GIBSON,
a surname common to both Scotland and England, evidently having its root
in the baptismal name of Gilbert, among the son-names, nurse-names, and
diminutives of which are Gib, Gibbs, Gibbie, Gebbie, Gibson, Gibbons,
and similar appellations. [Lower’s Essays on English Surnames,
vol. I. P. 168.] The name of Gibson is of great antiquity in
Scotland, and no less than five families of this surname, branches of
the same stock, have been raised to the dignity of baronet.
The
progenitors of the Gibsons of Durie, in Fife, were free barons of that
county and Mid Lothian before the fourteenth century. Their immediate
ancestor was Thomas Gibson, who lived in the reign of King James the
Fourth, and is particularly mentioned, with several other barons of the
county of Fife, in a charter by Sir John Moubry, of Barnbougle, knight,
in favour of his son, William de Moubry, in 1511. He left two sons,
George his heir, and William, successively vicar of Garvock, rector of
Inverarity, and dean of Restalrig. By James the Fifth the latter was
appointed one of the lords of session, at the institution of the college
of justice in 1532, and by that monarch he was frequently employed in
embassies to the Pope, who honoured him with the armorial bearing of
three keys, as being a churchman, with the motto Caelestes pandite
portae, and as a reward for his writings on behalf of the church, he
obtained the title of Custos Ecclesiae Scotiae. [Douglas’
Baronage, p. 568.] In 1549, Cardinal Bethune conjoined the dean of
Restalrig with himself as his suffragan, that he might have the more
leisure to attend to the affairs of state. He was to retain the
benefices which he already held, and to receive, from the cardinal and
his successors, a pension of £200, during his life.
George, the
elder son, had a son, also named George, who succeeded him. The son of
the latter, George Gibson of Goldingstones, was a clerk of session, and
died about 1590. By his wife, Mary, a daughter of the ancient family of
Airth of that ilk, in Stirlingshire, he had two sons, Sir Alexander
Gibson, Lord Durie, the celebrated judge, first baronet of the family
(1628), of whom a memoir is subjoined; and Archibald, who was bred to
the church, and obtained a charter, under the great seal, of several
lands near Glasgow, dated 22d May, 1599. Sir Alexander, Lord Durie,
purchased the lands of that name, anciently belonging to the family of
Durie of that ilk, and had a charter of the same in 1614. He married
Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Craig of Riccarton, lord advocate of
Scotland, and, with 3 daughters, had 3 sons, Alexander, 2d baronet, Sir
John Gibson of Pentland, who carried on the line of the family, and
George, of Balhouffie.
The eldest
son, Sir Alexander Gibson, younger of Durie, was appointed one of the
clerks of session on 25th July 1632, and as such was one of
the clerks of parliament. On the attempt of Charles I. To impose the
service book on the people of Scotland, he protested, with others, at
the market cross of Edinburgh against the royal proclamations, on 8th
July and 22d September 1638. He was also one of those who presented the
petition against the bishops to the presbytery of Edinburgh and the
General Assembly, in November of that year. As clerk of parliament he
refused to read the royal warrant for the prorogation of parliament from
14th Nov. 1639 to 2d June 1640. In the latter year he was
appointed commissary-general of the forces raised to resist King Charles
I. On 13th November 1641, he was nominated lord clerk
register by the king, who, on the 15th of the previous March,
had conferred on him the honour of knighthood. He was also appointed one
of the commissioners for the plantation of kirks. On 1sat February 1645,
he was named one of the commissioners of exchequer, and on 8th
March following, a supernumerary member of the committee of estates; as
also of the committees of a similar nature appointed in 1646, 1647, and
1648. On 2d July 1646, he was admitted a lord of session, on the
favourable report of that court to the king. Having joined “the
‘Engagement,” he was deprived of his offices by the act of classes, on
13th February, 1649, and in the following year, as an entry,
in Lamont’s Diary states, “both Durie and his ladie was debarred from
the table because of their malignancie.” In August 1652, he was one of
the commissioners chosen for Scotland to attend the parliament of
England; and he again went to England in January 1654. He died in June
1656.
