"Glenmoriston of the Past"

John, the tenth Laird, died in the year 1801. He had married Elizabeth daughter of another John Grant who was Commissary of Ordnance in New York and closely related to the Chiefs of Grant. Elizabeth had a brother, James Murray, which accounts for the introduction of these two names into our family. Previously the Laird had always been a Patrick or a John. Two sons and two daughters resulted from this marriage, the elder boy Patrick becoming Laird (eleventh) on his father's death in 1801. Unfortunately he did not have long to live, dying in minority as the result of a fall from a tree in 1808 at the age of eighteen. He was engaged to be married to his cousin the daughter of Fraser of Foyers. It seems that the poor girl did not live much longer. She is buried on the point of Foyers from where she had been in the habit of looking across the Loch to Invermoriston.

James Murray Grant, the younger brother then became the twelfth Laird at the age of sixteen. Both his parents were dead but his Grandmother, Henrietta from Rothiemurchus was still alive. He seems to have been quite intelligent but her writing and spelling indicate that she must have had very little education in such matters, her letters being very difficult to read up to the point where some kindly person has taken up the pen. It seems that up to the last century many of the gentlefolk of the Highlands could hardly read or write.

James Murray had received his education, firstly at Ramsgate where Rothiemurchus relations ran a school for girls at which his sister was a pupil. He boarded with them and attended a boys’ school in the same town. In 1808 he took up lodgings in Edinburgh where he studied Natural and Moral Philosophy, Chemistry and Natural History. He also had lessons in playing, the fiddle. It had taken him a whole week to travel from Inverness to Edinburgh which he described as a tedious journey.The following year the same journey took him only three days. His notebook records the coach fare for an outside seat, which he purchased for his man-servant, cost

£3.13.5. This seems rather a lot all things considered. There is an interesting account written about 1840 by an author who stayed at Invermoriston and returned South in winter by His Majesty’s Mail Coach which departed from the Union Hotel in Inverness at 2 a.m. drawn by six horses and manned by coachman, guard and postboy.      The crew managed to dig the coach out of a snowdrift but not many miles further on one of the horses went down with postboy on back in a still deeper drift. At this point the guard insisted that the coach should return to Inverness while he carried on with the mail on the two leaders. The author persuaded the official to allow that he continue the journey on the horse carrying the mail. With some difficulty they reached the hostelry of Moy where a guide and an additional horse took them on to Carrbridge through a blinding, snowstorm. Eventually they reached Dalwhinnie, two hours after midday where they met the stranded passengers from the north-bound coach which had been abandoned in a snowdrift some miles back. To cut a long story short, the journey from Inverness to Perth took twenty hours. N ot bad going in the circumstances. People in a11 walks of life m ust surely have been much tougher in those days.

Returning to the family, James Murray married his cousin Henrietta, daughter of Ewen Cameron of Glen Nevis in 1813, five sons and five daughters resulting from the marriage.

He had inherited from the Estate encumbrances amounting to £8,917 including £5,117 due from his Rothiemurchus cousins. The current interest rate was four or five per cent, During his elder brother's lifetime, the Trustees had purchased the Scotos Estate for £10,400 adding some seven hundred to the Estate Rental. In those days it was customary to give and take heritable bonds on properties. One authority who had to deal with such matters commented that there seemed to be a tacit combination through the community to enmesh property with a network of debts, burdens and old family settlements. "It seems that the property companies of today may be working on much the same lines".

Things cannot have been easy for James Murray in his early married years with a heavily burdened estate yielding a very modest increase from its rental with a family of ten. After preparatory education two of his sons were sent to Haileybury and the youngest to Cheltenham College. Apart from the eldest, John, they all went out to the Hon. East India Company's service in the twenties.

