(358) Bankes of Winstanley Hall

Bankes of Winstanley

The Bankes family were settled in Wigan by the 15th century and for several generations were pewterers in the town. In the mid 16th century, James Bankes (1542-1617), with whom the genealogy below begins, was sent to London to be apprenticed to a goldsmith. His master may well have been John Ballett, whose business partner he became and whose daughter he married as his first wife. At this period, goldsmiths functioned as bankers and also lent money on interest, and James became wealthy on the profits of this trade. From about 1576, he began to invest surplus money in land (and especially coal-bearing land), which not only offered greater security than money lent on bond, but had the advantage of conferring social status on the possessor. His purchases were mainly in the Wigan area, but also included the manor of Greet near Birmingham. Between 1590 and 1592, James retired from business and moved back to Wigan, where in 1596 he bought the manor of Winstanley and built the earliest part of Winstanley Hall. At much the same time, he married his second wife (his first wife and his son by her having died some years earlier) and produced a second family. His life is unusually well documented for the period, thanks to the survival of his memorandum book and a number of legal cases in which he was involved, but it remains curiously difficult to form a consistent picture of his character. When he was younger, and building up his estate, he was litigious and abrasive and engaged in some sharp business practice. The rector of Wigan, with whom he had a dispute about tithes, thought him 'a proud and insolent man'. But his memorandum book, written in his later years for his children, is couched in pious terms and contains much advice on estate management which amounts to advice to consider your tenants' interests as well as your own; perhaps that was the fruit of bitter experience, or perhaps he softened in old age!

When James Bankes died in 1617, his property passed to his eldest son, William Bankes (1593-1666), who had been educated at Grays Inn to equip him with the sort of legal knowledge useful in estate management (his younger brother, who entered the same inn at the same time, was called to the bar, and became a barrister in London). William is a shadowy figure by comparison with his father, but by dint of staying carefully out of politics, he seems to have managed to remain neutral during the English Civil War, and to have preserved his estate without impairment. His son, William Bankes (1631-76), by contrast, entered public life at the Restoration and was clearly sympathetic to the Court faction. He had a powerful sponsor in the form of Charles Stanley (d. 1672), 8th Earl of Derby, who found him a seat in Parliament and persuaded a reluctant King Charles II that he was of sufficient standing to become a Deputy Lieutenant. But it would seem that his religious sympathies were more radical than his political views, as he employed a deprived minister as tutor to his children: it may be that a similar ambivalence had motivated his father's neutrality.

William was succeeded by his son William Bankes (1658-90), whose public career was along much the same lines as his father's, but was cut short when he died aged 32. He was married but had no children, so the Winstanley estate passed to his younger brother, Thomas Bankes (1659-1728), who had a large family (many of whom died in infancy) but no public career. Thomas was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Robert Bankes (1699-1748), who went to Cambridge and evidently had scientific interests, as he later became a Fellow of the Royal Society, but who again died unmarried. He was followed by his younger brother, William Bankes (1709-75), about whom even less can be said, although it seems likely that he began the exploitation of the coal reserves on the estate for more than purely local consumption. His only surviving son, William Bankes (1751-1800), undertook the first recorded remodelling of Winstanley Hall in about 1780, but again had no children, and with him the continuous male line descent of the estate came to an end. He bequeathed his property to his first cousin, the Rev. Thomas Holme (1732-1803), who lived at Holland House, Upholland, and when he died soon afterwards the estate came to his eldest surviving son, Meyrick Holme (1768-1827), who took the name Bankes in 1804. Meyrick had a career as an officer in the Royal Navy, but retired some time in the 1790s as a lieutenant; he then served as a militia officer before inheriting Winstanley, and going on to become High Sheriff and a Deputy Lieutenant. He continued the process of developing coal working on the estate, and the profits of this enabled him to enlarge and remodel Winstanley Hall in 1818-19. It was, however, his son, another Meyrick Bankes (1811-81), who finally put coal mining on the estate onto a fully commercial basis, establishing coal depots in Liverpool and Manchester from which his coal was distributed directly to customers, and hugely increasing the scale of production.

In the 19th century, the profits of coal mining made the Bankes family a great deal richer than they had been before. In the 1830s, Meyrick Bankes, who took little part in public life and was 'of a retiring disposition', bought several large and contiguous properties in north-west Ross-shire to form the Letterewe estate, which was used as a late summer and autumn retreat for shooting and deer stalking. Over time, a series of large houses were built on this estate for members of his family. The earliest may have been Gruinard House, a curiously English neo-Tudor house which may have been built soon after Bankes purchased the property in 1835; Letterewe itself was rebuilt in about 1858; while Drumchork House at Aultbea was under construction for his eldest son in 1881-82; and was unfinished when first the father and then the son died within a few months of each other. 

In later life, Meyrick Bankes became increasingly eccentric, and he left separate wills respecting his English and Scottish property which were extremely complex, highly manipulative of his children, and provided lucrative work for lawyers for years afterwards. One of his principal objectives seems to have been to separate the ownership of Winstanley and Letterewe, and this he achieved. What he did not foresee was that both his legitimate sons would die without issue within a year of his will being proved. The effect of the wills was therefore that his eldest daughter, Eleanor (1837-1907), inherited the Winstanley estate, while his second daughter, Maria Ann (1839-1904) received Letterewe. Eleanor was married to William John Murray (1835-84), who owned a small estate of his own in Ross-shire but who was already confined in an Edinburgh asylum by the time his wife came into Winstanley. After he died, Eleanor joined forces with her second son to buy Balconie Castle (Ross-shire), which took the place of Letterewe as a base for Scottish holidays from 1890 onwards and remained in the family until the Second World War. Maria Ann had married Lt-Gen W.C. Robertson Macdonald of Kinlochmoidart, but divorced him in 1881 and married a Frenchman of modest physical stature, Paul Liot, who took the name Bankes and threw himself rather improbably into Highland life, where he became known as the 'pocket French laird'. Maria sold Letterewe after his death in 1901.

Winstanley Hall and Balconie Castle passed on Eleanor's death in 1907 to her second but eldest surviving son, George Hildyard Bankes (1867-1949), who was the last person to fully occupy either house. During his lifetime, many of the coal mines which had sustained the prosperity of the estate in the 19th century were closed, and after the Second World War (when both Winstanley and Balconie were requisitioned for military use) he also sold Balconie to a local timber merchant who had no use for the house and let it rot until it became dangerous and had to be demolished. His estate was still comfortably over £400,000 when he died, however, so it is hard to see why his daughter, Joyce (1904-74), who wrote articles and a book about the history of the Winstanley estate and was clearly interested in the place, was apparently unable to afford to live in the house, even after paying the swingeing death duties of the time. In the 1950s, she and her husband, Ralph Vincent Bankes (who was no relation, but a member of the Bankes family of Soughton Hall in Flintshire), carved a family flat out of the house and more or less abandoned the rest of the building. By the 1980s the house was unoccupied and it has remained so ever since, sliding ever more rapidly into dereliction and ruin. The estate remains in the hands of the family, but the house and a small amount of surrounding land was sold in 2000 to a housing development company which first applied for permission to demolish the house and redevelop the site and then submitted a scheme for restoration that involved so much enabling development that it was rejected by Wigan Council. The house is now partly roofless and almost beyond economic repair, and one hopes a creative restoration solution - perhaps involving sale to a building preservation trust - can be found before a catastrophic collapse takes place.

Winstanley Hall, Wigan, Lancashire

There was probably a manor house of the eponymous Winstanley family here from the 13th century, for there is a moated site in the park which is likely to have been the location of a high status dwelling. However the present Winstanley Hall is essentially an Elizabethan stone house built for James Bankes (1542-1617) soon after he bought the estate in 1596. The main front faces east, and has a half-H plan with two projecting wings either side of a recessed centre, with square projections in the re-entrant angles, originally forming the entrance porch and hall bay. It is one of three houses in the Wigan area built in this form, the other two being Birchley Hall (1594) and Bispham Hall (c.1600-10). 

Winstanley Hall: an engraving of the house in 1817, showing it before the removal of the gables.

The centre, wings, and the projections in between were originally all gabled, but the gables were taken down and replaced by a plain parapet in the early 19th century. The house was traditionally planned, with a great hall in the centre, a great chamber above, the porch leading into a screens passage at the lower end (to the right), and a bay window lighting the dais at the upper end. The original elevation may not have been entirely symmetrical but it had evidently become so by the 19th century, when the window lighting the dais end of the hall had evidently become a second porch. 

Winstanley Hall: the south front built by Lewis Wyatt in 1818-19, from an old postcard.

Winstanley was extensively remodelled by Lewis Wyatt in 1818-19 for Meyrick Bankes (1768-1827). He created a new south front, clustered around a four storey central tower, which is quite convincingly in the same style as the original work, and is united with it by the continuous parapet. His new range must, however, incorporate earlier additions, for at the south-west corner is a canted bay of 1780, designed by L. Robinson but with an extra storey added by Wyatt. The west range is gabled and irregular, but some of it seems to date from the 1780 period. There were further extensions at the north end of the house (helpfully with datestones of 1843 and 1889), but again they incorporate some earlier work. The interior is, or perhaps more accurately was until recent dereliction, largely of the Lewis Wyatt period. The staircase hall has an elegant neo-classical ceiling rose and a delicate wrought iron balustrade, and what may have originally been a drawing room but was later used as a study retains a neo-classical chimneypiece and simple frieze.

To the north-east of the house stands a large stable yard, loosely enclosed by four free-standing ranges of different, mostly 19th century dates. In the centre of the yard is a big Neptune fountain of c.1830 by William Spence, with rearing horses executed in stone. The once secluded park was probably given its present form by Lewis Wyatt, who built the lodge and gatepiers on Pemberton Road in c.1818, and perhaps also the former walled garden. During the Second World War, Winstanley Hall was requisitioned for military use, and open-cast coal mining was begun in the park in 1942.  The hall survived military occupation, although there was some vandalism, but the coal mining in the park caused subsidence which affected part of the house, even though coal was not taken from directly under the building. In the 1960s, the construction of the M6 motorway cut the park in two. However, the landscape of the park was reinstated after mining finished (and the Bankes family carried out some subsequent tree planting), and the motorway is sunk in a cutting, so the setting was not fatally compromised by these developments.

Winstanley Hall: the current state of the building after
a partial collapse of the roof.

