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.
_____
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.
