Richard G. Tullis
101 Mt. Lyell Drive
San Rafael, CA 94903-1019
U.S.A.
email: Richard.Tullis@gte.net

Genealogy of Robert Tullis
Ancestors and Descendants, 1700 to 1965

Introduction

Robert Tullis (1775-1831) founded R. Tullis & Company (later Tullis Russell and Co. Ltd.) in Fife, Scotland. After moving from St.Andrews to Cupar in 1797, he established the company as a bookshop and bindery and soon expanded the business to include a printing press. The Tullis Press captured the commercial printing market in Fife and its surrounding area and, between 1803 and 1849, published more than two hundred books. These included books of poetry, historical and scientific works, textbooks and English and Latin classics. Robert Tullis added to the company the Auchmuty paper mill in Markinch in 1809 and became one of the earliest paper manufacturers in Scotland. In 1822, he began publishing the Fife Herald, the first newspaper to be published in Fife. Although R. Tullis & Company began as a partnership of seven and its composition changed through the years, the company was essentially the creation of its founder, Robert Tullis.

In her history of Tullis Russell & Co. Ltd., C.D.M. Ketelbey wrote:

Robert Tullis was a deeply ingrained Fifer by birth and family connection. His son William traced four score descendants, up to his own generation, from a Fife great-grandfather, sown thick through the villages of South, East and Central Fife, especially about the parishes of Largo, Newburn, Cupar, and St. Andrews. Many of them were tenant farmers, some were rural craftsmen, a few had mercantile and professional connections. They seem to have spread outwards from the Largo area to Cupar and St. Andrews and their neighborhoods. . . Ten variants of the name occur within the family--- some for the same man at different times--- Tillas, Tillias, Tillos, Tellos, Tyllos, Tholas, Tullis, Tulles, Tullos and Tulls, but Tullis seems to have become standard by the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The Preceding Generations

Robert Tullis was a son of William Tullis, an ironworker (hammerman or smith) in Argyle, just outside the West Port in St. Andrews. Robert's grandfather, also Robert Tullis, was born in about 1700 and was an ironworker in Newbigging, Lawhill and a tenant and feuar of Blinkbonny in the parish of Newburn, both near Largo, Fife.

Generation Number 1

Robert Tullis (Tillas), born in about 1700, married Margaret Miller in 1724. The children of Robert and Margaret were:

1. David
2. William
3. Robert
4. John
5. Margaret
6. Euphaim
7. Agnes

Generation Number 2

William Tullis (Tillas) (1729-1791), was the second son of Robert. He was the first in his family to move to St. Andrews where he followed his father's craft and was elected Deacon of the Hammermen of St. Andrews (craftsmen widely known for their wrought iron work) and served on the Burgh Council. He married Jane Russell of Dumbarnie, near Largo, whose brother Alexander Russell was married to William's sister, Agnes. William and Jane had seven sons, four of whom died young. The three remaining sons were:

1. David
2. Robert
3. William

William's oldest son David (1767-1837) followed the craft of his father and grandfather and became Deacon of the Hammermen and was appointed Burgh Council Assessor. He died childless. William's third son William 1780-1867) was sent to Edinburgh or Leith were he had family connections and became a commercial baker and later a corn merchant, member of the Police Commission and City Magistrate. William, a shareholder in R. Tullis & Company, was known as a "thorough Conservative" and had purchased property in Fife in order to vote there and "uphold the honour of his family against his Whig nephews." He died in 1867 and, like his brother David, was childless.

Robert Tullis, Founder of R. Tullis & Company

Generation Number 3

Robert Tullis, the second son of William, was born in 1775 near St. Andrews. The extent of Robert's formal education is not known although he may have attended the "Latin" or "English School" for a year or two. At the age of 11, he was bound apprentice to Patrick Bower, St. Andrews University bookbinder and stationer who undertook to "teach, learn and instruct" him in the "business and employment of bookseller and bookbinding." He completed the apprenticeship in about 1790 when he was 15 or 16 years of age.

It appears that Robert Tullis thereafter learned printing from James Morison, the University Printer (a position to which Robert was later appointed in 1808). In about 1797, Robert moved a distance of about ten miles from St. Andrews to the market town of Cupar where he became a bookseller. In 1801, Robert purchased a property in the center of Cupar, at 6-8 Bonneygate, where he established a bookshop with a bindery and, in 1803, a printing press and book publishing business. In 1809, Robert purchased what became the Auchmuty paper mill (formerly a bankrupt meal mill) near Markinch, on the river Leven. In 1822, he began publishing the Fife Herald (originally the Cupar Herald). He was Burgh Councillor in Cupar and a leading public figure in East Fife.

Robert Tullis married Agnes Smith in October 1804. She was the only daughter and oldest child of George Smith, tenant in Kinnaird in the parish of Kemback, between St. Andrews and Cupar. Kinnaird was a substantial farm which had been held by the Smiths for a century on successive leases from the Makgills of Kemback. The children of Robert and Agnes were:

1. George Smith
2. William
3. Robert
4. Jane (or Jean)
5. Alison (or Alice)
6. Christina (Christine)
(Two other sons died in infancy)

Between 1820 and 1828, Robert's three sons (and two other Tullises) were students on the rolls of St. Andrew University. Jane married J.P. Nichol, one of Robert Tullis' editors at the Herald. He was the father of John Nichol, who became Professor of English in Glasgow. Christina, born in 1818, married William Nichol, typographer in Edinburgh and brother of J.P. Nichol, about 1838. They had six children (Alfred, the fourth son, became manager of the Rothes paper mill which the company purchased in 1836 and later became a partner in the firm). Alison (1812-1845) married James Wallace, a merchant and bookseller. They had two children before their marriage ended; Alison died in 1845. By this time, Robert had died in 1831 at the age of 56.

