[45] The Dowager Countess of Seafield (1884-1911)
THE WIDOW OF THE SEVENTH EARL has now to be discussed, because she had been left the whole of the estates by her son, the eighth Earl, and thus had full control of the estates (including the Grant estates), extending over 300,000 acres, until her death in 1911. The dowager was a younger daughter of the 11th Earl of Blantyre, a title which became extinct in 1900 when the 12th Earl died.
During her years of proprietorship she seems to have lived as a recluse so far as the Ogilvie-Grants were concerned. Thus little is known about her personally. For example, the first time my uncle, the 11th Earl of Seafield, was in Speyside was in 1911 to act as chief mourner at her funeral procession from Cullen to Castle Grant and on to Duthil. He had never met her: she ensured he never came to Grant country. All family contacts with her, with one exception which will be described below, were through her law agent, Sir Charles Logan, W.S. Through him she sent various members of the family periodic small remittances. None of them had any other source of income. They were often in debt, and they had to live very economically. Logan also used to keep an eye on the family, doubtless to report to the dowager, and they were, it would thus appear, paid to keep away.
In 1902, my grandmother, the Dowager Nina Countess of Seafield, widow of the 10th Earl, had saved just sufficient money to pay passage to come over to England from New Zealand via Australia, accompanied by her daughters, my aunts, the Ladies Caroline Louisa, Sydney Montague, and Nina Geraldine Ogilvie-Grant. My grandmother wanted to meet and talk to the dowager. She also wanted to see her son, James, and his wife, who were living here, as well as wanting to live herself in Britain. She came over secretly, because she feared the dowager would try to stop her coming by cutting off her allowance, which is actually what had happened on occasions.
[46] Fortunately, my Aunt Caroline was a daily diarist, and I have her diaries from 1888 to 1930. Apart from what she did each day, they contain all sorts of other information, such as 'Duchess of Fife is 35 to-day'. The following account of their visit to Cullen House is based on my aunt's diary. My grandmother and her three daughters arrived at Tilbury on 19 February 1902, and stayed at the Euston Hotel till the 22 February, when they left Euston for Scotland. My grandmother wrote that they were met by Logan in London, who claimed that unless they returned to New Zealand their allowances would not be paid; however, something was actually paid soon after.
This is an extract from Aunt Caroline's diary:
23rd February 1902 (Uncle Eyre is 60)
We had a tiny compartment to ourselves and each had a corner, but we could not sleep one wink owing to the swaying of the train which went 607 miles in 131⁄2 hours. Such a terrible rate! Passed through many manufacturing towns in England. When we got to Scotland the snow was very thick; here and there the little low stone houses so funny. Got to Aberdeen at 11.45 a.m. Had lunch and waited in the warm waiting room till we got the Cullen train at 3.40. Reached Cullen at 6.10 and were directed to the Seafield Arms hotel. Very nice place. Well, we are really at Cullen. Such a quaint old place. We went for a nice long walk.
24th February
A fine day, but the air is cold. We got a cab and drove to Cullen House. The cabbie had to get a pass at the entrance and he was reluctant to go to the House but was persuaded after a firm order . . . The butler said Lady Seafield was out and so Mother left her cards.
25th February
Before breakfast was finished a Mr. or Sir James Campbell called, apparently the Dowager's agent. He seems a really nice man and had a long talk about various things. He really wanted to know what we wanted, as we had frightened the Dowager into fits. It was agreed we would call on the Dowager at 12 o'clock, but we must not speak one word on any kind of business or ask any questions. This was agreed and he said 'I suppose you can walk. I hear that you are very good walkers'. So we all walked up. A butler showed us through several beautiful rooms and into a very large room with a fire at either end. The Dowager soon came in, a pretty fair and very nervous little woman, followed by her elder sister, Lady Buchanan, and Campbell. Later Lord Charles Kennedy, the Dowager's nephew came in from shooting and very muddy. No one had much to say and we left after half an hour and shook the dust of Cullen House off our tired feet.
They stayed another three days and explored the district where they met several 'nice' local people and incidentally saw the dowager's carriage pass the hotel several times. They then returned to London.
It is difficult to explain or understand the inhospitable and, in fact, cruel reception described above. As will be seen from the brief resumé of her will [47] given below, the dowager's influence lasted till 1946 and beyond. She had enormous power in her lifetime. In a local press report about her funeral, it was said that it would not appear that her decease could be mourned in Speyside, because very few of the inhabitants actually knew her at all, since she did not go round much, and when she did she was always escorted, and protected from contacts with locals and tenantry. I have failed to obtain any personal information about her.
It is said that when she inherited, there were debts on the estates of some £800,000. An enormous sum for those days, 1884! The annual revenues from the 300,000-odd acres were said to amount to some £80,000, and during her life she kept the estates intact, and tried to pay off the debt, which, in fact, she nearly succeeded in doing—an achievement much to her credit. She was said to have lived mainly on her own private income. She had monuments to her husband and son placed in all 17 estate churches, and planned her own funeral down to the last detail.
