The Family of Clouston
By J. Storer Clouston
(Review date: March 2004)
OUT OF PRINT
 This
limited edition (1,000 copies only) facsimile copy of J. Storer Clouston's
history of the Clouston surname.
The discovery of a previously unknown book
by J. Storer-Clouston is extremely unlikely.
The next best thing must be the issue of a facsimile
edition of one which few have had the opportunity to read.
The Family of Clouston was originally printed in 1948
by The Kirkwall Press in a privately published edition. But hurry –
only 1,000 copies have been produced. For all bearing the Clouston name
and their relatives, it will prove compulsive reading.
The author explains that his purpose in writing the
book was not only to tell the members of this one family something about
their past history, but also to put on record a number of “quite
curious facts concerning the old land tenure and genealogical complexities
of bye-gone Orkney’’.
Storer-Clouston acknowledges his debt to Udal Law, under
which continuous ownership of land had facilitated the identification
of generations of the family.
The Cloustons, he says: “. . . had the luck to
keep their land and so prove their pedigree.’’ They had also
been singularly fortunate, he notes, in leaving their spoor “in records
of one sort or another – the French muster rolls in particular.’’
Rarely can any family history have been so clearly charted
back as far as the 12th century in such great detail. Cloustons, the book
reveals, have been in Orkney for some 22 generations.
A wealth of detail about the Clouston ancestors is contained
within this deceptively slim volume’s 126 pages, starting with Hakon
Havardson Klo, war chief of Stenness, from whose nickname, Klostadir,
the family name is derived.
The author is convinced that it was this Hakon Klo who
braved the monster who was supposed to guard the Maeshowe mound, by breaking
in and stealing the treasure it contained, over a three day period and
whose wife, the fair Ingigerth is commemorated in the runes there.
Later Cloustons are to be found in the two companies
formed to protect the French monarch – the Scots Guards and the archers
known as the Gendarmes Écossais.
Referring to two Clouston archer brothers in the 15th
century, the author quotes another writer: “The 24 Archers of the
body were selected from the rest on account of their height and good looks,
and were all required to be of a ripe age and belong to noble families.’’
It is possible that Cloustons may have been among the
senior military men seconded to assist the Scottish king prior to the
disaster of Flodden, to “train the Scots in the practice of warres.’’
Perhaps the Cloustons would prefer to pass quickly over
the part their ancestors might have played in that particular confrontation.
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