KINNIARD,
a local surname, derived from the barony of Kinniard in Perthshire,
and composed of two Celtic words, Cean and aird,
signifying the high end or head.
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KINNIARD, baron,
a title in the peerage of Scotland conferred in 1682, on Sir George
Kinniard of Inchture, descended from Radulphus, called Rufus, on whom
King William the Lion bestowed by charter in 1170, the barony of
Kinniard in the district of Gowrie, and in consequence Kinniard became
the surname of his descendants. The barony continued in possession of
the family till the reign of Charles I. Kinniard castle, supposed to
have been built in the 12th century, is now in ruins.
Richard de Kinniard, the great grandson of Radulphus, was one of the
Scots barons who swore fealty to Edward I., in 1296. He is mentioned
in Rymer’s Faedera, in 1304. his son, Radulphus de Kinniard, also
swore fealty to the same monarch the same year as his father. Reginald
de Kinniard, second son of the latter’s grandson, Richard de Kinniard
of that ilk, married Marjory, daughter and heiress of Sir John
Kirkaldy of Inchture, in the same county, and got with her these
lands, in which he was confirmed by charter of Robert III., dated 28th
January 1399. The ninth in direct descent from this Reginald, Sir
George Kinniard of Inchture, a steady loyalist during the civil wars,
was knighted by Charles II., in 1661. He represented the county of
Perth in the Scots parliament, and was sworn a privy councillor. On 28th
December 1682 he was raised to the peerage by the title of Lord
Kinniard of Inchture, with limitations to the heirs male of his body.
He died 29th September 1689. He had six sons, and George,
the youngest, carried on the line of the family. Patrick, the eldest,
second Lord Kinniard, died 18th February, 1701. He had,
with a daughter, three sons. George, the eldest, master of Kinniard,
predeceased him, without issue, in 1698. Patrick, the second son,
became third lord, and Charles, the youngest, fifth Lord Kinniard.
Patrick,
third lord, opposed the Union, and died in March 1715. His only son,
Charles, fourth lord, died without issue in September 1726, when the
title devolved on his uncle Charles, fifth lord. The latter married,
about 1729, Magdalene, daughter of William Brown, merchant in
Edinburgh, and for eighteen years had no issue. On 21st
September, 1747, she left Drimmie House, the usual family residence,
and two days afterwards her husband intimated to his friends that she
had been delivered of twins, named Patrick and Charles, The next heir,
Mr. Charles Kinniard, grandson of the Hon. George Kinniard, sixth and
youngest son of the first lord, raised an action in the commissary
court, concluding that he ought to be allowed to prove that the
pretended delivery by Lady Kinniard never took place, and that the
children were surreptitious. Lord and Lady Kinniard refused to answer
to the interrogatories directed to be put to them by the commissaries,
who, on 1st January 1748, decerned his lordship to make
payment to Mr. Kinniard of £600 sterling, for not appearing personally
in court. This mysterious affair terminated by Lord Kinniard declaring
that both the twins were dead.
Charles,
sixth lord, succeeded on the death of his predecessor, 16th
July 1758, and died 2d August, 1767. He had several children, but only
two sons and three daughters survived. Patrick, the younger son, an
officer in the East India Company’s service, was killed by a tiger on
the coast of Coromandel in July 1771.
The elder
son, George, seventh Lord Kinniard, and one of the sixteen Scots
representative peers, died at Perth, 11th October 1805. He
had married, 23d July, 1777, Elizabeth, daughter of Griffin Ransom of
New Palace Yard, Westminster, banker in London, and her grief for her
husband’s loss was so great that she only survived him ten days. They
had issue six sons and four daughters.
The fifth
son, the Hon. Douglas James William Kinniard, an eminent banker, the
friend both of Sheridan and Byron, was born February 26, 1788, and
received the early part of his education at Eton. He afterwards passed
some time at Gottingen, whence he removed to Trinity college,
Cambridge, where, in 1811, he took his degree of master of arts. In
1813 he accompanied Mr., afterwards Sir John Cam Hobhouse, baronet,
(created in 1851 Lord Broughton,) through Sweden, and across the north
of Germany to Vienna, and was present at the decisive battle of Culm,
in Bohemia, in which the French, under General Vandamme, were beaten
by the Prussians and Russians. Subsequently he became an active
partner in the banking-house of Ransom and Morland, London, and, after
the old partnership was dissolved, he took the principal management of
the business. In 1815, Mr. Kinniard, Lord Byron, the Hon. George Lamb,
and Mr. Peter Moore, formed the committee for directing the affairs of
Drury-Lane theatre. He was afterwards, for a short time, M.P. for
Bishop’s Castle. His name often occurs in the Memoirs of Byron, and
was one of the last which the noble poet was heard to pronounce. He
died, unmarried, March 12, 1830.
The master
of Kinniard having died in his infancy, Charles, 2d son, became 8th
Lord Kinniard. He was born 8th April 1780, and educated at
the universities of Edinburgh, Cambridge, and Glasgow. At the general
election in 1802 he was chosen M.P. for Leominster, and distinguished
himself in the house of commons by his opposition to the then
administration. He was at Venice when he succeeded to the title in
1805. At the general election in the following year he was chosen one
of the sixteen Scots representative peers. In 1817 he built the
imposing pile of Rossie priory in the parish of Inchture (properly
Inchtower), in the Carse of Gowrie, for the family mansion. He married
Lady Olivia Letitia Catherine Fitzgerald, youngest daughter of 2d duke
of Leinster, and had three sons and four daughters. He died in 1826.
The eldest
son, George William Foz Kinniard, 9th lord, born in 1807,
was in 1831 created Baron Rossie of Rossie in the peerage of the
United Kingdom; a privy councillor of Great Britain. He held the
office of master of the buckhounds to the queen, which he resigned in
1841. He was formerly grand-master of the freemasons of Scotland. He
married, in 1837, Frances, only daughter of 1st Lord de
Mauley, issue, 2 sons and one daughter. The elder son, Victor
Alexander, died in 1851. The 2d son, Charles-Fox, born in 1841, died
in 1860. Lord Kinniard was in August that year created Baron Kinniard
in the peerage of Great Britain, with remainder to his brother, Hon.
Arthur Fitzgerald Kinniard, M.P. for Perth.
