George Garrett Douglas

[Currie]

Hello Scott,

Re your comment two posts back about father’s getting custody of daughters.

“A handbook of husband and wife according to the law of Scotland”, 1893, page 73, but the whole chapter is worth a read.
http://www.archive.org/stream/cihm_1077 ... 3/mode/2up


By the common law of Scotland the father has prima facie the right to the custody of a legitimate child during its pupillarity.

Ill. — Husband, an engineer engaged abroad, leaves wife in Scotland with four young children. Subsequently he petitions the Court to ordain his wife to deliver the children into the custody of his mother or any person named by him. Court grants the petition without requiring proof of any unfitness in the wife to have the custody. She is allowed access.
It was laid down in the case of Lang that the Court will not interfere with the father's right, unless it can be shown "that the children's health, life, or morals, will be endangered by their remaining in their father's custody."

Ill. — Wife who has obtained a judicial separation on ground of cruelty, petitions for custody of two children aged seven and five respectively. Petition refused.

Ill. — A wife left her husband on account of cruelty. Subsequently she gave birth to a child. Husband petitioned for custody of the child, then seven months old. Petition granted. The wife offered to prove that he was unfit, but her averments were not admitted to proof, as they did not disclose any reason for apprehending danger to the child from being in his custody. In considering whether children should be removed from the custody of their father against whom a decree of divorce or of separation has been obtained, the fact that he has been guilty of adultery is material but not conclusive.


Pupillarity is defined as the period before puberty, or from birth to fourteen in males, and twelve in females, which before 1929 in Scotland, corresponded with the marriageable age without parental consent.

Hope that’s interesting,
Alan

[Helen]

Hi Scott,

I thought I'd keep you posted on the latest twist & turn in this saga!

Robert Greig married, by Declaration, Annie McCulloch (nee Auchterlonie) on the 14th July 1908, described himself as a widower, partly true! they were both living at 80 Scott St, Garnethill, Glasgow.

I'm not sure where the Robert & Mary & Sydney fit into the whole thing, or if they are 'red herrings' Sydney was born Sidney Greig WATT or STURROCK, Illegitimate, 6 Feb 1900 in Beith to Mary WATT or STURROCK, Widow of David STURROCK who died on 17 Jan 1898 in Blenheim, New Zealand. The birth was registered by Mary, mother. (Statutory Births 581/00 0089)

It doesn't seem to make things any clearer.

Helen

[Helen]

More twists and turns!
re Mary STURROCK, ms WATT, she was a de facto of Robert GREIG's and the mother of Sydney. Mary's husband did NOT die in New Zealand in 1898, but lived more than 40 years and became an Inspector of Schools in NZ, mentioned in local newspapers there. Mary returned to NZ, she & husband travelled to & from Canada, and she died there. Sydney stayed with his father, Robert GREIG, and sometimes with one of Robert's sisters. He eventually went to the US and Canada with his father & step-mother, Margaret SWANSTON in 1912.

(Robert GREIG ended up having 6 wives & a de facto, at one stage married to 3 women at the same time, only one marriage has a note, RCE, for divorce. The marriage occured in 1902, divorce at her instigation in 1910.)

On 23rd March 1899 George G. DOUGLAS sued the proprieter of the Imperial Hotel, Arbroath for slander after said proprieter had made comments that it was inappropriate for a married man (DOUGLAS) to be spending his Sunday evening off walking with a married woman who was living apart from her husband (Mary GREIG or THOMSON), he was a waiter & she was the cook, said event was on the 5th of March. George's home address was given as 10 Rosebery St, Dundee.

10 Rosebery St was where his son, Robert, was born on the 18th of January, 1899. Alsoby March Mary GREIG/THOMSON was pregnant with Christina Violet Douglas GREIG who was born on the 26th October 1899 in Aberdeen.

This has been THE most convoluted family I have come across.