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Clan Galbraith

I ACCOMPLISH THE HUNT


Clan Hunter likely arrived in Scotland with King David I in the 12th century, and appear in the Ragman Rolls in 1296.

The Hunters were hereditary keepers of the royal forests of Arran and Little Cumbrae from an early date, and despite being heavily involved with the military in the 16th century, they were known primarily for being landowners who treated their tenants well.

The Hunter clan motto is "Cursum perficio" (I have completed the course) and the clan crest is a hound with an antique crown.

Scottish History

of Clan Galbraith


Royal huntsmen

In an age of supermarkets and convenience foods, it’s easy to forget that to put fresh meat on the table centuries ago required the skills of hunters trained in the art of tracking down and killing game.

Royal palates demanded a regular supply of game, ranging from wild boar to deer, and vast acres of parkland and forest throughout Europe were, in effect, royal larders.

The huntsmen appointed to protect these hunting preserves became important members of the royal household and even adopted ‘Venator’, the Latin form for their profession of hunter, as their surname. The name later took the English form of ‘Hunter.’

A family known as Venator served as hunstmen to the Dukes of Normandy, in France, and following the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 they settled in England.

The Hunters did not fight at the side of William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings, but followed him later to England.

The wife of one of the descendants of the Hunters who later settled in Scotland was a lady-in-waiting to William the Conqueror’s spouse, and is thought to have been one of the ladies who worked on the famous Bayeux Tapestry.

This linen strip, 223ft long and 1.5ft wide, graphically depicts the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings and the actual battle itself.

By the late eleventh to early twelfth century the Hunters had found a new home in Scotland and, close on 1,000 years later, are still to be found on the land in the north of Ayrshire where they first settled.

A Willieme le Venator, or William the Hunter, had by 1116 built a timber stronghold on the land that would later take the name of Hunterston, or ‘Hunters-town’, in Ayrshire, and by the middle of the thirteenth century this had been replaced with a much stronger structure built from stone.

It is believed that the Pele Tower, which survives to this day, was constructed around this time.

The exact date is not known, but from an early period after their arrival in Ayrshire the Hunters were appointed Royal Huntsmen.

What the historical record does show is that by the fifteenth century they were the hereditary keepers of the royal forests of the west coast islands of Arran and the Little Cumbrae.

The Hunters were among the many Ayrshire lairds who repelled the threat of Norse invasion at the battle of Largs in 1263, first entering the historical record as defenders of Scotland’s freedom.

King Hakon of Norway had sailed with a mighty fleet from Bergen in July of 1263 in response to a warning that Scotland’s Alexander III was determined to enforce his claim to the Hebrides.

Hakon’s fierce Viking raiders plundered Bute, Islay, and Kintyre before sailing to lie off the west coast township of Largs.

Alexander III hastily assembled a force of militia raised through the efforts of local lairds such as the Hunters and placed them on hills above the beach to meet the threat of mainland invasion.

A violent storm blew many of Hakon’s vessels onto the beach and, in an attempt to recover precious cargo from these ships, many of the Norsemen ventured ashore.

They were met by the militia, however, and after a series of violent skirmishes were driven back to those vessels that were still seaworthy. Hakon died only a few weeks later at Kirkwall, in Orkney.

Scotland had been saved from Norse invasion, thanks, in no small part, to the martial ardour of Ayrshire lairds such as Hunter and their retainers, and the battle is commemorated annually at Largs when a Viking long ship is ceremoniously burned.

The name of Aylmer le Hunter is to be found on the infamous parchment known as the Ragman Roll, on which Scottish lairds and magnates were compelled to sign a humiliating treaty of fealty to Edward I, Hammer of the Scots, in 1296.

Signed by 1,500 bishops, earls, and burgesses such as Hunter, the parchment is known as the Ragman Roll because of the profusion of ribbons that dangle from the seals of the signatories.

Signing a treaty of fealty is one thing, but honouring its terms is another. In common with many others who had not had any option but sign the treaty, the lairds of Hunterston avenged this insult to their honour by supporting the cause of their nation in the bitter Wars of Independence, that ravaged late 13th and early 14th century Scotland.

The climax of the Wars of Independence was the battle of Bannockburn, fought near Stirling in the summer of 1314, but many of the earlier key incidents took place on the Ayrshire lands known so well to both the great freedom fighter William Wallace and the warrior king Robert the Bruce.

