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Country code |
GB |
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Repository code |
234 |
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Repository |
National Records of Scotland |
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Reference |
GD24 |
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Title |
Papers of the family of Stirling Home Drummond Moray of Abercairny, Perthshire |
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Dates |
c 1210-1934 |
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Access status |
Open |
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Location |
Off site |
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Description |
This collection as a whole is rich in estate and household papers, with an outstanding series of 18th century Abercairny estate rentals, and many records relating to the building, alteration and furnishing of Abercairny House and Blair Drummond House, 18th-19th century.
The earliest papers in the collection are writs relating to Abercairny family lands from the early 13th century onwards (see GD24/5). There is also an album of royal and other letters addressed to lairds of Abercairny starting in 1558 (GD24/5/57). The earliest Drummond papers relate to the murder of their ancestor, George Drummond of Ledcreiff and his son William in 1554 by neighbouring lairds and their followers (GD24/1/824). Original papers of the Stirlings of Ardoch also start in the mid-16th century, while the smaller quantity of Home of Kames material dates entirely from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Politics and public affairs are a major feature of the papers. Notable among them are the correspondence and papers of Thomas Gordon, Admiral of the Russian navy, 1719-1741, and a noted Jacobite at the court of the tsar. Gordon's daughter Anna married Sir Henry Stirling of Ardoch, one of his close associates in Russia. Contemporary but contrasting with those papers is the extensive correspondence of John Drummond of Quarrell, a younger son of the first laird of Blair Drummond and MP for Perth Burghs 1727-1742. Drummond was a former merchant in Amsterdam, Commissioner for regulating trade to the Spanish Netherlands under the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713-1714, and a director of the East India Company, 1722-1734. In the mid-19th century, there are also the letters and papers of Henry Home Drummond of Blair Drummond, who represented Stirlingshire in Parliament, 1821-1831, was Conservative MP for Perthshire from 1840 to 1852, and was also heavily involved in matters of local administration, justice and patronage.
Jacobite material is another of the strengths of this collection. Besides Admiral Gordon's correspondence, there is a range of Jacobite papers amassed by the Moray of Abercairny and Drummond of Blair Drummond families, both of them strong adherents of the Jacobite cause. The lairds of Abercairny were active in support of the Old Pretender as illustrated, for example, by an extensive 18th century memoir of the family (GD24/1/872/1), while George Drummond, 1st laird of Blair Drummond, was chamberlain of the earldom of Perth's estates in Scotland and remained in that key financial position until long after the 4th earl went into exile in 1693.
The connection between George Drummond and the family of the Earl of Perth is also the probable explanation of why the collection contains papers of John Drummond of Lundin, the Earl's brother, as Master of the King's Ordnance, later Treasurer-Depute and Secretary of State. These include a small series of letters from the military engineer John Slezer, author of 'Theatrum Scotiae', who was commissioned to visit Holland in 1681 to obtain expert gunners and purchase artillery pieces which Scotland had no foundry to make (GD24/1/826).
The collection also features correspondence and papers of another George Drummond (1687-1766). This George Drummond had an old family connection with the Drummonds of Blair, but his upbringing and career were largely based in Edinburgh, where he was several times lord provost, one of the founders of its 'new town', and a staunch Hanoverian. It is likely that these papers came into the possession of the Blair Drummond family through the marriage of Provost Drummond's granddaughter Janet Jardine to George Home Drummond, son and heir of Agatha Drummond of Blair Drummond and Henry Home, Lord Kames.
Finally, among the Abercairny papers there is a remarkable bound volume of correspondence entirely unrelated to any of the antecedent families and probably acquired by one of the Drummonds of Blair Drummond. The volume, entitled 'State Papers', contains early 17th century letters to, and draft letters by George Villiers, Marquis and later Duke of Buckingham, many of them written by royal and other significant figures. The majority of letters in the volume are transcribed or summarised in HMC, vol. 10, pp.89-91 and 96-123. |
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Level |
Fonds |
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Extent |
22.01 Linear Metres |
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Admin
history |
The papers in this collection are the product of four distinct families coming together in the 19th and early 20th centuries through a complex combination of marriage and landed inheritance.
