SIR FRANCIS WILLIAM GRANT OF GRANT, BARONET, SIXTH EARL OF SEAFIELD, VISCOUNT OF RE1DHAVEN, LORD OGILVY OF DESKFORD AND CULLEN. MARY-ANNE DUNN, HIS FIRST WIFE. LOUISA-EMMA MAUNSELL, HIS SECOND WIFE. 1840-1853.
[473] THIS nobleman was the fourth son of Sir James Grant by his wife Jane Duff, but owing to the decease of two elder brothers, he became the next in succession to his eldest brother. Owing to peculiar circumstances, Francis William Grant was at a comparatively early age brought into prominent and responsible positions as Lord Lieutenant of the great county of Inverness, representative in Parliament for the county of Elgin, and, above all, as curator for his eldest brother over the Grant and Seafield estates for well-nigh thirty years. In all these responsible positions his conduct was eminently wise, judicious, and successful.Francis William Grant, who was popularly known as Colonel Grant till his accession to the title of Earl of Seafield, was born on 6th March 1 778. The Grant papers do not clearly show where he was educated, but a considerable part of his early life was passed at Grant Lodge, the family residence at Elgin. He entered the military service when he was only fifteen years of age, his first commission being dated in 1793, Commission, dated 1st March 1793, at Cullen House. as Lieutenant in the Strathspey Fencibles, the regiment raised in that year by his father, Sir James Grant, for service within Scotland. In the following year he was appointed a Captain in the 97th or Strathspey Regiment. Commission, 14th February 1794, ibid. At the same time he was made an Ensign in an independent company of foot about to be embodied, and on the 19th February received a lieu tenant's commission in a similar company. Commissions, ibid. In 1794 he was appointed [474] Major in the regiment of fencibles raised by Fraser of Lovat, and in 1796, was made Lieutenant-Colonel in the same regiment, Commissions, 29th November 1794 and 1st October 1796, at Cullen House. to hold his rank only while the fencibles were embodied. On 23d January 1799, however, he received a commission as Lieutenant-Colonel in a regiment of fencibles commanded by Colonel Archibald McNeill (of Colonsay), with permanent rank in the army. Commission, ibid.
Colonel McNeill's regiment, described as the Third Argyllshire Fencibles, differed from other fencible regiments in this, that their service was extended to any part of Europe, and in 1800 they. were ordered to Gibraltar to relieve certain troops who were to proceed from that garrison to Egypt under Sir Ralph Abercromby. Stewart's Sketches of the Highlanders, vol. ii. p. 398. Lieutenant-Colonel Grant accompanied his regiment to Gibraltar, and was there on 16th June 1801, when he wrote to his mother, Lady Grant, that his regiment as well as others had volunteered for Egypt. Vol. ii. of this work, p. 519. Their services, however, were probably not required, as a few months later, in September, peace was concluded, and Colonel Grant's regiment was ordered home and reduced.
Lieutenant-Colonel Grant was elected by the Banff and Elgin district of burghs as their representative in the second Imperial Parliament which assembled on 16th November 1802, and continued for four years. In the succeeding Parliament Colonel Grant was elected in 1806 representative for the Inverness burghs. In the following year the Colonel was elected Member of Parliament for the county of Elgin, which lie continued to represent till the year 1832; and in 1833, he was elected member for the united counties of Elgin and Nairn, which he continued to represent till his succession as Earl of Seafield in 1840.
Colonel Grant thus served in the House of Commons for the long period of thirty-eight years. During that period the agitation on the subject of the Reform Bill took place. Colonel Grant opposed the passing of this measure, but when the Bill became law, he frankly accepted it, and in his address to his constituents, in view of the dissolution of Parliament which followed, he declared that though he had opposed the Bill as inexpedient [475] and unjust to Scotland, yet it would be his utmost endeavour to render the Act productive of every benefit to the country. Copy Address, 9th July 1832, at Cullen House.