From 1834 when Robert Sinclair became the Estate Factor, a system of proper accounts was introduced and more attention paid to management by the Laird himself. The records of his other activities are very scanty but it seems that he dabbled in politics. In 1814 Sir Charles Grant of the Shewglie branch who later became Lord Glenelg, wrote thanking Glenmoriston for attending at his election to Parliament. Later in 1836, the Laird was to stand as Liberal Candidate, presumably for Morayshire, having by then been left the Moray Estate. He wrote however from Caen, France, to say that he must withdraw on account of living abroad. His letter gives no clue as to why he was there –and it seems that he was soon back in Glenmoriston. He would of course have numerous relatives round about him and it is sad that we know so little of what went on.

Elizabeth Grant in her memoirs mentions, on several occasions her Glenmoriston cousins, attending the Northern Meeting balls in Inve rness where our family had a "town house", now the Glenmoriston Hotel, on Ness Bank. The Macdonells of Invergarry, with some of our family had a close alliance in peace and war for many years back, seem to have been good friends of James Murray. On one occasion Glengarry wrote to Glenmoriston complaining about one of the latter's sporting tenants who apparently had brought in a pack of foxhounds.

According to Glengarry "such animals will never go after a fox if they get into the habit of chasing deer which have a much sweeter smell than foxes", his anxiety may have been partly due to the fact that his family had for many years a renowned herd of Scottish Deer-hounds. In the days before the rifle, the deer were either driven to the guns or hunted with hounds and dispatched with the gun when brought to bay. In fact the portrait of James Murray depicts him with his seven-barrel muzzle-loading gun in hand and his two deerhounds at his knee. Glengarry' s portrait in full Highland garb by Raeburn is one of the painter's best known works; he is a colourful character, having fought a duel with a Lieutenant Macleod following a quarrel over which one of them should dance with a certain lady at an Inverness ball. Macleod died as a result and Glengarry was tried in Edinburgh but acquitted. Eventually he went bankrupt in a big way – his last throw in the form of a large compensation claim for the Caledonian Canal dredging operations on Loch Oich having been turned down.

James Murray for some years kept the Mains Farm in hand and his accounts in this connection do throw some light on his household affairs. In 1838, the family bought their groceries from Inverness, presumably such items as tea. Beef, mutton and poultry, meal and dairy produce came from the farm, from which the sales of produce including potatoes and turnips brought in about £500 per annum. Wages for the farm staff of six in all, including day labour, accounted to about £120 per annum a proportion of which was paid in the form of meal and coal. There was a "contra" in the accounts for the keep of three ponies and two carriage horses while the Laird's coachman, gardener, gamekeeper and carpenter had £5 allocated against their wages for the feed and graze of one cow each. A bakery at Fort Augustus supplied the bread and ale at £1.12.0 a barrel came from the brewery at Drumnadrochit. There was also a distillery in the vicinity of Invermoriston Smithy, now converted into a pottery. This was rented to Finlay Macdonald for a nominal sum and presumably the Mansion drew their supplies from this source although there is no record of such purchases. Whisky was in those days regarded as the poor man's drink, and the gentry preferring French red wines and brandy. Small sums were also paid out for herd boys and for messages taken across the Loch.

In addition to the Mains Farm, the Laird had in hand Easter Achnaconneran, which does not appear to have been profitable, undertaking also the Dalcattaig Farm which he rented from Lord Lovat. Up till 1902 Lovat had for many decades owned the lands of Port Clair, including Dalcattaig, which at one time belonged to Glenmoriston, and to have been lost in a wager with his Lordship. No doubt there is some truth in this old story but from the evidence on paper it seems more likely that it was the Dalcattaig lands, not the whole of Port Clair, that were involved. On the Estate map of 1849 a march line is shown up Strone-a-Muic from the vicinity of the old pier and running along the top of the watershed to the Ault-na--Gaddich, more or less dividing Dalcattaig from Port Clair; a feu charter for Rudha Bhan describes the boundary at the east as being the old Glenmoriston march at the burn just west of the pier. Thanks to Harriet, daughter of James Murray who married Frank Morrison of a wealthy city family, the whole of Port Clair was bought from Lord Lovat, the Estate mortgage paid off and handsome bequests made to various members of our family – not to forget the cost of the beautiful little Church at lnvermoriston.

