Descendant of William and Jonathan Christian who emigrated to Virginia in 1655. Chief Magistrate of New Kent County — 'Washington's devoted friend.' His son Colonel William Christian chaired the Fincastle Resolutions committee. His granddaughter Letitia married John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States. The family carried the governing instinct from Milntown to Virginia and planted it in soil where it could grow.
Granddaughter of Robert Christian of Cedar Grove, the Chief Magistrate. Married John Tyler, who became the tenth President of the United States. The line from Deemster John McCristen in 1408, through the Christians of Milntown, through Virginia, to the White House — a family that had governed for five centuries, carried across the Atlantic by two brothers leaving an island where the consequences of the Great Stanley's land policy had made life untenable.
Son of John Taubman, succeeded his father as Speaker of the House of Keys. Married Dorothy Christian — the fifth daughter of John Christian of Milntown. While serving as Speaker, he was directly related to twelve of the other twenty-four Keys members, with four more connected through business interests. The Keys was not a parliament of strangers. It was a family business. He ran Quayle's Bank with George Quayle. Petitioned the 1792 Commissioners for repayment of harbour loans that he and John Stevenson had advanced — twenty-six years later, still unpaid.
Collector of Customs at Douglas. His position brought him into daily contact with every captain who entered the harbour. His daughter Elizabeth assembled a shell collection from specimens seafarers brought from their voyages. She married William Bligh at Onchan in 1781. Paul Bridson, the Duke's revenue officer, was the largest importer of Guinea goods on the Island — the customs establishment and the slave trade supply chain overlapped in the same harbour and the same offices.
Wealthy Liverpool merchant and shipowner. Elizabeth Betham's uncle. One of the men who moved goods and capital between Liverpool and Douglas — the commercial axis on which the running trade turned. Campbell employed William Bligh in his merchant fleet during the peacetime years between Cook's voyage and the Bounty commission.
Captain of the Whitehaven customs sloop Sincerity. In August 1750, lured Captain Matthias Christian aboard his vessel and presented pistols to his breast, threatening to blow his brains out and batter his house to the ground. Extracted a five-hundred-pound bond after three hours. His crew had earlier boarded a Manx wherry with firearms and cutlasses. The clash demonstrated the violent reality of jurisdictional conflict between the Lord's authority and the King's customs service.
A merchant of the city of Barcelona, resident in Douglas for some months past. In July 1759, went to the house of a soldier named John Erskine to demand some shirts belonging to a sailor in his employ. Erskine 'collered' and struck him. Later, while it was dark, Abello was seized in the street by two soldiers, held by the arms while Erskine struck him with a club, dragged to the fort and confined in its dungeon for nearly five hours. A Barcelona merchant, living in Douglas, employing Manx sailors, collecting laundry — and ending the day in a military dungeon. The Court fined Erskine and dismissed him from the service.
A Jewish merchant of Douglas. In July 1761, was walking in company with an eminent merchant from Amsterdam when he was assaulted by a man 'who cracked a whip and held it above your petitioner's head, with dreadful curses and imprecations, swearing he would kill your petitioner and all the Jews.' Davids fled to Mr Yerbury's house but was pursued on horseback by Francis Moore. Davids petitioned that he could not attend to his necessary business on the quay, 'being very apprehensive that constant attempts will be made to take away his life.' Moore was fined eight shillings and fourpence. The harbour towns drew traders from across Europe because the commercial opportunity was real enough to be worth the risk.
Appointed Lord of Mann by Oliver Cromwell during the Parliamentary interregnum. The constitutional form was maintained — Tynwald still met, the Deemsters still judged. But the extraction pattern continued. Fairfax reproduced the identical relationship the Stanleys had maintained. When he dismissed William Christian and appointed James Chaloner, the new man charged Christian with misappropriating bishopric funds — the funds Christian had spent on schoolteachers to educate Manx children.
Appointed Governor of Mann by Lord Fairfax during the Commonwealth — a personal connection, cousin by marriage. Laid charges that William Christian had misappropriated the revenues of the sequestrated bishopric. The funds Christian had spent were church tithes, redirected to pay schoolteachers to educate Manx children. A Manx man spent Manx money on Manx purposes, and the lord who owned the Island called it theft. Christian's son George produced accounts showing the substantial accuracy of the payments. The charges were never proved.