The Home Stirling Drummond Moray family of Abercairny, Ardoch and Blair Drummond has its origins predominantly in Perthshire. Oldest in terms of landed inheritance were the Morays of Abercairny, whose lands of Abercairny and Ogilvy came into their possession in the early 14th century through the marriage of Sir John Moray, 2nd recorded laird of Drumsergard in Lanarkshire, to Mary, daughter of Malise, Earl of Strathearn.
The estate of Ardoch came into the hands of the Stirling family through a combination of inheritance and acquisition in the late 16th century, but it was only in 1799 that it came to be linked with Abercairny family as a result of the death of Sir William Stirling, 4th baronet of Ardoch, without a male heir, and the succession of his daughter Anne, who had married Colonel Charles Moray of Abercairny.
The estate of Blair Drummond was formed out of the lands of Kincardine in Menteith, purchased in 1684 by George Drummond formerly of Blair (i.e. Blairgowrie), from James Drummond, 4th Earl of Perth, his friend and political intimate, who became Lord Chancellor of Scotland in the same year. Blair Drummond passed from father to son for four generations but in 1766, on the death in infancy of James Drummond of Blair Drummond, it passed by entail to his aunt, Agatha Drummond, who had married Henry Home of Kames, later raised to the Scottish judiciary as Lord Kames. It was another marriage, that of their grandson, Henry Home Drummond of Blair Drummond, to Christian Moray, elder daughter of Colonel Charles Moray of Abercairny, that eventually led to the association of the Blair Drummond and Abercairny estates, after the death of Christian's three brothers left her as the successor to the Abercairny estate. Henry and Christian's eldest son George succeeded to Ardoch in 1864 on the death of his mother, and to Blair Drummond in 1867 on the death of his father, while his younger brother Charles inherited Abercairny from his mother. When George died without children in 1876, Charles Stirling Home Drummond Moray became owner of all three estates. On his death in 1891 the estates were again divided, with Blair Drummond and Ardoch going to his eldest son Henry Edward, and Abercairny to his second son William Augustus. In 1911, however, on the death of his elder brother, William Augustus Home Drummond Moray of Abercairny inherited Blair Drummond and Ardoch, and the estates were once again united under one owner.
The Home of Kames family owned a small estate in Berwickshire, acquired by Mr Henry Home, a younger son of the Home of Renton family. It was his grandson, Henry Home Lord Kames, who married Agatha Drummond, eventually heiress to the Blair Drummond lands in Perthshire. A major figure of the Scottish Enlightment period, Lord Kames had an illustrious career as a judge, philosopher, author and agricultural improver, amply illustrated by the papers preserved in this collection. Among his extensive correspondence are letters written by Benjamin Franklin, 1760-1775 (photocopies, GD24/1/562). Lord Kames also kept a meticulously detailed estate ledger for his Berwickshire lands (GD24/1/792), but some years after his wife came into her inheritance, he sold these and concentrated his estate activities on Blair Drummond. |
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Arrangement |
Sections 1-3 of the Abercairny collection were deposited in H M General Register House, now part of the National Records of Scotland, by Major J W Stirling Home Drummond Moray in 1948. Section 4 consisted entirely of photocopies, but these were replaced in 1966 by the original documents which now form Section 5. Section 2 of the collection relates entirely to the Stirlings of Ardoch. The other sections include papers relating to all of the main constituent families.
Contents:
GD24/1/1-1105: Legal documents and general papers relating to the four families of Moray of Abercairny, Drummond of Blair Drummond, Home of Kames, and Stirling of Ardoch, 1469-1920
GD24/2/1-5: Additional Stirling of Ardoch papers bound in five volumes, 1527-1791
GD24/3/1-507: Additional Abercairny and related family papers, 1451-1934
GD24/4: Not allocated
GD24/5/1-176: Charters, accounts, estate papers, commissions, correspondence and miscellaneous papers, c 1210-1931 |
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Publication note |
The papers of the Home Stirling Drummond Moray of Abercairny family are of wide historical significance. A detailed summary of the contents of sections 1, 2 and 5 of the papers, divided into broad subject areas, can be found in the Scottish Record Office's published List of Gifts and Deposits, volume 1 (1971), pp. 44-53, while the Reports of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (HMC), volumes 3 and 10 (1872 and 1885) contain transcripts and summaries of a selection of predominantly political and military papers. |
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Format |
Text |
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Language |
English |
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