Sir Alexander Jardine of Applegirth, 1st Bt.

SIR ALEXANDER JARDINE OF APPLEGIRTH Baronet

Sir Alexander Jardine of Applegirth, Baronet, died before 1 January 1684, the date upon which his widow had signature of the lands of Applegirth. NRS: SIG1/40/46

Biographical Summary

"Alexander Jardine, of Applegirth, co. Dumfries, s. of Alexander Jardine, of the same, was cr. a Baronet [S.], as above, 25 May 1672, with rem. to heirs male of the body. He was retoured heir to his said father, 20 April 1691. He in. in or before 1675, Margaret, da. of James (Douglas), 2d Earl of Queensberry [S.], by his 2d wife, Margaret, da. of John (Stewart), 1st Earl of Traquair [S.]. He d. between 1691 and 1699. His widow m. Sir David Thoirs."

SOURCE: Complete baronetage; Cokayne, George E. (George Edward); 1904; Vol. IV; page 289

Evidence from the National Records of Scotland

                   1

4 January 1684: Signature of the lands of Applegirth granted to Margaret Douglas, widow of Sir Alexander Jardine. National Records of Scotland, Register of Signatures, boxed series, reference SIG1/40/46

                   2

25 January 1687: Discharge by Lady Margaret Douglas, relict of the deceased Sir Alexander Jardan of Apilgirth, to John Maxwell of Castlemilk and Mr Alexander Forrester, minister at St Mungo, of a Bond of Corroboration for £222 4/- Scots. National Records of Scotland, Papers of the Jardine family of Applegirth, reference GD472/58

Genealogy

1. Complete baronetage; Cokayne, George E. (George Edward); 1904; Vol. IV; page 289
2. Darryl Lundy's Peerage

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The Scottish Nation
Jardine

JARDINE, the surname of a family in Dumfries-shire, styled of Applegarth, who possesses a baronetcy, and whose head was the chief of a border clan, once very numerous in that county.

     The first of the family on record was Winfredus de Jardine, who flourished before 1153. In the reign of David I. he was a witness to different charters, in the chartularies of Kelso and Aberbrothwick. The name also occurs in Prynne’s collection of the barons of Scotland who attended King Edward I. at Berwick, in the competition for the crown of Scotland between the Bruce and Baliol. The descendant of Winfredus, in the end of the 15th century, was John Jardine of Applegarth, who had a son, Sir Alexander Jardine, knight, who succeeded him. An old historian narrates that in 1506, “the laird of Drumweiche was this zeir killed at Edinburgh by the Jardans, quho escaped by taking sanctuary at the abbey of Holyrudhousse.” Sir Alexander was actively engaged in defending the borders against the inroads of the English. The same historian says: “This zeire, 1524, the Lord Maxwell and Sir Alexander Jardane neir Carleill, in a grate conflickte with the Englishe, of quhom they kill nine hundred, and take three hundred prisoners.” His son, John Jardine, succeeded previously to 1544. About 1547, Lord Wharton, with 5,000 men, ravaged and overran Annandale, Nithsdale, and Galloway, and compelled the inhabitants to submit to England, the laird of Applegarth, with two hundred and forty-two of his followers, being among the number. On the arrival, however, of the French auxiliaries in Scotland, a dreadful retaliation on the English was made by the Scots borderers. When the unfortunate Mary returned to Scotland in 1561, the Jardines, the Johnstons, and the clans of Annandale, entered into bonds of confederacy to support her, but in 1567, after the murder of Darnley, John Jardine seems to have subscribed the bond entered into by many of the nobles and barons of Scotland, for establishing the authority of the infant king, and in the ensuing protracted troubles, he adhered to the opponents of Mary. On the 10th August 1571, he was surrounded and taken prisoner, in one of the border-fights of the period.

