Page:The Poetical Works of William Motherwell, 1849.djvu/38

 my possession, that this family of Motherwells had been settled in that locality, and probably, on this very spot, for at least four hundred years—the land and the occupation descending in regular succession from father to son. The name itself is obviously a local surname, but it belongs to the county of Lanark, in the middle ward of which, and in the parish of Dalziel, there is a considerable village called Motherwell. The statistical accounts speak of a well or spring as still existing there, from which the inhabitants are supplied with water, and which, in the olden time, was called the 'Well of our Ladye.' It was probably believed to possess medicinal virtues, and was, therefore, placed under the immediate protection of the 'Virgin Mother'—whence the name, Motherwell. Its antiquity as a surname must be considerable, since it appears in the Ragman Rolls for 1296, and also in the index to a chartulary of the Monastery of Paisley in 1490; and from what has been already stated it will be seen that that branch of the race from which the poet sprang had been planted in Stirlingshire as far back as the beginning of the fifteenth century. The name, however, is an uncommon one.