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Erewine
and Erwinne are Old English personal or forenames and as such have been recorded since the
early 12th Century. As a surname, however, it is of territorial origins from one of two
places of the same name; from Irving, an old parish in Dumfries-shire and from Irvine in
Ayrshire. It is the Dumfries-shire parish which is the principal source of the name. First
of the name recorded is Robert de Herwine, a charter witness in 1226. William de Irwyne,
Clerk of the Register, obtained the Forest of Drum, in Aberdeenshire, from Robert the
Bruce in 1324, and is therefore ancestor to the Irvines of Drum. Robert the Bruce is also
said to have bestowed upon him the crest and motto used by himself. His son, Sir
Alexander, fought and fell at the Battle of Harlaw in 1411, commemorated in a ballad about
the battle as "Gude Sir Alexander Irvine, the much renounit Laird of Drum". The
Irvines of Bonshaw, from whom the Irvines of Drum descend, were deemed to be the chiefly
family by an act of Parliament in 1587. The title Viscount Irvine was created in 1631 for
Henry, son of Sir Arthur Ingram, an English family who had no property or other connection
with Scotland; it became extinct on the death of the 9th Viscount in 1778. The title of
Earl of Irvine was created in 1642 for James Campbell, the eldest son of the Earl of
Argyll by his second marriage. However, it is one of the shortest-lived titles, as a mere
three years later the Earl of Irvine died leaving no successors.
A note received from Jim Irvine
The earliest names you give are not the earliest
recorded. That honour goes to Crinus Ervinus, hereditary abbot of Dunkeld, married
to Bethoc daughter and heiress of King Malcolm II. This was in the first quarter of
the 11th century. Her son (and Crinan's) became Duncan I (murdered by
Macbeth). |