As far as I have been able to establish, in the 1950s the family created a flat within the house which they continued to use, while largely abandoning the rest of the building. The house remained thus partly occupied until 1984, but has since been wholly abandoned and allowed to decay. The property was sold to a developer in 2000 who applied for permission to demolish the house, which was refused after Save Britain's Heritage intervened and offered financial and professional support for a scheme involving the restoration of the buildings. SAVE has also drawn up a proposed scheme of reuse, but although the developer has submitted a number of planning applications, none have yet been approved, apparently because the level of enabling development required by the developer is unacceptable to the Council. This has led to an impasse in which the only change is that the house accelerates towards disaster, and the cost of restoration rapidly increases. Some stabilisation work was undertaken on the courtyard buildings in 2015, with financial support from the English Heritage, but the condition of the house is now very poor: it has suffered from dry rot and extensive water ingress and, as a result, the roof and ceilings have partially collapsed. At the time of writing, it can still be saved, but time is running out fast and it is very much to be hoped that a scheme satisfactory to all parties can be agreed soon.

Descent: sold 1596 to James Bankes (1542-1617); to son, William Bankes (1593-1666); to son, William Bankes (1631-76); to son, William Bankes (1658-90); to brother, Thomas Bankes (1659-1728); to son, Robert Bankes (1699-1748); to brother, William Bankes (1709-75); to son, William Bankes (1751-1800); to cousin, Rev. Thomas Holme (1733-1803); to son, Meyrick Holme (later Bankes) (1768-1827); to son, Meyrick Bankes (1811-81); to daughter, Eleanor Starkie Letterewe (1837-1907), wife of William John Murray (later Bankes) (1835-84); to son, George Hildyard Bankes (1867-1949); to daughter, Joyce Helena Murray (1904-74), wife of Capt. Edward William Jervis Bankes RN (1904-84) ....sold 2000 (with 10 acres) to Dorbcrest Homes. Much of the surrounding estate still belongs to the Bankes family.

Letterewe House, Ross & Cromarty

Letterewe House: the house as it exists today

The house began as a minor laird's house on the estate of the Mackenzies of Gairloch, described as 'a good seat' in 1813, and reputedly having 16th or 17th century origins. The house can still only be reached by boat across Loch Maree or on foot, and the large estate (81,000 acres in 1996) is one of the most remote parts of the British Isles. Successive remodellings, including a major one in 1858 for Meyrick Bankes (1811-81) and another after 1976 for Paul Fentener van Vlissingen, have turned the house into a pretty white-harled baronial shooting lodge with bartisans on the corners, tall dormers breaking into the roof, and a pyramidal-roofed tower with a cupola on top. The house is now available for short-term rental on a self-catering basis.

Descent: Hector Mackenzie sold 1835 to Meyrick Bankes (1811-81); to daughter, Maria Ann (1839-1904), wife of Lt-Gen. W.C. Robertson Macdonald and later of Paul Liot (later Bankes) (d. 1901); sold 1901 to Lawrence Dundas (1844-1929), 3rd Earl and later 1st Marquess of Zetland, who gave it c.1922 to his son, Lawrence John Lumley Dundas (1876-1961), 2nd Marquess of Zetland; sold to Col. Bill Whitbread (1900-94), who sold 1977 to Paul Fentener van Vlissingen (1941-2006); to daughters Alicia and Tannetta Fentener van Vlissingen.

Balconie Castle, Evanton, Ross & Cromarty

An early 19th century castellated house, built on the site of a medieval tower house, and said to have incorporated part of its fabric. It was constructed for Alexander Fraser, who managed one of Evan Baillie's estates in Grenada and married his daughter; he purchased the estate in 1806 and later founded the adjoining village of Evanton. His house was a six-bay, three-storey block with a central tower and a service wing to one side. It was essentially a rather plain building with sash windows, but was given a touch of Gothick fantasy by a crenellated parapet all round, which was repeated on the top of the tower.

Balconie Castle: the house in the early 20th century, from an old postcard.

The house was altered internally and extended by Andrew Maitland & Sons for George H. Bankes in 1891-92, shortly after he and his mother jointly purchased the property, and was subsequently used as a holiday home and a base for shooting and fishing in the summer months. During the Second World War the house was requisitioned by the Army and troops were billeted there. After the War, George Bankes sold the estate to A.J.M. Munro, a timber-merchant from Alness, who allowed the house to remain empty. It gradually became derelict and a target for vandalism, and by 1968 it was deemed unsafe and was blown up. The stables and some outbuildings survived and were later converted into a private house.

Descent: built c.1806 for Alexander Fraser (1759-1837); sold 1838 to Hugh Munro of Teaninich; given to illegitimate daughter, Catherine (d. 1877), later wife of [forename unknown] Reid; to cousin, Mary Mackenzie, who sold 1890 to George Hildyard Bankes (1867-1949) and his mother, Eleanor Starkie Letterewe Bankes (1837-1907); he sold 1948 to A.J.M. Munro, who demolished the house in 1968. 

Bankes family of Winstanley Hall

Bankes, James (1542-1617). Reputedly the son of William Bankes of Wigan, born 1542. Citizen, goldsmith and moneylender of London, in partnership with John Ballett until 1576;  retired between 1590 and 1592; by industry and sharp practice he built a substantial fortune, which from 1576 onwards he increasingly salted away in the purchase of land, especially land with mineral resources in the form of coal. He was litigious, and the rector of Wigan noted that he was "of great wealth and riches, and by means thereof grown to be a very proud and insolent man". He married 1st, 6 June 1575 at St Vedast, Foster Lane, London, Elizabeth, daughter of his partner John Ballett, and 2nd, c.1590, Susan (d. 1627/8), daughter of William Sherrington of London, haberdasher, and had issue:
(1.1) A son, who died young;
(2.1) John Bankes (d. 1592); died in infancy and was buried at Wigan, 13 August 1592;
(2.2) William Bankes (1593-1666) (q.v.);
(2.3) Thomas Bankes (1595-1651), baptised at Wigan, 21 December 1595; educated at Grays Inn (admitted 1613); barrister-at-law in London; married, 1626, Elizabeth, daughter of William Bispham and widow of Edward Cotton of Cotton Hall (Cheshire); died 1651;
(2.4) Margaret Bankes (b. c.1600); married, 1625, George Hyde of Urmston (Lancs);
(2.5) Ralph Bankes (b. c.1600), born about 1600; living in 1617;
(2.6) James Bankes (1603-61), baptised at Wigan, 12 October 1603; buried at Wigan, 22 August 1661.
He purchased the manor of Winstanley in 1596 and built Winstanley Hall soon afterwards. His second wife inherited substantial property, including Wardley Hall, from her family before 1601, when she sold it to other members of her family.
He died 4 August 1617 and was buried at Wigan the following day; his will was proved at Chester, 29 October 1617 (effects £336). His first wife died before 1590. His widow died in 1627/8 and was buried at Wigan.

Bankes, William (1593-1666). Eldest surviving son of James Bankes (1542-1617) and his second wife Susan, daughter of William Sherrington of London, merchant, baptised at Wigan, 30 December 1593. Educated at Grays Inn (admitted 1613). He maintained a stance of neutrality throughout the Civil War and successfully preserved his property intact. He married 1st, 1613, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Ireland, kt., of Bewsey Hall (Lancs) and 2nd, 20 May 1624 at Chastleton (Oxon), Sara (1590?-1668), daughter of Walter Jones of Chastleton House, and had issue:
(1.1) James Bankes (1614-59), baptised at Wigan, 15 May 1614; educated at Grays Inn (admitted 1634); died in the lifetime of his father and was buried at Wigan, 12? February 1658/9;
(1.2) Thomas Bankes (1615-57?), baptised at Wigan, 15 August 1615; died in the lifetime of his father, and was perhaps the man of this name buried at Wigan, 30 April 1657;
(1.3) William Bankes (b. & d. 1619), baptised at Wigan, 15 June 1619; died in infancy and was buried at Wigan, 29 June 1619;
(2.1) William Bankes (1630-76) (q.v.).
He inherited Winstanley Hall from his father in 1617.
He was buried at Wigan, 13 October 1666. His first wife was buried at Wigan, 2 April 1621. His widow was buried at Wigan, 25 June 1668.

Bankes, William (1630-76). Only recorded son of William Bankes (1593-1666) and his second wife, Sara, daughter of Walter Jones of Chastleton (Oxon), baptised at Wigan, 19 August 1630. MP for Newton, 1660 and Liverpool, 1675-76; JP for Lancashire, 1665-66, 1670-76; DL for Lancashire, 1660-62, 1663?-76; Vice-Admiral of Lancashire and Cheshire, 1673-76; Commissioner for Assessment, 1660-74; joint Farmer of the Excise for Lancashire, 1665-74; Freeman of Liverpool by 1670. He was a client of the Earls of Derby, who promoted his career and persuaded King Charles II to accept him as a Deputy Lieutenant. As an MP, he was a supporter of the Court, but in the early 1660s, he employed the deprived Presbyterian minister, Adam Martindale, as tutor to his children. He married, 23 October 1656, Frances (d. 1693?), daughter of Peter Legh of Bruche (Lancs), and granddaughter of Sir Peter Legh of Lyme Park, and had issue:
(1) William Bankes (1658-90) (q.v.);
(2) Thomas Bankes (1659-1728) (q.v.);
(3) Rev. James Bankes (1660-1742), born 1660; educated at St Paul's School, London, and Trinity College, Cambridge (matriculated 1679; BA 1682/3; MA 1686); Tutor and Librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1691-1706; rector of Lilley (Herts), 1706-09; rector of Bury (Lancs), 1710-43 and vicar of Heywood (Lancs), 1729-42; died unmarried and was buried at Wigan*, 21 May 1743;
(4) Sarah Maria Bankes (1663-1748); died without issue;
(5) Frances Bankes (b. 1665), baptised at Wigan, 23 May 1665; died young before 1670;
(6) Legh Bankes (1666-1705), baptised at Wigan, 30 August 1666; educated at Grays Inn, London (admitted 1685); married, 19 August 1703 at Ashton-in-Makerfield (Lancs), Alice, widow of Thomas Launder of Newhall, Ashton; buried at Wigan, 5 October 1703;
(7) Charles Bankes (1667-71), baptised at Wigan, 20 February 1667/8; died young and was buried at Wigan, 8 August 1671;
(8) Anne Bankes (1669-72), baptised at Wigan, 28 October 1669; died young and was buried at Wigan, 18 June 1672;
(9) Frances Bankes (1670-1745), baptised at Wigan, 22 February 1670; married, Edward Morgan (b. 1669) of Golden Grove (Flints.) and had issue including Catherine (who married Robert Bankes (1699-1748) (q.v.)); died 1744/5;
(10) Piers Bankes (b. & d. 1673), baptised at Wigan, 6 February 1672/3; died in infancy and was buried at Wigan, 5 April 1673;
(11) Elizabeth Bankes (b. 1675), baptised at Wigan, 31 August 1675; married, 1711, her cousin Richard Legh (1679-1740), Captain of Horse, third son of Richard Legh of Lyme Park, but died without issue.
He inherited Winstanley Hall from his father in 1666.
He died 6 July 1676 and was buried at Chastleton (Oxon); his will was proved in the PCC, 9 November 1676. His widow is said to have died in 1693.
* According to an entry in the Bury parish register.