His son, Sir Alexander, is supposed to have succeeded about the end of 1571 or the beginning of 1572. By an entry in the register of deeds passing through the privy seal, we learn that a warrant was granted for a pension of 500 merks to him from the revenues of the archbishopric of Glasgow, for his services in support of the royal authority. As he never received that pension, owing to a new archbishop being appointed to the see, the like sum was granted to John Jardine, his second son, to be drawn from the revenues of the church and monastery of Aberbrothwick, 24th January, 1577.
The fourth in descent from Sir Alexander also named Alexander, married Lady Margaret Douglas, sister of the first duke of Queensberry, and had two sons and a daughter.
His elder son, Sir Alexander, was raised to the baronetage of Nova Scotia, by patent, to him and his heirs male, dated 25th May 1672. He died without issue, and was succeeded by his brother, Sir John, second baronet, who died in 1737.
Sir John’s eldest son, Sir Alexander Jardine, third baronet, embraced the Roman Catholic faith, and, going abroad, entered on a military life. He was elected one of the knights of Malta, and as the vows of that order enjoin perpetual celibacy, he died without issue, at Brussels, in December 1790. His brother, Sir William, fourth baronet, married Barbara de la Motte, a French lady, and died 17th March, 1807.
His only son, Sir Alexander, 5th baronet, married Jane, daughter of Lieutenant Thomas Maule, heir male and representative of the earls of Panmure. He had 4 sons and a daughter.
The eldest son, Sir William Jardine, 6th baronet, born Feb. 23, 1800, married in 1820, Jane Home, daughter of D. Lizars, Esq., Edinburgh, issue, 3 sons, viz., Alexander, born in 1829; William. R.N., born in 1834; Charles-John, born in 1839, and 4 daughters. Sir William has distinguished himself as the author and editor of several works in natural history.
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     A cadet of the ancient house of Applegarth was the Rev. John Jardine, D.D., an eminent divine, (born 3d January, 1716), who was one of the literary circle which shed a lustre on the Scottish capital in the middle of the 18th century. His name appears at the head of the list of the well-known “Select Society: in 1759; the other members being Adam Smith, Alexander Wedderburn, afterwards Lord-chancellor Rosslyn, Allan Ramsay, the painter, James Burnet, afterwards Lord Monboddo, David Hume, the historian, Principal Robertson, Lord Hailes, John Home, the author of Douglas, Lord-president Dundas, Sir Hay Campbell, Lord Kames, Lord Gardenstone, Dr. Blair, Andrew Stewart, the two Adams, the architects, William Tytler of Woodhouselee, John Clerk of Eldin, author of ‘Naval Tactics,’ Professor Adam Fergusson, Dr. Alexander Monro, Dr. Carlyle of Inveresk, &c. In association with some of these Dr. Jardine projected the first Edinburgh Review, a critical journal, the first number of which was published in July 1755, and the second and last in January 1756. Among its contributors were Adam Smith, Principal Robertson, Dr. Blair, and Lord-chancellor Wedderburn. Dr. Jardine wrote the reviews of theological books, and to the spirit of his articles, chiefly, has been attributed the popular outcry against the Review, which proved fatal to it. Dr. Jardine was one of the ministers of the Tron church, Edinburgh, dean of the Order of the Thistle, and one of the king’s chaplains for Scotland. He died at the age of 51, on 30th May 1766. By his wife, Jane, eldest daughter of George Drummond, lord provost of Edinburgh, (see DRUMMOND, GEORGE,) he had a son, Henry, and a daughter, Janet, who, in 1782, became the wife of her kinsman, George Drummond Home of Blair Drummond in Perthshire.

The son, Henry, afterwards Sir Henry Jardine, born in Edinburgh, 30th January 1766, became a member of the society of writers to the signet on 18th June 1790, and three years afterwards, through the patronage of Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, he was appointed solicitor for taxes in Scotland. In February 1802, he was by a commission, under the great seal, nominated deputy king’s remembrancer in Exchequer; and in July 1820, was appointed king’s remembrancer in Exchequer for Scotland. In 1837 he retired with a yearly pension of £1,400. He was knighted by King George IV. on 20th April 1825. He was a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and of most of the literary, scientific, and charitable institutions of his native city. The Society of Antiquaries, in particular, profited largely by the interest which he took in its affairs for many years. He was one of the contributors to the Bannatyne Club, of the characteristic ‘Diary of James Melville, Minister of Kilrenny.’ Sir Henry died 11th August, 1851. He had married in 1794, Catherine, daughter of the late George Skene of Rubislaw, Aberdeenshire, and had four sons and six daughters, but only three daughters survived him.
JARDINE, GEORGE, M.A., formerly professor of logic in the university of Glasgow, was born in 1742, at Wandal, Lanarkshire, which originally belonged to his ancestors. He received the rudiments of his education at the parish school, and in October 1760 was entered a student at Glasgow college. After attending the divinity hall, he was licensed to preach the gospel by the presbytery of Linlithgow. In 1771 he accompanied the two sons of Baron Mure of Caldwell to France, as their tutor; and during his residence in Paris he became acquainted with the principal literary men of that capital. On his return to Scotland in 1773 he became a candidate for the humanity professorship in Glasgow college, then vacant by the death of Mr. Muirhead, but lost the election by one vote. In the following year, however, he was appointed assistant and successor to Mr. Clow, professor of logic in the same university, and on that gentleman’s final resignation in 1787, he was admitted to the full privileges of the chair.

           Shortly after entering on the duties of the professorship, Mr. Jardine introduced several important improvements into the mode of teaching, which proved of material advantage to the students, and rendered his class a model of academical instruction. The details of his system he fully explained in an excellent work, which he published in 1818, entitled ‘Outlines of Philosophical Education.’ Besides this work he wrote an Account of John Roebuck, M.D., inserted in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1796. He continued with great success and distinction to teach the logic class for the long period of fifty years, and on his resignation in 1824, as a peculiar mark of respect, he received a public dinner from upwards of 200 of his former pupils. He died January 27, 1827. He had married in 1776 Miss Lindsay of Glasgow, by whom he had one son, John Jardine, Esq., advocate, at one period sheriff of Ross and Cromarty.