
Francis Garden, Lord Gardenstone of Troup
FRSE
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...
FSA (24 June 1721 – 22 July 1793) was a Scottish lawyer and judge. He was joint
Solicitor General for Scotland
His Majesty's Solicitor General for Scotland () is one of the Law Officers of the Crown, and the deputy of the Lord Advocate, whose duty is to advise the Scottish Government on Scots Law. They are also responsible for the Crown Office and P ...
from 1760 to 1764, when he became a
Senator of the College of Justice
The senators of the College of Justice in Scotland are judges of the College of Justice, a set of legal institutions involved in the administration of justice in Scotland. There are three types of senator: Lords of Session (judges of the Court ...
.
Early life
Garden was born in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
on 24 June 1721. He was the second son of Alexander Garden of Troup, Banffshire, by Jean or Jane Grant, eldest daughter of judge
Sir Francis Grant, later Lord Cullen. His elder brother was
Alexander Garden
Alexander Gardens () was one of the first urban public parks in Moscow, Russia. The park comprises three separate gardens, which stretch along all the length of the western Kremlin wall for between the building of the Moscow Manege and the Kr ...
.
He was educated at
Edinburgh University
The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the town council under the authority of a royal charter from King James VI in 1582 and offi ...
, and was passed the Scottish Bar as an
advocate
An advocate is a professional in the field of law. List of country legal systems, Different countries and legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a ba ...
on 14 July 1744.
Career
In 1745, while serving as a volunteer under Sir John Cope, he narrowly escaped being hanged as a spy at Musselburgh Bridge.
In 1748 he was appointed
sheriff-depute of Kincardineshire, and on 22 August 1759 was elected one of the assessors to the magistrates of Edinburgh.
On 30 April 1760 Garden was appointed with
Sir James Montgomery, Bt as joint
Solicitor General for Scotland
His Majesty's Solicitor General for Scotland () is one of the Law Officers of the Crown, and the deputy of the Lord Advocate, whose duty is to advise the Scottish Government on Scots Law. They are also responsible for the Crown Office and P ...
, but to neither of them was conceded the privilege of sitting within the bar (Cat. of Home Office Papers, 1760–5, pp. 54, 55–6). Garden was employed in the Douglas cause, and appeared before the ''chambre criminelle'' of the parliament of Paris, where he was opposed by Wedderburn, and greatly distinguished himself by his legal knowledge and the fluency of his French.
In 1762 he purchased the estate of Johnstone in
Kincardineshire
Kincardineshire or the County of Kincardine, also known as the Mearns (from the Scottish Gaelic meaning "the stewartry"), is a Shires of Scotland, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area on the ...
. He then began the improvement of the estate, including the enlargement of the village of
Laurencekirk
Laurencekirk (, , ), locally known as Lournie or simply 'The Kirk', is a small town in the historic county of Kincardineshire, Scotland, just off the A90 Dundee to Aberdeen main road. It is administered as part of Aberdeenshire. It is the l ...
.
He was appointed an
ordinary lord of session
The Outer House (abbreviated as CSOH in neutral citations) is one of the two parts of the Scottish Court of Session, which is the supreme civil court in Scotland. It is a court of first instance, although some statutory appeals are remitted to ...
in the place of
George Sinclair, Lord Woodhall, and took his seat on the bench on 3 July 1764 with the title of Lord Gardenstone. On the resignation of
James Ferguson, Lord Pitfour
James Ferguson, Lord Pitfour (1700 – 25 June 1777) was a Scottish advocate and second Laird of Pitfour, a large estate in Buchan. His flourishing law practice was sited opposite Parliament House in Edinburgh. He became Dean of the Faculty of ...
in April 1776, Garden also became a lord of justiciary, a post from which he retired in 1787, with a pension of £200 a year.
In 1784 he was living in a newly built house at Shakespeare Square, at the east end of the then newly constructed
Princes Street
Princes Street () is one of the major thoroughfares in central Edinburgh, Scotland and the main shopping street in the capital. It is the southernmost street of Edinburgh's New Town, Edinburgh, New Town, stretching around 1.2 km (three quar ...
.
