Archives and Manuscript Catalogue

Scope and Contents

Comprised of: title deeds to their various estates and other properties in Fife and elsewhere (Ch.12871-12978), burgess tickets (Ch.12979-12984), military commissions (Ch.12985-12993) and other documents (Ch.12994-1296) relating to various members of the family, and a few apparently unrelated documents. An inventory, listing each document individually, is available.

Scope and Contents

Ch.5902-5903 and Ch.5905 refer to members of the Pitcairn family of Forthar; the remainder concern transactions between John Mowat and James Fullarton, burgesses in Edinburgh. Ch.5901 is an abstract of the documents.

Scope and Contents Most of these papers consist of titles and estate papers relating to the lands of Carntyne and Shettleston in Glasgow. They are particularly important for the history of the colliery at Westmuir from the death of John Gray of Carntyne in 1796 until that of his grandson, the Rev John Hamilton Gray, in 1867, but there is material from both before, and in particular from after that period. Robert Gray (d.1833) was a resident landowner, and an enthusiastic coalmaster. Though not all the Westmuir...

Scope and Contents

More detailed lists of contents are available on request.

Scope and Contents The charters of the Minto family include titles to all the lands owned by the family in Roxburghshire, Fife, and Angus. The Roxburghshire titles include a few from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries but they and the Angus titles are not numerous until the seventeenth century. The earliest Fife titles however go back to the twelfth century, and the series is virtually complete from then until modern times.The lands of Headshaw were acquired by Sir Gilbert Elliot, 1st Baronet,...

Scope and Contents

These papers relate mostly to personal and business affairs. An inventory of these charters is available.

Scope and Contents

Robert Paul, manager of the Commercial Bank of Scotland, married Charlotte, the daughter of John Erskine of Cambus, advocate, in 1814. The connection of the Pauls with the Erskines of Alva, and later with the Erskine Murrays, remained strong, and the antiquarian interests of the Reverend Robert Paul, Free Church minister at Dollar, led him to examine many of the Erskine papers. Some of these remained with the Paul’s and now form part of the collection.

Scope and Contents The founder of the family was Gilbert Elliot (1651-1718), a younger son of Gavin Elliot of Midlem Mill. Gilbert Elliot was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1688, created a baronet in 1700, and appointed a Lord of Session as Lord Minto in 1705; he acquired the lands of Headshaw in Roxburghshire in 1696, and added Minto to his property in 1703. Sir Gilbert Elliot, 2nd Baronet (1693-1766), likewise had a distinguished legal career, becoming a Lord of Session as Lord Minto in 1726, a...

Scope and Contents

Correspondence and papers of the families of Ramsay and Dundas of Ochtertyre in Kincardine-of-Menteith, Perthshire, principally of the latter family.

Scope and Contents The family estates of Cumbernauld and Lenzie in East Dunbartonshire extended into the neighbouring parishes of Monkland in Lanarkshire and Dunipace in Stirlingshire. That of Biggar in Lanarkshire included also some lands in Peeblesshire, where the Flemings were in conflict with the Tweedies of Drumelzier. Members of the family were prominent in public affairs in the 16th and 17th centuries, but the later Earls took little part in them. The male line failed in 1747, and the estates passed to...

Scope and Contents The Richards family of Horndean in Hampshire began its connection with America in the early 19th century when John Richards opened a business in Boston, Massachusetts. Although his son, Francis Richards, established a manufacturing business in Gardiner, Maine, the family retained strong European ties. The constant coming and going across the Atlantic gives the collection a very cosmopolitan outlook enhanced by the marriage in 1878 of Francis Gardiner Richards to Anne Ashburner whose family...

Scope and Contents

Correspondence and papers, literary manuscripts and journals of Sylvester Douglas, Baron Glenbervie (1744-1823) and of earlier members of the Douglas family, mainly his great-grandfather, Robert Douglas (1625-1716), Bishop of Brechin, 1682-1684, and the last Bishop of Dunblane (1684-1689) in the pre-Revolution episcopal establishment of the Church of Scotland; and his father, John Douglas of Fechil in the parish of Ellon, Aberdeenshire (1714-1762).

Scope and Contents Among the papers of the Robertsons the chief correspondents are Principal William Robertson, the historian, and his son William, a Senator of the College of Justice. The correspondence of the Principal includes letters of scholars, British and foreign (Voltaire among others), about his works, information on the American Indians, 1774-1777, and threats regarding his attitude to Roman Catholics, 1778-1779. That of Lord Robertson deals with his legal and political activities and the publication...

Scope and Contents

Both families were descended from Archibald Stuart of Castlemilk and Fynart (died 1660).

Scope and Contents

The documents are mostly marriage-contracts, burgess-tickets, and similar documents concerning members of the Dunlop family in the 17th and 18th centuries. Three items concern William Dunlop`s affairs in South Carolina, 1688-1689 (Ch.8456-8458). An inventory is available.

Scope and Contents

Several documents are accompanied by a transcript or a summary by Alexander Macdonald.