On the 25th of August 1868, John Grant , younger of Glenmoriston died at Moy at the age of 48, leaving his widow, Mrs Anne Grant with five sons and one daughter. This sudden death must have come as a great shock to his ailing father James Murray. Fortunately at the time his second son Colonel Ewen Grant was home on sick leave from India and the old Laird left the following foot-note to the draft of his own proposed settlements:

"Ewen, I hold to be the mainstay of the Glenmoriston family – for many years to come – without his immediate personal support and superintendance, the family and estates must fall under the control of strangers and absentees in other words of mercenary lawyers – employed by parties who however good and honest in themselves have – other distant personal interests to attend to."

The three sons of the Laird were out East but there were no longer the rich pickings of the previous century to be had from the "Honourable East India Company". While the Laird's three sisters had all married into Highland families, two of his daughters and his eldest son, now deceased had married into English families. The old Laird with his close-knit Highland background can perhaps be forgiven therefore in regarding some of them as strangers.

Colonel Ewen only survived his father by three years, departing this life in 1871 after returning from a short visit to India. On the 8 th of August 1868 James Murray Grant J. P., D.L, of Glenmoriston and Moy died at the age of 76 at his Inverness residence. He might well be described as the last of the old type of Glenmoriston Laird, having spent most of his life on home ground in close contact with the people of our Glen. During his lifetime, the Foyers Estate was left to him by his brother-in-law Simon Fraser, whose family had owned the property for several centuries. Glenmoriston disposed of this Estate in 1859 for £47,000 less certain debts on the property. In 1823 he had puchased the estate of Knockie and Glenmarkie from the Trustees of Fraser of Farraline who like many Highland landowners in those days, had been in financial difficulties. Glenmarkie was resold in the year 1870. In 1822, the estate of Moy near Forres was bequeathed to Glenmoriston by his cousin Colonel Hugh Grant, later of the Hon. East India Company. Colonel Hugh was a Shewglie Grant, from Glen Urquhart and it is often asked why he did not leave this valuable property to one of his own branch. He was a careful man as regards money matters and the story is that he invited the two whom he had in mind to visit him at Moy House. Glenmoriston arrived on foot while the gentleman from Shewglie drove up in a carriage-in-four and being considered extravagant was left a billiard table. Colonel Hugh had married while in India, a lady of French connection from Pondicherry. She was amongst other things, the maternal aunt of the Marquis de Louriston, Marechal of France and strangely enough related by marriage to the Duke of Wellington. Her family had considerable connections with Mauritious known in those days as "French Island" but she was unable to produce a child. The Grants of Shewglie had been very much involved in the 1745 Rebellion and had suffered grievously in consequence, but seem to have made a good recovery as their Charles Grant, born in 1746 and educated locally (please note) eventually became the chairman of the East India Co. His son held various Government posts, was Member of Parliament for Inverness-shire and became Lord Glenelg. Our family scrap book contains an interesting newspaper cutting giving an account of Colonel Hugh's funeral at the Shewglie graveyard. (See appendix F).

Moy House dated back to Monastic times, and the lands included several good arable farms, woodlands and the salmon net fishings at Shillahead just west of Findhorn. The estate included a wide range of sport including partridge, black game and wildfowl. It also included the Culbin sands which in the writer's childhood looked like a corner of the Sahara but have since been planted by the Forestry Commission undoubtedly a triumph in development in their minds but to others rather a sad one.

The late Laird sold the bulk of the M oy Estate in 1920. The property for which Colonel Hugh Grant had paid around £12,000 in 1777 must now be worth as much, if not more than the Glenmoriston lands but enough of that.