Bankes, William (1658-90). Eldest son of William Bankes (1630-76) and his wife Frances, daughter of Peter Legh of Bruche (Lancs), born 24 August 1658. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford (matriculated 1676) and Grays Inn (admitted 1676). MP for Wigan, 1679, 1688-89 on the interest of the Earl of Derby. JP for Lancashire, 1683-88, 1689-90 and DL for Lancashire, 1689-90. Bailiff of Liverpool, 1685-88. He married, 31 March 1687 at Wigan, his cousin Lettice (1663-1719), daughter of Richard Legh of Lyme Park (Cheshire), but had no issue.
He inherited Winstanley Hall from his father in 1676 and came of age in 1679.
He died 10 January 1689/90 and was buried at Wigan. His widow married 2nd, 1700, Thomas Fleetwood, and died in 1719.

Bankes, Thomas (1659-1729). Second son of William Bankes (1630

(321) Baillie of Dochfour and Redcastle, Barons Burton

Baillie of Dochfour

The Baillie family are said to have originated at Bailleul, close to the Belgian border in northern France, and trace their descent from Guy de Balliol who was granted lands in Northumberland after the Battle of the Standard in 1139. John Balliol, king of Scotland at the close of the 13th century, was a member of the family. John's great-uncle, Sir Alexander de Balliol, served as Great Chamberlain of Scotland, and his grandson, William, settled at Lamington (Lanarks) and took the name Baillie. In the mid 15th century, William's great-great-grandson, Alexander Baillie, and two of his younger brothers, murdered the priest who was their tutor and fled abroad. Alexander later returned, under the protection of his cousin, Alexander Gordon, 1st Earl of Huntly, and fought for his cousin in the forces of King James II of Scotland at the Battle of Brechin in 1452. For his part in that significant victory, Alexander Baillie is said to have been rewarded with a grant of lands at Dunain, Dochfour, Leys and Torbreck, a fairly compact group of estates south and south-west of Inverness, which descended to Alexander's successors through several generations.

Dunain House: garden front before 2014. Dunain passed out
of the family in 1872 and became a hospital in the 20th century.
It was burned out in a suspicious fire in 2014.

The family seat was at Dunain, but nothing seems to be known of their castle there, which was rebuilt as a five-bay mansion house in the late 18th century and much altered later.

Over time, the component parts of the Baillie estate were used to provide for younger sons, and further properties, acquired by marriage and purchase, augmented their original patrimony, but Dunain and Dochfour remained at the centre of their holdings. However, in 1657, Dochfour was bequeathed to David Baillie, a younger son of Dunain, and the separate branch of the family which is the subject of this article was established. David and his son Alexander (fl. 1659-1737) adhered to the Roman Catholic religion, and this was one factor which led to tensions and a certain rivalry with their Protestant relatives at Dunain. It also encouraged the development of close ties of marriage between the Baillies of Dochfour and the Catholic Frasers of Reelig. By the time of the second Jacobite rising in 1745 Hugh Baillie (c.1710-50) was the owner of Dochfour, and he came under pressure from Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, the chief of Clan Fraser, to declare for the Jacobite cause. Hugh resisted this pressure and chose to give active support to neither side, and he is said to have watched the Battle of Culloden on the far side of Inverness with his young sons from the hill above Dochfour. A strategy of neutrality may have saved him from the fate of Lord Lovat, who was executed in 1747, but the victorious Hanoverian troops believed Hugh Baillie to be a Jacobite supporter, and as they passed down the Great Glen Dochfour was burned and the estate was subsequently seized by the Crown. Like many forfeited estates, Dochfour was later returned to the family. The date when this happened seems to be obscure, but it was probably in the mid 1750s, by which time Hugh Baillie had died and been succeeded by his young son, Alexander Baillie (c.1732-99).

It was Alexander Baillie who built a new house at Dochfour to replaced the mansion burned after the '45. It was a relatively modest five bay house, but as the first modern classical house with a landscaped park in the Great Glen, it attracted some attention, and in 1780 William Baillie of Dunain was urged to emulate his cousin in building a new house to rival Dochfour: the Georgian house illustrated above was presumably the result. At much the same time, the new house at Dochfour and its parkland setting were painted by Alexander Nasymth. In other respects, Alexander Baillie is one of the most obscure members of the family. Contrary to what is stated in many earlier genealogies, he was married, but he had no surviving legitimate children, and when he died in 1799 he left only an illegitimate son. He left a rather complicated will, which gave his younger brother Evan Baillie (c.1741-1835) an option to buy the Dochfour estate from his executors for the advantageous price of £10,000; if Evan exercised his option, the illegitimate son received the cash; if not, he received the estate. Evan, who had sought his fortune in the West Indies and was well-established in Bristol as a West India merchant, had already bought the adjoining Kinmylies estate in 1774 and did agree to buy Dochfour as well, although he did not move north to live on his estates until he retired in 1812. A few years later, in 1818, he bought also bought the Tarradale estate in Ross & Cromarty.

Evan Baillie, who died aged 93, was the most long-lived of a family remarkable at the time for its vigour and longevity. His eldest son, Peter Baillie (1771-1811), was an exception to this tradition, being plagued with ill-health, which limited his political ambitions, for some years before his premature death at the age of forty.  When Evan Baillie died in 1835, he therefore divided his property between Peter's eldest son, another Evan Baillie (1798-1883), and his own surviving second and third sons. Evan Baillie the younger received Dochfour, while Col. Hugh Duncan Baillie (1777-1866) was left Tarradale and a share of the Bristol and West Indian interests, and James Evan Baillie (1782-1863) the rest of the Bristol and the West Indies property. All three men prospered, but James, who was reported to be a workaholic who devoted every waking hour to the increase of his wealth, left a very substantial fortune - said in the press as £730,000 - at his death.

Redland Court, Bristol: an engraving by J.H. Storer showing the house
shortly before James Evan Baillie acquired it in 1829.

Much of this had been invested in further Scottish estates (Glentrome, Glenelg, Glenshiel and Letterfinlay) as well as Redland Court in Bristol and an estate in Glamorganshire. While he left significant legacies to dependents (some of whom may have been illegitimate children), the majority passed to his nephew, Evan Baillie of Dochfour, who at his death in 1883 owned 92,648 acres in Inverness-shire and Ross & Cromarty. It is no surprise, therefore, that he was able to afford greatly to enlarge Dochfour House in 1838-41 and again in 1870-71, creating the house that exists today.

Col. Hugh Duncan Baillie (1777-1866) was a partner in the Bristol Old Bank from 1812 until his death in 1866 and also had interests in more than twenty plantations in Guiana and the West Indies. He inherited Tarradale (Ross & Cromarty) from his father in 1835 and three years later bought the adjoining estate of Redcastle and at once brought in William Burn to remodel the 17th century castle as a modern country house. Once work on the house was complete, he seems to have spent an increasing proportion of his time there, rather than in Bristol or London, where he also had a house. Redcastle and Tarradale were entailed upon his eldest son, Henry James Baillie (1803-85), who for was MP for the Inverness Burghs for twenty-eight years, and served as a member of Conservative governments in the 1850s. Soon after coming into his inheritance he retired from Parliament, although it would seem that he continued to live largely in London. He had the misfortune to see all three of his sons predecease him without leaving male heirs, and so on his death in 1885 the Redcastle and Tarradale estates passed to his kinsman, Col. James Evan Bruce Baillie (1859-1931), who had also inherited the Dochfour property on the death of his grandfather, Evan Baillie, in 1883. This marked the apogee of the estate, as the Dochfour, Redcastle and Tarradale estates amounted in total to some 105,000 acres. In 1894, Col. Baillie made a highly advantageous marriage, to Nellie Lisa (1873-1962), the only daughter of Sir Michael Arthur Bass (d. 1909), the brewing magnate, who in 1886 had been raised to the peerage as 1st Baron Burton.  The original peerage grant was made in the usual terms, with a limitation to male issue, of whom Lord Burton had none, but realising after his daughter had given birth to two sons that he would have descendants, Lord Burton obtained a new grant of the peerage in 1897 with a special remainder to his daughter and her male descendants. As a result, Nellie Baillie became Baroness Burton in her own right on her father's death in 1909, and held the peerage until her own death in 1962. She also inherited the Bass family properties in Staffordshire, an account of which is reserved to a future post on the Bass family. When he died in 1931, Col. Baillie left her Dochfour and Redcastle for life, and when she died in 1962 these Scottish estates passed to her grandson, Michael Evan Victor Baillie (1924-2013), who also inherited the peerage as 3rd Baron Burton. An old-fashioned, paternalistic and sometimes curmudgeonly Highland laird, he vested his property interests in a trust which was set up in 1984 after his eldest son (now the 4th Baron Burton) decamped to Australia. When he died in 2013 he was succeeded at Dochfour by his second son, the Hon. Alexander Baillie (b. 1963), who has begun putting the estate on a more commercial footing, meeting the challenges of the 21st century. It is to be hoped that measures will now be taken to stabilise or restore Redcastle, which has slipped from neglect to dereliction to ruin since the Second World War.

Dochfour House, Inverness-shire

The Dochfour estate has belonged to the Baillie family since about 1452, but it became the seat of a branch of the family only in the mid 17th century, when David Baillie, a younger son of the Baillies of Dunain, came to live here. He may have built a new house or remodelled an existing one: nothing seems to be known of this building except that it was burned by British forces in 1745 in reprisal for Hugh Baillie's assumed support of the Jacobite cause. 

Dochfour House: Alexander Nasmyth's painting of the estate from the north in 1780, showing the new house built for Alexander Baillie (c.1732-99).

Before 1780, Alexander Baillie (c.1732-99) began building an unpretentious harled laird's house which still forms the centre of the south-east front of the present building. It has two storeys and five bays, with paired windows in the outer bays. When Alexander's great-grandson, Evan Baillie (1798-1883), inherited in 1835, he brought in William Robertson of Elgin (c.1786-1841) to enlarge the house. 

