David Rae, Lord Eskgrove

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Sir David Rae, Lord Eskgrove, 1st Baronet (1724-1804) was a Scottish judge.

He studied law at Edinburgh University, and became an Advocate in 1751. ^[1] He became a Lord of Session in 1782, and a Lord of Justiciary in 1785, taking the judicial title Lord Eskgrove. ^[2]

He was appointed Lord Justice Clerk in 1799, holding office until his death. He was one of the judges who tried Thomas Fyshe Palmer and other Scots charged with sedition.

He was created a baronet in 1804. He died the same year, and is interred in Inveresk Kirkyard.

Rae is remembered by Lord Henry Cockburn in his book Memorials of His Time (published posthumously in 1856), as a “considerable lawyer” who became a deplorable judge, and Cockburn concludes “a more ludicrous personage could not exist.” ^[3]

“

When I first knew him he was in the zenith of his absurdity. People seemed to have nothing to do but to tell stories of this one man. To be able to give and anecdote of Eskgrove, with a proper imitation of his voice and manner, was a sort of fortune in society. (Sir Walter) Scott in those days was famous for this particularly. Whenever a knot of persons were seen listening in the Outer House to one who was talking slowly, with a low muttering voice and a projected chin, and then the listeners burst asunder in roars of laughter, nobody thought of asking what the joke was. They were sure it was a successful imitation of Esky; and this was enough. Yet never once did he do or say anything which had the slightest claim to be remembered for any intrinsic merit. The value of all his words and actions consisted in their absurdity. He seemed, in his old age, to be about the average height; but as He then stooped a good deal, he might have been taller in reality. His face varied, according to circumstances, from a scurfy red to a scurfy blue; his nose was prodigious; the under lip enormous, and supported on a huge clumsy chin, which moved like the jaw of an exaggerated Dutch toy. He walked with a slow steady step—something between a walk and a hirple, and helped himself on by short movements of his elbows, backwards and forwards, like fins. The voice was low and mumbling, and on the bench was generally inaudible for some time after the movement of the lips showed that he had begun speaking; after which the first word that was let fairly out was generally the loudest of the whole discourse. It is unfortunate that, without an idea of his voice and manner, mere narrative cannot describe his sayings and doings graphically.

”

His son William Rae was a Member of Parliament and Lord Advocate.

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Legal offices
Preceded by Robert Macqueen	Lord Justice Clerk 1799-1804	Succeeded by Charles Hope