Following Generations

Generation Number 4

Robert's son George Smith Tullis (1805-1848) received as a disposition under his father's will the right to purchase the bookselling, stationary and publishing businesses started by his father. George became a Burgh Councillor in Cupar and a leading businessman, book printer and publisher of the oldest local newspaper. Under George's direction, the Fife Herald became known for its radical partisanship "helping forward the earth-shaking march of democracy" and proclaiming its hostility to peers, millionaires, the landed interest and the "unjust privilege of caste." Under George, the newspaper became so radical that it provoked the Fife Tories into founding a rival newspaper in their own interest, The Fifeshire Journal. George died at the age of 42 from an illness of only a few days duration.

George was married twice and left a widow and a son; a daughter had died in infancy and another daughter died at the age of six. His son was:

1. Robert

Robert's sons William (1807-1883) and Robert (1813-1839) received the right under their father's will to purchase his interest in the Auchmuty paper mill. In 1836, they purchased a paper mill in Rothes which had been owned by David Lindsay. Robert Tullis died suddenly at Auchmuty of tubercular fever in 1839 without issue.

In 1845, William Tullis and his cousin, James Thrift Smith (the son of James Smith who was the brother of Agnes Smith, William's mother and the wife of Robert Tullis, the founder of R. Tullis & Company) became "managing partners" of the company. In 1846, R. Tullis & Company purchased the Rothes Bleachfield which brought within control of the company the entire stretch of the south bank of the river Leven from the Auchmuty Dam on the west to the Balbirnie Dam in the east.

William Tullis married Agnes Russell (1817-1898) in 1846. They had no children; however, Robert, the son of George Smith Tullis, lived with them after his father's death. William enlarged the scale of the two paper mills and bleaching business, doubling the firm's output and more than doubling its working capital. His good relations with his employees were legendary and they "grew old in his service." He was one of the earliest directors of the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway. William favored free trade and was an ardent follower of economist Adam Smith (Smith was born in 1724 in Kirkcaldy, Fife and had served as Commissioner of Customs for Scotland). William supported "Complete Suffragists", reform in Scottish Church and revision of the Law of Entail and Primogeniture. He was described in a passport as "William Tullis, Esquire, a person of great respectability. . . about to proceed to France." Among William's closest friends were Liberal Members of Parliament and political reformers and his Rothes House was described a "political salon for the Liberal Party." However, in 1864 William broke with the Liberals in reaction to government trade policies that adversely affected Scottish and English paper manufacturers.

Generation Number 5

Robert Tullis (1842-1936), the son of George Smith Tullis, became a partner in R. Tullis & Company in 1872; he joined William, his uncle, and James Thrift Smith. Robert operated the Fife Herald until 1879 when he sold it along with the bookstore and press in Cupar to John Innes who had been editor of the Herald. In 1864, David Russell and Arthur Russell joined as partners in the papermaking and bleaching businesses. This partnership appears to have continued a relationship between the Tullises and the Russells that is documented by marriage and baptismal records and business connections. The mother of Robert Tullis (the founder) was a Russell as well as his uncle by marriage and one of the sponsors of his baptism; he sold books to Russells, was a neighbor of a Russell and a Russell was a one-time editor of the Herald.

In 1873, Robert Tullis married Annie Cunison Drysdale, the daughter of William Drysdale of Kilrie, Fife. Their sons were:

1. George Smith
2. William
3. Robert
4. John Drysdale

By 1892, death or retirement had reduced the number of partners in the company to two, Robert Tullis, and David Russell. They were subsequently joined by David Russell's sons Robert and Sir David Russell.

Generation Number 6

Robert's sons George Smith Tullis (1879-1955) and Robert Tullis (1887-1965) served in France during World War I; George was a captain in the 1st/7th Black Watch Territorials and Robert, Jr. went to France in 1915 with the 43rd Field Ambulance 14th Division. The older Robert had two other sons, John Drysdale Tullis and William Tullis, who were captains in the Royal Scots Fusiliers. Both were killed in France. John died in November 1914 after being fatally wounded in the first battle of Ypres; William was killed in the battle of the Somme in 1916.

In 1906, the name of the firm was changed from R. Tullis & Company to Tullis Russell & Co. Ltd. as an official acknowledgement of the contribution made by David Russell. When World War I ended, Captain George S. Tullis shared the management of the Rothes paper mill with Robert Russell and, later, became Director of the papermaking firm of John Galloway & Co. Ltd. Robert, Jr. became the proprietor of the Rothes bleachfield in 1924. That year, David Russell and his brother Robert Russell bought the shares of Tullis Russell Co. Ltd. owned by the older Robert Tullis and his two sons. Robert Jr., however, continued to operate the bleachfield as a separate business until he retired in 1959.

The older Robert Tullis, died in 1936 at the age of 94. In 1905 he had moved up the river from Auchmuty House to Strathenry where he lived to become an elderly country gentleman. Keteley wrote: "A generous kindliness and courtesy pervades his records, and a great integrity, but there is something of sadness too in the story of a man who saw his inheritance pass out his hands."