Though Lieutenant-Colonel Grant's regiment had been reduced, he still continued to serve in his military capacity, and in 1803 received from his father, as Lord Lieutenant of the county of Inverness, a commission as Colonel of the regiment of North British Militia, formed in Inverness-shire, in conjunction with the shires of Banff, Elgin, and Nairn. Commission, 20th June 1803, ibid. While acting in this capacity, Colonel Grant and his regiment were in 1804 stationed at Edinburgh. He was there made the subject of one of Kay's prints, in which he is represented as dressed in his uniform, standing by himself on a slight eminence, his men being drawn up in line some distance behind him.- (Kay's Biographical Sketches, vol. ii. p. 433.) This colonelcy had been held by Sir James Grant himself, but was resigned by him in favour of his son. in 1809 Sir James also resigned the lord lieutenancy of the county, which was conferred upon his son, who in the same year received full rank as Colonel in the army. Commission, 25th October 1809, at Cullen House.
The militia regiment which Colonel Grant commanded seems to have been quartered in Dundee in the latter end of 1803. A correspondent, writing to Lady Grant, informs her that on the regiment leaving the town "a dinner was given to the officers by the magistrates, as a mark of their respect, and the whole corps, officers and men, took their leave of Dundee regretted by the town, where the conduct of all had been exemplary." The same correspondent gives a sketch of the Colonel's character at this date (he was then in his twenty-sixth year), which may here be quoted as indicating his future career. "I cannot," the writer says, ". . . deny myself the pleasure of expressing . . the gratification which I have felt in his being so near me even for this short time. Interested as I am about everything which concerns him, you may believe I have not been a superficial observer of the way in which he discharges his present important trust. As a commanding officer I find he is respected much by the regiment. His natural mildness does not, I was much pleased to observe, prevent him from keeping his proper place, and from repressing every attempt to encroach in the least upon his authority. To severity he is a stranger, but when discipline requires it, he [476] is perfectly firm to his purpose, and I have teen him resist every solicitation to overlook when he thought the doing so would be injurious to the service. Of his principles as a man I am able to speak with still more precision than of his qualifications as an officer, because with regard to the latter I can speak only from the opinion of others. In private life, I will venture to say, from personal knowledge, that there is not a young man within the sphere of my acquaintance with less vice about him; his conversation and his ideas are uncommonly correct. . . . His manners, though completely those of a gentleman, are not, perhaps, very showy - he is naturally shy, and it is not easy to get the better of natural shyness - but he is one of those who improve greatly on acquaintance, and whom you like the more, the more you know of them. . . . . . . He is a man of the strictest honour, integrity, and virtue, and earnestly do I pray that the Almighty may long spare him." Vol. ii. of this work, p. 523. The writer of this letter was the Rev. Francis Nicoll, D.D., minister of Mains and Strathmartine, afterwards Principal of St. Andrews. Principal Nicoll was for some time tutor in the family of Sir James Grant, and had thus the best opportunity of knowing the character of his pupils. The Principal named the Colonel one of the guardians of his children, and the Colonel accepted the office for the benefit of the children of his old tutor.
The honourable character thus ascribed to Colonel Grant as a military officer was also fully manifested in another capacity. During the long term of twenty-nine years, he held the position of curator to his brother, Lewis Alexander, Earl of Seafield, and administered the extensive estates of the family, an arduous and delicate task, which he discharged with the highest honour to himself and the best results to the interest of his family and tenantry.
On the evidence of a contemporary chronicle, Colonel Grant found most happiness in his residence on the family estates and in caring for his dependants. He loved to superintend improvements on his estates and to promote the welfare of his tenants. It was while acting as curator for his brother that Colonel Grant took the lead in introducing in his own neighbourhood the plan of affording an allowance of so much per acre for all land reclaimed by tenants. This arrangement could not but have a most important effect on the progress of agriculture in the district. Many tenants took advantage of the terms offered, and under this plan many thousands of acres were added to the arable ground on the estates, a result not only [477] creditable alike to the liberality of the proprietor and to the enterprise or the tenantry, but also highly beneficial to the country. Under Colonel Grant's own directions, many hundred acres in the vicinity of Cullen also were improved, and where the people of this burgh were in use to cut their winter fuel, rich crops of grain may now be reaped.
Besides thus providing sustenance for the poorer classes at home, Colonel Grant was willing to encourage emigration. In February 1836, he was applied to by Sir John Franklin, the famous Arctic explorer, to use his influence on behalf of Lieutenant Kendall, agent for the New Brunswick Land Company. Lieutenant Kendall came to Scotland for the purpose of explaining the nature of the offers made by the Company to intending emigrants. Franklin begged Colonel Grant to give every aid in his power to the object in view. Colonel Grant requested his factor and others to show Lieutenant Kendall every attention, declaring his desire to oblige Sir John Franklin, and expressing his opinion that some of the people of Urquhart might usefully emigrate. Letters, 18th and 19th February 1836, at Castle Grant.