Dochfour House: the original 18th century block (on the left) with the rooftop pavilions and tower added by William Robertson in 1839-41, from an old postcard.

In 1839-40, Robertson gave the existing building an Italianate flavour by adding low pavilions with wide eaves to the ends of the roof (sadly since removed), and a square three-storey Italianate entrance tower, fronted by a balustraded and urn-topped porte cochère to its north-east side. He also added a large new block west and north of the original house, containing the principal new rooms (library, drawing room and dining room). His new south-west front has shallow wings at either end with low hipped roofs and open pedimental gables above groups of three windows on the ground and first floors. In the recessed centre between these wings is a first-floor balcony above the garden door. Rising behind the centre is a big tower, originally with a shallow pavilion roof of two stages and broad bracketed eaves; the combination of wide projection and two-tiers of roof has a faintly Chinoiserie air.

Dochfour House: the west range added by Robertson in 1839-41 and extended in 1871, from an old postcard.

In 1871-72 there were further extensions and additions by Matthews & Lawrie, who extended Robertson's range further north-west and repeated at its end the facade of one of his shallow wings. The linking block connecting this to the original wing has a loggia-like ground floor and a recessed first floor. Matthews & Lawrie also built new stables to the north of the house, dated 1872, in the form of a courtyard of single-storey and attic ranges, with a tower rising in the centre of the south side, and they were presumably responsible for the ornamental dairy nearby of 1875. 

Dochfour House: the site as shown on the Ordnance Survey 6" map surveyed in 1870, before the house was extended.

The gardens of Dochfour were at first an open landscaped park. At the same time as Robertson enlarged the house, a series of formal terraced gardens were cut into the steep slope between the house and the lake. These were complete by the time Prince Albert visited in 1847, when he pronounced Dochfour 'beautiful, the house elegant, with a fine garden'. In the 1880s, the walled garden south of the house was extended and equipped with a variety of specialist glasshouses. 20th century developments concentrated on the area between the house and walled garden, where an Edwardian formal garden was laid out, enclosed by yew hedges which survive, although the formal bedding has long gone, and then in the 1930s a water garden was created. 

Dochfour House from the loch, showing the terraces below the house. Image: Des Colhoun. Some rights reserved.

In the late 20th century the formal gardens were in part revived and the fountain on the terrace below the house was restored. The gardens were briefly opened to the public in the 1980s.

Descent: bequeathed 1657 to David Baillie; to son, Alexander Baillie (fl. 1709); to son, Hugh Baillie (fl. 1730); to son, Alexander Baillie (d. 1798); to brother, Evan Baillie (1740-1835); to grandson, Evan Baillie (1798-1883); to grandson, Col. James Evan Bruce Baillie (d. 1931); to widow, Nellie Lisa Baillie (1873-1962), Baroness Burton; to grandson, Michael Evan Victor Baillie (1924-2013), 3rd Baron Burton; to son, The Hon. Alexander Baillie (b. 1963).

Tarradale House, Urray, Ross & Cromarty

A minor laird's house which stands close to the site of the former Tarradale Castle, which was an earthwork fortification guarding the end of Beauly Firth. The area has evidently been settled since the Stone Age, and the Tarradale estate is currently the focus of an intensive programme of archaeological investigation funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. 

This engraving of Tarradale House was published in 1875 but may reproduce a much earlier drawing showing the original form of the house.

The present Tarradale House is said to have been built in the 1680s for the Mackenzies of Applecross. It was sold in 1788 to Dr. Kenneth Murchison (d. 1796), who had made money while working in India for the East India Co. His son, Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871) was born in the house in 1792, and there is a 19th century engraving of the house commemorating that fact, which, if accurate and not idealised, may indicate its original appearance. However, this engraving certainly does not represent the house as it was at the time of publication, since there are other 19th century views in which the house looks quite different and is recognisably the building that exists today. To be accurate, therefore, it must have been based on an earlier drawing which has not survived. Having said that, the house depicted is a very believable depiction of a late 17th century building, and its form could easily have developed into the building recorded later. It had a five bay, two-storey centre with closely spaced windows and a central porch, clasped between gabled wings of different heights, both of which are shown with chimneystacks in the front gable ends.

Tarradale House: by the time this mid 19th century view was sketched, the house had recognisably taken on its present form.

Having grown up at Tarradale, Sir Roderick Murchison sold Tarradale in 1818 to Evan Baillie of Dochfour (1740-1835), who spent most of his life as a West Indies merchant and banker in Bristol, and was evidently building up his estates in his native Scotland in his retirement. At his death, he left Tarradale to his second son, Col. Hugh Duncan Baillie (1777-1866), who bought the adjoining Redcastle estate in 1838. He made his Scottish home at Redcastle rather than Tarradale, but like his father spent most of his life in Bristol. Given that he was a wealthy man and had an interest in building, he may have been responsible for a mid 19th century remodelling of Tarradale, which is first recorded in an undated but apparently mid 19th century drawing of the quay on Beauly Firth, which shows the house in the background. By this time, the centre has been rebuilt or remodelled as a three bay, one-and-a-half storey range, with the doorway in the left-hand bay, a narrow gable-end on the right-hand bay, and gabled dormers on the two left-hand bays. The flanking wings of the previous view are still evident, but the left-hand one has been rebuilt taller and given a bay window, and the right-hand one has acquired windows either side of the gable-end stack on both floors.

Tarradale House: the house as extended by W.C. Joass for Miss Yule in c.1902-11.

Col. Baillie left Redcastle and Tarradale to his son, the Rt. Hon. Henry James Baillie, who was the long-serving MP for Inverness from 1840-68 and a member of the Conservative governments of the 1850s. His career meant that he lived chiefly in England until he retired from politics. He outlived all three of his sons, and as the property was entailed on male descendants, when he died in 1885 it reverted to the Baillies of Dochfour. They let Tarradale from 1896 to Miss Amy Frances Yule (d. 1916), who bought the freehold in 1900, and in 1902-11 made various improvements to the house to the designs of William C. Joass of Dingwall. In particular, he added the so-called Murchison wing, a tower containing a large library linked to the left-hand side of the house, and built a walled garden.

Tarradale House: the house as restored by the present owner.

On Miss Yule's death, the house became the property of the Murchison of Tarradale Trust which for half a century lent it out to Scottish academics as a place where they could work quietly. When the Trust found it could no longer afford the maintenance costs it was transferred in 1958 to Aberdeen University, which used it as a field studies centre. The University sold it in about 2000 to the present owner, Dr. Eric Grant, who has restored the house and lets the Murchison wing as self-catering accommodation.

Descent: Alexander Mackenzie; gifted 1743 to son, Roderick Mackenzie; gifted 1778 to John Mackenzie; sold 1788 to kinsman, Dr. Kenneth Murchison (d. 1796); to son, Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871); sold 1818 to Evan Baillie (1740-1835) of Dochfour; to son, Col. Hugh Duncan Baillie (1777-1866); to son, Rt. Hon. Henry James Baillie (1803-85); to kinsman, Col. James Evan Bruce Baillie (1859-1931), who let 1896 and sold 1900 to Miss Amy Frances Yule (d. 1916); to Murchison of Tarradale Memorial Trust, which transferred the property in 1958 to Aberdeen University; sold c.2000 to Dr. Eric Grant (fl. 2014).

Redcastle, Muir of Ord, Ross & Cromarty

The house stands on a naturally defensible site on the edge of a ravine close to the north shore of Beauly Firth, and it was probably built (as the castle of Edradour) by David, Earl of Huntingdon, brother of William the Lion, by 1179. It later came into the possession of the Douglas family, who held it until it was confiscated by the Crown on the execution of the Earl of Ormond in 1455. The Crown retained it (and Mary Queen of Scots came here in 1562) until it was granted in 1570 to the Mackenzies of Kintail. Roderick, a younger son of Kenneth Mackenzie of Kintail, obtained a Crown grant of the castle in 1599 and his descendant, Rory Mackenzie, built the present L-plan castle in about 1641 (datestone in the east gable). In 1649 the 'new strong house of Redcastle' was besieged and burnt by Covenanting troops, but it was repaired soon afterwards.

Redcastle: pencil drawing by Alexander Nasmyth, showing the house before it was remodelled by William Burn.
Image: National Gallery of Scotland. D3727/84.

The 17th century house is a large three-storey L-shaped building of deep red rubble stone, the colour of which has given the house its name. In the inner angle is a rectangular stairtower, once crowned with a balustraded parapet. At the south-east corner is a second tower, also rectangular except for an awkwardly wide canted west side, the top of which is corbelled out to support a square cap-house. Other angles of the building have corbelled angle-turrets too.

Redcastle: sketch proposal by William Burn for the remodelling of the castle, 1839. Image: RIBA.

In 1790 the Mackenzies sold the estate to the Grants, who improved the estate so much that they are said to have sold it c.1828 for six or seven times what they paid for it. Col. Hugh Baillie (1777-1866) bought the estate in 1838 and brought in William Burn to remodel the old castle into a comfortable house over the next three years. Burn's alterations included the addition of a lower tower in front of the 17th century stairtower, the building of a loggia (since removed) across the south front of the main block, and the addition of a round north-east tower and utilitarian service extensions at the rear. The windows were enlarged, and the structure generally repaired and overhauled.

Redcastle: the house in the 1920s. 

Redcastle: the ruins of the house in 2013.

Redcastle was requisitioned during the Second World War and was returned to the family in poor condition. It was, however, then still occupiable, and indeed was let for some years immediately after the war. It was partially stripped in the 1950s and has not been occupied since, slipping slowly from decay into dereliction and now ruin over the decades. The early 19th century former factor's house nearby, Greenhill House, has been used as a residence by the family instead. Regrettably, the Baillie estate trustees have done very little to arrest the deterioration of the house, and although it would have been perfectly possible to find a commercial restoration solution, have repeatedly declined to sell the freehold. This dog-in-the-manger attitude to a significant heritage asset is incredibly short-sighted and can only add fuel to the fire of Scottish land reform.

Descent: ...Kenneth Mackenzie (d. 1789); sold 1790 to James Grant (d. 1808) of Shewglie; to cousin, Lt-Col. Alexander Grant (d. 1816); to son, Patrick Grant, who sold c.1828 to Sir William Fettes (d. 1836); sold 1838 to Col. Hugh Baillie (1777-1866); to son, Rt. Hon. Henry James Baillie (1803-85); to kinsman, Col. James Evan Bruce Baillie (d. 1931); to widow, Nellie Lisa Baillie (1873-1962), Baroness Burton; to grandson, Michael Evan Victor Baillie (1924-2013), 3rd Baron Burton; to son, The Hon. Alexander Baillie (b. 1963).

