History of the Frasers of Lovat

THE FRASERS OF CULBOKIE AND GUISACHAN. 607
by Royal warrant the additional name of Mackintosh. In
the same year he entered the Town Council of Inverness,
and rendered excellent service to the community until he
retired in 1862. In i860 he was appointed Captain of the
4th Inverness Company of Rifle Volunteers and continued
to occupy that position until he resigned in 1870. In 1861
he was one of the four public-spirited men, who, from their
private resources, built that fine thoroughfare, Union Street,
Inverness. In 1863 he purchased the estate of Drummond,
and in 1864 that of Ballifeary, both now populous and
important suburbs of Inverness. In 1867 he retired from
the legal profession when he was entertained to a public
dinner by the citizens. In the spring of 1874 he was
elected as an Independent candidate Member of Parliament
for the Inverness Burghs, by a majority of 255 votes over
his opponent. He was continuously re-elected until 1885,
when he gave up his seat and stood for the County of
Inverness, again as an Independent candidate, when he
polled nearly as many votes as the two party candidates
against him put together. At the general election of 1886
he was returned unopposed, and he sat for the county until
the end of that Parliament in 1892. His labours on behalf
of his countrymen — their social amelioration, their language
and literature — inside and outside the House of Commons
would, to do it justice, require a volume. So much was this
appreciated that during his Parliamentary career he was
known as "The Member for the Highlands." But perhaps
the most important part of all his public services and the
most far-reaching in its results was the manner in which he
secured the appointment of the Royal Commission of 1883,
presided over by Lord Napier and Ettrick, to enquire into
the condition of the crofter and rural population of the High-
lands and Islands of Scotland and the unparalleled services
which he subsequently rendered to his countrymen as one
of its members.
But he has also been a diligent and successful student and
worker in another scarcely less important field. He is the
most erudite antiquarian in the North of Scotland, and he