The Brock Family

The following content has been provided by Helen Brown, a Brock family descendant.

Henry Brock and Margaret Marshall were the parents of the Brock siblings who migrated to Tasmania and Victoria. Henry was the tenant of Overton Farm, Kirkliston, part of the Hopetoun Estate, and seat of the Hope family for over three hundred years.

Henry Brock’s father was John Brock who had the tenancy of the Crown Inn, Falkirk. He married Mary Robertson in Bathgate in 1751. Henry was from a family of Brocks who had been tenant farmers in the Bathgate area for at least three generations and possibly longer.

Henry and Margaret Marshall had a family of fourteen though two died in infancy and one daughter at the age of fifteen. Of this large family, seven emigrated, leaving only two sons and two daughters in Scotland.

I have recently had correspondence with a great great granddaughter of one of the daughters who tells me that those who stayed behind had a fairly hard time, working as servants and factory workers.

The eldest son, Alexander, took a mill farm named Manuel Mill, close to Falkirk. He was followed there by his own son and they were later visited from Victoria by a member of John Brock’s family.

It would seem that none of Henry’s sons wished to follow him into the tenancy of Overton Farm. Following the exodus of his sons and daughters to the colonies in 1832/3, Henry offered the tenancy of Overton Farm to his brother Robert’s son, John Brock.

It is not known yet where old Henry and Margaret lived and died but hopefully it was with one of their remaining offspring, possibly at Manuel Mill.

Henry Brock was the eighth child and fifth son of Henry Brock and Margaret Marshall, tenant farmers of "Overton Farm" in Kirkliston, West Lothian. Henry was born on 10 November 1806 and baptised on 27 November 1806 in Kirkliston, 1
Henry traded his interest in “Overton Farm” to his cousin John Brock and aged twenty six, travelled to Hobart Town aboard the Minerva, with his sister Marion and George Wilson, the father of her seventeen month old son who was also named George Wilson.

The Family of John Brock of Overton Farm

John’s parents, Robert Brock and Marion Brock (probably his cousin) had a large family all baptised at Kirkliston so very possibly Robert was also on a Hopetoun Estate farm.

Their son John Brock born 1795 and christened at Kirkliston took the tenancy of Overton Farm from his uncle Henry Brock in, or shortly after, 1833 when Henry’s sons had left for the colonies.

John married Jane Easton in 1831 at Kirkliston and they produced a family of six known children. Their first son, John, died at the age of 32 and Overton went to the younger son James Easton Brock.

In 1831 James married a Scottish poet, Florence Harriet Walker. It appears that their circumstances were more comfortable than the average farm tenancy would permit, with James being described as “gentleman farmer”.

Their family comprised a son who died in infancy, then a daughter, followed by two more sons.

The elder of these was Arthur John Brock, who became quite a renowned medical man:

Arthur John Brock was born in 1879 in Overton, near Edinburgh, the son of a gentleman farmer and Florence Walker, a poet. Brock initially studied classics, graduating from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Edinburgh in 1894. He wanted to be an artist, but his father forbade it, so Brock returned to the University in 1896 to begin medical training, qualifying in 1901. He came to view neurasthenia, or nervous exhaustion, as an extreme form of the social problems which Geddes had identified.

In 1915, Brock joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, and was transferred to Craiglockhart in 1917. Brock viewed shell-shock as simply the soldier’s equivalent of neurasthenia, and Geddesian ideas therefore shaped his approach to treatment at Craiglockhart. 2

The youngest of the family was -

Sydney Edward Brock (1883 – 1918)

Another one of the “deaths and dislocations caused by the First World War” noted by Sheail (p. 84) was ecologist and bird watcher Sydney Edward Brock (1883 – 1918), a Scottish farmer and naturalist.

“Farmer, Naturalist and Soldier” Sydney Brock was a Captain, 10th Cyclist Battalion, Royal Scots, MC (Military Cross) who died of wounds on Armistice Day 11 November 1918 in a UK military hospital and is buried in Kirkliston Burial Ground, Lothian, Scotland. He was the son of tenant farmer (of the Hopetoun House estates) James Easton Brock (d. 1903) and Harriet Brock of Overton Farm, Kirkliston, Linlithgowshire and left a sister Florence and brother Dr. Arthur John Brock M.D. to whom his medals were sent. His WW1 medal record card suggests that he entered France on active service on 21 May 1918. He also has a CWGC website record. He does not appear to have been listed on the British Ecological Society membership list but is mentioned in Shaeil’s book.