Proof of the Hunter family’s loyalty to the cause of Scotland’s freedom comes in the form of a curious charter for the lands of Ardneil, dated May 2, 1374, and signed by Robert II.

Still in the possession of the Hunters of Hunterston, the charter confirms the grant of land to William Hunter, as reward for the rendering of faithful service.

A condition of retaining the lands is that the reigning monarch must be paid a silver penny in rent, at Hunterston, on the Feast of Pentecost, also known as Whitsun, or the seventh Sunday after Easter.

Successive lairds of Hunterston, up until the present day, have kept a collection of silver pennies in the off chance that the reigning king or queen actually decides to drop in to claim the rent!

Battle honours

While dedicated to the care of both their own Ayrshire lands and the royal forests, the Hunters continued to serve their nation on the battlefield – often at fatal cost to themselves.

John, the 14th Laird of Hunterston, fell with his king, James IV, at the disastrous battle of Flodden on September 9, 1513, while Mungo, the 16th Laird, fell 34 years later, at the battle of Pinkie, near Musselburgh, on the east coast of Scotland.

The defeat for the Scots at Pinkie was part of what was known as the Rough Wooing – an attempt by England’s Henry VIII to force agreement for the proposed marriage of his son, Edward, to the infant Mary, Queen of Scots.

Over the succeeding centuries the Hunters would continue to serve their country on the battlefield. Robert, a grandson of the 20th Laird of Hunterston, served with distinction both as a soldier and a diplomat.

During the War of the Spanish Succession, in which Britain was engaged in war with France, he served under the Duke of Marlborough, the commander of the British forces in the Netherlands, taking part in the famed actions at Blenheim, in 1704, Ramillies, in 1706, Oudenarde, in 1708, and Malplaquex, in 1709.

Hanging up his sword and spurs, he later served as British governor of Virginia and later of New York.

During the Indian Mutiny, Gould Hunter-Weston, husband of Jane Hunter-Weston, the 26th Laird of Hunterston, was present at the recovery of the British residency at Lucknow in September of 1857 after Indian soldiers and civilians who had revolted against British rule had seized it.

His son, Lieutenant-General Sir Aylmer Gould Hunter-Weston, became the 27th Laird of Hunterston following the death of his mother in 1911.

During both the campaign to win the Sudan back from Egypt that culminated in the battle of Omdurman in 1898 and the Boer Wars of 1899 to 1902, he served on the staff of Kitchener, while he was divisional officer to Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France from 1914 to 1915.

In charge of the British Army’s VIII Corps, he also played a leading role in the ill-fated Dardanelles Campaign, a bloody exercise in attrition that dragged on throughout most of 1915 to January 1916.

The disastrous campaign involved a brave but futile attempt by British, French, and Dominion forces to seize the Turkish Dardanelles Strait that connected the Aegean with the Sea of Marmara, in the hope it would knock Turkey out of the war.

Troop landings were made on the Gallipoli peninsula in April of 1915, but between December of that year and January of the following year they had to be withdrawn, after more than 250,000 casualties had been sustained.

The debacle forced future Second World War Prime Minister Winston Churchill from his post as First Lord of the Admiralty.

Following Gallipoli, Hunter-Weston later commanded VIII Corps on the Western Front, and after the war was the recipient of many honours, including that of the Distinguished Service Order.

A Conservative and Unionist Member of Parliament for North Ayrshire and Bute from 1916 until 1935, he was responsible for commissioning the architect Sir Robert Lorimer to restore Hunterston Castle, north west of West Kilbride, on the Ayrshire coast.

Sir Aylmer died in a fall from a turret in his ancestral home in March of 1940.

The restored castle, which still has its original roof beams, is adjacent to Hunterston House, work on which began in 1799, and which was extended in 1835.

The Hunters of Hunterston lost a legal battle against a Compulsory Purchase Order in 1956 by the then South of Scotland Electricity Board for land at Hunterston to build a nuclear power station.

Located two miles north of West Kilbride, on the coast, the Hunterston ‘A’ power station opened in 1964, while the Hunterston ‘B’ station was commissioned in 1976. When completed, the Hunterston ‘A’ station was at the time the biggest nuclear plant in the world.