Upon the death of his elder brother Alexander in 1785, Garden succeeded to the family estates in
Banffshire
Banffshire (; ; ) is a historic county in Scotland. The county town is Banff, although the largest settlement is Buckie to the west. The historic county ceased to be used for local government purposes in 1975. Since 1996 the area has been spli ...
and
Aberdeenshire
Aberdeenshire (; ) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland.
It takes its name from the Shires of Scotland, historic county of Aberdeenshire (historic), Aberdeenshire, which had substantial ...
, as well as to a large fortune. In September 1786 he went abroad for the sake of his health, returning in the summer of 1788. In 1790 he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...
.
He continued to hold the post of an ordinary lord of session until his death at Morningside House in
Morningside, south Edinburgh, on 22 July 1793. He was buried in
Greyfriars Kirkyard
Greyfriars Kirkyard is the graveyard surrounding Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is located at the southern edge of the Old Town, Edinburgh, Old Town, adjacent to George Heriot's School. Burials have been taking place since the late 1 ...
on 24 July, ‘one and a half double paces north of the corner of Henderson's tomb,’ but there is no stone to mark the exact spot.
Henderson's
Henderson's, better known as The Bomb Shop, was a bookshop at 66 Charing Cross Road, London known for publishing and selling both radical left and anarchist writing and modernist literature. The shop was founded in 1909, and was a father and ...
tomb is a cubic style monument west of the church and north of the large Adam mausoleum.
Legacy

Garden was a man of many peculiarities, one of which was a fondness for pigs. It is related that a visitor one morning called on Garden, but he was not yet out of bed. He was shown into his bedroom, and in the dark he stumbled over something which gave a grunt. Upon which Lord Gardenstone said, "It is just a bit sow, poor beast, and I laid my breeches on it to keep it warm all night". His convivial habits during his early career at the bar formed the subject of many anecdotes. Tytler wrote that Garden, "an acute and able lawyer, of great natural eloquence, and with much wit and humour, had a considerable acquaintance with classical and elegant literature".
In 1762 Garden purchased the estate of Johnson at
Laurencekirk
Laurencekirk (, , ), locally known as Lournie or simply 'The Kirk', is a small town in the historic county of Kincardineshire, Scotland, just off the A90 Dundee to Aberdeen main road. It is administered as part of Aberdeenshire. It is the l ...
, Kincardineshire, and in 1765 began to build a new village, in 1779 erected into a burgh of barony. At the time of his death the village contained 500 houses, with a population of 1200. To encourage settlers in it he offered land on easy terms, and built an inn. He also founded a library and a museum for the use of the villagers, and did his best to establish manufacturing in the district. His ''Memorandums concerning the Village of Lawrence Kirk'' are in an appendix to
John Knox
John Knox ( – 24 November 1572) was a Scottish minister, Reformed theologian, and writer who was a leader of the country's Reformation. He was the founder of the Church of Scotland.
Born in Giffordgate, a street in Haddington, East Lot ...
's ''Tour through the Highlands of Scotland'', 1787. In May 1789 he erected at his own expense a Doric temple over St. Bernard's Well, near Edinburgh, where he took the waters. He never married. There were two portraits of him at Troup House, Banffshire, in the possession of Francis William Garden-Campbell, and a characteristic etching of him on horseback by Kay.
[In ''Original Portraits'' (i. opp. p. 22, No. vii.)]
Works
* ''Letter to the Inhabitants of Lawrence Kirk'', 1780.
* ''Travelling Memorandums, made in a Tour upon the Continent of Europe in the Years 1786, 1787, and 1788''. Vol. i., Edinburgh, 1791; vol. ii., Edinburgh, 1792. Vol. iii. was published after his death, and contains a short memoir of the author, Edinburgh, 1795. A second edition of vols. i. and ii. appeared at Edinburgh in 1792.
* Garden also had a hand in ''Miscellanies in Prose and Verse'', Edinburgh, 1791; second edit., corrected and enlarged, Edinburgh, 1792.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Garden, Francis
1721 births
1793 deaths
Lawyers from Edinburgh
People from Kincardine and Mearns
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Members of the Faculty of Advocates
Solicitors general for Scotland
Gardenstone
Burials at Greyfriars Kirkyard
Scottish sheriffs
Rectors of the University of Aberdeen
People from Laurencekirk
Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London