Dawyck Castle, in the upper Tweed valley about eight miles south-west of Peebles, was built around the thirteenth century and belonged to the Veitch family until 1691.
Four centuries on one piece of ground is a long run for a Border surname, and it explains why Veitch fills Peeblesshire records while the name's origin lies elsewhere entirely.
How Long Did the Veitches Hold Dawyck?
Until Sir James Nasmyth bought it in 1691. The Veitches had planted the ground around Dawyck House through the seventeenth century, and that planting is why the place is a botanic garden today rather than a ruin.
What they built did not survive. The old castle was demolished in 1830 and the present house raised on the same footprint; it has been a category B listed building since 23 February 1971, and the grounds joined the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in 1987. The Balfours gave the garden to the Royal Botanic Garden in 1978.
Dawyck sits at Stobo, in the same stretch of Tweeddale as the Horsburghs, the Tweedies of Drumelzier and Traquair, with Neidpath Castle commanding the river below the town.
Does Veitch Really Mean Cowherd?
Mostly, with a nuance usually lost.
The Oxford-backed Dictionary of American Family Names gives Veitch as "Scottish (of Norman origin): from a derivative of Latin vacca 'cow' hence a metonymic occupational name for a cowherd or a nickname for a gentle person". Two readings, not one. The cattle reading is familiar; the second, a nickname built on the mildness of the animal, is rarely repeated.
A second reference treats Veitch as a dialect form of Vacher, from Old French vachier, and gives the earliest spelling as Simon le Vacher, recorded in 1219 in the Assize Rolls of Yorkshire. That entry belongs to the parent name in England, not to a Scottish Veitch.
The dictionary lists Veach, Veatch, Veech and Vetch as variants, which matters more than it looks, as the next sections show. Our piece on the Gardner name follows the same process.
What Happened to William and Marion Veitch?
They are the pair the surname deserves to be known for, and they died a day apart.
William Veitch was born on 27 April 1640, younger son of John Veitch, minister of Roberton in Lanarkshire. He graduated M.A. from Glasgow in 1659 and took license as a preacher about 1664. His position was forfeited in 1667 after the Pentland Rising, and he crossed into England to live in Northumberland under the assumed names Johnson and George Johnston.
He was apprehended on 16 January 1679, ordered to the Bass Rock, and released on 17 July 1680. Holland followed in 1683, then Yorkshire, then Scotland again at the Revolution of 1688. He was minister at Morebattle from April 1688, at Peebles from 1690, and at Dumfries from September 1694 until he demitted on 19 May 1715. He died at Dumfries on 8 May 1722.
Marion Fairlie was born in Edinburgh and baptized at the end of 1639. She married William in the High Kirk of Lanark in 1664 and followed him through all of it. They had ten children, four of whom she outlived, and her account of those deaths is the heart of the memoir the Free Church of Scotland published in 1846 as Memoirs of the Life of Mrs William Veitch. She died on 9 May 1722, the day after her husband.
Their decades are covered in our pieces on the National Covenant and the Killing Time.
Which Veitch Governed Nova Scotia?
Their son, who spelled it Vetch.
Samuel Vetch was born in Edinburgh on 9 December 1668. In 1698 he joined the Darien expedition, the Scottish attempt to plant a colony on the Isthmus of Panama, and survived a venture that killed most of its people. He reached New York in August 1699.
He helped take Port Royal in 1710, saw it renamed Annapolis Royal, and became the first governor of Nova Scotia, serving 1710 to 1713 and 1715 to 1717. He died on 30 April 1732 in the King's Bench Prison in London.
The useful point for genealogy is the spelling. A minister's son wrote himself Vetch, the dictionary files Vetch under Veitch, one family. Search only the six-letter form and you lose him.
Was the Veitch Nursery Family Scottish?
Yes, and the founder is regularly misnamed.
The firm was started by John Veitch, born in October 1752 at Ancrum near Jedburgh, son of Thomas Veitch, gardener at Ancrum House. He worked in a nursery at nearby Hassendean, apprenticed with Lees of Hammersmith on eight shillings a week, and went to Devon to work for Sir Thomas Dyke Acland at Killerton. He had his own nursery at Budlake by 1800 and moved to Exeter in 1832.
