Records of the clan and name of Fergusson, Ferguson and Fergus

FERGUSSONS IN AYRSHIRE 343
Fergusson sat in Parliament for Sutherlandshire from 1734,
and died the 20th January 1759, aged seventy-one. He was
succeeded by his third son, Adam, above mentioned, now Sir
Adam Fergusson.
Sir Adam Fergusson of Kilkerran, Bart., LL.D., was for
two-and- twenty years a Member of Parliament — viz. from
1774 to 1796 — having for eighteen of these years represented
the County of Ayr in three Parliaments, and for four years
sat for the County of Edinburgh.
[On an impartial retrospect of his parliamentary life we
feel disposed to confess that there never was a Member of
the Lower House who displayed a spirit of patriotism less
influenced by party. . . . Since this period he has lived in
dignified retirement, but still continuing his exertions as a
private country gentleman.]
Upon the death of John, Earl of Glencairn, in 1796, Sir
Adam Fergusson entered a claim to the House of Lords for
the titles of Earl of Glencairn and Lord Kilmaurs, as lineally
descended from, and heir-general to Alexander, created Earl
of Glencairn in 1488, and to Alexander, Earl of Glencairn,
who died in 1670, whose eldest daughter, Lady Margaret
Cuningham, was the wife of John, Earl of Lauderdale, and
mother of James, Lord Maitland, Sir Adam's grandfather.
It does not belong to a work of this kind to enter into
points of law. The judgment of the Lords was : ' That
Sir Adam Fergusson has shown himself to be heir-general
of Alexander, Earl of Glencairn, who died in 1670, but had
not made out the right of such heir to the dignity of Earl
of Glencairn.'
The following account of the Kilkerran family in Paterson's
History of Ayrshire Families, 1 affords some additional par-
ticulars to those given in Lord Hermand's narrative : —
' The Fergussons of Kilkerran are an old family in Carrick. The
first of them mentioned is —
'I. Fergus, son of Fergus, who obtained a charter of certain
lands in Ayrshire from Robert I.
1 Vol. i. p. 390, heading—' Parish of Dailly. '