I first met Nigel Crowe during the 1980s when I was working on a number of Manx traditional songs which involved details of a genealogical nature concerning the personalities mentioned in the song-texts.

One was Nicholas Qualtrough of Raby farm, Lonan, the loss of whose sheep is featured in the renowned traditional Manx song Ny Kirree fo Niaghtey ‘the now-bound sheep’, written c. 1700.

Other songs he helped me with concerning personalities involved include Baase Illiam Dhone (‘the death of Illiam Dhone ‘brown-haired William’), William Christian (1608-1662/3), the Manx chieftain, appointed Receiver General to James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby, in 1648 and commander of the Manx militia in 1651. In that year he raised the Manx in rebellion against the Earl in the context of his new policies on land-tenure in Man.

Regarding his life’s work on Manx genealogy, Nigel approached me one time during the 1980s in the reading room of Manx National Heritage, saying that he had come across personalities who belonged to my Manx family of the 1700s.

I then asked him to do as much work as he could on my Manx family (which hails from Bride/Jurby/Ramsey) over time, which he did.

But latterly Nigel was involved in work on two periods of settlement in the island: one during the period of Scandinavian ‘Kingdom of the Isles’ (10th-13th century) emanating from the Western Isles, the other during the Scottish occupation of Man under Robert the Bruce between 1317 and 1329 when settlement in Man from Bruce’s family area of Carrick and Galloway took place.

Nigel’s task was to find out the locations of these settlements in the island and the families thereto belonging.

In both cases their Gaelic is likely to have influenced that spoken in the island at the time and passed on down to the present.

In latter years Nigel and I met frequently in his house in Douglas and we would talk about various aspects of Manx genealogy and land-holdings that he had been working on.

I shall indeed miss a dear colleague.

Dy bannee Jee e annym ‘May God bless his soul’.

Prof Dr George Broderick

Mannheim, Germany

This letter was first published in the Manx Independent of August 17.

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