Series 4 > Letters of John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, 1799-1812

Introduction
These letters are part of the Dundas of Ochtertyre muniments,
deposited in the Scottish Record Office, H.M. General Register
House, Edinburgh.1 They were written by John Ramsay of Ochter¬
tyre to Elizabeth Graham, wife of James Dundas, an Edinburgh
lawyer and Ramsay’s cousin.
The estate of Ochtertyre is situated in southern Perthshire, although
it is only four miles from the town of Stirling. The family of Ramsay
first became lairds of it by a disposition granted to John Ramsay on
i December 1697 by Robert Muschett, brother of the deceased David
Muschett, portioner of Ochtertyre. The estate was held of James, earl
of Perth, Lord Drummond and Stobhall, in terms of a charter by him
dated 7 May 1698.2 John Ramsay, the first laird of Ochtertyre, was
succeeded by his sonjames Ramsay, a Writer to the Signet, who was
admitted to the Faculty of Advocates on 25 February 1723, and
married Anne Dundas, daughter of Ralph Dundas of Manor, on
24 March 1734.3 James Ramsay had two sons. The elder, John
Ramsay, the author of these letters, was born on 26 August 173 6,4
and the younger, Ralph, was born on 20 January 1739.5 Ralph was
indentured as an apprentice to John Rattray, surgeon, apothecary,
burgess of Edinburgh, in November 1754.6 There is a reference to
Ralph in a letter of John Ramsay, his brother, to James Dundas: ‘As
for my brother, poor man, if he ever returns, he never liked the place
1 SRO, GD 35/94/1-217. a A copy survives in GD 35/9.
3 Register of Marriages for parish of Edinburgh, 1701-1750, ed. Henry Paton (Scottish
Record Society, 1908), p. 444.
4 GD 35/236/7; Scotland and Scotsmen in the eighteenth century, ed. A. Allardyce (2 vols.,
Edinburgh, 1888), i, p. ix (hereafter cited as Scotland and Scotsmen).
5 GD 35/236/7. 6 GD 35/40.