuk has a date-stone showing that it was built in 1894 (2).

The Castle may have been rather shabby, but it seems to have been preferable to living in the Kirk Yetholm ‘Palace’. The Scotsman claims that ‘the Queen usually resided in a tiled house in Kirk Yetholm, but a year ago, when repairs on “the Palace” were deemed necessary, she removed to Kelso, where she died.’ It seems hard to believe that this is the whole truth. Esther was, in her way, quite a celebrity while she lived in Yetholm where, by all accounts, she was visited by numerous curious visitors, both great and small, many of whom left her with a financial memento of their visit. However what exactly lies behind the move is now lost to us – perhaps she was just tired of all the fuss (3). In any case, her regal position was acknowledged by the folks of Kelso:

      … her spare, neat and erect figure was consequently familiar on our street, at least in the neighbourhood of her dwelling. Everyone had a kindly recognition for her as they passed ‘Her Majesty’, as she was familiarly termed, and she was never slow with an affable word or a polite though not demonstrative acknowledgement. Though retaining her erectness of figure and natural dignity of bearing to the last, it was apparent that her step was becoming less firm, and the nimbleness of her manner and walk less marked. The change of her dwelling was not favourable to the lengthening out of her days, and she has passed away not so much from any specific ailment as from the infirmities and exhaustion of age. (Banffshire Journal and General  Advertiser,  17th July 1883 – though the passage is copied from the Kelso Chronicle, which could not be consulted).

Most memorials of Esther acknowledge her politeness and neatness. Shortly before she died a letter was printed in The Scotsman (6th July 1883) which describes an interview with her in Kirk Yetholm. It begins by making the same point, but also touches on her slyness and wit:

     The old lady was politeness and dignity herself. She received the company smilingly, but not with that “gushing” demeanour which characterises those who are the worlds show. A few pictures adorned the cheerful room, principally portraits of Royal personages. These “strange and wonderful presentments” led to a conversation in which the clever young man of the party tried to elicit some recondite information regarding Esther’s knowledge of the “reigning family that was at Windsor, ye ken.” But the old lady, with an ineffable look, glanced towards the ceiling, showed she was touched by none of these things, and turned to speak to one of the party, remarking, “Hech, the sheep and the turnips are worth them a’; hoos the turnips in your quarter?” After this mundane remark, it was found impossible to talk of regal joys, and the party naturally fell into vague, commonplace, and conversational iteration.

Various newspaper accounts of her death record that, following the usual Church of Scotland practice at the time, ‘devotional exercises’ were led by the parish minister, the Rev. G. S. Napier, in the room where she died. The coffin was then taken to Yetholm, where she was buried in the kirkyard. According to Edgar Wakeman, an American who wrote several articles about gipsies for American papers, and who visited Yetholm and spoke to witnesses –

     Thousands of people came to Yetholm. Upon the coffin lay the red cloak of the queen, and an enormous white wreath of roses, sent by Lady John Scott, of Spottiswood, surmounted this. Both were interred with the body of the Queen. The Rev. Mr. Davidson, for twenty-nine years minister of the parish church here, tells me he never witnessed a more remarkable scene than at this burial. The services were held at Kelso; but such vast crowds massed about the grave at Yetholm that though Mr Davidson made effort to reach it to say a few words over the body, the grief of the gypsies and the density of the crowd prevented.  (The San Francisco Call, 21st September 1890)

Tom Tokeley says that there was once a small stone cross over her grave, but at some point this was stolen. The site of the burial is still remembered by a few people, but with time maybe this too, like the location of her death,  will be forgotten.

(1) Ellen Faa Rutherford married John Tait in Yetholm parish kirk on 13th September 1878. The couple had a daughter called Beatrice.
(2) Thanks to Leslie Abernethy for this information.
(3) This is hinted at by Edgar Wakeman, in the article from the San Fancisco Call, referred to later in this blog, who writes of Esther - 'No one ever inspired to the enjoyment of gypsy honors; and Princess Helen, with whom I am quite a favorite, tells me that she was "so weel and fairly licket," that she completely lost all her ambition for royal life'. Ironically, as several newspaper accounts claim, Queen Esther was, for some unknown reason, rather irritated by American visitors. Perhaps Mr Wakeman himself was one of the reasons Queen Esther sought a quieter life in Kelso.

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All the obituaries fail to mention Esther's wilder earlier life - and the fact that her husband Jock Rutherford was transported to Austrlia for violence and theft. This particular case of battery with a rolling pin is recorded in The Kelso Chronicle 17th September 1847