Baillie family of Dochfour

Baillie, David (fl. 1673). Younger son of Alexander Baillie of Dunain and his wife Catherine Munro of Milltown. He was a Roman Catholic in faith. He married 1st, 1629, Janet, daughter of William Paterson of Inverness, and 2nd, Margaret, daughter or more probably sister of Hugh Fraser, 8th Lord Lovat, and had issue including:
(2.1) Alexander Baillie (fl. 1659-1737) (q.v.).
He made his home at Dochfour and subsequently inherited the estate from his father.
His date of death is unknown. 

Baillie, Alexander (fl. 1659-1737). Eldest son of David Baillie (fl. 1673) and his second wife Margaret, daughter of Hugh Lovat, 8th Lord Lovat, born before 1659. He was a Roman Catholic in faith. He was blind for many years before his death. He married 1st, c.1689, Mary, daughter of Alexander Grant of Milntown of Ballachastel, and 2nd, 1709, Hannah, daughter of Alexander Fraser of Reelig and widow of James Grant of Sheuglie, and had issue:
(1.1) William Baillie; died young;
(2.1) Alexander Baillie (fl. 1711); died young in the lifetime of his father;
(2.2) Hugh Baillie (c.1710-50) (q.v.);
(2.3) Evan Baillie (d. c.1769), of Aberichan;
(2.4) William Baillie, of Rosehall (Sutherland); married 1st, Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Sutherland of Cleyn, and had issue three sons (including Gen. Sir Ewan Baillie, bt.); married 2nd, Robina, daughter of Hon. Hugh Mackay of Bighouse, and had further issue; died before 1785;
(2.5) James Baillie;
(2.6) David Baillie; ancestor of the Leicestershire family of Baillies;
(2.7) Isabella Baillie; married, 1723, John Grant of London and Torndow.
He inherited the Dochfour estate from his father.
He died after 1737. His first wife died before 1709. His second wife's date of death is unknown.

Baillie, Hugh (c.1710-50). Eldest son of Alexander Baillie (fl. 1659-1737) and his second wife Hannah, daughter of Alexander Fraser of Reelig and widow of James Grant of Sheuglie, born about 1710. He is recorded as fighting a duel in 1737. Branded as a papist and a Jacobite in the '45 because of his close relationships with the Frasers, although he took no active part in the rebellion; as a result he lost his house and, temporarily, his estates. He married, 10 June 1730, Emilia, daughter of Alexander Fraser of Reelig and had issue:
(1) Isabella (or Jean) Baillie (c.1731-1813); married Duncan Grant (c.1730-1812) of Bught, cashier of the Independent Trades of Inverness; died 7 December 1813;
(2) Alexander Baillie (c.1732-99) (q.v.);
(3) Catherine Baillie; married, c.1775, as his second wife, Dr. William Chisholm (1717-1807), provost of Inverness, son of Roderick Chisholm of Chisholm, and had issue one son (who died young in the Caribbean) and four daughters;
(4) James Baillie (1737-93) of Ealing Grove (Middx), born 1737; he worked in the Caribbean (chiefly St Kitts and Grenada) as a plantation manager (owner from 1765) and agent for other plantation owners from 1755; then a partner (with his brother) in Smith & Baillies, West India merchants; agent in England for the island of Grenada from 1792; MP for Horsham (Sussex), 1792-93; married, 26 April 1772 in Grenada, Colina, daughter and heiress of Colin Campbell of Glenure (Argylls), and had issue three sons and three daughters; died 7 September 1793; will proved 21 October 1793;
(5) Hannah Baillie (1739-97); married, 1766, Col. James Fraser (1732-1808) of Belladrum and had issue three sons and three daughters;
(6) Evan Baillie (c.1741-1835) (q.v.);
(7) Christiana Baillie (d. 1776); married, 24 April 1769, Lt-Col. Alexander Duff (1737-78) of Muirtown, and had issue three sons and two daughters; died 19 December 1776;
(8) Duncan Baillie.
He inherited the Dochfour estate from his father. In 1745 Dochfour House was burnt by Hanoverian troops in the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion, and the estate confiscated, but it was returned about a decade later.
He was buried at Greyfriars Cemetery, Inverness, 30 March 1750. His wife's date of death is unknown.

Baillie, Alexander (c.1732-99). Eldest son of Hugh Baillie (c.1710-50) and his wife Emilia, daughter of Alexander Fraser of Relig, born before 1737. West India merchant based in Nevis, in partnership with James Smith (d. 1778) of Nevis and his brothers (as Smith & Baillies) in the 1770s. He was a Commissioner of Supply for Inverness-shire by 1793 and an officer in the Easter Ross Volunteers (Capt., 1795; Maj.; Lt-Col., 1798). He married Sarah (d. 1781), the daughter of his first partner in Nevis, James Smith, and had issue:
(1) Alexander Baillie; died in the lifetime of his father on a transatlantic voyage, of yellow fever. 
He also had illegitimate issue by his 'cousin', Janet Chisholm: 
(X1) Emilia Baillie (d. 1816); lived at Southampton (Hants); died unmarried and was buried at Millbrook, Southampton (Hants), 29 June 1816; will proved 24 July 1816;
(X2) Janet Baillie (c.1783-1848); married, 6 April 1812 at Southampton, Maj-Gen. John Lindsay (1772-1820); buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, 13 October 1848; will proved 21 October 1848;
(X3) Alexander Baillie (c.1791-1839), born about 1791; West Indies merchant; partner in Campbell, Harper & Baillie (which failed in 1819) and later in Baillie & Kerr; married, 9 September 1815 at St Luke, Chelsea (Middx), Marianne (1788-1830), travel writer and poet, daughter of George Wathen of Jamaica, and had issue one son and two daughters; died in Demerera (Guiana); will proved 25 April 1839.
He recovered the Dochfour estate from the Crown in about 1755 and rebuilt the house about 1770. At his death, he provided for his brother Evan to buy Dochfour for £10,000 and if he chose not to do so for the property to pass to his illegitimate son. Evan Baillie made the purchase.
He died at Bath aged 68, 23 February 1799, and was buried in Bath Abbey, 27 February 1799. His wife died at Edinburgh, 22 February 1781.

Baillie, Evan (c.1741-1835). Third son of Hugh Baillie (c.1710-50) and his wife Emilia, daughter of Alexander Fraser of Reelig, born about 1741. As a child, he witnessed the smoke and gunfire from the Battle of Culloden from the hill above Dochfour, and shortly afterwards the family home was burned by Hanoverian troops. Perhaps as a result of the dislocation this caused, Baillie had little formal education and entered the army in about 1756; he was an infantry officer with the 4th (Ensign) and 19th Foot (Lt.) and in 1762 was acting as an ADC to General Howe at the Siege of Havana (Cuba); but he retired on half-pay in about 1763. He then joined his brothers Alexander and James in a partnership (Smith & Baillies) based on St Kitts, Grenada and St. Vincent (latterly as Garraway & Baillie) as sugar planters. In about 1774 he returned to Britain and set up home in Bristol, where he became one of the leading West India merchants, trading as Evan Baillie, son & Co; he also developed business interests in Scotland, becoming a partner in Mackintosh, Grant & Co.'s Inverness hemp manufactory and an associated thread mill. He lived mostly in Bristol, where he was a common councilman by 1785 and an alderman from 1802-21. He was Sheriff of Bristol in 1786-87, but he declined the mayoralty in 1796. In 1789 he was a member of the committee of merchants formed to defend the slave trade, in which he had invested heavily, and it was probably his concerns over this, and the effects of war with France on trade that encouraged him to stand for Parliament. He was elected unopposed and served as MP for Bristol, 1802-12, but he was not one of the last ditch opponents of the abolition of slavery. He was also an officer of the Royal Bristol Volunteers (Lt-Col., 1797; Col., 1798). He retired from parliament and business in 1812, handing on his interests to his sons and retiring to his Scottish estates. In 1834, when the emancipation of slaves finally took place, he and his sons received a total of £110,000 compensation for the 3,100 slaves they had lost. He married, c.1775 in the West Indies, Mary, daughter of Peter Gurley of the island of St. Vincent, and had issue:
(1) Peter Baillie (1771-1811) (q.v.);
(2) Col. Hugh Duncan Baillie (1777-1866) [for whom see below, Baillie of Redcastle and Tarradale];
(3) James Evan Baillie (1782-1863), baptised at St Augustine the Less, Bristol, 26 June 1782; an officer in the Royal Bristol Volunteers (Lt., 1803); merchant (with Evan Baillie, sons & Co.) and banker (with Bristol Old Bank) at Bristol and London; Whig MP for Tralee, 1813-18 and for Bristol, 1830-35; President of the Whig Anchor Club in Bristol; in 1835 he received over £55,000 of slave compensation (as well as receiving a share of a further £57,000 which was awarded to partnerships in which he had an interest), which he invested with other funds in the purchase of estates in Scotland, buying Glentrome in Badenoch in 1835 for £7,350; Glenelg in 1837 for £77,000; Glenshiel in 1838 for £24,000; and Letterfinlay in 1851 for £20,000; he also owned an estate in Glamorganshire and in 1829 purchased Redland Court in Bristol (which he let and which was sold after his death), but lived mostly in London; died unmarried, 14 June 1863, but provided in his will for ten individuals who may have been his illegitimate children; according to newspaper reports probate of his will valued his estate at £730,000, although there had been expectations it could be as much as £2m;
(4) Catherine Baillie (b. 1785), baptised at St Thomas in the East, Jamaica, 1785; married, 25 May 1807 at Inverness, Alexander Fraser of Balconie Castle (Ross-shire), who had been one of the managers of her father's plantations in Grenada, and had issue; 
(5) Maria Baillie (1786-1808), baptised at St Augustine the Less, Bristol, 31 May 1786; died unmarried in Bristol, 23 November 1808.
He bought the Kinmylies estate (Inverness) in 1774; and purchased the adjoining Dochfour estate from his elder brother's estate after his death in 1799. He purchased the Tarradale estate in 1818.  At his death, Dochfour passed to his grandson and namesake, and Tarradale to his second son.
He died 28 June 1835. His wife's date of death is unknown.

