Jessie M. E. Saxby
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Jessie M. E. Saxby
Shetland writer, born Jessie Margaret Edmondston on the 30th of June 1842, into a prominent family in Shetland, which had sprung from one of the Scottish ministers who acquired land in the islands in the 16th century, one Andrew, of Crail in Fife.
Andrew and his son John were ministers in Yell, and John at least would appear to have been a friend to the oppressed, from his opposition to the tyrannies of Laurence Bruce. One of the family, Arthur (d.1798), settled in Fetlar as a merchant, and his eldest son Laurence served a medical apprenticeship with his uncle William in Leith from 22nd November 1758. He then became a surgeon in Shetland. He married Mary Sanderson of Buness House in Unst, one of nine sisters, the only son not having survived to inherit. Of Laurence and Mary’s children, three sons went on to follow their father in the medical profession.
Jessie’s father, Laurence, studied medicine at Edinburgh University, graduated M.D., then settled in Unst at Halligarth. He was a distinguished naturalist who experimented in agriculture and acclimatized trees on his property. He was also a Scandinavian scholar, and author of many papers on natural history. Her elder brother was the naturalist Thomas Edmondston and her uncle the author Arthur Edmondston.
Jessie married Henry Saxby, a doctor and a naturalist, at the age of seventeen, and lived with him at Halligarth and later at Ernesdaal in Baltasound. The family moved to Inverary in Argyllshire in 1871, but Henry was already ill and Jessie was widowed in the summer of 1873, just two days after the birth of her sixth child. She moved to Edinburgh, where she was president of the Orkney and Shetland Association, and there became a professional writer, supporting her family by means of a huge output of literary works, ranging from poems and novels to journalism, articles and pamphlets. She was a mentor to the brilliant young Unst poet, Basil R Anderson, who died tragically young, and edited a volume of his work posthumously.
Jessie returned to Shetland in 1898, and died in Unst during the second world war. She is buried at Halligarth.
“ … Foremost among the Shetlanders who wrote in English was the renowned Jessie M.E. Saxby, who was born 1842 as a member of the famous Edmondston family, descendants of a Scottish minister who had acquired land in Unst. A highly talented lady, she became a writer "by necessity", as she worded it herself, when she in 1874 found herself a widow with five (sic) sons to support. She succeeded splendidly, producing over the years more than 30 volumes of tales, poems and travel-stories, besides numerous articles for magazines and many other items, such as about Shetland folklore and old customs. Being actively engaged in the issues of her day, she travelled widely in the interest of various causes, but she never forgot her native isles; in 1898 she moved back to settle in her native Unst, where she survived until 1940, dying there in her 99th year …” Laurits Rendboe, The Shetland Literary Tradition (University of Odense, 1980)
Works by Jessie M. E. Saxby
Lichens from the old rock; poems, 1868
Glamour from Argyllshire, 1874
One wee lassie, 1875
Daala-Mist; or Stories of Shetland, 1876
Rock-bound: a story of the Shetland Isles, 1877
Geordie Roye; or, A waif from the Greyfriars Wynd, 1879
Breakers ahead; or, Uncle Jack's stories of great shipwrecks of recent times, 1882
Snow dreams, or Funny fancies for little folks, 1882
Ben Hanson, etc. [With illustrations], 1884
Preston Tower; or Will he no' come back again?, 1884
Lads of Lunda, 1887
Dora Coyne or Hid in the heart, 1888
Lindéman brothers, or Shoulder to shoulder, 1888
Oil on the troubled waters, etc. [With illustrations], 1888
Home of a naturalist, Rev. Biot Edmondston & Jessie M.E. Saxby, 1888
Crumbs from the children's table, [With illustrations], 1889
Vita Vinctis,Robina F. Hardy, Annie S. Swan & Jessie M.E. Saxby, 1889
Kate and Jean, the history of two young and independent spinsters narrated by their landlady, 1889
Yarl's yacht, 1889
Wrecked on the Shetlands; or the little sea-king, [With illustrations], 1890
Sallie's boy, [With illustrations] 1890
West-nor'-West, 1890
Her first place, 1891
Milestones and other stories, [with illustrations] 1891
Heim-laund and Heim-folk, 1892
Viking-boys, [With plates.] 1892
Lucky-lines or Won from the waves, 1893
Birds of omen in Shetland, notes on the folk-lore of the raven and the owl by W.A. Clouston, 1893
Auld Lerwick: a personal reminiscence, 1894
Camsterie nacket, being the story of a contrary laddie ill to guide, 1894
Tom and his crows; or Romantic adventures in Switzerland, [With plates.] 1894
Sisters-in-love [With illustrations], 1895
Saga-book of Lunda, [illustrations by C.O. Murray], 1896
Constable A 1, 1896
Queen of the Isles, 1897
Cradle of our race: Souvenance of a cruise on Northern seas, [Illustrated] 1910
Joseph Bell: An appreciation by an old friend, etc., 1913
Shetland Traditional Lore, [With plates.] 1932
Threads from a tangled skein: Poems and ponderings, [With a portrait] 1934
