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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Kinsman of Illiam Dhone. Walked out of the trial rather than participate — 'Edward Christian his son and assistant had also forborne to sit.' Restored to his judicial office by the King's command after the Privy Council intervened. The King who could not save the man's life could at least restore the judge who had refused to be complicit in taking it.
Of the Christian family that had signed the Keys' Resolution of March 1765. Forced to sell the family home at Bemahague in 1789 — twenty-four years after the Revestment — because the economic conditions the Revestment had created had ruined him. The property had been a Christian family home from at least 1600, the same family that had produced Deemsters from 1408. Robert Heywood bought it. The Manx Government purchased it in 1904 and turned it into Government House — maintained at Manx expense for the representative of a Lord who has never spent a night under its roof. A family's farm, lost to the consequences of the Revestment, paid for by the Manx people.
Commander at Ramsey, of the Christian family seated at Milntown in Lezayre. In August 1750, Captain George Dowe of the Whitehaven customs sloop Sincerity lured him aboard and presented pistols to his breast, 'with terrible oaths, said that for the turn of a shilling they would blow his brains out.' Dowe threatened to level his guns at Christian's house and batter it to the ground. After three hours, they extracted a five-hundred-pound bond. The cause: Dowe's crew had earlier boarded a Manx wherry with firearms and cutlasses, and the Manx authorities had imprisoned them. The clash followed the fault line between the Lord's jurisdiction and the King's.
Presided at Tynwald twice — in 1979 for the Millennium of Tynwald and in 2003. Every visit a day trip. Every Lord of Mann arriving by morning and leaving by evening. No monarch since the Revestment has stayed on the Island the way the Stanleys stayed — living at Castle Rushen, governing from the ground, being buried in the Island's churches. The Stanleys governed. The Crown visits.
Presided at Tynwald in 1945 — the first Lord of Mann to stand on Tynwald Hill since the Duke of Atholl's last appearance in 1736. Two hundred and nine years without a Lord of Mann presiding over the parliament they held authority over. Two centuries. George VI broke the silence.
Reigned for 326 days. Never visited the Isle of Man and abdicated. The Manx people named a pier after him — the King Edward VIII Pier at Douglas, opened in May 1936. It is the only public structure in Britain bearing his name. The Island named a pier for a king who never came and never would.
Consort of Queen Victoria. Came ashore at Ramsey in 1847 when the weather was too rough for Douglas and Victoria was seasick. Was rowed to Ballure beach, walked up the hill at Lhergy Frissel to admire the view, chatted about the potato blight, and returned to the yacht. The Manx people built a forty-five-foot granite tower on the spot where he had stood. They named the hill after him. They erected an inscription recording the date and the fact of his visit. The Manx response to the afternoon her husband looked at their view was to build a permanent monument to it.
Lady of Mann for sixty-four years — the longest-reigning Lord since the Stanleys. In 1847, the royal yacht anchored in Ramsey Bay. The weather had been too rough for Douglas. Victoria was seasick and could not leave the cabin. Prince Albert came ashore, was rowed to Ballure beach, and walked up the hill at Lhergy Frissel to admire the view. He chatted about the potato blight. He returned to the yacht. The chief bailiff of Douglas, who had rushed north in full municipal dress, arrived in time to watch the yacht sail away. Victoria — sixty-four years as Lady of Mann — never set foot on the Island. The Manx people built a forty-five-foot granite tower on the spot where Albert had stood.
King of Great Britain and Lord of Mann from 1765 to 1820. Fifty-five years as Lord of Mann. He never visited the Island. The Revestment was done in his name, with his Royal Assent, and he never saw the place whose sovereignty he had purchased for seventy thousand pounds. His response to Grenville's papers: 'The proposal of the Duke and Duchess of Athol seems modest; I return the papers signed.' Seven words on the price. Nothing on the principle. Nothing on the people. The fate of the Island was settled in a sick-note. George came from a dynasty selected by Parliament — the Hanoverians, whose experience of sovereignty was Imperial and German, not English. They had no framework for understanding what the lordship of Mann was.
Whitehaven merchant who co-signed the merchants' memorial to the Treasury alongside Walter Lutwidge, calling for the purchase of Mann's sovereignty. The memorial was signed by thirty-two traders and represented the Whitehaven commercial interest that competed against the Manx running trade. The same family would provide the Receiver-General who administered the consequences of the seizure they had lobbied for.
Whitehaven merchant who co-signed the merchants' memorial to the Treasury in the early 1750s, calling for 'purchasing the sovereignty of the said Island' and claiming £200,000 in annual losses to the Crown plus 'great damage' to the East India Company. The memorial proposed that if purchase failed, smugglers might be transported 'unto the British colonies in America.' The Lutwidge family lobbied for the seizure; Charles Lutwidge was then appointed to administer the result.
Speaker of the old self-elected House of Keys. Resigned in protest at the notion of popular elections and withdrew from public life entirely. His outrage at being made accountable to the people was, in its way, the most eloquent argument for the reform he was protesting.
Attorney General of the Isle of Man. Writing in 1882, he drew the constitutional parallel explicitly: 'In the previous year, the Parliament had asserted their right to tax the American colonists against their consent... no greater, and probably a lesser, right existed in the Parliament to tax the people of the Isle of Man.' In 1901, writing from Castletown, he argued that the proper title should still be 'King of Man' or 'Queen of Man' — the Stanleys had surrendered a Kingdom, 'the Kingly title of which having been by the voluntary act of a Predecessor changed for the lesser title — but a title merely — the substance surrendered was a Kingdom.'
Interned at Knockaloe camp near Peel from September 1915 for three and a half years. He developed what he called 'Contrology' during his internment, using springs from camp hospital beds to build his early equipment. Millions practise Pilates worldwide. How many know it was developed on the Isle of Man?
The Island's most celebrated artist, one of the first pupils at the Douglas School of Art that Manx people had fundraised themselves. His Celtic designs for Liberty are sold worldwide. During the First World War he worked at Knockaloe internment camp as a civilian censor, reading the letters of 23,000 imprisoned men. The Knox exhibition at the Manx Museum does not mention his work at Knockaloe.
Chairman of the committee that produced the Fincastle Resolutions in January 1775, rejecting Parliament's claim of 'unlimited power' over the colonies. Grandson of Robert Christian of Cedar Grove (Chief Magistrate of New Kent County, 'Washington's devoted friend'), descended from William and Jonathan Christian who emigrated from the Isle of Man in 1655. Patrick Henry's brother-in-law. Served in the Virginia Senate alongside Jefferson and Madison. Sat on the Committee of Safety. Killed in 1786 in Kentucky. In 1775, there were Christians governing on both sides of the Atlantic — William Christian, Esquire, in the House of Keys, and Colonel William Christian in Fincastle. The same refusal to accept that Parliament's word was final on a people's rights.