After his accession to the title and estates, which took place on 26th October 1840, the Earl of Seafield continued, and if possible increased his efforts for the welfare of his extensive territories. He was known as the largest planter of trees in Britain in the course of the present century, the annals of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland recording in 1847, that at that date, 31,686,482 young trees, Scotch firs, larch, and hard woods, had been planted under the Earl's direction over an area of 8223 acres. The Journal of Agriculture, etc., July 1847, pp. 37-44. This extent, it is said, has not been approached by any British landowner since the plantations made by the Duke of Athole about the middle of last century. For these plantations, which were effected in the districts of Cullen, Moray, Strathspey, and Glen Urquhart, the Highland Society awarded to the Earl their gold medal. Under the influence of this Society and the encouragement offered by it for the introduction of new timber trees, a great spread of plantations had taken place throughout the country, but no proprietor had entered into the work so zealously or so extensively as the subject of this memoir.
[478] Besides these extensive plantations, which tended to beautify the more barren portions of his territory, the Earl of Seafield also employed his skill in embellishing the pleasure-grounds which surround Cullen House. His taste for ornamental landscape was of a high order, and the whole of the policies were re-arranged and remodelled under his personal directions. New gardens and hot-houses were built and stocked; thousands of young trees were planted, and trees of twenty years of age transplanted to more effective positions; new roads were made, and ornamental ponds formed, the result being the production of a scene of the highest sylvan and horticultural beauty. As an illustration of the Earl's close observance of, and interest in, natural objects, it is related that on one occasion the chief gardener at Cullen House gave orders for removing the branch of a beech tree which impeded one of the approaches to the garden. '('he saw was about to be applied for this purpose, when the Earl, happening to come in sight, desired the woodman to desist, as the branch in question was the one which threw out the earliest buds in the grounds; and subsequent experience showed that this observation was perfectly accurate. Besides these improvements, the Earl also built an addition to Cullen House.
Lord Seafield, however, did not confine himself to the gratification of mere personal tastes, such as the adornment of his residence or the improvement of his estates. His beneficence took a wider range, and he showed that he was fully alive to all the best means of promoting the welfare of his district. Among other schemes of usefulness, the Earl made great efforts to improve the two harbours on his property, those of Cullen and Portsoy. On the latter it is said that a sum of about £17,000 was expended, though the good effect intended was somewhat neutralised by the force of the elements. The harbour of Cullen was altogether remodelled, greatly enlarged and deepened, and made of important service to the district by affording a ready outlet for produce, and promoting commerce. The harbour of Cullen was undertaken so early as 1825. On 4th May of that year, the factor at Cullen House writes to Colonel Grant as to the progress made: "The contractors are getting on with the repairs of the Cullen Harbour in a very satisfactory manner. A considerable part of the head is already rebuilt, and the entrance and interior of the harbour completely clear'd, and accessible to vessels." (Letter at Cullen House.)
Among his other exertions for the benefit of the district, it has been remarked that Lord Seafield will be best known to posterity through the improvement he effected on the town of Cullen. "As the founder of the present town of that name, his Lordship will ever hold a certain historical importance. The present town is not much above thirty years old, and has [479] been entirely built since the estates were under his Lordship's management. Forty years ago (in 1813) the town occupied a position more to the west, and, royal burgh though it was, presented a miserable contrast as regards cleanliness, comfort, and indeed in every respect, to the present handsome town. The entire 'burgh' consisted only of one street, towards which the gables of the houses (mostly covered with thatch) were turned, while noxious gutters yawned on either side. The place was also poor. There were not perhaps half a dozen people in it who could have erected houses of a more substantial character than those of which the town then consisted. Under the auspices of his Lordship, then Colonel the Hon. Francis Grant, the old town was gradually removed, and on the present site there was laid out a new town, consisting of a handsome square and several spacious streets, crossing each other at right angles. The first house was erected in 1820; and under the encouragement given by his Lordship, building proceeded rapidly, until the burgh attained its present appearance, which, as respects architectural elegance and cleanliness, may vie with any town in the North. His Lordship's almost constant residence at Cullen House, and the improvements which he carried on, and the consequent large expenditure among tradesmen in the town, tended, in conjunction with the enterprise of the inhabitants, to promote the prosperity of the place; and it is now distinguished not more by the elegance of its buildings than by the comfortable position of its tradesmen and other inhabitants." Banffshire Journal, August 2, 1853.