Sydney Brock’s Obituary in British Birds:

For most of the material of the present notice we are indebted to an appreciative sketch by Mr. W. Evans in the Scottish Naturalist, 1919, pp. 27-8. Sydney Edward Brock, Captain 10th Battalion Royal Scots, was descended from a west Lothian family and was born on October 6th, 1883, at Overton, near Kirkliston. He was educated at Kirkliston and Edinburgh, and about 1904 succeeded his father as tenant of the farm where he was born. There is reason to believe that he had in his mind the preparation of a Fauna of Linlithgowshire, where the greater part of his life was spent.

Although chiefly interested in bird-life he had acquired considerable knowledge of some of the lesser worked groups of insects, and of late years had devoted special attention to ecological problems. Most of his contributions to science appeared in the Annals of Scottish Natural History from 1906 onward, but he also wrote for the Zoologist, and the volume for 1910 contains some original observations on the fledging periods of birds (p. 117), and a very careful paper on “The Willow-Wrens of a Lothian Wood ” (pp. 401-417).

His most important contribution to British Birds was a thoughtful and suggestive paper on “Ecological Relations of Bird-Distribution” in British Birds, VIII., pp. 30-44, [1914]. There was every reason to expect much good work in the future from such a careful and good observer, but with the outbreak of the war came a break in his activities in this field.

While on active service in France [Brock] made notes on the bird-life of the Peronne district, which are still [1919] in MS., but on October 16th, 1918, he was severely wounded in action at Courtrai, and died in a military hospital at Aberdeen, from the effects of his wounds, on November 11th, the day on which hostilities ceased. His early death is a serious loss to British ornithology, especially in the department of Ecology and the study of the fauna of the Scottish lowlands. F.C.R.J.”

Brock’s second paper “Bird-associations in Scotland” was published posthumously in 1921 in Scottish Naturalists 11-21 and 49-58.

Brock is pictured centre mid row, a tall man, in 1915 with his fellow officers of the 2nd / 10th Cyclist Battalion, Royal Scots. He appears to have already enlisted by 1914, as a Territorial soldier for an S.E. Brock was gazetted a Lieutenant in the 8th Volunteer Battalion of the Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment) on 24.12.1902 (London Gazette, p. 8846, 23 Dec 1902).

Brock appears to have served for two years in defence of the UK:

“After the sanction of the War Office for the raising of second-line units was received, Lieut.-Colonel E. Peterkin, V.D., raised the 2/10th Royal Scots by the 24th September 1914, after a recruiting campaign of less than a week. The battalion was accordingly mobilised at Bathgate on the 13th October, 1914 but it was not till the 11th January 1915 that uniforms and the necessary military equipment began to arrive. With Berwick as their centre, the 2/10th Royal Scots, a cyclist battalion, became responsible for a share in the defence of the East coast, and from May 1916 furnished drafts for overseas service. The battalion went into camp at Coldingham in June 1916, and its chief thrills were caused by air raids and by reports of hostile landings …” 3

By 1916, on the Armadale website, it quotes that 90% of this Territorial Force were serving overseas with other units such as Brock with the 12th Battalion,Royal Scots.

The Supplement to the London Gazette 4 October 1919 gives details of Brock’s gallantry award of the Military Cross:

Captain Sydney Edward Brock, 10th Bn., R. Scots. T.F. (attd. 12 Bn.).

For most conspicuous gallantry at the bridgehead at Cuerne on 17th Oct., 1918. He led part of his company over the bridge,under very heavy enemy fire, in an entirely exposed position, displaying great coolness and disregard of danger, and setting a most inspiring example to his men. 4

A family gravestone at Kirkliston can be seen online at the Brock genealogy website and the churchyard on Find A Grave website. There is more about the Brock family (some of whom emigrated) and Kirkliston area. 5

So, sadly, with the death of Sydney, there came to an end the tenancy of Overton Farm by “our” Brock family.

I recently saw an advertisement for the sale of Overton Farm and mill so it would seem it is no longer part of the Hopetoun Estate.

I am pleased to have been able to follow the events at Overton after our family left to follow their destinies in Tasmania and Victoria. These, for most, led to land ownership that they could only have dreamed about back in Scotland.

A small farm in the Oatlands district of Tasmania was named for Overton Farm.

In the case of one descendant, Peter Brock, it led to a wonderful career as a car racing driver and considerable fame.

• 1"Scotland, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950," index, FamilySearch : accessed 06 Apr 2014, Henry Brock, 27 Nov 1806; citing , KIRKLISTON, WEST LOTHIAN, SCOTLAND, reference ; FHL microfilm 1066630.
• 2A. M. Crossman: The Hydra, Captain A. J. Brock and the Treatment of Shell-Shock in Edinburgh: The-Hydra--neurasthenia
• 3Major John Ewing MC: History of the 2/10th Royal Scots; Chapter 39, p. 739
• 4The Supplement to the London Gazette 4 October 1919
• 5Mark Norris: World War Zoo wartime gardens project at Newquay Zoo