The surname Dempster is an occupational one, derived from the "Deemster" or pronouncer of doom. The surname is mainly Scottish in origin, but the occupational title these days only exists on the Isle of Man, where certain judges are titled Doomster.
The term Dempster is an old Scots translation of the Gaelic "Brehon", and originally the post was one of considerable power. In the Celtic period in Scotland, the brehon was the hereditary lawgiver, memorising the law and custom of an area and passing that knowledge down the generations. The brehon "held the law in his breast".
Each of the ancient Earldoms of Scotland had its brehon and the family which took the surname Dempster was that of the brehons of Angus who were also hereditary King’s brehons. They are said to descend from a relative of King Malcolm III Canmore. Unfortunately, the source of this information is vague about the exact relationship and could be translated as an illegitimate brother, an illegitimate son or a foster brother (fostering was a common practice in Celtic society). During the "rebellion of the thane of Loguhabriae" this relative supported Malcolm and was rewarded for his loyalty with all the lands between the rivers North Esk and South Esk and the "sword of justice".
By the time the family appears in written records, their time of pre-eminence in the law was on the wane. As the use of written records became widespread, the need to treat the law like a craft, passed on from father to son, was gone. In the earliest records of the 13th century, the occupation, latinised as judex, was still of considerable importance, but it was becoming more and more restricted to the recording of boundaries - a task which is more easily done by walking the marches than by description in words. The upheavals of the War of Independence led to a further reduction in the family's importance as boundaries were changed and their specialist knowledge became less useful.
The main branches of the family were at Careston in Angus and at Auchterless in Aberdeenshire. The Dempsters of Careston were the original chiefs, but they died out in the middle 1500s when the Auchterless branch was recognised as the chiefly one. The last Dempster of Auchterless, a bankrupt outlaw in his 70s was executed in 1620, and though he left surviving children, the fall of the family has left the identity of the current chief a matter of doubt.
After 1620, the most prominent branches of the family in Scotland were those of Pitliver in Fife, Dunnichen in Angus and Skibo in Sutherland. All three are cadet branches of Auchterless. The Pitliver line ended in an heiress of whom the senior heir is the chief of the Carmichaels, the Dunnichen line passed through several heiresses and is now represented by General Lennox Napier. The fate of the Skibo line after they sold that estate is unknown.
Though all of the landed branches of the family had sold up by 1921, the family has spread all round the world. The name is hardly common, but is clustered in various parts of Scotland, and there was a thriving family of Dempsters in Lincolnshire from the 1600s. Abroad, there were the usual wandering academics and priests of the middle ages, and the typical Baltic merchants of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with Dempster families recorded in Sweden and in modern Poland. Later emigration has seen the family spread to North America and Australasia
© James Dempster 1997