In July last year a reunion of former pupils who had left Fettes School in 1977 gathered.
The conversation included a discussion about the death of the founder’s only son in Berlin in 1815.
Questions were asked such as – What was he doing there? What did he die of? Were his parents at his deathbed?
Sir William Fettes (1750-1836) was an Edinburgh merchant who prospered during the Napoleonic wars. He amassed a huge fortune, and many country estates- including Comely Bank, near Edinburgh. He married Maria Malcolm in 1787, and at the end of that year their only child, also called William Fettes, was born. Fettes junior had a traditional Edinburgh middle class upbringing, and after the High School and University he started his career as an advocate.
Consult all the histories of Fettes College, and you will find the same narrative, namely that young William Fettes died in Berlin on a “Grand Tour” on 13 June 1815. There is little else to illuminate this fact, with the sole exception of a pamphlet on Sir William Fettes by Alexia Lindsay and others published in 1995 which first mentions typhoid fever. Robert Philp’s history of Fettes, published in 1998, states that he contracted his typhoid “on the journey” to Berlin.
Over the roast lamb the members of the Fettesian gathering considered what they had like at the age of 27, and decided that the young William Fettes must have been involved in skulduggery – was his body fished out of the Spree one June morning? Had he died in a duel over a Berlin beauty? What was he even doing in Berlin? Typhoid seemed too common a death for this heir to a Scottish fortune.
After leaving Fettes, I studied Law at Aberdeen University, and while there shared digs with Stephen Cotton, who was studying Land Economy. Stephen later moved to Berlin, and I had often stayed with him at his flat on the Chausseestrasse, in the Mitte district of Berlin. Like me, he relishes a challenge, and I asked if he could locate any death records for William Fettes.
In 1815, Berlin was a relatively small city and only had five protestant cemeteries, with two outside the city gates confusingly next to each other. The records of both from the 19th century exist, but are not digitised, and Stephen had to consult the original dusty record of burials, which had miraculously survived the best efforts of the RAF.
Stephen discovered a record from the French (Huguenot) church in (not surprisingly) French which translates as “On the 13th of June 1815 at 10 am died of consumption William Fettes, lawyer, aged 27 years, native of Edinburgh, son of William Fettes esq., and of Maria Malcolm, his wife. Buried on the 16th of the said month in the cemetery of the gate of Oranienburg”.
The French word for the cause of death is “consomption”, and therefore the typhoid cause of death appears to be wrong.
The cemetery of the “gate of Oranienburg” or in German Oranienburger Tor is the French cemetery, first used in 1780, just outside the Berlin city walls. Many distinguished French exiles, usually Huguenots, are buried there but as far as I can ascertain Fettes is the only Scot in the cemetery. The Huguenot church was, in 1815, of a Calvinist persuasion and perhaps this appealed to Fettes’ parents, thought to be Presbyterians.
Fettes was born in Edinburgh on 31 December 1787. He studied law and was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates on 6 January 1810. As Europe was in turmoil at this time, he had no opportunity to enjoy the Grand Tour, typically started around one’s 21st birthday – which in his case would have been 1808. Instead he was forced to wait until Napoleon was safely exiled on Elba (14 April 1814), and then set off from Dover on 28 December that year. His travelling companion was William Allan of Glen, a future Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and it can only be assumed William was with him to the very end.
The Lindsay pamphlet mentions that Fettes wrote to his mother on the day he left Dover, and almost as an aside mentions that he forgot to make his will. A suspicious mind would conclude that he was aware even then of his ill health. He also made some flippant remark, probably so as not to alarm his mother. He visited Paris, Brussels, and was in Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) by 3rd April 1815. On 26 February Napoleon had escaped exile on Elba, and if Fettes had plans to visit Italy, as would be de rigeur for a Grand Tour, he clearly decided that Berlin (capital of Britain’s ally, Prussia) would be a safer bet.
At some point Fettes, or perhaps Allan, must have told his parents that he was extremely ill. On 17 May the directors of the London and Edinburgh Shipping Company agreed a private charter of their Leith smack “Comet” for a voyage from Leith to Hamburg, from where the Fettes “family party” hoped to return.
Smacks regularly sailed out of Leith to London, Scottish ports, Hamburg, Saint Petersburg, and other Dutch and Baltic ports. The thrice weekly newspaper “The Caledonian Mercury” routinely listed all ships docking at, or leaving, Leith, and the location abroad of Leith registered shipping. In June 1815 alone, the ships Daphne, Antelope, Comet, Helen, Mary, Jenny, Lord Glenorchy, William, Alexander, and Isabella were at some point going to, or coming back from, Hamburg. “Comet” was typical of these Leith smacks; small, sturdy and eminently seaworthy. A fine model of this boat is on display in Trinity House, Kirkgate, Leith. This Comet is not to be confused with an early steam powered paddleboat with the same name, which from 1812 had plied out of Glasgow.
