David Affleck shares details of his research journey which explored the life of John Auchinleck, a chaplain at Holy Trinity in St Andrews who was sentenced to serve alongside John Knox in the galleys for his actions during the Scottish Reformation

Pittenweem Harbour; East Neuk of Fife

It is at least fifteen years since I first came across a reference to a John Auchinleck and his wife Isobel Wood, believed to be a granddaughter of Admiral Wood of Largo.

It was contained in an 1867 publication, Annals of Pittenweem by David Cook, town clerk of the royal burgh. He had been investigating documents relating to the buildings of the ancient priory and quoted the following from a charter of 1588: ‘the common gait and house now pertaining to James Stevenson and close of the house sometime pertaining to Umqle John Auchinleck respective on the west’.

At the time, I was researching the life of a James Balfour of Whittinghame and trying to work out why he become involved in East Neuk politics in 1824. He was the grandfather of A.J. Balfour who had said in a notebook ‘no one seemed certain how his grandfather had made his fortune’.

The answer lay in India where James had cause to complain about the actions of a member of the Anstruther family of Balcaskie. Both had posts with the East India Company. Another document, Historical Traditions of Pittenweem by An Old Inhabitant (the author of which is believed to be James Horsburgh, a former provost), had described the houses in the high street of the Burgh and had referred to ‘the eastern gate at David Affleck’s, which was standing in the year 1790’.