For those who do not understand the management of a large landed estate, it must be explained that whilst £80,000 was an enormous annual income for those days, the costs of running the estates could easily swallow all this and more. Apart from government taxes, local rates, stipends to the Church of Scotland, and other similar standing charges, there would be immense repair, maintenance and renewal costs, staff wages for house and gardens, gamekeepers, foresters, estate manager, etc. Thus it can be seen that great care and skill would be required, in order to leave a surplus of revenue over income.
The Dowager Caroline had royalty staying on the estates for the shooting several times. King Edward VII was a frequent visitor. The first time was when he was Prince of Wales in 1895, at Tulchan Lodge. The story is that she had her head gamekeeper sleep under her bedroom window, in case the prince tried to visit her, as he had a reputation for 'fondness' of the opposite sex, and so far as I can ascertain the dowager was not a person to indulge in such frivolities. By all accounts the Tulchan shooting lodge was on a site behind the present fine castellated stone mansion, and was a rather rambling, unsatisfactory, building. The shoot was leased to Arthur Sassoon, and H.R.H. was often his guest there. (The Sassoons were very successful merchants in the Far East.) Some years later, the building was destroyed by fire, at which time the shooting tenant was Mr. MacQuorquadale, and under the terms of the lease he built the present, rather magnificent, castellated mansion. To return to the dowager: in all fairness it must be recorded that she did ask several times, from 1889 onwards, through Sir Charles Logan, that the two boys, James (the 11th Earl) and Trevor Ogilvie-Grant, my father, should be sent to Britain from New Zealand, at her expense, for education and upbringing, etc. However, no responsibility would be accepted for them. My grandmother could not bring herself to agree to trust her sons to the dowager, particularly with no onus of [48] responsibility, as she feared she would never see them again, and her children naturally agreed with her. Looking back, it is possible that this was a bad decision, and James at least appears to have later regretted his mother's decision. It is a pity that something could not have been worked out, so they could all have come home, but the Dowager Caroline could not be approached direct.
It is now necessary to give a brief resumé of some parts of the dowager's will, to enable the later history of our family to be fully understood. The will ran to 60 pages, with many codicils, dated from 1891 to 1911. First of all, there were a large number of financial bequests and annuities to her nieces and her other relations, friends and servants totalling some £80,000 or so, and to the Ian Charles hospital at Grantown. The main bulk of cash, furnishings, china, silver, plate and all the collected Grant and Ogilvie family jewellery was left to relatives of her family, who really had no need, being wealthy in their own right. It was said that cart-loads were taken away. All the dowager's private papers were to be burnt unexamined.
She left the remaining property to trustees to manage. The ones I met individually on one or more occasions were: Sir Reginal McLeod of McLeod; The Mackintosh of Mackintosh; Sir David Baird of Newbyth; Colonel Garden Duff of Hatton; and Evan J. Cuthbertson, W.S., who had succeeded Sir Charles Logan. They had to administer the whole, and keep Castle Grant and Cullen House available for the use of the Earl and Countess of Seafield, if the trustees saw fit. They were to attempt to reduce the debts on the estates, to pay certain annuities to the family of the 10th Earl, and when the next heir attained the age of 40 years to hand over entirely to him or her. They were given full discretionary powers within these limits. Thus they continued in full control, until my late cousin, Nina, became 40 years of age in 1946. They did normally pay all the remittances up to the full amount laid down for the family, and seem to have kept the estates intact, except for the sale of Balmacaan House and the estate at Glenurquart when my cousin inherited, which they said they sold to pay her succession duties, and also because it was uneconomic to manage, being at such a distance from the other properties. It was sold to a timber merchant, who recouped himself from the felling of the timber and then re-sold. The house is now, I understand, demolished. When I visited it many years ago, it was a large Georgian-style mansion with a wealth of varnished pine wood inside. The shootings and the house were let for many years to Americans called Bradley-Martin.
The trustees, I believe, did little to train my late cousin in management of her estates, but they did towards the end of their term of office make her husband, Mr. Derek Studley-Herbert one of their number, so that he had some advance training. The dowager further directed that after her interment the mausoleum at Duthil was to be closed, but kept in repair. On looking back over this history, I have come to the conclusion that the dowager was not [49] quite as bad as my grandmother, at least, had thought her to be. She did keep the estates intact and maintained. Whilst there were clearly mistakes on both sides, nevertheless I feel it would have been better if she could have had the family (and certainly the earl) up on Speyside a little, and had some direct contact with them during her life, instead of always employing an agent as an all-powerful watch-dog and intermediary. What is clear is that the dowager succeeded in making the Ogilvie-Grants hate her. In those days colonists were rather thought of as being primitive people, and the sort of question then asked by persons in Britain, who should have known better, was 'Do you eat with knives and forks?' Life in the colonies was hard and primitive, because everyday articles could not be very readily acquired. Most things had to be imported, and the question of cost was always uppermost. However, these considerations cannot fully account for the dowager's totally exclusive attitude.