George Faa, mason - a Yetholm Connection?

   Our attention was recently drawn to the passage shown above, from the records of the first Freemason's lodge in Kelso. Kelso's lodge has a remarkable archive, dating back to the first years of the 18th-century and their website - which can be found by clicking HERE - is well worth a visit, where many of their manuscripts can be glimpsed.
   The passage shown above, from a meeting on 2nd June 1702, refers to the fact "that george faa last master to the said company is nou deceased". A subsequent record notes that a sum of money was voted for behoof of the widow of the late master George Faa. Who exactly was this George Faa - and and does his name suggest there may be a link with Yetholm?

In 19th century Fred Vernon (right) was a significant figure in Kelso masonic life. Enthusiastic and dynamic, he did much to stimulate interest in masonic history in the area. In 1893 he published the History of Freemasonary in the Province of Roxburgh, Peebles and Selkirkshire from 1674 to the Present Time. With reference to the passage noted above, he pointed out that the name Faa/Fall 'is well known on the Border, being the name of the Royal family of the gipsy tribe located on the Border, whose headquarters have been for many generations the pleasantly situated village of Yetholm' (p. 86). Vernon doesn't claim George Fall is from Yetholm, but there's a lingering sense that this may be the case. If there is a Yetholm connection, however, it would locate the Fall clan in the village several decades earlier than other surviving evidence suggests - namely the rental lists from the 1730s which show Will Faa resident in Kirk Yetholm at that date.

   Unfortunately, the evidence suggests - nothing can be proved! - that the George Fall in the Kelso masonic records is unlikely to have had a connection with 'the pleasantly situated village of Yetholm'. The Kelso parish registers show that a George Fall married Jean Adamson there in February 1688. The couple then baptised three children in Kelso - James (1689), Patrick (1690) and George (1691). The baptism record for Patrick is shown below - note that one of the god-parents is 'Robert Ormstoun'. This must be the same man who is a member of the Kelso lodge and who signs his name ('Robert Ormston') in the very first lodge record, which is shown at the end of this blog.
   Clearly George Fall was well-established in the town in the 1680s and 1690s, though it still leaves open the vague possibility that he may have been born in Yetholm ...

A more recent scholar of Freemasonary has uncovered some correspondence with George Fall which suggests otherwise:
   'John Cockburn was a mason & Freemason who emigrated from Scotland in 1684 and went to live in East Jersey to the annoyance of his uncle George Faa or Fall, a Freemason from Kelso. From there he wrote several letters home encouraging others to join him. In one he noted that he was building a stone house in Perth Amboy (the earliest one) and stressed that there was plenty of work for masons in America. Cockburn had signed the 1675 'agreement' in the Masonic Lodge of Melrose and is probably one of the earliest initiated Freemasons in America.'  See - HERE.
   That George Fall of Kelso's nephew was called Cockburn strongly suggests that he is related to another George Fall, also a mason (and a burgess), from Dunbar, who died in 1657 and who was married to an Elizabeth Cockburne. According to Francis Steuart in his article The Falls of Dunbar and their Descent from the Gypsies, 1902 (see HERE), the George Fall of Dunbar who died in 1657 had four children with his wife Elizabeth Cockburn, one of whom was a son called George. This son, I would suggest, could well be the George Fall who establishes himself in Kelso. The surname evidence and the shared occupation (mason) of these two 'George Falls' seems more than a coincidence.
   By the mid-18th century the Fall family of Dunbar were the most prominent (and wealthy) merchants in the town - one member of the family was even an MP. There was a vague tradition that they had gipsy origins and Wull Faa of Yetholm also claimed some sort of link to them. Unfortunately, if the Dunbar family really did have gipsy roots there are no surviving records which confirm the case and by the time records survive they seem to have long since forsaken an itinerant lifestyle.
   As far as the George Fall of Kelso is concerned then, he seems more likely to have been born to a family of masons in Dunbar. His father may have been related to the  wider Fall clan in that town, later to become so socially and economically prominent. If the Fall family of Dunbar had gipsy antecedents at some point - and if the Falls of Yetholm had some sort of dim and distant connection with the Fall family of Dunbar - then George Fall of Kelso might be said to have a very loose link with Wull Faa, the gipsy king. Whether he was aware of it and whether a working master mason in Kelso ever had any reason to visit Yetholm, though, seems unlikely.

Extract from the first minute book of the old Lodge of Kelso 58

   We were shown round the Kelso lodge by the current master Tim Slater - many thanks to him for his hospitality. From the point of view of Yetholm History Society the visit was, in a way, negative, as a link with the Falls of Yetholm seems tenuous. Unexpectedly, however, the visit revealed that there was once a masonic lodge in Yetholm - the existence of which seems to have been entirely forgotten in the village itself. Moreover, the Kelso lodge owns a fascinating and beautiful artefact from this now-extinct Yetholm lodge. More will be revealed in the next blog-post ...