His son, Sir
John Gibson of Durie, 3d baronet, sat in the first Scots parliament of
Charles II. In 1660. His only son, Sir Alexander Gibson of Durie, having
died without issue, n him ended the male line of the eldest son of the 5th
baron, Sir Alexander, Lord Durie, the eminent judge, and the title and
estates devolved upon the grandson of Sir John Gibson of Pentland, his
lordship’s 2d son. A steady loyalist, Sir John Gibson of Pentland
attended Charles I. In all his vicissitudes of fortune, and in 1651
accompanied King Charles II. To the unfortunate battle of Worcester,
where he lost a leg, and for his gallant behaviour was knighted by the
king. He had, with 2 daughters, 3 sons: 1. Sir Alexander Gibson of
Pentland and Adiston, one of the principal clerks of session, and clerk
to the privy council of Scotland; 2. Sir John Gibson, Bart., colonel of
a regiment of foot, and governor of Portsmouth; 3. Sir Thomas Gibson of
Keirhill, created a baronet in 1702.
The eldest
son, Sir Alexander Gibson, with five daughters, had four sons, namely,
Sir John, who succeeded Alexander, progenitor of the present family;
Thomas Gibson of Cliftonhall; and James, a lieutenant-general in the
service of the queen of Hungary.
Sir
Alexander’s eldest son, Sir John, 5th baronet, m. Elizabeth,
daughter of Lewis Craig of Riccarton, and had, with two daughters, two
sons; Sir Alexander, 6th baronet, and John, merchant, London.
Sir Alexander, the elder, leaving no male issue, was succeeded by his
nephew, Sir John, 7th baronet, son of John Gibson of London.
He also dying without male issue, was succeeded by his brother Sir
Robert, 8th baronet. At Sir Robert’s death in America,
without issue, the title reverted to the descendant of Alexander Gibson,
of Durie, 2d son of Sir Alexander Gibson, clerk of the privy council,
above mentioned. This gentleman, Alexander Gibson, one of the principal
clerks of session, obtained from his father, the lands of Durie in 1699.
His eldest son, John Gibson of Durie, married Helen, 2d daughter of Hon.
William Carmichael of Skirling, (son of John, 1st earl of
Hyndford, and father of 4th earl,) by his first wife, Helen,
only child of Thomas Craig of Riccarton, and had, by her, with 3
daughters, 5 sons, viz., Alexander; William, merchant, Edinburgh, father
of James Gibson, W.S., created a baronet in 1831, and on succeeding to
the estate of Riccarton, Mid Lothian, assumed the additional name of
Craig (see CRAIG, Sir James Gibson); Thomas, lieutenant- colonel 83d
regiment; and two who died young. John Gibson of Durie, the father, sold
the estate of Durie to the ancestor of Mr. Maitland Christie, the
present proprietor. His eldest son, Alexander, had two sons, John and
Thomas.
Sir John, the
elder, succeeded Sir Robert as 9th baronet, and assumed the
name and title of Gibson Carmichael of Skirling, on inheriting the
estates, as heir of entail, of the 4th earl of Hyndford, his
grand-uncle. Having only a daughter, he was succeeded in 1803 by his
brother, Sir Thomas Gibson Carmichael of Skirling, 10th
baronet of the Gibson family. By his wife, a daughter of General Dundas
of Fingask, Sir Thomas had 7 children. The eldest, Alexander, born at
the family seat, Castle-Craig, Peebles-shire, June 6, 1812, succeeded
his father in 1849. Educated first at Harrow, and subsequently at
Cambridge, immediately after leaving the university, he entered upon
public life. At the election of 1837 he contested the county of Peebles,
but was defeated by a small majority. He subsequently became private
secretary to the Hon. Fox Maule, wh in 1852 succeeded his father as 2d
Lord Panmure. Sir Alexander Gibson Carmichael died 1st May
1850. He was remarkable for his piety, and a brief memoir of him is
inserted in the volume of the Christian Treasury for 1850, p.
376. He was succeeded by his brother, Sir Thomas, 12th
baronet, who died Dec. 30, 1855, when his next brother, Rev. Sir William
Henry, born Oct. 9, 1807, became 13th baronet. The latter
married, in 1858, Eleonora-Ann, daughter of David Anderson, Esq. of St.
Germains.
GIBSON, SIR
ALEXANDER, Lord Durie,
an eminent lawyer, was the son of George Gibson of Goldingstones, one of
the clerks of session. On 14th December 1594, on a commission
from the lord clerk register, he was admitted third clerk of session.
