Jeanie Deans is a fictional character in Sir Walter Scott's novel, The Heart of Midlothian. "Jeanie Deans" is also the name of at least two pubs,at least three passenger ships, two railway locomotives, an opera, a play, a poem, a song, a hybrid rose, an antipodean potato, and a geriatric unit in a hospital. They all take their name from Scott's heroine. There was also a so-called Jeanie Deans' Cottage in Edinburgh. It was demolished in 1965. The name 'Jeanie' or 'Jeannie' is still popular today[1] but this may be due to the influence of the television series, I Dream of Jeannie, which ran from 1965 to 1970 and starred Larry Hagman and Barbara Eden. Also there is a popular song called Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.
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Jeanie Deans was one of Scott's most celebrated characters during the 19th century, although she is almost entirely forgotten nowadays. She was renowned as an example of an honest, upright, sincere, highly religious person. When her sister, Effie, is wrongly convicted of murdering her own child, Jeanie travels, partly by foot, all the way to London. She begins walking on her bare feet to save her shoes but puts them on when she passes through towns and villages. By a series of improbable adventures she finds George Staunton alias Robertson who had fathered her sister's baby son. Thereafter she travels on by coach and on reaching London she seeks out the Duke of Argyll who takes her to meet Queen Caroline at Richmond Lodge. She impresses the Queen with her eloquence, spoken in broad Scots. The Queen promises to intercede with King George II, and she ensures that her sister is granted a pardon, on pain of being banished from Scotland for fourteen years. When Jeanie returns to Scotland, she finds that the Duke of Argyll had given her father land to superintend at Rosneath in Argyll. She is also overjoyed to find that her fiancé, Reuben Butler, has been appointed Minister at the neighbouring kirk of Knocktarlitie. She subsequently marries Butler and raises three children named David, Reuben and Euphemia. Jeanie's sister, Effie, pays her a clandestine visit to inform her that she had married her lover who was now Sir George Staunton. Jeanie later learns that her sister's child had not been murdered but was sold to a Highland brigand and was reared to a life of robbery and violence. Sir George is later shot by his own son who escapes to America, where he gets into trouble, joins a tribe of native Americans and is heard of no more. As Lady Staunton, Effie takes her place in London society but eventually retires to a French convent, much to her sister's disappointment at her relinquishing her father's religion.
This pub is situated at 67 St Leonards Hill, Edinburgh.[2] The 'tryste' in the pub's name refers to Jeanie Deans' meeting with the outlaw, George Robertson, which took place in Holyrood Park at Muschat's Cairn. This cairn can be seen today at the eastern (Meadowbank) entrance to Holyrood Park, though in the novel Scott seems to locate it further west, near the ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel. The pub is in the vicinity of Jeanie Deans' cottage as depicted in Scott's novel (see below). He seems to have imagined the cottage as being on St. Leonards Crags situated behind where the pub is. Nowadays, there is a building on St. Leonards Crags which was previously occupied by the James Clark School.
Jeanie Deans, 512 St. Vincent Street, Glasgow, G3 8XZ.[3] In this pub, there are pictures of the ship, PS Jeanie Deans hanging on the walls. The patrons of the pub are convinced that it was named after the ship which was built in Glasgow. However, there are roundels in the windows of the pub showing a young woman with a tartan shawl round her head. This is undoubtedly Jeanie Deans as depicted by Scott in the novel. The pub may have got its name in the late nineteenth century during the height of her popularity and well before the ship was built in 1931.
The Jeanie, 6 Dinmont Road, Glasgow G41 3UD. This pub was named after the passenger ship, Jeanie Deans. It no longer exists as it was demolished around 2004[4] to make way for flats which start at no. 8. Where the pub was is an empty space. A website exists advertising this pub.[5]
There was also a Jeanie Deans pub at no. 1/3 Govan Road, Kinning Park, Glasgow. This pub had a large mural of PS Jeanie Deans. It was demolished around 1990 and there is nothing to be seen of where it was.[5]
The PS Jeanie Deans was built for the London and North Eastern Railway at Fairfield's Govan yard in Glasgow, and was launched in 1931. She was built for summer pleasure services and was therefore a paddle steamer rather than a turbine steamer of the type which had become more popular, as she needed a more shallow draught to visit the piers at Craigendoran and Helensburgh. She was based at Craigendoran near Helensburgh, and cruised to Arran, Ayr, Girvan and Ailsa Craig.
This ship was the first paddle steamer to be fitted with a three crank engine, which could push her 800 tons through the water at more than 18 knots, but her deep draught kept her in the lower reaches of the Clyde. Jeanie Deans was refurbished after her first season in that she had a deck shelter constructed forward of the bridge, after she was found to have insufficient shelter during poor weather. She also had her funnels increased in height after they were found to deposit grit on the passengers, something that was rather annoying to those affected.
By the outbreak of war she was the longest and fastest paddle steamer (at 18.5 knots) on the Firth. She was requisitioned by the government during the Second World War and saw war service as a minesweeper and then as an anti aircraft vessel on the River Thames (where she later returned as Queen of the South). She narrowly missed being hit by a parachute mine during the Blitz.