His son James Veitch, born 25 January 1792 and dead in May 1863, was second in the line, not first, and it is James who is usually given the Jedburgh connection that belongs to his father.
What grew from a Roxburghshire gardener's cottage is hard to overstate. The house of Veitch became the largest group of family-run nurseries in Europe, employed twenty-two recognized plant hunters including three Veitches, and by 1914 had introduced 1,281 plants into cultivation that were previously unknown or newly bred.
And John Veitch the Philosopher?
Born in Peebles on 24 October 1829, which returns the name to Tweeddale within a few miles of Dawyck.
He took the chair of logic, metaphysics and rhetoric at St Andrews in 1860 and the equivalent chair at Glasgow in 1864, translated Descartes, and wrote The History and Poetry of the Scottish Border in 1877. He died on 3 September 1894, remembered less for his philosophy than for his writing on the country his surname had held since the thirteenth century.
Is There a Clan Veitch?
No chief of the name has been recognized and no clan society exists. Veitch is a Border family surname with a long territorial history at Dawyck, a different thing from a clan in the Highland sense.
How Do You Research a Veitch Line?
- Search Veitch, Vetch, Veatch, Veach and Veech together. The Nova Scotia governor shows one family using two forms.
- Start in Peeblesshire, Roxburghshire and Lanarkshire: Stobo, Peebles, Ancrum, Roberton.
- Use presbytery and church court papers for the Covenanting decades. A minister deprived in 1667 leaves records parish registers never will.
- Follow emigrant branches into North American sources, where Veatch and Veach dominate.
- Work back from a statutory certificate after 1855, since post-1855 entries name parents.
Own a Piece of Veitch Heritage
Four centuries at Dawyck, a minister and his wife who died within a day of each other, a son who governed Nova Scotia, and a gardener's boy from Ancrum whose firm brought 1,281 plants into British cultivation. Three designs are made for the name: a mug, a garden flag and a keepsake ornament in a silver-toned frame, each carrying the family crest above woven tartan. No pattern was assigned to Veitch, so that cloth is a heritage design choice, and our guide to tartan custom explains what applies.
Veitch Family Crest Ornament in a Silver-Toned Frame
Frequently Asked Questions About the Veitch Name
What does the surname Veitch mean?
It goes back to Latin vacca, a cow, through Old French, and the Oxford-backed dictionary allows two readings: a cowherd, or a nickname for a gentle person.
Where is the Veitch family from?
Peeblesshire above all. Dawyck, near Stobo, was Veitch property from about the thirteenth century until 1691.
Are Vetch, Veatch and Veach the same name?
They are treated as variants of Veitch. Samuel Vetch, son of the Covenanter William Veitch, shows two spellings inside one family.
Does Veitch have a clan chief?
None has been recognized and there is no clan body. Veitch is a documented Border family rather than a clan with a chiefly line.
Was the Veitch nursery dynasty Scottish?
Its founder was. John Veitch was born at Ancrum near Jedburgh in 1752; the firm itself was English-based throughout.
Sources and Further Reading
- Veitch in the Dictionary of American Family Names. The vacca derivation, the two readings, the variants.
- Veitch surname entry. The Vacher route and the 1219 Yorkshire record.
- Dawyck House. Veitch ownership to 1691 and the category B listing.
- Dawyck Botanic Garden. The Veitch planting and the 1978 gift.
- William Veitch. The aliases, the Bass Rock, the Dumfries ministry.
- Marion Veitch. The Lanark marriage and the memoir of 1846.
- Samuel Vetch. Darien, Port Royal, Nova Scotia.
- John Veitch. Ancrum in 1752, Killerton, Exeter.
- Veitch Nurseries. Twenty-two plant hunters, 1,281 introductions.
- John Veitch of Peebles. The chairs and Border writing.
- ScotlandsPeople: searching surnames. Veitch, Vetch and Veatch in one query.
A cowherd's name that held a Tweeddale estate four centuries, produced a governor of Nova Scotia and put a thousand new plants into British gardens. Veitch designs are here, among more than 2,000 names in the catalog.