Baillie, Peter (1771-1811). Eldest son of Evan Baillie (c.1741-1835) and his wife Mary, daughter of Peter Gurley of the island of St. Vincent, born 1771. He was sent to France to complete his education by learning French, 1788-89, and then joined his father in business as a West India merchant; partner in Bristol Old Bank, 1806-12. An officer in Bristol Volunteers (Ensign, 1797; Capt., 1803). Whig MP for Inverness burghs, 1807-11. In 1811 he travelled to Ireland and Madeira in an unsuccessful search for an improvement in his health. He married, 9 March 1797 at St Augustine the Less, Bristol, Elizabeth (1774-1852), daughter of John Pretor Pinney of Somerton Erleigh (Somerset), and had issue:
(1) Evan Baillie (1798-1883) (q.v.);
(2) Jane Baillie (1799-1889), baptised at St Augustine the Less, Bristol, 3 August 1799; married, 17 October 1826 at Richmond (Surrey), Hon. & Rev. Baptist Wriothesley Noel (1798-1873), son of Sir Gerard Noel, 2nd bt., and his wife Baroness Barham, and brother of 1st Earl of Gainsborough, and had issue four sons and four daughters; died 18 May 1889; administration of her goods granted 18 July 1889 (effects £978);
(3) John Frederick Baillie (1800-65), baptised at St Augustine the Less, Bristol, 8 December 1800; came into Leys Castle (Inverness) on his marriage; JP and DL for Inverness-shire; married 1st, 29 July 1835 at St George, Hanover Square, London, Anne (1811-47), illegitimate daughter and principal heiress of Col. John Baillie MP of Leys, and had issue two sons; married 2nd, 25 June 1855 at St George, Hanover Square, London, Georgina Anne, daughter of William Brummell  of Wivenhoe (Essex) and widow of Sir Thomas Pigot (1796-1847), 2nd bt., of Denston Hall (Suffk); died 6 February 1865; administration of goods granted 4 April 1865 (effects under £14,000);
(4) Mary Baillie (1802-92), baptised at St Augustine the Less, Bristol, 16 October 1802; married 1st, 4 October 1825 at Richmond (Surrey), John Morritt (c.1801-27) of Rokeby Park (Yorks NR) and had issue one daughter; married 2nd, 28 April 1832, Capt. George William St. John-Mildmay RN (1792-1851), third son of Sir Henry Paulet St. John-Mildmay, 3rd bt.; died at Dochfour, 19 January 1892; will proved 3 March 1892 (estate £2,316).
He died in the lifetime of his father, 1 September 1811; his will was proved 3 April 1812. His widow died 27 June and was buried at Hornsey (Middx), 2 July 1852; her will was proved 26 August 1852.

Evan Baillie (1798-1883)

Baillie, Evan (1798-1883). Elder son of Peter Baillie (1771-1811) and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John Pinney of Somerton Erleigh (Somerset), born 1 April and baptised at St Augustine the Less, Bristol, 28 April 1798. Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge (matriculated 1816). Landowner, and by his death one of the largest landed proprietors in the north of Scotland. JP for Cromarty and Inverness-shire, and DL for Inverness-shire (from 1835) and Ross-shire (from 1846). Founding Chairman of the Northern Protestant Association, 1835. Received HRH Prince Albert at Dochfour, September 1847. Partner in Bristol Old Bank, 1863-68. A Conservative in politics, but did not take a very active part in local or national political affairs. He married 1st, 9 August 1821 at Mellerstain House (Roxb.), Charlotte Augusta (1802-22), daughter of Ven. Charles Baillie-Hamilton, archdeacon of Cleveland, and 2nd, 11 October 1823 at Kimbolton Castle (Hunts), Lady Georgiana Frederica Montagu (1803-92), fourth daughter of William Montagu, 5th Duke of Manchester, and had issue:
(2.1) Evan Peter Montagu Baillie (1824-74) (q.v.);
(2.2) William Montagu Baillie (1827-1902), of Laggan Lodge (Inverness), born 11 October 1827; educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (matriculated 1846; BA 1850; MA 1854) and Lincoln's Inn (admitted 1850); partner in Bristol Old Bank, 1852-74; Vice-President of Bristol Chamber of Commerce, 1859-61; High Sheriff of Bristol, 1859-60; an officer in 1st Gloucestershire Artillery Volunteers (Capt., 1860); managed his father's estates in Scotland, 1863-74; JP for Inverness-shire; sequestered for bankruptcy with debts exceeding £80,000, 1877; married, 10 September 1859, Lady Theodosia Gertrude Proby (1832-1902), youngest daughter of Granville Leveson Proby, 3rd Earl of Carysfort, and had issue one son and three daughters; died 11 September 1902; will confirmed at Inverness, 7 March 1902 (estate £1,081);
(2.3) Caroline Eliza Montagu Baillie (1829-1913), baptised at Chalfont St. Giles (Bucks), 26 October 1829; married, 17 December 1857, William Draper Mortimer Best (1826-99), 3rd Baron Wynford, and had issue one son (who died in infancy); died 16 January 1913; administration granted 5 March 1913 (estate £188,869);
(2.4) Georgiana Mary Montagu Baillie (1831-1918), baptised at Chalfont St Giles (Bucks), 10 February 1831; married, 20 January 1857 at St George, Hanover Square, London, Col. the Hon. William James Colville, second son of Gen. Sir Charles Colville, and had issue one son and one daughter; died 29 March 1918; will proved 18 June 1918 (estate £1,847);
(2.5) Mary Emily Baillie (1832-1923), baptised at Wooburn (Bucks), 21 April 1832; married, 1 July 1856 at St George, Hanover Square, London, Francis Henry Beaumont, of Buckland Court (Surrey) and had issue two sons and four daughters; died 11 January and was buried at Buckland, 16 January 1923; her will was proved 8 February 1923 (estate £446).
He inherited the Dochfour estate from his grandfather in 1835. He enlarged the house at Dochfour in 1839-43, and extended it again in 1870-71. He also owned Glenelg on the west coast and much of Kingussie, which estates he inherited from James Evan Baillie in 1863.
He died at Florence (Italy), 6 April and was buried at Dochfour, 19 April 1883; his will was confirmed 19 March 1884 (effects £50,058). His first wife died 25 March 1822 and was buried at Greyfriars Cemetery, Edinburgh. His widow died at Brighton (Sussex), 30 July 1892; her will was confirmed at Inverness, 13 February 1893 (estate £2,653).

Baillie, Evan Peter Montagu (1824-74). Elder son of Evan Baillie (1798-1883) and his second wife, Lady Georgiana Frederica Montagu, fourth daughter of William Montagu, 5th Duke of Manchester, born 27 August and baptised at Goldington (Beds), 10 October 1824. Educated at Cheam (Surrey) and Trinity College, Cambridge (matriculated 1844). Served in the diplomatic corps, 1846-73 (attaché at embassies in Vienna, 1846, Frankfurt, 1852 and Paris, 1858; secretary of legation to Brazil, 1859-62 and to Wurttemburg, 1862-71; chargé d'affaires, Hesse-Darmstadt and Baden, 1871-73). He married, 15 February 1855 at the British Embassy in Paris (France), Lady Frances Anna Bruce (1831-94), daughter of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, and had issue:
(1) Victoria Matilda Susan Baillie (1857-1938); maid of honour and Extra Woman of the Bedchamber to HM Queen Victoria; appointed a member of the Royal Order of Victoria & Albert; married, 6 May 1884 at St George, Hanover Square, London, her cousin, Cdr. Alaric Frederick Grant RN (1844-1918) of Ballindarroch (Inverness), but had no issue; died 4 November 1938; will proved 7 February 1939 (estate £17,020);
(2) Col. James Evan Bruce Baillie (1859-1931) (q.v.);
(3) Augustus Charles Baillie (1861-1939), born 25 March 1861; educated at Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst; an officer in the Royal Horse Artillery (Lt., 1880; resigned 1886) and Lord Lovat's Scouts, Imperial Yeomanry (Capt.; Bt. Lt-Col., 1902; Maj., 1903; Lt Col, 1908; resigned 1910; Hon. Col. of 2nd Lovat Scouts, 1914); awarded DSO, 1901; with Carlyle Gifford, founded legal firm of Baillie Gifford WS in 1907, which founded and managed the Straits (later Scottish) Mortgage & Trust Co. Ltd. (which is now a FTSE 100 company); after he left the army he leased and later purchased Harleyburn, Melrose, from where he hunted frequently with the Buccleuch and Lauderdale Hunts; married, 26 January 1905 at St Paul, Knightsbridge (Middx), Meta (1868-1944), daughter of Maj-Gen. Sir Henry Trotter, kt., and had issue one son and one daughter; died at Melrose (Roxb.) 8 January 1939; will confirmed in Scotland and sealed in London, 13 May 1939 (estate £66,737);
(4) Very Rev. Albert Victor Baillie (1864-1955), born at Karlsruhe (Germany), 5/6 August 1864; godson of Queen Victoria; educated at Marlborough and Trinity College, Cambridge (matriculated 1883; BA 1886; MA 1891; hon. DD 1918); ordained deacon, 1888 and priest, 1889; curate in South Sheilds (Northbld), 1889-90; curate of Walworth (London) and domestic chaplain to Bishop of Rochester, 1891-95; vicar of Plumstead (Kent), 1895-98; rector of Rugby (Warks) and rural dean of Rugby (Warks), 1898-1912; hon. canon of Worcester Cathedral, 1905-08; canon and Chancellor of Coventry collegiate church, 1908-12; vicar and rural dean of Coventry and sub-dean of Coventry collegiate church, 1912-17; vicar of Styvechall (Warks), 1917-35; Dean of Windsor, Registrar of the Order of the Garter and domestic chaplain to the King, 1917-45; appointed CVO 1921 and KCVO, 1932; author/editor of A Victorian Dean, Letters of Lady Augusta Stanley, My first eighty years etc.; married, 9 August 1898 at Westminster Abbey, the Hon. Constance Elizabeth Hamilton-Russell (1866-1924), daughter of Gustavus Russell Hamilton-Russell, 8th Viscount Boyne, and had issue three sons (two of whom predeceased him); retired to Baldock (Herts) and died 3 November 1955; will proved 17 May 1956 (estate £26,918).
He died at Edinburgh in the lifetime of his father, 9 November 1874; his will was confirmed at Inverness, 10 July 1874 and sealed in London, 24 July 1874. His widow died in London, 16 August 1894; her will was confirmed 14 January 1895 (effects £1,390) and sealed in London, 19 January 1895.

