John Milne, Master Mason to Crown of Scotland

John Mylne (d. 1657), his son (by his wife, Janet Pirie ), who had assisted him since 1610 as mason on the bridge at Perth, was called to Edinburgh in 1616 by the town council to complete a statue of James I at the Netherbow Port, and in acknowledgment of this and other works in the town was made a burgess of Edinburgh on 8 Aug. 1617. In 1619 he went to Falkland to assist his father in the church there. He was engaged from 1622 to 1629 on the present steeple of the Tolbooth at Aberdeen (Aberdeen Burgh Hecords, Spalding Club, 1848, ii. 379), and was in consequence made a burgess of the city ex gratia on 12 May 1622. He made alterations at Drummond Castle, Perthshire, in 1629-30 ; constructed a water-pond by Holyrood Palace for the king in i629; executed, with the help of his sons, John (1611-1667) [q. v.] and Alexander [see under Mylne, John, 16111667], the sundial at Holyrood Palace in 1633; was principal master-mason of all Scotland to Charles I from 1631 to 1636 ; was engaged on the church steeple, tolbooth, and fortifications at Dundee from 1643 to 1651 ; and on the steeple of the town-hall in 1644. He was made fellow of craft in the lodge of Edinburgh in October 1633, and was master of the lodge at Scone from 1621 to 1657. He was admitted a burgess of Perth, gratis, on 24 March 1627, and of Kirkcaldy on 23 March 1643, having probably taken part in the design of Gladney House in that burgh. He married Isobel Wilson of Perth early in 1610, and died in 1657. His daughter Barbara, born in Edinburgh, is frequently mentioned in the 'Canongate and Burgh Records ' as being accused of witchcraft. There is a portrait of John Mylne in Mylne's * Master Masons ' (p. 104).

[Dict, of Architecture ; Mylne's Master Masons, pp. 65-128 ; Lyon's Hist, of the Lodge of Edinburgh, p. 92; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. vii. 198-9 ; Chronicle of Perth (Maitland Club), p. 22 ; Cant's Notes to Adatnson's Muses Threnodie, 1774, pp. i. 81-2, 96; Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, i. 403; Gateshead Observer, 20 Oct. 1860, p. 6.] B. P.

Dictionary of National Biography 1894 VOL. XI. Myllar-Nichols