After the war she returned to her former duties up and down the Clyde estuary and was once more a firm favourite with holidaymakers and day-trippers alike. Her route was later extended to take in Arrochar, the Three Lochs cruise and, during the 1950s, she cruised around the Isle of Bute. In 1964, no longer able to compete with the multitude of more modern vessels on the Clyde, she was laid up at Greenock. However, a paddle-steamer enthusiasts' group bought her and she sailed to the Thames the following year where she was renamed Queen of the South. She was employed by the Coastal Steam Packet Company on river cruises until 1967. However, she suffered from poor reliability, lack of planning and funding. These technical problems resulted in her being sent to Belgium where she was eventually scrapped in 1967. Photographs of PS Jeanie Deans in her wartime role can be viewed here and here. [6]
LNWR "Jeanie Deans" Locomotive No 3105 B. This six-wheeled passenger steam engine was apparently built in 1890 when it was exhibited at the Edinburgh Electrical Exhibition of 1890 at Shandon, Edinburgh. "Jeanie Deans 3104 worked the 2 p.m. Scotch dining train daily from January, 1891, until August, 1899 - with trains weighing 260 to 310 tons, and almost always kept time."[9]
"Jeanie Deans" locomotive D29 'Scott'. BR no. 62404. This was one of class D29 locomotives which were all named by William Paton Reid (1854–1932) after Waverley novels or characters in these novels.[10] The last D29 was withdrawn in 1952, and none have survived into preservation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBR_J_class This 'Jeanie Deans" locomotive was built in 1909 at the NBR works at Cowlairs, Glasgow. It was disposed of in 1949.[11]
The opera, Jeanie Deans, was commissioned by the Carl Rosa Opera Company and was published in 1894. The music was composed by Hamish MacCunn (1868–1916) and the lyrics written by Joseph Bennett. The opera was first produced at Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh in June 1894 to great acclaim. It was performed in repertory for over twenty years and has been revived in recent years.[12] It was performed in 1986 and 1994 by Opera West. Excerpts from the opera are available on an audio CD which was recorded by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Govan Town Hall, June 1995.[13] The original scores of the opera are available in the Mitchell Library, Glasgow and they form part of the MacCunn Collection in the Special Collections of Glasgow University Library. The opera is loosely based on Scott's novel, The Heart of Midlothian. The ending in which Effie Deans is freed from Tolbooth prison is not in the book. The crowd scene in fact refers back to the beginning of the novel where the Porteous riots are described. The plot of the opera therefore ends with the freeing of Effie, and the lives of Jeanie and her sister afterwards are not dealt with.
The play, Jeanie Deans, was written by Dion Boucicault in 1860.[14] It was also known as 'The Trial of Effie Deans' or 'The Heart of Mid-Lothian', but they are definitely the same play as 'Jeanie Deans'.[15] It was first produced on 9 January 1860 at Laura Keene's Theatre, New York.[16] It was produced in London at the Westminster Theatre on 26 January 1863 under the title of 'The Trial of Effie Deans'.[17] The play seems not to have been performed in the 20th century. Boucicault may have been influenced by Thomas Hailes Lacy's earlier play, The Heart of Mid-Lothian; or, the Sisters of St. Leonard's which was published in 1850.[18]
This rose was created by Sir James Plaisted Wilde who became Lord Penance in 1869. He was a Judge of the Court of Probate and Divorce, and retired in 1872, but accepted the post of Dean of Arches Court in 1875, a position he kept on until the year of his death. His main residence was Eashing Park in Godalming, Surrey in the mild south of England. There he relaxed from the stresses of judicial duties by enjoying his gardens. Apparently his roses afforded him great enjoyment because he started to hybridize then, and grow them from seed.[19] He was keen on Sir Walter Scott and his novels and named many of his hybrid roses after characters in his novels. The 'Jeanie Deans' rose was introduced in 1895. It is known as a hybrid rubiginosa[20] and was apparently a hybrid of R. eglanteria with something else. It is described as being profuse, scarlet-crimson, with semi-double flowers.
The "Jeanie Deans" potato seems to have been popular in Australia and New Zealand in the late 19th century. It was advertised as seed potato in a New Zealand Newspaper in 1895: "A flatish tuber, with few and shallow eyes, resembling the old Lothian Flake. Ripens in February. Cooking quality cannot be surpassed. First at Invercargill Show for Best White Potato, any variety."[21]
The "Jeanie Deans" Unit is in Victoria Infirmary, Helensburgh, Dumbartonshire. It was built in 1989 and opened as a 30 bed Care of the Elderly Unit.[22]
This cottage was situated at the southern end of St. Leonards Bank, Edinburgh. It appears that Scott did not have this cottage in mind for his fictional characters of Jeanie Deans and her father, Davie Deans, as he informs us in the novel that the place had already been built over by the expansion of the suburbs of Edinburgh. Scott tells us that David Deans was a dairy farmer (or cow-feeder) who moved to "a place called Saint Leonard's Crags, lying betwixt Edinburgh and the mountain called Arthur's Seat, and adjoining to the extensive sheep pasture still named the King's Park.... Here he rented a small lonely house, about half a mile distant from the nearest point of the city, but the site of which, with all the adjacent ground, is now occupied by the buildings which form the south-eastern suburb." [23] St. Leonard's Crags itself is a few hundred metres to the north of the would-be Jeanie Deans Cottage and is now occupied by the building which was the James Clark School (now converted to flats[24]). However, this cottage features in a map of Edinburgh as early as 1784.[25] The same cottage is named as a 'Herds cottage' in a map of 1823[26] The book was published in 1818 when the cottage still existed so it is possible Scott was either ignorant of its existence or wished not to identify his characters with it. The cottage was demolished as recently as 1965.[27]
The PoemJEANIE DEANS[28] St. Leonard's hill was lightsome land, The mossy turf on Arthur Seat, The solemn haunts o' Holyrood, But evil days and evil men The sun of joy is setting; Her inmost thought to heaven is sent, |
The SongJEANIE DEANS[29] Music at JAS. S. KERR'S, 314 Paisley Rd., Glasgow, Far awa' frae bonnie Scotland, CHORUS. Here's to Auld Reekie, and its glorious Princes Street, Oft I see her sad and dreary, Fancy ofttimes brings before me, "Jeanie woman" though departed, |
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