King James in person was present at his admission, and for the readiness
with which the first and second clerks complied with his desire that he
should be received, he promised in presence of the court to reward them
with “ane sufficient casualtie for said consents.” On 10th
July 1621, he was appointed a lord of session, when he took the title of
Lord Durie, his clerkship being conferred upon his son, to be held
conjunctly with himself, and to devolve on the longest liver. In 1628 he
was created by Charles the First, a baronet of Nova Scotia, on which
occasion he received a grant of land in that province. In 1633 he was
named a commissioner for revising the laws and collecting the local
customs of the country. In 1640 he was elected a member of the committee
of estates, and on 13th November, 1641, his appointment as
judge was continued under a new commission to the court.
While the
office of president continued elective in the senators of the college of
justice, Lord Durie was twice chosen head of the court, namely, for the
summer session on 1st June 1642, and for the winter session
of 1643. This able and upright judge died at his house of Durie, June
10, 1644. Having, from 11th July 1621, the day after his
elevation to the bench, to 16th July 1642, preserved notes of
the more important decisions, these, known as ‘Durie’s Practicks,’ were
published by his son, at Edinburgh, in 1690, in one volume folio, and
are the earliest digested collection of decisions in Scottish law.
Of this judge
the following remarkable circumstance, highly illustrative of the
unsettled state of the country at that period, is recorded. The earl of
Traquair, lord high treasurer, having a lawsuit, of great importance to
his family, depending before the court of session, and believing that
the pinion of Lord Durie, then lord president, was adverse to his
interests, employed Willie Armstrong, called Christie’s Will, a noted
and daring moss-trooper, to convey his lordship out of the way until the
cause should be decided. Accordingly, one day when the judge was taking
his usual airing on horseback on Leith sands, without any attendant, he
was accosted by Armstrong near the then unfrequented and furzy common
called the Figgate Shins, forcibly dragged from his saddle, blindfolded,
and muffled in a large cloak; in which condition he was carried to an
old castle in Annandale, named the Tower of Graham. He remained closely
immured in the vault of the castle for three months, debarred from all
intercourse with human kind, and receiving his food through an aperture
in the wall. His friends, supposing that he had been thrown from his
horse into the sea, and been drowned, had gone into mourning for him,
but upon the lawsuit terminating in favour of Lord Traquair, he was
brought back n the same mysterious manner, and set down on the very spot
whence he had been so expertly kidnapped.
GIBSON, PATRICK,
an accomplished artist and able writer on art, was born at Edinburgh in
December 1782. After receiving an excellent classical education at the
High school, and at a private academy, he was placed as an apprentice
under Mr. Alexander Nasmyth, the celebrated landscape painter, and about
the same time attended the Trustees’ academy, then taught by Mr. Graham.
Besides mathematics he carefully studied architectural drawing, and
acquired a thorough knowledge of perspective and the theory of art in
general. Many of his landscapes are valuable from the masterly
delineations of temples and other classical buildings which he
introduced into them. He distinguished himself also by his criticisms
and writings on art. Having been appointed professor of painting in the
academy at Dollar, he removed from Edinburgh to that village in 1824. He
died there, August 26, 1829, in his 46th year. He had married
in June 1818, Isabella, daughter of Mr. William Scott, the eminent
teacher of elocution, and had three daughters and one son, the latter of
whom died in infancy.
Mr. Gibson
published,
Etchings of
Select Views In Edinburgh, with letterpress descriptions. Edin. 1818,
4to.
Report,
purporting to be by a Society of Cognoscenti, upon the works of living
artists, in the Exhibition of 1822, at the Royal Institution, Edinburgh,
Anonymous.
A Letter to
the Directors and Managers of the Institution for the Encouragement of
the Fine Arts in Scotland. 1826.
To the
Encyclopedia Edinensis he contributed the article on Design, comprising
the history, theory, and practice of the three sister arts of Painting,
Sculpture, and Engraving, concluding with an able treatise on Linear
Perspective; illustrated by drawings. He also furnished the articles
Drawing, Engraving, and Miniature-painting to Dr. Brewster’s Edinburgh
Encyclopedia. The paper entitled A View of the Progress and Present
State of the Art of Design in Britain, in the Edinburgh Annual Register
for 1816, was written by Mr. Gibson. To the New Edinburgh Review, edited
by Dr. Richard Poole, he contributed an article on the Progress of the
Fine Arts in Scotland.
A short
practical work on Perspective, written shortly before his death, was
printed, but never published.
