Robert Abercromby of Airthrey

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General Sir Robert Abercromby GCB (1740 – 1827), the youngest brother of Sir Ralph Abercromby, was a general in the army, a knight of the Bath, and at one period the governor of Bombay and commander-in-chief of the forces in India.

He was promoted lieutenant-general in 1797, elected M.P. for the county of Clackmannan in the place of his brother Ralph in 1798, was made governor of Edinburgh Castle in 1801 - a post he held until his death -, and a general in 1802. His increasing blindness made it impossible for him ever again to take active service, and obliged him to resign his seat in parliament in 1802.

Sir Robert lived to the age of 87, and died at Airthrey in November 1827, being at the time the oldest general in the British army.

When the late Mr. Robert Haldane, the brother of Mr. James Alexander Haldane, determined upon selling his estates, and devoting himself to the diffusion of the gospel in India, Sir Robert Abercromby, whose niece Mr. J. A. Haldane had married, purchased from him his beautiful and romantic estate of Airthrey, in Stirlingshire, and was succeeded by his nephew, Lord Abercromby, the son of his elder brother, Sir Ralph.