Before going further it would seem appropriate that some account should be given of the twelfth Laird's children. His eldest son, John, married Emily, daughter of James Morrison of Basildon Park, Berkshire in 1850, who was presumably a close relation of Frank Morrison who had married John's sister Henrietta (Harriet). The Morrisons owned a prosperous business in the City of London. Little is known about Emily who appears to have been very delicate and seldom seen in the North. She must have died around 1855. In 1858 John married again, to Anne, daughter of Robert Chadwick of High Bank Prestwick, by whom he had four sons and one daughter. Owing to his sudden death, already mentioned, when his children were in their infancy, very little information has been passed down about his life. Perhaps he was rather overshadowed by his father, who survived him by one year but he had the distinction of being the first of -the family to take his bride from over the Border.

His pall-bearers were his father, his brother Colonel Ewen, retired from the East India Company, and his "in-laws" Fraser of Balnain, Major Chadwick William Unwin and Frank Morrison.

The last named who was the son-in-law of the Laird had, in 1859 a lease of Invermoriston House and shootings. He seems to have been rattler a difficult tenant and there was some acrimonious correspondence about interference to his sport from timber operations. Our family regarded him as a bit eccentric. Although a very wealthy gentleman it was said that he played the violin in the orchestra at the old Empire Theatre when he felt so inclined.

As mentioned earlier the four younger sons of the twelfth Laird Ewen, Patrick, Hugh and James Murray joined the service of the Hon. East India Company. Unfortunately the writer has been unable so far to obtain details of their active service, although they must have served through the Mutiny. The first to come home was Patrick in 1862. He took a leading part in the management of his father's Trust. He had married Elizabeth, second daughter of Donald Charles Cameron of Barcaldine in 1856 who bore him two sons and three daughters. The next to return was Colonel Ewen who was home on sick leave, at the time of his brother's funeral in 1876. He married Mary, the eldest daughter of Colonel Arnold Pears of the Madras Artillery in 1863. He had one son and three daughters. He died in 1871 after a short visit to India.

James Murray, the youngest, retired from India with the rank of Major General in the year 1870. He married Helena, third daughter of Donald Charles Cameron of Barcaldine in 1851, when he was still an Ensign and therefore, according to the East India Company contravening regulations. His C.O. fined him £60 for his offence. There were four sons and three daughters from the marriage. One of his grand-daughters, Mrs Heron-Watson tells the writer that while still a lad, James Murray was fishing along the shore of Loch Ness when he saw a horrible creature emerging from the water. He took to his heels and made tracks for the keeper's house. He was advised there to keep quiet about what he thought he had seen as no-one would believe his story. It seems that he did keep very quiet, in fact too quiet, for a couple of days after this the account of the horrible beast was extracted from him. In the writer's young days there was an old character, rather a bad one by all accounts, who claimed to have seen a "sairpent" near the mouth of the river,

Colonel Hugh, the third son of James Murray, married an Indian lady and never returned to this country. They had a son and daughter who married a German of the name of Sass. She had two sons who apparently became planters. They came to fight on our side in the first World War but nothing seems to have been known about them.

Three of James Murray'a daughters married, Jane to William Unwin of the Colonial Office, Elizabeth to James A. Pierson of the Gund, Arbroath and Henrietta (Harriet) to Frank Morrison.

The writer hopes to complete an up to date Family Tree before long, from the twelfth Laird onwards. As nearly seventy great-grandchildren are involved it is quite a formidable task.

As earlier mentioned, Iain Robert James Murray Grant became Thirteenth Laird in 1868, at the age of eight years. His widowed mother was appointed his Curator "loco-tutoris". The young laird's grandfather had arranged that the Glenmoriston Estates were to be administered by Trustees till 1885, on which date the youngest son Frank would come of age.