First Lord of the Board of Trade. When George Moore described the sufferings of Manx people to him in London — the towns emptied, the young people leaving, the warehouses deserted — Clare responded with contempt: 'The inhabitants of all the former trading towns, he said, were a Nest of Vermin collected from the Dregs of the neighbouring Countries.' Moore's quiet response: 'since the Trade was gone all or most of these Gentry were gone and had dissolved like snow.' Clare's contempt was pure. Moore accommodated it, conceding the secondary point in the hope of winning the primary one.
Granted the Isle of Man to Sir John Stanley in 1405 — the foundational act of the Stanley lordship. A lifetime grant at first, made inheritable the following year. The Latin was explicit about what had been surrendered: the Crown released whatever right it had, whatever right it had had, and whatever right it might in future be able to claim. Four hundred and thirty-two years later, Parliament would take the Island back, and the men who drafted the Act of Revestment would show no awareness that the Crown had ever made such a renunciation.
Deputy Governor who ordered the Deemsters to pronounce sentence on Illiam Dhone. The full high treason penalty was stated: hanged and quartered, head smitten off, drawn with wild horses, quarters set upon the towers. Then, upon petition of Christian's wife, Nowell commuted the sentence to shooting — a military execution. Whether this was mercy or contempt is an open question.
The soldier whose shot killed Illiam Dhone at Hango Hill on 2 January 1663. Only one soldier's shot took effect. M'Cowle is reported to have been rewarded with a grant of land in the north of the Island for doing his duty. It was said that blankets were spread on the green under Christian's feet, that not a drop of blood should be spilt onto Manx earth when he fell.
Lieutenant Governor who wrote to London in October 1778 that 'the non payment of the civil Establishment and its being near three years in arrear is productive in every Department of such bad consequences.' The Island was by then generating more revenue than it cost to govern — but the surplus went to London while the officials on the Island went unpaid. Revenue extracted, governance unfunded. Dawson also warned that the smuggling trade had functioned as a non-aggression pact with France.
Submitted dissenting observations as part of the 1792 Commission of Inquiry. His dissenting voice within the official investigation provides an alternative perspective on the Commission's findings. Observations by Mr Reid on Isle of Man Revenues prior to 1765 are separately documented in the Commission's records.
Bishop of Sodor and Man who in 1776 reported to the Duke of Atholl that Major Dawson had directed the twenty-four Keys regarding legislation. Relevant to the Tynwald Silence (1765–1776) — the moment the silence began to break. The report shows the relationship between the garrison commander and the legislature during the period of closed-door governance.
Twenty-four years old. Lost his right arm at Trafalgar. The records do not say what he did afterward, or whether anyone compensated him for the arm the Navy took. Young men, fishermen's sons most of them, raised in the post-Revestment poverty, sent to fight at the far end of Europe, and sent home damaged to an island that had no means to care for them.
Lost his left arm below the elbow at Trafalgar. The name recurring as it always did in Manx history. The Christians who had produced Deemsters since 1408, whose Virginia cousins wrote the Fincastle Resolutions, now serving on Nelson's ships alongside English and Scots and Irish sailors who had never heard of Tynwald Hill.
Lost his right leg at Trafalgar. One of the named Manx casualties whose injuries are recorded in the naval muster rolls with flat precision: name, rank, ship, injury.
Boy Third Class. He was twelve years old. He was wounded at Trafalgar. The Navy's records note his wound and his age with the same flat precision they applied to everything.
Served the Crown abroad during the Napoleonic Wars while the militia he was supposed to command at home fell apart for want of funding and attention. By 1779, the militia had collapsed entirely. By 1801, the men of the Island were reduced to pikes. The man who should have been defending the Island was fighting elsewhere because the Island could not fund its own defence.
Of HMS Maria. Arrived at Douglas in early August 1811. Norris Moore, the High-Bailiff, asked his intentions. Hawkes assured him he did not intend to impress fishermen or interfere with the fishery. On the night of 17 August, he broke his word. His men moved through the harbour, impressing fishermen and working men after a hard fight in which several were dangerously wounded. The Admiralty's reply when petitioned: 'their Lordships have determined not to discharge these men on account of the very improper conduct of the people of Douglas.' The Admiralty punished the Island for the fishermen's refusal to be taken quietly.
High-Bailiff of Douglas who approached Lieutenant Hawkes directly and asked his intentions regarding impressment. Hawkes gave assurances he would not interfere with the fishery. When Hawkes broke his word, Moore led the meeting of principal inhabitants that produced the memorial to the Lieutenant-Governor.
