Edinburgh Bookshelf

Kay's Originals Vol. 2

Search

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 327 his troops, and the place was speedily retaken. Ever since the Cape has remained in possession of Britain. General Dundas wasappointed Governor of Dumbarton Castle in 1819. He died at his house in Shandwick Place, Edinburgh, on the 4th of January 1824, after a long and painful illness, “which he supported with the patience of a Christian, and the fortitude of a soldier.” The next of the military figures, with the volunteer cap and feather, in the centre of the Promenade, is SIX HENRY JARDINE. His father, the Rev. Dr. John Jardine-who died in 1766, aged fifty-one, and in the twentyfifth year of his ministry-was one of the ministers of Edinburgh, one of the Deans of the Chapel-Royal, and Dean of the Order of the Thistle. His mother was a daughter of Provost Drummond, of whose patriotic exertions for the city of Edinburgh, the New Town and the Royal Infirmary are honourable memorials. Sir Henry was brought up to the profession of the law, and passed a Writer to the Signet in 1790. He was appointed golicitor of Taxes for Scotland in 1793 ; Depute King’s Remembrancer in the Exchequer in 1802 ; and King’s Remembrancer in 1820, which latter office he held till the total change of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland in 1831. He was knighted by George the Fourth in 1825. Sir Henry was the original Secretary to the Committee for raising the Royal Edinburgh Volunteers in 1794, of which corps he was appointed a Lieutenant on the 20th October of the same year; a Captain in 1799 ; and Major in March 1801. He was the last individual alive enumerated in the original list of officers ; and he was one of three trustees for managing the fund remaining, after the Volunteers were disbanded, for behoof of any member of the corps in distress. Sir Henry Jardine was long conspicuous as a public-spirited citizen, there being few institutions for the promotion of any useful or national object of which he was not a member. In the lists of the year 1838 his name appeared as one of the Councillors of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; one of the Vice-Presidents of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; one of the Extraordinary Directors of the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts,; one:of the Ordinary Directors of the Scottish Naval and Military Academy; one of the Brigadier-Generals of the Royal Company of Archers ; one of the Councillors of the Skating Club ; one of the Directors of the Assembly Rooms, George Street ; and one of the Sub-Committee of Directors of the Royal Association of Contributors to the National Monument. He was also one of the Ordinary Directors of the Bank of Scotland ; one of the ”rustees for the Encouragement of Scottish Manufactures ; one of the Trustees for Promoting the British White Herring Fishery j and one of the Vice-Presidents of the Caledonian Horticultural Society. With the charitable and humane institutions of the city the name of Sir Henry was not less extensively associated. He was one of the Managers of the Orphan Hospital; one of the Auditors of the Society of the Industrious
Volume 9 Page 436
  Shrink Shrink   Print Print