Origin of the POTTS Name
 The
tartan on the right is of the MacDonald. The surname POTTS, in Scotland,
is said to have developed from the surname Philpott. The Philpotts were from the
Clan MacKillop and the MacKillops are a sept (a clan within a clan) of the
MacDonalds. The MacKillops have their own tartan as do the MacDonalds of
Glencoe and the MacDonalds. As a Potts it would not be inappropriate to use any
of these tartans.
Whether the origin of the surname POTTS is English or Scottish, I'm not sure.
It would appear to me that the name originated in Scotland with the first
recordings of it found in England.
The name in Gaelic means 'son of Philip', and members of the clan are said to
have been standard-bearers to a branch of the Campbells. Others became sept (a
clan within a clan) s of the MacDonalds of Glencoe and
the MacDonells of Keppoch. The name was also well known in Arran.
English Origins
The origin of the family name of Potts was Old English (ie. not Norman or
Saxon), and as with all such names, it is not possible to even hazard an opinion
as to the period of time during which the ancestors of the bearers of the name
may have been in Britain. P.H. Reaney, considered the most authoritative writer
on British surnames and their origins, in his, "A Dictionary of British
Surnames", counters this question with another, "For what period of time would
Britain have occupied her present position?" It will therefore be readily
understood that the dates of recording of Old English names merely denote the
first dates of recording of such names, more often the origins from which the
names have developed or derived, in specific areas. They have no bearing
whatsoever on the period of time during which the ancestors of the bearers of
these names being in Britain, or for that matter in the counties in which they
were first recorded.
It is also brought to attention that it is not possible to separate with
complete accuracy names of Pictish, Celtic, Gaelic or Anglo-Saxon origin. In the
strict sense of the Term Old English does denote (not Norman or Saxon), but
whilst Norman origins can be determined, because the Anglo-Saxons were in
Britain more than five centuries prior to the Norman invasion and conquest of
Britain under William I (William the Conqueror) in 1066, it will be readily
understood that at least some names of Anglo-Saxon origin would have been noted
as Old English by Norman recorders only because they were known to have been in
Britain prior to the Norman invasion five centuries later.
The origin of the name was first noted and recorded in Britain in the year
1115, being noted to the person of Godwin Richard Pot in the County of
Hampshire, and the styling of 'Potts' did derive from this source. Styled
exactly as 'Potts', the name was first recorded to the person of Roger Potts in
the County of Yorkshire in the year 1352.
According to 'Scot’s Kith and Kin', the name was also early recorded in
Scotland. In this country the name is frequently styled as 'Potts of that Ilk',
and though not a ‘sept (a clan within a clan) ’ of any larger clan has strong
connection, though marriage, with the MacDonalds of Glencoe.
The following information regarding the Clan MacDonald is taken form "Scots Kith
and Kin".
Greatest and most widespread of all, Clan Donald has its main roots in the
old Gaelic and Pictish times, with additions from the Norsemen just when the
curtain of history begins lifting on personalities. There is a legendary
ancestor Conn of the Battles, but the first clear one is Somerled, the thane of
Argyll to become wellnigh an independent king of the ‘South Isles’ (from
Ardnamurchan round to Bute), swaying his naval alliance between the rival powers
of Scotland and Norway. In 1135 he helped David I expel the Norse from Arran and
Bute, and eventually fell at Renfrew in 1164 when himself invading against
Malcolm IV. Of his three sons by a daughter of Olaf, Norse king of the Isle of
Man, the eldest founded the MacDougall clan of Lorn, and the next son Reginald
or Ranald was ancestor to all the clans that derive name from his eldest son
Donald. The descendants of Donald’s eldest son Angus Mor MacDonald formed Clan
Donald South centred on Islay. Those of the second son Roderick or Rorie were
granted the
Isles North of Arnamuchan after Hakon’s defeat at Largs and the confinement
after 1266 of the Norse to Orkney and Shetland.
MacDonald allegiance to the Scottish crown was now
unquestionable - so far a it could be induced or enforced. Bruce at Bannockburn
granted the clan their jealously upheld honour of position on right of the
Scottish battle-array; and in the following reign Angus Mor’s grandson John of
Islay reunited the North and South by marrying the MacRorie heiress, and first
assumed the Lordship of the Isles.
The MACDONALDS of GLENCOE are descended from John Og, surnamed Fraoch,
natural son of Angus Og of Isla, and brother of John,first lord of the Isles. He
settled in Glencoe, which is a wild and gloomy vale in the district of Lorn,
Argyleshire, as a vassal under his brother, and some of his descendants still
possess land there. This branch of the Macdonalds was known as the clan Ian
Abrach, it is supposed from one of the family being fostered in LOchaber. After
the revolution, MacIan or Alexander Macdonald of Glencoe, was one of the chiefs
who supported the cause of King James, having joined Dundee in Lochaber at the
head of his clan, and a mournful interest attaches to the history of this tribe
from the dreadful massacre, by which it was attepted to exterminate it in
February 1692. The story has often been told, but as full details have been
given in the former part of this work, it is unnecessary to repeat them here.
The Macdonalds of Glencoe joined Prince Charles on the breaking out of the
rebellion in 1745, and General Stewart, in his Sketches of the Highlanders,
relates that when the insurgent army lay at Kirkliston, near the seat of the
Earl of Stair grandson of Secretary Dalrymple, the prince, anxious to save his
Lordship's house and property, and to remove from his followers all excitement
and revenge, proposed that the Glencoe-men should be march to a distance, lest
the remembrance of the share his grandfather had in the order for the massacre
of the clan should rouse them to retaliate on his descendant. Indignant at being
supposed capable of wreaking their vengeance on an innocent man, they declared
their resolution of returning home, and it was not without much explanation and
great persuasion that they were prevented from marching away the following
morning.
To find the Potts' in my family tree click
here.
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