Hon. Alexander Murchison

Awarded the compensation for the enslaved people on the Springfield and Guininault estates in Vere Jamaica as owner and for another award in Vere as one of the trustees of Free School Vere.

1. According to the ODNB entry for the physician Charles Murchison (born Jamaica, 1830-1879), the younger son of Hon. Alexander Murchison, the family moved to Elgin Scotland in 1833. The DNB identifies Alexander Murchison as the cousin of the geologist Sir Roderick Impey Murchison. According to Scots in the West Indies, Alexander Murchison a medical practitioner in Jamaica graduated MD from Marischal College Aberdeen 07/07/1813 and died at Elgin Morayshire 10/10/1845.

2. Graduated MD from Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1813. Married Anne Batty Prendergast and was of Springfield, Vere, Jamaica, when their daughter Mary was baptised 24/01/1816. They were living at 46 Albany Street, Edinburgh, when Ann died in July 1818 aged 24; her cause of death was given as "decline". Alexander remarried, to Mary, daughter of Dr Patrick Copland of Marischal College, 05/10/1821. John Henry, the son of this second marriage, was born 25/06/1824 and baptised 07/11/1824 in Vere, Jamaica; further children were also baptised in Vere: Alexander (1827), Eliza (1828), Charles (1830), Lucy Sophia (1832) and Anne Sophia (1838). The 1817 almanac gives him as surgeon of the Vere militia, with a date of joining the militia of 28/10/1806. He was an Assistant Judge or Magistrate in Vere in 1817 and 1824 and Custos Rotulorum of Vere in 1839, suggesting he continued to move between Jamaica and Scotland. His burial record in Elgin describes him as "lately from the West Indies". In the census of 1841 he was living at the College in Elgin, age 55, physician, born England, with Mary age 35, John age 16, Eliza age 13, Charles age 10, Frances age 5 and Anne age 5. He died at the College of Elgin 10/10/1845 and was buried in the Cathedral churchyard, 17/10/1845.

T71/858 Vere nos 21, 22 and 44.

1. Christopher Hamlin, ‘Murchison, Charles (1830–1879)’, em>Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004), online edn, May 2008, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/19554?docPos=1 [accessed 31/10/2012].; David Dobson, Scots in the West Indies 1707-1857 (2 vols, Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, 1998/2006), vol. 1 p. 110.

2. Email from Barclay Price, 19/06/2018; information available in 'Albany Street Edinburgh in the 19th century', entry for 46 Albany Street, https://sites.google.com/site/albanystreetedinburgh/home/house-list/number-46/number-46---information-on-other-residents [accessed 26/06/2018]. Births of children in Jamaica, Familysearch.org, Jamaica, Church of England Parish Register Transcripts [online database with images]; positions in Jamaica, almanacs of 1817, 1824 and 1839; 1841 census online; death of Ann Murchison, GROS OPR Deaths 685/2 280 222 St Cuthbert's; marriage to Mary Copland, GROS OPR Marriages 168/B 160 46 Old Machar; death of Alexander Murchison, GROS OPR Deaths 135/90 603 Elgin.

We are grateful to Barclay Price for his assistance with compiling this entry.