Thanks to the Caledonian Mercury we can trace the location of our Comet as follows –
19 May – Comet sails to Hamburg with a “private family” (Sir William and presumably Lady Fettes)
22 May – Comet arrives Hamburg. The paper mentions the journey only took 70 hours, clearly this was worthy of comment.
9 June – Left Cuxhaven (close to Hamburg) having “lain at Hamburg for 17 days” during which her “beautiful cabin” was admired by the Hamburg worthies.
13 June – Arrives Miller’s Wharf, London from Hamburg and Cuxhaven.
It can be seen that the Comet did not return to Leith with the “private party”. My assumption is that Sir William had paid for the ship to stay at Hamburg for a strictly limited time – indeed enough time for the Fettes party to ride from Hamburg to Berlin, pick up the invalid, and then return. Sadly, when they got to Berlin it became clear that William was dying, and in no fit state to travel.
William died on 13 June (confirmed by the Fettes Register, the family vault at Calton Cemetery, and indeed the Berlin church records; however the Lindsay Pamphlet quotes 11th June and this date is hinted at in the Philp history of Fettes “A keen wind blows”).
He was buried on 16th June. Initially this speedy burial suggested to me that he was a typhoid victim, but I am now inclined to think it was to enable the Fettes parents to return home as soon as they could.
Meanwhile, epoch making events were unfolding over Europe. On the day of the funeral, Prussian General Blucher was “defeated” at the Battle of Ligny, but despite this “defeat” he was able two days later to enter the Battle of Waterloo at the last moment and help to finally defeat Bonaparte.
Somehow, the Fettes party returned to Leith and a death notice appeared in the papers on 29 June, which means they must have been home by 28 June. The papers were still rejoicing over Boney’s defeat and capture, and there was no editorial comment on William Fettes’s death. The new European order, which lasted to 1914, was being forged and the untimely death of an Edinburgh advocate was hardly newsworthy.
The cause of death being consumption (what today we would call tuberculosis) rather than typhoid makes good sense. Typhoid was a big problem in Napoleonic times – soldiers would return from campaigns riddled with typhus carrying lice. There were well documented typhoid outbreaks in Berlin in 1813, associated with the return of troops from Moscow, but not in 1815. Ironically there was another major outbreak in August 1945. Typhoid and war seem to be comfortable bedfellows. Consumption is a slow way to die – Fettes could have been infected for years, possibly before he set out on his travels. Certainly he had time to warn his parents of his imminent demise. Typhoid, by contrast, could kill in days.
Having kindly established the cemetery where Fettes was buried, some weeks later Stephen Cotton, using old records and clever trigonometry from existing graves, managed to locate the actual plot – Row 10, Plot 3. The index simply states “Fettes 13/6/15”.
Not too far away from Fettes are buried two German philosophers; Hegel and Fichte. Despite being well educated at Fettes, we were never taught philosophy, and although the name Hegel was familiar to me, Fichte was a complete unknown. However, the very last quote that Dr Potts (the famous first Headmaster of Fettes College) wrote in his notebook was a quote by Fichte.
How ironic that one of Dr Potts’ inspirations was buried close to William Fettes in far away Berlin. Close by also lies Bertold Brecht, and numerous East German worthies. Between 1945 and 1989 the Huguenot Cemetery was in the Russian Sector of Berlin.
Row 10, Plot 3 is now used as a pathway in a quiet section of the graveyard, but it should be possible to erect a simple memorial very close by. With the help of the College, and Old Fettesians, it should be possible to raise the modest amount needed to permanently mark William Fettes’s last resting place, 211 years after his death.
There is no evidence that there was a stone grave marker, but if there was it could have been repurposed or indeed destroyed in the war. Many of the graves nearby used to have metal crosses, but if Fettes ever had one it is no longer there.
The death of William Fettes may not have caused the ripples across Europe that Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo did, but it nonetheless had important consequences. Without an heir, Sir William could direct his huge fortune to a philanthropic target. In his will, he left the residue of his estate to certain trustees for the “maintenance, education and outfit of young people”.
His directions were interpreted liberally by his trustees; there was some disquiet when in 1870 what looked suspiciously like an English Public School opened for business in the David Bryce designed Fettes College.
Meanwhile in Berlin the remains of William Fettes, the child whose premature death allowed the creation of the school, were lost to posterity – until now.
Fettes College in Edinburgh in the Sunshine. Picture Alan Simpson
