| John Waddell |
| 4th August 1828 - 15th August 1893 |
The birth and baptism of John Waddell, son of James Waddell and
Marion Chalmers, were recorded in the Torpichen (Linlithgowshire) Parish
Register in 1828 as follows:
We also discover from the text of James Waddell Senior’s Disposition and Settlement that the younger son, John, for whom special provision was made and a trust established, was ‘unhappily not capable of managing his own affairs’. It is a great pity that the precise nature of John’s incapacity was not specified; however, the fact that he was later designated a general servant and thereafter a retired farmer seems to eliminate the possibility of the more extreme forms of mental and physical disability. It is duly noted that his brother James’s cause of death was ‘acute alcoholism’, so that it is tempting to speculate that predisposition to alcoholism ran in the family.
James Waddell and Marion Chalmers in Woodend had a Son Born the Fourth of Augt. and Baptized the Twentieth Named John
At the time of the 1881 census, John Waddell, unmarried, 51, general servant, born Linlithgow, was living in the household of his brother James at Woodcockdale Farm, Linlithgow.
In 1891, John Waddell, unmarried, 62, retired farmer, born Linlithgowshire, Torpichen, was living at Wester Loanfoot, in the Civil Parish of Falkirk, Quoad Sacra Parish of Camelon, in premises having five rooms with one or more windows. Living with him was Allison Waddell, his sister, unmarried, 68, retired dairymaid, born Linlithgowshire, Torpichen.
John Waddell, farmer (single), died on 15th August 1893 at four in the morning, at Wester Loanfoot, Parish of Falkirk. His age was entered as 64, although he had recently turned 65. The cause of death was entered as ‘dropsy, not cert.’ The informant on the same day at Falkirk was the deceased’s brother-in-law, John Ferguson; he lived in the adjacent property of Loanfoot and was the husband of the deceased’s sister, Janet, familiarly known as Jessie.