While looking for the author of The Robertons – A Noted
Lanarkshire Family which appears in three previous posts (originally printed in
the Hamilton Advertiser on August 7th, 1943), a librarian at the
South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture Center also found another piece on
Roberton history, again from the Hamilton Advertiser, but published in July
1874. Entitled Earnock and its Early Proprietors, it is another lengthy
writing that I will present in a number of postings.
Earnock and its
Early Proprietors (continued)
(from the Hamilton
Advertiser, July 1874)
The Robertouns (cont.)
Archibald’s son, James, first of the House of Bedlay, was an
advocate, and became on of the Senators of the College of Justice, under the
title of Lord Bedlay. He was Commissary
of Glasgow in 1625. The name of Archibald,
son of James Robertoun of Bedlay, occurs in the Commissary Records in 1653.
Elizabeth, eldest daughter of James Robertoun, advocate of Bedlay, married
James, eldest son and heir of John Dunlop of Garnkirk, who was a member of the
Faculty of Procurators. The marriage
took place on the 5th April, 1654.
From them the Dunlops of Garnkirk and Tollcross are lineally descended;
and what is not a little curious, the celebrated family of Coutts, the wealthy
bankers of Edinburgh and London, are also descendants of James Dunlop and
Elizabeth Robertoun, through their eldest daughter. This lady married, first,
Robert Campbell of North Woodside, near Glasgow, who died in 1694, leaving an
only daughter, who succeeded to his property, and became the wife of Thomas Haliburton
of Dryburgh Abbey, and Newmains, Berwickshire.
Robert Campbell’s relict, in the third year of her widowhood, married a
second time Patrick Coutts, from Montrose, then a “merchant burgess of
Edinburgh.” She had several children to Mr. Coutts, the eldest of whom, John,
was Provost of Edinburgh in 1742. The
Provost had four sons, who were the founders of the celebrated banking houses
of Coutts & Co., in Edinburgh and London.
James and Thomas, the two youngest sons, originated the banking
establishment in London. On the death of
James, in 1778, Thomas succeeded as sole manager; and becoming banker to George
III and many of the principal aristocracy, with habits of great economy, he
soon acquired an immense fortune. By his
first wife, Susan Starkie, who had been his brother’s servant, he had three
daughters – Susan, married to the Earl of Guilford; Frances, married to the
Marquis of Bute; and Sophia, married to Sir Francis Burdett, by whom she had
Sir Robert Burdett, sixth baronet, and Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, who was
created a baroness in 1871. Thomas died
in 1822, and the greater part of his wealth came to be inherited by his
grand-daughter. Thus the eldest daughter
of James Dunlop and Elizabeth Robertoun, was grandmother of Thomas Coutts, the
millionaire and banker of London, and the munificent Baroness Burdett-Coutts is
her great-great-grand-daughter.
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