Wednesday, June 6, 2012

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.’

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