Sir William Macleod Bannatyne

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Sir William Macleod Bannatyne (26 January 1743 - 30 November 1833) was a distinguished Scottish lawyer and judge.

[edit] Biography

The son of Mr. Roderick Macleod, writer to the signet and Isabel (fl. 1736–1744), daughter of Hector Bannatyne of Kames. He received a liberal education, and was admitted advocate, January 22, 1765. While at the bar he deservedly acquired the character of a sound and able lawyer. On the death of Lord Swinton, in 1799, he was promoted to the bench, and took his seat as Lord Bannatyne.

Among his intimate friends were Henry Mackenzie, Robert Cullen, William Craig, Hugh Blair, Erskine and Alexander Abercromby. He was a contributor to the Mirror and Lounger, and was the last survivor of that illustrious band of men of genius who shed so bright a lustre on the periodical literature of Scotland, about the end of the eighteenth century. In private life, his benevolent and amiable qualities of heart and mind, and his rich store of literary and historical anecdote, endeared him to a numerous and highly distinguished circle of friends.

He assumed the name of Bannatyne when he succeeded, through his mother to the estate of Kames in the Isle of Bute. He extended Kames Castle by the addition of a fine mansion house in the early eighteenth century. Being of an easy disposition, he sacrificed the Kames estate to his enjoyment of Edinburgh culture and society, being obliged to sell it in 1812 to James Hamilton.

He retired in 1823, when he was knighted. He died at his home, Whiteford House on the Canongate in Edinburgh in 1833.

He collected a valuable library, rich in historical, genealogical, and antiquarian works, and at its sale in 1834, a set of the Bannatyne publications was purchased for Sir John Hay, Baronet of Smithfield and Haystown, for one hundred and sixty-eight pounds sterling.