Without going into details it can be said that the financial position was complicated and none too healthy. John Grant, the Younger of Glenmoriston had, in the year of his unexpected death, loaned £8,600 to Donald Cameron of Clunes against the bond on the estate of Finask. The young laird was entitled to call up this Bond when he reached the age of 21 but in the meantime his late father's available estate amounted to the modest sum of £3,490. Fortunately there were funds under the marriage settlement to provide to some extent for John Grant's five children. At the same time the Glenmoriston Trustees had to contend with the interest to be paid on heritable bonds amounting to £43,000. To their credit this sum had been reduced to £25,000 by the time that the Trust was closed in 1885. The rise in value of the sporting leases helped them considerably but they also kept a close check on estate expenditure. Patrick Grant late of the Madras cavil service residing in London and James Chadwick of Church Street Manchester were the most active of the Trustees. They were joined by General James Murray Grant, fifth son of the old laird, who came back from India in the year 1880 and took up residence at Corstorphine, near Edinburgh.

It can be realized that somewhat remote control put considerable responsibility on the Estate Factor. John Sinclair who had held this post since 1850, died suddenly in 1874, his place being taken by Peter Burgess. From correspondence it is clear that both these men were capable and conscientious but as they both resided in Glen Urquhart and had to travel to Glenmoriston by pony traps the writer who held this post for twenty years odd, wondered what went on in their absence. Perhaps everyone was more honest in those days. Peter Burgess was also the agent at the Caledonian Bank, Drumnadrochit and handled the accounts of most of our family as shown by the continual requests for the remittance of money to addresses throughout the United Kingdom.

He was also on the parochial boards of three different Parishes, including Dyke for Moy Estate, plus the Roads, Police and Finance Committees. Stuart, the forester at Invermoriston and one Kennedy, at M oy did take some of the load off his shoulders. The latter seemed to enjoy sending bad news about the tenants who had died or were on their way out and revelled in the latest flood damage caused by the river Findhorn.

When the young Laird's mother took a lease of Dundreggan Lodge in 1879 she also took a hand in estate affairs. She had always been concerned about the state of the poverty stricken in the Glen and did her best to help them in a number of ways. Some said that she was "put-upon", but many years later a London Police Inspector on his retirement called upon her at Moy House to express his gratitude for the payment of his school fees, when a lad in the Glen. She was a devout lady but by no means narrow minded. When her third son, Heathcoat first went to sea on H.M.S. Nelson she made sure that he had all his "Admiralty papers, his bible and prayer book safe in his chest."

In 1885, when the Glenmoriston Trust was closed, the Laird was stat ioned at Fort Augustus with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders. Following his father's death his widowed mother moved from Moy House to a more modest residence in Inverness with her family of five.

It seems that the family made several trips abroad and Murray, as he was generally known by his contemporaries wrote to his uncles from Cannes in 1870. He was later educated at Eton. His mother quite rightly thought that he should be brought up in the Glen and in 1879, the Trustees agreed that she should have a lease of Dundreggan Lodge. Understandably they had been reluctant to hand over a sporting lodge that might have fetched a high rent from an outside tenant. The financial situation was improving steadily but the Estate was heavily burdened. Murray had been granted his commission with the 79 th in the year 1880, fighting with his regiment in the Egyptian and Nile campaigns. After the battle of Tel-el-Kebir he wrote to his uncle Patrick "I suppose you know more about these battles than I do. All I know is that I don’t care .much about the fighting and am very glad when the bullets stop whizzing round one's head." Many millions who have had the same experience would no doubt agree with these views. He went on to say that the Egyptians were the worst shots he had ever seen but they did inflict fairly heavy casualties on the 79 th Highlanders. Incidentally Egypt must have settled down after the termination of hostilities as Murray in the same letter, suggests that his uncle should bring his family out to Cairo for the winter. He came home on sick leave soon afterwards and was Deputy officer at Balmoral for a time. On his coming of age there were celebrations both in Glenmoriston and at Moy which was attended by both his relations who came from the south and the local tenants for whom there was a dinner and dance. Tents were hired and borrowed from the Highland Railway Company. A musician from Elgin quoted £4.10. 0 for providing a violin cornet and harmonium. He also recommended that an extra £1.5.0, for a contra bass would be well spent.

