Canada
Robert Arbuthnot and his wife Elizabeth Nevin went to
Canada from Co.Antrim in about 1834. They had several sons, who established the Eastern
Ontario branch of the family. Their daughter, Ann, married James Kyle.
The Hon. Alexander, ninth son of the 7th Viscount emigrated
to Canada. He died in 1870. He had no male heirs, but many descendants from his four
daughters.
Hugh Arbuthnot Stringer and his brother were taken to
Canada by their mother. She was the daughter of Sir Edmund Burke and had married an
Arbuthnot, by whom she had two sons. Then she fell in love with a manservant called
Stringer. She ran away to Canada with him, taking her two sons. They all took the name of
Stringer. She had one more son. Hugh married three times and had ten children, the eldest
of whom was Arthur John Stringer, a famous Canadian poet and writer. Many descendents live
in British Columbia.
South Africa
In 1850 James Arbuthnot, son of William Arbuthnot of Dens,
Aberdeenshire, emigrated to the Bryne Settlement of Port Natal. He had six sons, William,
McDuff, Hubert, Fitzjames, St.George and Crofton. He also had two daughters, Eva and
Susan. This branch of the family still thrives in the area.
Catherine Taylor and David Arbuthnot both live in Cape,
South Africa. She is the granddaughter of the Rev. William Arbuthnot of Arbuthnot House,
Peterhead and her mother was the last of the branch of the family to be born and
brought-up there. Mrs Taylor was the Member for Wynberg in the South African Parliament
for eleven years. Her mother's cousin David went to South Africa in 1929 as an extra
A.D.C. to Lord Athlone and Princess Alice and has lived there ever since.
India
Many Arbuthnot(t)s spent their working lives in India,
initially as merchants, then in the Army or working for the Indian Civil Service. Among
others George Arbuthnot of Elderslie, brother of Sir William Arbuthnot, Bart., went first
to Ceylon and then to Madras, India, where he was taken on as partner in the firm Lautour
& Co., Bankers. He later became head of the firm and renamed it 'Arbuthnot & Co.'.
Most of those who worked in India retired to Britain, but
some married locally and remained there. Such marriages were never recognised by the
families at the home and therefore never recorded, one of these was that of the Hon.
Charles, sixth son of 8th Viscount whose descendants live in the Bangalore area of Madras.
One became a famous civil engineer and had a bridge named after him.
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