History of the Fife Pitcairns

496 THE FIFE PITCAIRNS.
Mr Brydone, after a long life, honourably spent, died
in June 1818, at the venerable age of eighty-two.
Three daughters survived their father; one of them
(Mary) became the wife of Gilbert, second Lord Minto,
and was the mother of five sons — 1, William Hugh, third
Earl of Minto ; 2, Right Hon. Henry George ; 3, Charles
Gilbert John Brydone ; 4, George Francis Stewart ; 5,
Gilbert; and five daughters — 1, Mary Elizabeth; 2, Frances
Anne Maria; 3, Charlotte Mary; 4, Elizabeth Amelia
Jane ; 5, Harriet Ann Gertrude. The portrait in this
book is of Lady Minto and her two children, which the
present Lord Minto kindly gave permission to be copied
from his picture at Minto House. Lady Minto is said to
have had a very beautiful character. Her charming por-
trait is by Hayter, R.A. The boy taken with her was Col.
the Hon. Gilbert Elliot of the Rifle Brigade, who saw a
good deal of service in the Kaffir war and in the Crimea ;
and the little girl is the Lady Harriet Elliot, who died
unmarried about 1855.
Ralph, second Baron Dunfermline, married, September
the 18th, 1838, Mary Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Gil-
bert, second Earl of Minto, and Mary Brydone his wife.
She died April the 10th, 1874. The barony became ex-
tinct in 1868. They left only one child, Mary Catherine
Elizabeth, who married, October the 27th, 1876, Lieu-
tenant-Colonel John Mowbray Trotter, late Bengal Staff
Corps, son of Archibald Trotter of Dreghorn, Mid-Lothian,
and now of Colinton House, Colinton.
The modern house of Colinton, at present inhabited by
Colonel Trotter, stands on a beautiful eminence overhang-
ing the village of Colinton, and was built by the first Sir
William Forbes, who unfortunately died just as it neared
completion in 1806. It then became the residence of Lord
Dunfermline, who was some years Speaker in the House
of Commons. He was son of the famous General Sir
Ralph Abercrombie. An amusing tale is attached to the
beechen avenue that leads to the village.
Thither one pleasant Sabbath morning before church-