Cullen was not the only burgh which received benefit from Lord Seafield. Elgin enjoyed some substantial results from the Earl, then Colonel Grant's, liberality, in the way of subscriptions to public rooms. Receipts, 4th August 1820, at Cullen House. Literary societies in Banff and Inverness also received liberal recognition; Diplomas, 11th September 1822, 30th October 1829, ibid. and his benevolence and public spirit were acknowledged by the towns of Cullen, Kintore. Forres, Elgin,. Nairn, and Banff, from whom he received the freedom of a burgess. He was honoured in a similar way by the town of Kirkcudbright, where he was with the Fraser Fencibles in 1795. Burgess Acts, etc., of various dates from 1795 to 1817, ibid. It may also be of interest to note in this connection that while at Gibraltar, Lord [480] Seafield, then Lieutenant-Colonel Grant, was made a master mason in connection with the " "Mother Lodge of St. John, No. 24." Certificate, dated 3d February 1801, at Cullen House.
The year after his succession as Earl of Seafield, his Lordship was, at the general election on 5th August 1841, being the first after his succession, chosen one of the sixteen representative peers of Scotland, a position which he occupied until his death in 1853. In the House of Lords, Lord Seafield gave the same sedulous attention to his duties as he had done for so many years in the Lower House. Between the two Houses he acquired an almost continuous parliamentary experience of half a century. In politics his Lordship was a Conservative, and during his long public career loyally supported his party. He was a warm supporter of Sir Robert Peel in the early part of that statesman's career, and in 1829, when his kinsman Mr. Charles Grant, afterwards Lord Glenelg, Mr. Huskisson, and others seceded from the Wellington and Peel administration, Lord Seafield, then the Hon. Colonel Grant, steadily adhered to Sir Robert, though, in so doing, he sacrificed not a few friendships to what he deemed his duty. For this consistency to his party, it was proposed to honour him with a peerage, and had this intention been carried out, he and his successors would have sat in the House of Lords as Barons of Strathspey, thus anticipating the dignity which was afterwards conferred on his son and successor. But though the patent was prepared, and only the necessary arrangements required to be made, before these could be carried through, the ministry came to a sudden close. Before Sir Robert Peel returned to power, Colonel Grant had become Earl of Seafield.
Francis William, sixth Earl of Seafield, died at his favourite residence of Cullen House on the 30th July 1853, after a short illness of only a few days' duration. He was in the seventy-sixth year of his age.
The estimate formed of Francis William, Earl of Seafield, by his contemporaries, may in some measure be gathered from an article in a local journal, written a day or two after his decease. His character at the close of life agrees in a remarkable manner with the sketch given of his youthful promise in the letter of his tutor, Principal Nicoll, already referred to. In regard to his administration of his estates, extending over a period of forty [481] two years, from 1811 to 1853, it is remarked: "This is a long period - in itself a generation, yet during all that time no case of hardship to a tenant can be charged against his Lordship. He instinctively recoiled from severe measures; and even when these would have been necessary, and where prudence might have counselled a resort to them, his Lordship invariably refused to adopt them. The consequence was, that throughout his wide estates no nobleman was more truly beloved or respected by his tenantry, who felt that they could always rely upon his indulgence. A prominent feature in his character was his love of justice and respect for his word. He was delicately alive to anything that could affect the interest or even the feelings of others; and, prudently cautious in giving a pledge, he was correspondingly punctual in its redemption. He was ever conscious of the responsibility of his high position, and sought consistently to perform its duties." Benevolence, it is said, was another strongly marked feature in Lord Seafield's character, and was evinced by the aid which he furnished to' many a promising youth while progressing through school and college. He was a member of the Church of Scotland, and sat for many years in her chief court as representative elder of the Presbytery of Abernethy. In all the relations of private life Lord Seafield was "most exemplary, an affectionate husband and a kind and considerate parent."
