Biography

At the foot of the kirkyard at Mouswald, sloping down towards the Solway Firth, lie the mortal remains of Robert Threshie Reid, first and last Earl Loreburn. The simple stone cross marking his grave, lies broken on the ground, its condition a telling commentary on the evaporation of the historical reputation of one who served for more than six years as a leading and much respected member of Britain’s pre-First World War Liberal government. That distinguished administration, formed by premier Henry CampbellBannerman in December 1905, contained three future Prime Ministers – H.H. Asquith, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill – as well as such luminaries as Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary at the start of the war, and Richard Burdon Haldane, perhaps the most accomplished War Minister of the twentieth century. But Reid’s appointment to the Lord Chancellorship was seen at the time as a step of considerable importance. Indeed, he was the first prospective minister to be approached by Campbell-Bannerman as the latter set about constructing his cabinet.

Today, Andrew Barrie (1798-1866) is long forgotten in his adopted town of Dumfries and fares little better in his home town of Paisley, commemorated only by his grave at Woodside Cemetery and the annual award of ‘Barrie’ Dux Medal at Paisley Grammar School. Yet during his life he was highly regarded by the citizens of both towns for his contribution to civic life and private and public financial support for a wide variety of organisations. He brought to civic life the same drive and determination that had enabled him to rise from relatively modest beginnings to become a wealthy and influential figure. On his death in 1866 the Dumfries Standard and Paisley Herald were fulsome in their praise for his work as a Sheriff Substitute and Justice of the Peace; as a Trustee and Elder of St Mary’s Church in Dumfries; for the numerous public appointments he held; and for his extensive financial support for charities. It is all the more surprising that such importance during his lifetime should be reduced to so little in posterity.

Although Joseph Train (1779-1852), the celebrated antiquarian and associate of Sir Walter Scott, was an Ayrshireman, he was based for the principal part of his career in Dumfriesshire and Galloway.2 Train’s antiquarian endeavours have been noted in these Transactions on previous occasions as have the Statistical Accounts.3 This article argues that antiquarianism had a considerable impact on the Statistical Accounts and notes Train’s contribution to them in particular. It also suggests that Train’s production of a Statistical Account of the Isle of Man (1845) was the direct result of his involvement with Scott, ‘statistics’ and South-West Scotland; and that his work on Man should be seen as an expression of territorial identity within an over-arching and increasingly patriotic British state. The article begins by contrasting the background and career of Train with the principal authors of the Accounts, the ministers of the Church of Scotland, as a means of emphasising his achievements.

The career of David Armstrong was unusual by the standards of the eighteenth-century Scottish bar but at its height it presents a picture that was in some ways a signpost for the future development of the legal profession. Financial problems, consequent to the collapse of the Ayr Bank, reveal the importance to him of his local Dumfries connections and also led him into a scandal by which his career was cut short. This article examines that scandal and draws from Armstrong’s career a number of conclusions about the nature of contemporary legal practice in Scotland that have a wider resonance for the history of the profession generally during the long eighteenth century.