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Grangemuir House was the seat of a junior branch of the Douglas family
in Scotland..
Members of this branch
of the Douglas family usually matriculated their arms with the mottos
Jamais Arrière or Forward. However, in 1979, the present head of the
family - Walter Francis Edward Douglas - was granted permission by the
Lord Lyon to matriculate his arms with the motto Tendir and Trewe, as
taken from the 15th century poem The Buke of the Howlat, by Sir Richard
Holland, chaplain to Archibald Douglas, Earl of Moray.
O Douglas, O
Douglas! Tendir and trewe.
Grangemuir House was given to Lord William Robert Keith Douglas (b:
1783, d: 1859) along with 2,700 acres (11 km2) of land surrounding it. On
the 24th November 1824 he married Elizabeth Irvine (d: 1864).
They
had three children, William (b: 1824 d: 1868), Walter (b: 1825 d: 1901)
and Charles (b: 1837 d: 1918). The children founded the Douglas Cottage
Hospital in St. Andrews in 1866 as a memorial to their mother, Lady
William Douglas of Grangemuir - this memorial is still reflected in the
contemporary St. Andrews Memorial Hospital, one of whose wards is still
called the Douglas Ward.
The heir, Walter Douglas Irvine married
Anne Frances Lloyd (d: 1917), the daughter of an Anglo-Irish doctor from
Roscommon in 1870. They had six children:
William Keith
Douglas-Irvine (b: 1876 d: 1957) Capt. (Walter) Francis Douglas (b:
1878 d: 1950) Helen Florence Douglas MA (b: 1880 d: 1947), notable
translator, historian & fiction writer and one of the first female
graduates of St. Andrews University Rev. Henry Archibald Douglas BA MA
(b: 1883 d: 1962), Parson Charles Gordon Douglas-Irvine (b: 1885 d:
1946) Capt. Edward Percy Douglas (b: 1886 d: ?) Lucy Christina
Douglas-Irvine (b: 1874?? d: 1947?), Artist Elizabeth Douglas-Irvine
(b: ? d: ?) A number of these children were profoundly deaf.
Grangemuir reported annual revenues to the Treasury of £5298 in 1880 which
was equivalent to about £2.6m in 2006.
The heir, Rev. Henry
Archibald Douglas-Irvine married Beatrice Alice Mabel Gratix (d: 1976) in
1913 producing one heir in 1917, Walter Francis Edward Douglas. Henry's
mother, Anne, was the last occupant of Grangemuir. The house and its lands
were sold in 1931. The house continued in use until the 1970s whereupon it
fell into ruin and subsequent conversion into a caravan park. His son,
Walter Francis Edward Douglas (b: 1917), moved to Lincolnshire where he
became an art teacher in Stamford School. He is the oldest surviving
member of the family.
Like many of his close relatives in the 20th
century, and like Helen Florence Douglas, Walter Francis Edward Douglas
converted to Roman Catholicism.
The family who built Dunino church
and primary school still have exclusive right of burial in one half of the
Dunino church graveyard which is just south of St. Andrews and just north
of Grangemuir. The family resumed its connection with the area in the
1990s and 2000s when two members attended the nearby St Andrews
University.
Records relating to the Grangemuir estates, along with
a small number of other family papers, can be found in the Special
Collections Archive of St. Andrews University Library. They were rescued
from an Edinburgh law firm in 1994 and subsequently donated to the
University.
See also:
Grangemuir House
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