Stirling family of Keir Muniments

IDENTITY STATEMENT AREA

Reference code(s): T-SK

Title: Stirling family of Keir Muniments

Date(s): 1338 - c-1940

Level of description: Fonds

Extent and medium of the unit of description: 44m

CONTEXT AREA

Name of creator(s): Stirling of Keir Family

Administrative/Biographical history: Keir in Perthshire was first acquired by the Stirling family in 1448. In 1534 or 1535, Sir James Stirling of Keir married a distant relative, Janet Stirling, heiress of Cawder (now Chadder) in Lanarkshire. In 1541, they were divorced, but Cawder remained with Sir James, and the two estates were conjoined thereafter. The Stirlings of Keir (or Keir and Cawder) were usually regarded as the senior branch of the family. In 1708 James Stirling (1679 - 1749) was unsuccessfully prosecuted for Jacobite activities arising from the abortive invasion plan of that year, and was later forfeited for having been at Sheriffmuir. The estates were purchased by friends of the family. Stirling and his wife Marion Stuart had twenty-two children, several of whom became merchants in India or Jamaica. A younger son, Archibald Stirling (1710 - 1783), who inherited Keir in 1757, had already shown considerable financial ability, and thereafter supported relatives as planters on various Jamaican sugar plantations. The Jamaican connection lasted until around 1850, although by then the estates had long ceased to be profitable.

On the death of Archibald Stirling, the estates passed to his brother William (1725 - 1793). Charles Stirling (1771 - 1830), a younger brother of William became a very successful West India merchant in the Glasgow firm Somerville, Gordon & Co. He purchased the estate of Kenmure, adjoining Cawder, and for a time occupied Cawder itself, making substantial alternations to the house to designs by David Hamilton.

IN 1815 Archibald Stirling of Keir and Cawder (1769 - 1847) married Elizabeth Maxwell, daughter of Sir John Maxwell of Pollok, Renfrewshire. Their son, William Stirling (1818 - 1878) inherited the Pollock estate and the Maxwell baronetcy on the death of his uncle in 1865. Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, as he now became, was conservative MP for Perthshire, but was primarily a historian and art collector, whose writings did much to create a taste for Spanish art in Britain. He married Lady Anna and had two son John and Archibald. The estates of Keir, Cawder and Pollock were held in trust for the two sons and eventually the elder son John chose Pollock and the Stirling estates were passed on to his brother Archibald, who resumed the Stirling surname. The estates of the family were mainly in and around Keir, which lies in the border between the parishes of Lecropt and Dublane, Perthshire, and in the parish of Cadder, Lanarkshire.

See William Fraser, The Stirlings of Keir and their Family Papers (Edinburgh, 1858); Alan L Karras, Sojourners in the Sun: Scottish Migrants in Jamaica and the Chesapeake, 1740 1800 (Cornell UP, 1992) on the Jamaica Estates and the entries on Sir William Stirling-Maxwell and Caroline Norton in the Dictionary of National Biography.

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer:

CONTENT AND STRUCTURE AREA

Scope and content: Collection comprises of titles, tacks and inventories of titles (1338 - 1924); volumes of bound correspondence; transcripts of marriage settlements and other family papers; accounts and other financial records, correspondence, letter books and related papers; estate account books, cash books and papers; diaries and memorandum books (1833 - 1878); historical works, household accounts and miscellanea.

Records of note include: Correspondence of Sir William Stirling-Maxwell (1818-1878) which consists of 17,000 items and is mostly arranged in original bundles. The subjects covered include the disposal of the Jamaica estates. Other records of note include a letter book of James Stirling in Jamaica, 1764-72, accounts for the sale of rum and sugar and valuations of slaves, 1764 - 93 and plans of the Hampden Estate (Ref: T-SK, 24669/1); letters relating to business affairs and plantation in Jamaica, 1793 - 1829 (Ref: T-SK, 24669/2); and letters about plantation in Jamaica (Ref: T-SK/16/10/2 , 22/1-15, 9/8/10,11,13,15-19,29 & 32).

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:

Accruals:

System of arrangement:

CONDITIONS OF ACCESS AND USE AREA

Conditions governing access: Members of the public have full access to the collection on completion of a requisition form.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Language/scripts of material: English; early writs in Latin; some material in French, Spanish and Italian among the papers of Sir William Stirling-Maxwell

Physical characteristics:

Finding aids: Printed catalogue

ALLIED MATERIALS AREA

Existence and location of originals: Glasgow City Archives, The Mitchell Library, 210 North Street, Glasgow G3 7DN

Existence and location of copies:

Related units of description: GB242 T-PM ( Maxwell of Pollok Manuscripts)

Publication note:

DESCRIPTION CONTROL AREA

Recorder's note: This record was amended and indexed June 2002 MR

Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: August 2001

Interest: Caribbean

Specific group:

Subjects

Colonialism

Colonial countries

Sugar plantations

Trade

Slavery

Personal/Corporate names

Places

Jamaica

Maryland, United States of America

Virginia, United States of America

Glasgow, United Kingdom

Caribbean