| Administrative History | James, Viscount Frendraught, was the son of James Crighton of Kinnairdy. The Gregorys inherited their estates after they got into debt and Alexander (1623 - 1664), brother of David Gregory (1625 - 1720), was murdered by their family in 1664. 'Records of the Gregory Family' (MS 2206/18/1) suggest that it was Viscount Frendraught's uncle, Francis Crighton, that committed the murder rather than his son. |
| Description | Letter to Dr James Gregory from the Reverend Thomas Reid concerning his grandfather, David Gregory of Kinnairdy (1625 - 1720). He gives a great deal of information regarding David Gregory and his family including that he served apprentice to a merchant in Rotterdam or Campvere and was there until his brother's murder in 1664; that he prosecuted his brother's murderer (thought by Thomas Reid to be the son and heir of Viscount Frendritt and as a Roman Catholic, protected by the interest of the Duke of York, later James VII or II) on his return home but he was pardoned by the crown and died soon after in a naval engagement; that he educated his much younger brother, James (1638 - 1675), and his sons; that James' thesis at St Andrews was a compendium of Newtonian Philosophy and that Thomas Reid thinks that James was the first professor to teach the doctrines of Newton in Scotland; that James left St Andrews after the change of government not for political reasons but because his companions were leaving and he did not like their replacements; that David Gregory's mathematical and medical knowledge was as a result of his own study and reading rather than any formal education; that as a physician, he treated the poor as well as the nobility and gentry and took no fees for his work; that he was the first to have a barometer in Scotland; that during Queen Anne's War (the war of the Spanish Succession) he spent some time on an invention that would have improved the effect of firearms. His son showed it to Newton who persuaded him it was too destructive to the human species and should not be made; that the family went to Holland in 1715; that his widow was still alive in 1722, old and bedridden but still treated by all her family as if she was of superior rank; that she and her children were zealous presbyterians whereas his first wife's children were 'torries and episcopalians'; that the second wife had trouble controlling the children of his first marriage; that David Gregory was a Scotch episcopalian who wrote a memoir of his time which was not at all favourable to the covenant, 24 August 1787. |