"In person," it is added, Lord Seafield was "tall and of a commanding appearance. His disposition was gentle, and his manners retiring. His attainments in knowledge were of a high order, and tempered and modified by an enlarged practical acquaintance with the world and with human nature, acquired not merely at home, but during frequent residences for lengthened periods in various countries on the Continent. These qualities rendered his conversation peculiarly fascinating; and though of late years he seldom went into company, no one could make himself more agreeable." The Banffshire Journal, August 2, 1853.
The remains of the deceased Earl were borne by his sorrowing relatives and friends from Cullen House to Castle Grant, to be deposited in the mausoleum erected by himself in the churchyard of Duthil. The funeral cortege left Cullen House at ten o'clock in the morning of the 2d August 1853, and arrived at Castle Grant the same evening at seven o'clock. At its [482] departure from the former place the hearse was accompanied for some distance by the Magistrates and Town Council of Cullen, members of the neighbouring Presbytery, and many of the tenantry and others, numbering about six hundred. At each place of importance on the way, Cullen, Fochabers, Elgin, and Forres, the procession was met and accompanied some distance by the principal inhabitants, while the bells were tolled, the shops closed, and every token of mourning and respect for the deceased was shown by all classes.
The body of the deceased Earl remained at Castle Grant over night, and on the morning of the 3d August was borne to its final resting-place. On its way thither it was met by the inhabitants of Grantown, who, forming into a procession, preceded the funeral cortege. After walking some distance, they paused and returned, while the hearse and carriages passed on, to be met once more near the gate of Duthil churchyard by a large body of people from the upper districts of Strathspey and Abernethy. Arrived at the gate, the coffin was, amid a special group of mourners, borne to its resting-place in the mausoleum.
"Thus," writes a contemporary, "followed to the grave by the tears of a beloved family, the regrets of an attached tenantry, the respect of his own class, and the sympathies of the population of a wide district, were deposited beside a long line of illustrious ancestors, the remains of a nobleman possessed of much public spirit and patriotism, distinguished by many personal virtues, and whose memory will long he gratefully cherished through the north." The Banffshire Journal, 9th August 1853.
Lord Seafield was twice married. His first wife was Mary Anne, only daughter of John Charles Dunn of Higham House, Sussex, to whom he was married on 10th May 1811. She died on 27th February 1840, before the accession of her husband to the earldom. His Lordship married, secondly, on 17th August 1843, Louisa-Emma, second daughter of Robert-George Maunsell of Limerick. By this lady, who survived him, his Lordship had no issue.
By his first wife, Lord Seafield had a family of six sons and one daughter. The sons were:
1. James Grant, born 16th April 1812, at London; died there 15th March 1815. [483]
2. Francis William, Master of Grant, born 5th October 1814. He was Member of Parliament for Inverness-shire for about two years. He died on 11th March 1840. Of him a brief memoir follows.
3. John Charles, born 4th September 1815. He succeeded his father as seventh Earl of Seafield. A memoir of him is also given.
4. James, born 27th December 1817. He married, first, on 6th April
1841, Caroline Louisa, second daughter of Eyre Evans of Ash-Hill Towers. Limerick. She died 6th February 1850. He married secondly, on 13th April 1853, Constance Helena, fourth daughter of Sir Robert Abercromby, Baronet, of Birkenbog and Forglen. She died 13th February 1872. Mr. Grant married, thirdly, on 15th December 1875, Georgiana Adelaide Forester, widow of William Stewart of Aldenham Abbey, and daughter of the late General Walker of Manor House, Bushey. By his first and second wives Mr. Grant has issue two sons and one daughter.
5. Lewis-Alexander, born 18th September 1820. He married, on 15th August 1849, Georgina, daughter of the late Robert George Maunsell of Limerick, by whom he has issue two sons and two daughters.
6. George Henry Essex, born 13th February 1825. He married, on 2d October 1855, Eleanora, fourth daughter of the late Sir William G. Gordon Cumming, Baronet. By her he had issue three sons and two daughters. He died 31st May 1873.
7. Edward-Alexander, born 17th June 1833; died 26th April 1844.
The daughter was:
Jane, who married, on 20th July 1843, Major-General Sir Edward Walter Forester Walker, K.C.B., and had issue. She died 16th September 1861.
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Volume 1 Chapter 19(ii) |
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