Baillie, Col. James Evan Bruce (1859-1931). Eldest son of Evan Peter Montagu Baillie (1824-74) and his wife Lady Frances Anna, daughter of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, born 8 January 1859. An officer in Northumberland Fusiliers (2nd Lt., 1879; Lt., 1880; Capt., 1885; resigned 1885) and Inverness-shire Royal Horse Artillery (TF) (Hon. Col., 1904); he was also a Brigadier in the Royal Company of Archers. Unionist MP for Inverness-shire, 1895-1900. JP and DL for Inverness-shire. He was appointed MVO, 1905. He was a keen huntsman and a noted breeder of horses for hunting, with stables at his wife's home, Rangemore Hall (Staffs). He married, 31 January 1894 at Holy Trinity, Chelsea (Middx), Nellie Lisa (1873-1962), who in 1909 succeeded, by special remainder, as 2nd Baroness Burton in her own right, daughter and heir of Sir Michael Arthur Bass (1837-1909), 1st bt. and 1st Baron Burton, and had issue:
(1) Hon. George Evan Michael Baillie (1894-1941) (q.v.);
(2) Hon. Arthur Malcolm Augustus Baillie (1896-1963), born 4 July 1896; educated at Eton; an officer in the Royal Artillery and later 1st Life Guards (2nd Lt., 1915; Lt., 1918; Capt., 1924; retired 1934; returned to colours, 1939; Bt Maj, 1940; retired 1946); served in First and Second World Wars; married, 17 March 1927 at Wiseton (Notts), Rosemary (1905-87), elder daughter of Brig-Gen. Sir Joseph Frederick Laycock, kt., DSO, of Wiseton Hall, and had issue one son; died 14 February 1963; will proved 15 July 1963 (estate £43,362);
(3) Hon. Victoria Frances Maud Baillie (1899-1931), born 14 March 1899; a keen participant in amateur dramatics, which she used for charity fundraising; married, 2 November 1922, Sir Digby Lawson (1880-1959), 2nd bt., and had issue two sons; died at Inverness, 10 January 1931.
He inherited the Dochfour estate from his grandfather in 1883 and the Redcastle and Tarradale estates from his kinsman, Rt. Hon. H.J. Baillie, in 1885. At his death his property (stated to be some 92,000 acres) passed to his widow for life.
He died 6 May 1931; his will was confirmed in Scotland and sealed in England, 23 June 1931 (effects £33,669). His widow married 2nd, 25 July 1932 at St George, Hanover Square, London, Maj. William Eugene Melles (d. 1953), eldest son of Joseph William Melles of Gruline, Isle of Mull; she died 28 May 1962; her will was proved 15 June 1962 and 2 May 1963 (estate £406,537). His widow's second husband died 20 August 1953; his will was proved 26 August 1953 (estate £25,644).

Baillie, Col. the Hon. George Evan Michael (1894-1941). Eldest son of Col. James Evan Bruce Baillie (d. 1931) and his wife Nellie Lisa, Baroness Burton, daughter and heir of Sir Michael Arthur Bass, 1st bt. and 1st Baron Burton, born 19 December 1894. Educated at Eton. An officer in the Royal Horse Artillery (2nd Lt., 1912; Lt., 1914; Capt. 1917; Acting Maj., 1917; retired 1919), Lovat Scouts (Lt., 1921) and the 24th (Derbyshire Yeomanry) Armoured Car Co. (Capt., 1922; Maj., 1936), 1922-37; Lt-Col. of 4th Battn, Cameron Highlanders (TA), 1937-41; awarded MC, 1918. DL for Derbyshire and Ross & Cromarty. Director of Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton Ltd., brewers. In the 1920s, he and his wife were joint masters of the High Peak Harriers. He married, 15 November 1923, Lady Maud Louisa Emma CBE JP (1896-1975), eldest daughter of Victor Christian William Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire, and widow of Capt. Angus Alexander Mackintosh (1885-1918), and had issue:
(1) Michael Evan Victor Baillie (1924-2013), 3rd Baron Burton (q.v.);
(2) Hon. Judith Evelyn Maud Baillie (b. 1925); served with ATS, 1944-47; granted rank of a baron's daughter, 1964; married, 5 September 1949, Lt-Col. Angus Ewan Selwyn Cameron MC (1914-2001) of Aldourie Castle (Inverness), only son of Capt. Allan George Cameron, and had issue one son and one daughter;
(3) Hon. Peter Charles Baillie (1927-2017) of Wootton Hall, New Milton (Hants), born 26 June 1927; educated at Eton; an officer in the Life Guards (Maj.); granted rank of a baron's younger son, 1964; married, 15 November 1955, Jennifer Priscilla (1933-2014), younger daughter of Cdr. Harold Reginald Newgass GC of Winterbourne, West Stafford (Dorset) and had issue four daughters; died aged 89, 15 March 2017; will proved 14 July 2017.
He lived at Ashford Hall, Ashford-in-the-Water (Derbys).
He died on active service in the lifetime of his mother, 6 June 1941; his will was confirmed in Edinburgh and sealed in England & Wales, 7 April 1942. His widow died 30 March 1975.

Baillie,  Michael Evan Victor (1924-2013), 3rd Baron Burton. Elder son of Col. the Hon. George Evan Michael Baillie (1894-1941) and his wife Lady Maud Louisa Emma CBE JP, eldest daughter of 9th Duke of Devonshire and widow of Capt. Angus Alexander Mackintosh, born 27 June 1924. Educated at Eton. An officer in Scots Guards (Lt., 1943) and Lord Lovat Scouts (TA). County Councillor for Inverness-shire, 1948-75; a member of the executive of Scottish Landowners Federation, 1963-92; JP, 1961-75; DL 1963-65. As a freemason, he was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, 1993-99. Landowner, farmer, and field sports enthusiast, whose gruff and eccentric manner are said to have provided the model for the laird in the television series, Monarch of the Glen. He was founder of the Inverness Pony Club and established the Highland Field Sports Fair. He was fiercely protective of his estates, but would tolerate no opposition to the way he saw fit to manage them: what he saw as interference could make him intransigent. He earned a degree of notoriety from a string of run-ins with pressure groups, walkers, poachers and public officials which occasionally brought him into court and led to accusations of bullying. He married 1st, 28 April 1948 (div. 1977), his second cousin, (Elizabeth) Ursula Forster (d. 1993), elder daughter of Capt. Anthony Forster Wise of Lochloy, and 2nd, 1978, Coralie Denise (1937-2022), daughter of Claud R. Cliffe of Natal (South Africa), and had issue:
(1.1) Evan Michael Ronald Baillie (b. 1949), 4th Baron Burton, born 19 March 1949; educated at Harrow and Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester; emigrated to Australia after 1984; married 1st, 17 October 1970 (div. 1984), Lucinda Anne (b. 1950), eldest daughter of Robert Law of Turnpike House, Withersfield (Suffk) and had issue two sons and one daughter; married 2nd, 2 October 1998, June, daughter of Finlay Gordon;
(1.2) Hon. Alexander James Baillie (b. 1963) (q.v.);
(1.3) Hon. Elizabeth Victoria Baillie (1950-86), born 9 March 1950; married, 8 August 1970, Hon. Angus Grenfell Maclay, youngest son of 2nd Baron Maclay and had issue two sons and one daughter; died 24 May 1986;
(1.4) Hon. Philippa Ursula Maud Baillie (b. 1951), born 30 August 1951; married, 17 December 1980, (Richard) Ian McCowan of North Lodge, Caldra (Berwicks), son of Donald Henry Ewan McCowan of Bighton Manor, Alresford (Hants), and had issue two sons;
(1.5) Hon. Georgina Frances Baillie (b. 1955); married, 30 October 1998, as his third wife, Hugh Leopold Seymour (b. 1943) of Home Farm, Stobo (Peebles), son of Leopold Seymour, but had no issue;
(1.6) Hon. Fiona Mary Baillie (1957-2004), born 31 October 1957; married, 1982, Alasdair Malcolm Douglas Macleod Hilleary (b. 1954), cartoonist, son of Ruaraidh Edward Macleod Robertson Hilleary, and had issue one son and two daughters; died 9 October 2004.
He inherited the Dochfour and Redcastle estates from his grandmother in 1962, along with the Bass brewing fortune. He and his second wife moved to Dochgarroch Lodge on the estate.
He died 30 May 2013. His first wife died in 1993. His widow died 17 January 2022.

Baillie, Hon. Alexander James (b. 1963). Second son of Michael Evan Victor Baillie (1924-2013), 3rd Baron Burton, and his first wife, (Elizabeth) Ursula Forster, elder daughter of Capt. Anthony Forster Wise of London W8, born 1 July 1963. Educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. Landowner and director of Dochfour Enterprises Ltd. He married, 30 October 1998, Gigina Parente-Addison, daughter of Dr. John Thomas Parente of Palm Beach, Florida (USA) and Mrs. Archibald Addison of Monikie (Angus), and had issue:
(1) Isabella Victoria Baillie (b. 1999), born 27 January 1999;
(2) Jamie Archibald Baillie (b. 2001), born 8 March 2001;
(3) India Ione Baillie (b. 2005), born 17 January 2005.
He inherited the Dochfour and Redcastle estates from his father in 2013.
Now living.