Despite these encroachments on their land, however, the Hunters of Hunterston are unique in that they are among the few ancient Scottish families to still live on the site of where they first settled.

The Clan Hunter Association, with branches around the world, was founded in 1970, and Madam Pauline Hunter of Hunterston and of that Ilk, became 30th Laird and Clan Chief following the death of her father, Neil, in 1994.

Her father had not only continued a Hunter tradition of skill in archery, but was also a highly skilled sailor, representing Britain in two Olympic games and winning a silver medal.

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English History

of Clan Galbraith


In the wake of conquest

A name of truly ancient roots, ‘Russell’ derives from what was the Norman nickname for someone with red hair or noted for a particularly ruddy complexion.

Derived from the Old French ‘ros’, meaning ‘red’ and with spelling variations that include ‘Rossell’ and ‘Roussel’, the name originally indicated ‘the red haired or ruddish skinned one.’

Popularised as a surname in England in the wake of the Norman Conquest of 1066 – along with many other names – this means that flowing through the veins of its bearers today may well be the blood of those warriors who played key roles in one of the most pivotal events in the nation’s history.

By 1066, England had become a nation with several powerful competitors to the throne.

In what were extremely complex family, political and military machinations, the Anglo-Saxon monarch was Harold II, who had succeeded to the throne following the death of Edward the Confessor.

But his right to the throne was contested by two powerful competitors – his brother-in-law King Harold Hardrada of Norway, in alliance with Tostig, Harold II’s brother, and Duke William II of Normandy.

In what has become known as The Year of Three Battles, Hardrada invaded England and gained victory over the English king on September 20 at the battle of Fulford, in Yorkshire.

Five days later, however, Harold II decisively defeated his brother-in-law and brother at the battle of Stamford Bridge.

But he had little time to celebrate his victory, having to immediately march south from Yorkshire to encounter a mighty invasion force, led by Duke William of Normandy that had landed at Hastings, in East Sussex.

Harold’s battle-hardened but exhausted force of Anglo-Saxon soldiers confronted the Normans on October 14, with Harold drawing up a strong defensive position, at the top of Senlac Hill, building a shield wall to repel Duke William’s cavalry and infantry.

The Normans suffered heavy losses, but through a combination of the deadly skill of their archers and the ferocious determination of their cavalry they eventually won the day.

Anglo-Saxon morale had collapsed on the battlefield as word spread through the ranks that Harold, the last of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs, had been killed.

William was declared King of England on December 25, and the complete subjugation of his Anglo-Saxon subjects followed.

Those Normans who had fought on his behalf were rewarded with the lands of Anglo-Saxons, many of whom sought exile abroad as mercenaries.

Within an astonishingly short space of time, Norman manners, customs and law were imposed on England – laying the basis for what subsequently became established ‘English’ custom and practice.

Among those who had fought on William’s behalf at the battle of Hastings was Hugue de Roussel, who was rewarded with lands in Dorset – the region with which early bearers of the Russell name are particularly identified.

The name came to figure prominently in the frequently turbulent historical record, not least due to the fact that it is the family name of the Dukes of Bedford – whose magnificent seat is Woburn Abbey, the country house and estate in Woburn, Bedfordshire, that today features major attractions that include Woburn Safari Park and Golf Club.

One early and famous son of this family was John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, born in about 1485 at Berwick-by-Swyre, Dorset.

He came to hold some of the highest offices in the land and was at the centre of key moments in his nation’s history – serving under Henry VII, Henry VIII and Edward VI.

Described by one source as ‘one of the most accomplished gentlemen of his time’, he was appointed a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Henry VII.

As reward for his services to Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s – a result of the monarch’s decisive break from the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and its associated religious orders – he was granted what had been the Cistercian Order’s property of Woburn Abbey and its estates, the area of London now known as Covent Garden and the town of Tavistock, West Devon.

Other posts held during his long service to his monarchs include those of Lord Privy Seal and Lord High Admiral.

Created Earl of Bedford in 1550 by the young Edward VI, he died in 1555.

His son and heir, Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, was also closely involved as a nobleman, politician, diplomat and soldier in his nation’s affairs.

Born in about 1527, he served under Mary I during her reign from 1553 to 1558 and then under her successor Elizabeth I.

One of his many diplomatic duties under Elizabeth was representing her in December of 1566 at the baptism in Stirling Castle of the future James I (James VI of Scotland).

