| Administrative History | The three families most closely associated with the lands held by the lairds of Meldrum in Aberdeenshire are those of Seton, Urquhart and Duff. The estate descended to each through the female line. Before 1262 the lands of Bethelnie, the old name of the parish of Meldrum which is now centred on the village of Old Meldrum belonged to Sir Philip de Melgdrum or Meldrum, husband of Agnes Cumyn, daughter of William, Earl of Buchan, and his successors, until the failure of the male line, when the lands passed to Elizabeth de Meldrum, wife of William Seton, son of Sir Alexander Seton, Lord Gordon, brother of Alexander, first Earl of Huntly. They remained in the Seton family until William Seton (d. 1664), having no male heir, entailed the estate on his grand-nephew, Patrick Urquhart of Lethenty, son of John Urquhart, tutor of Cromarty by his third wife, Elizabeth Seton, niece of William Seton, whom Urquhart married in 1610 and who was served heir to her father and grandfather in 1617. The lands were in the possession of the Urquhart family until the end of the nineteenth century, when they were again inherited by an heiress, Annie Isobel Urquhart (1857-1910), daughter of Beauchamp Colclough Urquhart of Meldrum (1830-1896) and sister of Beauchamp Colclough Urquhart of Meldrum (1860-1898), whom she succeeded. In 1878 she had married her cousin, Garden Alexander Duff (1853-1933), of Hatton, son of Garden William Duff (1814-1866) by his first marriage in 1850 to Douglas Isabella Maria Urquhart (1824-1861), one of the sixteen children of Beauchamp Colclough Urquhart of Meldrum (1791-1861), grandfather of Annie Urquhart. The Hatton estates were made over to her surviving son, Garden Beauchamp Duff (1879- ), by his father in 1923 and he succeeded to the Meldrum estates in 1933. The Meldrum estates later passed to Robert B Duff of Meldrum (1915-1990), great-nephew of Garden Alexander Duff. |
| Description | Muniments of title, teinds, contracts of marriage, wills, bonds, assignations, legal processes, petitions, diligence records, correspondence, discharges, tacks, estate rentals and accounts.
Notable features in this collection are its full records of financial and legal transactions in which the lands of Meldrum were involved in the late 17th and 18th centuries, and its extensive series of accounts and vouchers. |