William the Yeoman

 In a conversation about 5 years ago with my cousin Thomas, he mention that our common 3rd great grandfather William (1780-1868) was known as William the Yeoman. He couldn't explain it, and rummaging around the internet for a few minutes turned up no answers. Was William in the army, perhaps? No evidence of that.

So then last week, delving into the history of the Ulster Plantation, I found a couple of important articles by Alan Blackstock, of PRONI, the most useful being A Forgotten Army: The Irish Yeomanry, in History Ireland, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Winter, 1996), pp. 28-33. 

William, to remind you, was a merchant with 14 kids, from Moneymore, Co. Londonderry, apparently prosperous, and a generous benefactor of the local Catholic Church. When the Yeomanry was formed, by the soon-to-expire Government of Ireland in September 1796, it was intended to be a force of civilian volunteers. Recruits took the 'Yeomanry Oath', and were paid, clothed, and armed by the government. They were a surprisingly diverse force, initially non-sectarian.

Wealthy, property-owning Catholics, on the other hand, were admitted into cavalry corps. There was an element of tokenism in this: Yeomanry offers of service sometimes highlighted Catholic members, which they never did for the Protestant denominations. In this way it can be estimated that at the very least ten per cent of the first national levy of 20,000 Yeomen were Catholic, thus outnumbering the Orange yeomen who in 1796 were only to be found in some corps in the Orange districts of mid-Ulster. 

They were, thus, a perfect fit for William. 

The yeomanry was strong enough their opponents, the United Irishmen, tried to infiltrate them, and were promptly purged. They were offered the more numerous Orange Order, but the offer was rejected for fear of alienating Catholics.

By 1798 the Yeomanry had become the cutting edge of the anti-Union campaign. They played a role in suppressing the United Irishman rebellion in 1798 and Emmet's rebellion in 1803. They became increasingly polarized, and Daniel O Connell, who had joined the Lawyers' Artillery in 1796, lambasted the force as symbolising a partisan magistracy. O Connell's ambivalence is typified by his later claim to have been a yeoman in '98 and nevertheless a United Irishman. 

After the Emergency, and particularly after the end of the war with France, the Yeomanry faded into irrelevance, and became little more than an offshoot of the Orange Order. 

When and for how long William Harbison was a Yeoman is unclear; I know little of him before the birth of his oldest son John in 1809.