A rather more arduous duty, however, was serving for a time in what was then the wild borderland between England and Scotland – having to deal with what were known as ‘reivers’, who took their name from their lawless custom of reiving, or raiding, not only their neighbours’ livestock, but also that of their neighbours across the border.

The word ‘bereaved’, for example, indicating to have suffered loss, derives from the original ‘reived’, meaning to have suffered loss of property.

A constant thorn in the flesh of both the English and Scottish authorities was the cross-border raiding and pillaging carried out by well-mounted and heavily armed men, the contingent from the Scottish side of the border known as feared as ‘moss troopers.’

In an attempt to bring order to what was known as the wild ‘debateable land’ on both sides of the border, Alexander II of Scotland had in 1237 signed the Treaty of York, which for the first time established the Scottish border with England as a line running from the Solway to the Tweed.

On either side of the border there were three ‘marches’ or areas of administration, the West, East, and Middle Marches, and a warden governed these.

Complaints from either side of the border were dealt with on Truce days, when the wardens of the different marches would act as arbitrators. There was also a law known as the Hot Trod, that granted anyone who had their livestock stolen the right to pursue the thieves and recover their property.

Governor of Berwick from 1564 to 1567, Russell was Warden of the East Marches and, as such, tasked with dealing with his Scottish counterparts on Elizabeth’s behalf.

Appointed a Knight of the Garter in 1564, he died in 1585 and was interred in the family chapel at Chenies Manor House, a former Russell family property at Chenies, Buckinghamshire.

His eldest daughter, Anne Dudley, Countess of Warwick, born in 1549, was the third wife of Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick. A lady-in-waiting and close confidant of Elizabeth I, she died in 1604.

Her brother, Edward Russell, 3rd Earl of Bedford, was married to the highly colourful Lucy Russell (née Harrington), Countess of Bedford.

Born in 1580 and with family links to a number of aristocratic English families that included those of the Counts and Countesses of Pembroke, she was a patron of literature and the arts.

A beauty of her time and extremely accomplished and fluent in a number of languages, she is particularly noted for having been a patron of major Elizabethan and Jacobean poets who include Ben Jonson and John Donne; also a Lady of the Bedchamber to Anne of Denmark, wife of James I, she died in 1627.

It was through the death of the 3rd Earl of Bedford that his cousin, Francis Russell, inherited the title as 4th Earl of Bedford.

Born in 1593, he served in a number of political posts but is best known for having, through the great English architect Inigo Jones, developed the Russell family property granted to the 1st Earl into what is now the square and piazza of Covent Garden in addition to the church of St Paul’s; he died in 1641.

Politics and civil war

The fortunes of the noble family of Russell soared even higher in terms of honours and distinction through William Russell, the 5th Earl of Bedford, who was further elevated in the Peerage as 1st Duke of Bedford.

In common with his ancestral Earls of Bedford, he certainly lived through interesting times, not least the English Civil War and the subsequent Restoration to the throne of Charles II.

The monarch Charles I had incurred the wrath of Parliament by his insistence on the ‘divine right’ of monarchs, and added to this was Parliament’s fear of Catholic ‘subversion’ against the state and the king’s stubborn refusal to grant demands for religious and constitutional concessions.

Matters came to a head with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642, with Parliamentary forces, known as the New Model Army and commanded by Oliver Cromwell and Sir Thomas Fairfax, arrayed against the Royalist army of the king.

In what became an increasingly bloody and complex conflict, spreading to Scotland and Ireland and with rapidly shifting loyalties on both sides, the king was eventually captured and executed in January of 1649 on the orders of Parliament.

Born in 1613 – and as an indication of the conflicting loyalties of the time – Russell fought first on the Parliamentary side before switching allegiance to the Royalists and then back again for a time to the Parliamentarians before switching back to the Royalists.

Appointed Lord Lieutenant of Somerset in 1642 and also Lord Lieutenant of Devon, it was in that year that he added to his duties by serving as General of the Horse for the Parliamentary Army.

In October of 1642, he fought at the battle of Edgehill, but by the summer of the following year he became a member of the Parliamentary faction known as the ‘peace party’, that strived to seek an accommodation with Charles I.

