Swinton Family

‘June 6 [1826]…Worked hard. John Swinton, my kinsman, came to see me,--very kind and

affectionate in his manner; my heart always warms to that Swinton connection, so faithful

 to old Scottish feelings…’

The Swinton connection Scott mentions in his journal is explained by the author, as published in

 Lockhart’s  “Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott”:

‘In [April, 1758] my father married Anne Rutherford, eldest daughter of Dr. John Rutherford,

professor of medicine in the University of Edinburgh. He was one of those pupils of Boerhaave,

to whom the school of medicine in our northern metropolis owes its rise, and a man distinguished

for professional talent, for lively wit, and for literary acquirements. Dr. Rutherford was twice

married. His first wife, of whom my mother is the sole surviving child, was a daughter of

Sir John Swinton of Swinton, a family which produced many distinguished warriors during

the Middle Ages, and which, for antiquity and honorable alliances, may rank with any in Britain.’