Baillie of Redcastle and Tarradale

Baillie, Col. Hugh Duncan (1777-1866). Second son of Evan Baillie (c.1741-1835) of Dochfour and his wife Mary, daughter of Peter Gurley of the island of St. Vincent, born 31 May 1777. An officer in the army (Ensign, 1793; Lt., 1793; Capt., 1794; Maj., 1794; Lt-Col., 1800; half-pay from 1802; Col., 1810; retired 1825). Briefly a farmer at Tickenham (Somerset) after 1802; a partner in the Bristol Old Bank from 1812, when he and his brother took over the running of the firm from his father, until his death in 1866, when he was the senior partner. In 1817 he entertained Queen Charlotte at his house in Bristol when she visited the city. He had interests in more than twenty plantations in Guiana and the West Indies, and in the 1830s received some compensation for the freeing of slaves there. He stood for Parliament unsuccessfully in Bristol in 1818 and in Fowey (Cornwall) in 1826, but was elected MP for Rye (Sussex), 1830-31 and as a Conservative at Honiton (Devon), 1835-47. Lord Lieutenant of Ross-shire, 1843-66. He married 1st, 13 December 1796 at the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa), Elizabeth (d. 1818), daughter of Rev. Dr. Henry Reynett DD, and 2nd, 2 July 1821, Mary (c.1791-1857), daughter of Thomas Smith of Castleton Hall (Lancs), and had issue:
(1.1) Rt. Hon. Henry James Baillie (1803-85) (q.v.);
(1.2) James Baillie (1808-18), baptised at St Augustine the Less, Bristol, 20 March 1808; died young and was buried at the same church, 10 October 1818;
(1.3) Maria Ann Baillie (1809-91), born 22 April and baptised at St Augustine the Less, Bristol, 24 May 1809; recorded as 'bad-tempered' by her husband's family; married, 8 March 1831 at St George, Hanover Square, London, Hon. (Anthony) William Ashley-Cooper (1803-77), second son of Cropley Ashley-Cooper, 6th Earl of Shaftesbury, but had no issue; died 10 January 1891;
(1.4) Augusta Vesey Baillie (1816-54), born 24 January 1816 and baptised at St Augustine the Less, Bristol, 13 December 1817; died unmarried at Westport House (Sligo), 31 August 1854;
(1.5) Elizabeth Baillie (1818-1914), baptised at St Augustine the Less, Bristol, 5 August 1818; she was one of the last people living to have attend the coronation of Queen Victoria; married, 27 November 1838 at St George, Hanover Square, London, William Brodie (1799-1873) of Brodie Castle (Nairn) and had issue four sons; died aged 95, 30 January 1914; will confirmed at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, 2 May 1914;
(2.1) Lt-Col. Hugh Smith Baillie (1822-98), born 1822; educated at Eton; an officer in Royal Horse Guards (Cornet, 1840; Lt., 1843; Capt., 1846; Maj., 1858; Lt-Col., 1859; Col., 1864; retired 1866); inherited an estate at Tops of Spotland and Grimes (Lancs) from his aunt, Lady Arbuthnot, in 1862; racehorse owner; declared bankrupt with debts of some £400,000, 1867 (discharged 1868, after paying 2/- in the £); JP; a member of the Richmond Driving Club, he contributed to the Badminton Library volume on Carriage-driving, 1889; married, 29 December 1847, Eve Maria (1803-1903), Viscountess Glentworth, daughter of Henry Villebois of Marham House (Norfk) and widow of Edward Henry Pery, 'Viscount Glentworth'*; died at Marham House, 15 August 1898; will proved 30 August 1898 (effects £2,830);
(2.2) Frederica Penelope Baillie (1823-61), born 28 December 1823 and baptised at St Mary, St Marylebone (Middx), 5 July 1824; married, 1 July 1843 at St Mary, St Marylebone (Middx), Philip Perceval (1813-97), eldest son of Col. Perceval of Temple House (Sligo) and had issue two sons and one daughter; died in London, 13 June 1861.

(2.3) Lt-Gen. Duncan James Baillie (1826-90) of Lochloy (Nairn), born 18 October 1826; educated at Eton; an officer in the army (Cornet, 1845; Lt., 1847; Capt., 1854; Lt-Col., 1866; Col. 1871; retired as Lt-Gen, 1875); inherited a moiety of the Hunter's Hall estate (Yorks) from his aunt, Lady Arbuthnot, in 1862; JP and DL for Nairnshire and Convenor for the County; married, 24 July 1862, Anna Glentworth, daughter of Rev. Gustavus Burnaby of Somerby Hall (Leics) and had issue five sons and six daughters; died 27 July 1890; will proved 25 September 1890 (estate £54,730);

(2.4) Alfred William Baillie (1830-67), born 22 June 1830; educated at Eton, Trinity College, Cambridge (matriculated 1849; BA 1854; MA 1857) and Inner Temple (admitted 1854; called to bar, 1859); barrister at law; secretary of the Marylebone Cricket Club, 1858-63; inherited a moiety of the Hunter's Hall estate (Yorks) from his aunt, Lady Arbuthnot, in 1862; died unmarried, 10 May 1867; will proved 25 November 1867 (effects under £40,000).
He inherited the Tarradale estate from his father in 1835 and bought the Redcastle estate in 1838. He remodelled Redcastle as his principal residence, c.1840.
He died at his home in London, 21 June 1866; his will was proved 10 August 1866 (effects under £50,000). His first wife died 21 July 1818. His second wife was buried at Highgate Cemetery (Middx), 21 January 1857.
* Edmond Henry Pery (1809-44) was the grandson (and from 1834 heir apparent) of Edmond Henry Pery (1758-1844), 2nd Baron Glentworth, who was created 1st Viscount Limerick in 1800 and 1st Earl of Limerick in 1803. His father, Henry Hartstonge Pery (1789-1834) was correctly styled Baron Glentworth in his lifetime, but Edmond, evidently wanting a different courtesy title to avoid confusion with his father, chose to be known as Viscount Glentworth, which was, as the Complete Peerage puts it, 'an anomalous and improper assumption', as no viscountcy of Glentworth had ever existed. His widow continued to use the style 'Viscountess Glentworth' after her remarriage.

Baillie, Rt. Hon. Henry James (1803-85). Only son of Col. Hugh Duncan Baillie (1777-1866) of Redcastle and Tarradale, and his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Henry Reynett DD, born March 1803. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford (sent down for rioting in 1823, perhaps unjustly). An officer in the 2nd Somerset Militia (Capt., 1826). JP and DL for Ross-shire; Conservative MP for Inverness, 1840-68; Joint Secretary of the Board of Control, 1852-58; Under-Secretary of State for India, 1858-59. Sworn of the Privy Council. He was a close friend of Benjamin Disraeli as a young man, and was described as 'somewhat cold of manner, but of a fine aristocratic and intellectual appearance'. He married 1st, 29 December 1840 at All Souls, Langham Place, St Marylebone (Middx), Hon. Philippa Eliza (c.1819-54), elder daughter of Percy Clinton Sydney-Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangford, and 2nd, 6 August 1857 at St George, Hanover Square, London, Clarissa (c.1820-75), daughter of George Rush of Elsenham Hall (Essex) and Farthinghoe Lodge (Northants), and had issue:
(1.1) Hugh Sydney Baillie (1842-76), born 2 April and baptised at All Souls, Langham Place, 2 May 1842; an officer in the Royal Navy (midshipman, 1859; Sub-Lt., 1863; Lt., 1865; resigned 1867) and Highland Rifle Militia (Capt., 1867); inherited the Westenhanger estate in Kent on the death of 8th Viscount Strangford in 1869; married, 28 April 1870 at Trinity church, Pau (France), Selina Catharine (d. 1871), only child of Arthur Nugent of Portaferry (Co. Down), but had no issue; stood unsuccessfully for Parliament at Sandwich (Kent), 1874; cited as co-respondent in divorce proceedings between Viscount Ashbrook and his wife, 1875, in the course of which it was claimed that he had fathered a son (who died in 1877) born to Lady Ashbrook; in 1876 he emigrated to Malta with Lady Ashbrook and their child, but died at sea of tubercular laryngitis on the first day out of port; he died in the lifetime of his father, 2 November 1876 and his will (in which he left Lady Ashbrook an annuity of £500 a year) was proved 30 November 1876 (effects under £9,000);
(1.2) Francis Henry James Baillie (1843-79), born 29 June 1843 and baptised at All Souls, St Marylebone (Middx), 25 July 1843; an officer in the King's Royal Rifle Corps (Ensign, 1862; Lt., 1866; Instructor of Musketry, 1869; Capt. by 1874; half-pay, 1874; retired 1877) and in Highland Light Infantry (Capt., 1874); married, 1 September 1877 at the British Embassy, The Hague (Netherlands), Lady Blanche Harriet Emma (1851-1911), daughter of Admiral the Hon. Sir Edward Alfred John Harris, kt., and sister of Edward James Harris, Earl of Malmesbury (who was granted the title and precedence of an earl's daughter in 1890), and had issue one daughter; died at Villa Mont Fial, Cannes (France), 6 November 1879; administration of his goods was granted to his widow, 8 December 1881 (effects £1,829);
(1.3) George John Baillie (1845-72), born 30 October and baptised at All Souls, Langham Place, 3 December 1845; educated at Fettes College; emigrated to New Zealand; died unmarried, 14 July 1872 and was buried at Symonds St. Burial Ground, Auckland (New Zealand);
(1.4) Elizabeth Ellen Baillie (1847-85), born 1 June and baptised at All Souls, Langham Place, 29 June 1847; married, 26 October 1872 at St Peter, Eaton Square, Westminster (Middx), as his first wife, Sir Charles Grant (1836-1903), kt., son of the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Grant, and had issue two sons; died 5 September 1885; administration of goods granted 4 May 1886 (effects £5,067);
(1.5) Philippa Augusta Maria Baillie (1854-1935), born 19 May and baptised at All Souls, Langham Place, 13 June 1854; married, 1 September 1888, Maj-Gen. Francis Shirley Russell (1840-1912) of Aden House, Old Deer (Aberdeens.), and had issue one son; died 2 April 1935; will proved 31 May 1935 (estate £12,495).
He inherited the Redcastle and Tarradale estates from his father in 1866, but lived chiefly in London. At his death, his sons having all predeceased him, his properties passed by entail to his kinsman, Col. James Evan Bruce Baillie (d. 1931) of Dochfour.
He died at Villa Merville, Cannes (France), 16 December 1885; his will was proved 21 June 1886 (effects £48,107). His first wife died in 1854. His second wife died 19 June 1875; her will was proved 18 January 1876 (effects under £800).

Sources

Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 2003, pp. 598-600; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1898, vol. 1, pp. 54-55; J. Gifford, The buildings of Scotland: Highlands & Islands, 1992, pp. 163, 446-47; M. Coventry, The castles of Scotland, 4th edn., 2006, p. 550; G. Clark, Redcastle: a place in Scotland's history, 2009;

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146665321.

Location of archives

Baillie family of Dochfour, Barons Burton: legal and estate papers, 1767-1880 [National Records of Scotland, GD128/4; GD1/120]; probate records, 1797-99 and estate papers, 19th cent. [Highland Archives, Inverness, D3o4, D348]; Glen Quoich estate papers, 1873-1907 [Lochaber Archives Centre, Fort William, CL/A/12]. Further estate and family papers are believed to remain in the possession of the family.

Coat of arms

Azure, nine stars (three, three, two and one) argent within a bordure or charged with six cinquefoils of the field.

Can you help?

Here are a few notes about information and images which would help to improve the account above. If you can help with any of these or with other additions or corrections, please use the contact form in the sidebar to get in touch. Can anyone:

• Supply additional images of Dochfour House before it was enlarged in the 1830s?
• Provide additional genealogical information for the earlier generations of this family recorded above?
• Provide portraits or photographs of members of the family whose names are given in bold above?

Revision and acknowledgements

This post was first published 11 February 2018, and was updated 29 March and 16 April 2018, 9 January 2019, 6 February 2022 and 3 March 2023. I am grateful to Jim Brennan and Steve Smith for additional information.