The cause of the peace party foundered and Russell switched allegiance to the Royalists, fighting on their behalf in a number of major engagements that included the Siege of Gloucester in 1643, the first battle of Newbury in September of that year and the second battle of Newbury in the summer of the following year.

Because of the conflicting loyalties he had displayed, he was never fully trusted in Royalist circles.

But, nevertheless, he not only performed the important role of carrying the sceptre of Charles II at his coronation in 1661, but also that of William of Orange following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that had deposed the Catholic Stuart monarchy in favour of the Protestant William and his wife Mary.

Elevated to the high honour of a dukedom in 1694, as 1st Duke of Bedford, and also that of Marquess of Tavistock, followed a year later by that of Baron Howland of Streatham, he died in 1700.

One of his sons was William Russell, born in 1639, and better known as Baron Russell.

The ill-fated baron, a leading member of the Country Party, forerunner of the Whig Party, was executed in 1683 for his involvement in the Rye House Plot – an abortive attempt to assassinate Charles II and his brother the future James II as they returned from Newmarket to London.

In the BBC television series Who Do You Think You Are? it was revealed that the actress Celia Imrie is one of his descendants – his eight-times granddaughter.

Serving for a time as First Lord of the Admiralty, John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, was born in 1710. He died in 1771 while, through also holding the post of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he was instrumental in attempting to curb the harsh penal policies then in place against the island’s Roman Catholics.

A leading politician of the Whig Party, John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, was born in 1766. Also serving as a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and appointed a Knight of the Garter in 1830, he died in 1839.

He was the father of John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, born in 1792. As a Whig politician, he served as Prime Minister of Great Britain on two occasions.

These were from July of 1846 to February of 1852 and, in what is known as the Second Russell Administration, from October of 1865 to June of 1866; created Earl Russell and Viscount Amberley in 1861, he died four years later.

He was the father of John Russell, who succeeded him as Viscount Amberley. Born in 1842, he was an early advocate – highly controversial for his times – of women’s suffrage and birth control.

These were campaigns that also received the vociferous support of his wife Katharine Russell (née Stanley), Viscountess Amberley; she died in 1874, two years after her husband.

One of their sons was the celebrated philosopher, mathematician, logician, historian and writer Bertrand Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, born in 1872.

A Fellow of the scientific think-tank the Royal Society and author of a number of works that include, along with A.N. Whitehead, Principia Mathematica and his 1966 The Prospects of Industrial Civilization, he died in 1970.

His daughter, Lady Katharine Jane Tait, born in 1923, is the author whose many works include her 1975 My Father, Bertrand Russell.

Born in 1940, Henry Robin Ian Russell, 14th Duke of Bedford, is best known for his appearance with his wife Henrietta in the BBC television series Country House that featured the family’s ancestral home of Woburn Abbey.

He died in 2003 and was succeeded, as 15th Duke of Bedford, by his son Henry Ian Russell, born in 1962.

In contemporary politics, Michael William Russell, better known as Mike Russell, is the Scottish National Party (SNP) politician born in 1953 in Kent to a Scottish father and an English mother.

Posts he has held in the Scottish Parliament include Minister for Environment, Minister for Culture, External Affairs and the Constitution and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning.

Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Argyll and Bute, he is also a prolific author with works that include his 1998 In Waiting: Travels in the Shadow of Edwin Muir.

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Family History Mini Book


We hope you enjoyed reading this excerpt from this mini book on the English history of the Galbraith family.

You can buy the full book for only
$5.08

121 Clan Galbraith

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The Crests

of Clan Galbraith

Clan Galbraith
Clan Galbraith (Hunterston, co. Ayr)
Clan Galbraith (Blackbrass, co. Stirling)
Clan Galbraith (Lanark)
Clan Galbraith (of that Ilk, and Craigend)
Clan Galbraith (Kindcardine)
Clan Galbraith
Clan Galbraith
Clan Galbraith (1619)
Clan Galbraith (Cork)
Clan Galbraith
Clan Galbraith
Clan Galbraith
Clan Galbraith
Clan Galbraith
Clan Galbraith
Clan Galbraith (Brimaston, Pembrokeshire)
Clan Hunter
Clan Russell
Clan Russell
Clan Russell
Mitchell family
Mitchell family
Mitchell family
Mitchell family
Mitchell family
Russel family

28 Clan Galbraith

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