On the 17th of February 1877 M urray married Ethel Sophia, daughter of Colonel Cuthbert Davidson of Tulloch Castle, Ross-shire, deceased. The wedding reception was held at 20 Ennismore Gardens, London S.W. In the Glen, the Factor was instructed to serve whisky for the occasion. Meal was distributed to the poor and needy both of Glenmoriston and Moy Estates.    It seems that there was some difference of opinion as to who exactly came into this category, however the tenantry presented the young Laird with a clock and barometer. His honeymoon was spent in France and Italy and on his return he leased a house in John Street, Mayfair, rather to his mother's consternation. He spent his first Summer with his wife at Dundreggan Lodge, his mother having moved to Levishie to make way for the married couple.   The Denistoun family who had leased the Invermoriston shootings for some years had renovated and extended the Mansion House in the baronial style, with the addition of turrets, which was fashionable at the period. General James Murray Grant, the Laird' s uncle, considered these renovations more suited to a modern villa. The whole mansion was burnt to the ground in August 1930 and it would be interesting to have the General's views on the existing building erected in 1953.

From correspondence with his Factor, it seems that the Laird spent his time between Invermoriston and his Lo ndon residence where he kept a brougham and a Victoria. He was at that time a member of Whites, Scottish Club and the Naval and Military.

In the year 1891 he chartered a yacht with friends for a Mediterranean Cruise. A telegram came from Malta asking if the report was true that the Invermoriston Bridge had been swept away. The party visited Shepherd's Hotel in Cairo and en route stayed at the Grand Hotel, Monte Carlo.

The Laird was back at Invermoriston House early in 1892 but, sad to say, his wife deserted him and the marriage was dissolved in 1894. She died shortly afterwards.

Later in 1894, the Laird went on a shooting trip to the Canadian Rockies with his brother Ewen who had been cattle ranching in Dakota and Wyoming for some years back. His other two brothers, Heathcoat and Frank were in the Royal Navy and J. & N. Philips of Manchester respectively.

The late Laird would have seen a steady erosion of his authority by State intervention. For instance, the right of compulsive acquisition of his land by public bodies seemed incomprehensible to him. While it may be true that the lairds of the past gave little thought to land development they certainly were given little encouragement in this direction by any political party. Such incentives as the Woodland Dedication Schemes and the Hill Farm Improvement grants are of very recent origin. Strangely enough, the Highlands and Islands Development Board, set up in the 1960s was sponsored by a Socialist Government.

Any reader may consider the foregoing to be a very brief account of the life of the late Laird but the writer has had to rely almost entirely on the correspondence with the Estate Factor up to the end of the last century.

P. S.: Since writing this chapter on family affairs, Captain Ronnie Blacklock R.N. (ret’d) has kindly sent me a copy of the narrative compiled by has wife Aline (Astell) deceased, from the diaries of my Grandmother who married the widowed John Grant in the year 1858. Apparently he stayed with the Chadwicks in the previous year when visiting the Manchester Exhibition. "Old man Chadwick" had expressed doubts about his daughter isolating herself in "a heavily encumbered Highland Estate", but agreed to the marriage as he liked his prospective son-in-law. About the time "old Glen" moved from Invermoriston to Ness Bank his wife being too frail to run the big house. Then John Grant after a short stay at Leamington Spa took up residence at Moy House, in 1867. She was terribly upset by his sudden death. In 1869 she took her young family to Cannes for six months - Esherin 1871 - Dundreggan again in 1873, followed by a visit -to Spain and then back to Cornwall Gardens in London, leased by her brother-in-law, Patrick Grant - in 1889 she took Plefield Hall, near her family home at Prestwick, and in 1893 moved to Preston Montford. In 1895 she came back to Moy House where she lived with the Astell family (her daughter Emily and husband Godfrey Astell (army ret’d Colonel) until after World War 1.

Due to a typing error the following paragraph was omitted from this page:

In 1897 the late Laird married Mrs Gabrielle Myers (nee Cheille Long). This happy marriage lasted until her death in 1949. Her daughter Mercedes, a much loved m ember of the family is still with us.

Chapter 13