Earl of Dunmore
is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. The title
was created in 1686 for Lord Charles Murray,
second son of John Murray, 1st Marquess of
Atholl. He was made Lord Murray of Blair, Moulin
and Tillimet (or Tullimet) and Viscount of
Fincastle at the same time, also in the Peerage
of Scotland. He was succeeded by his son, the
second Earl. He was a General in the Army and
sat in the House of Lords as a Scottish
Representative Peer from 1713 to 1715 and from
1727 to 1752. His younger brother, William
Murray, later to become the third Earl, was
involved in the Jacobite rising of 1745 and was
tried for high treason in 1746. Murray pleaded
guilty but received a pardon from King George II
and succeeded to the peerages when his brother
died unmarried six years later.
The third Earl was succeeded by his son, the
fourth Earl. He was also a Scottish
Representative Peer in the House of Lords from
1761 to 1774 and from 1776 to 1790 and served as
Governor of New York, of Virginia and of the
Bahamas. His eldest son, the fifth Earl, briefly
represented Liskeard in the House of Commons. In
1831 he was created Baron Dunmore, of Dunmore in
the Forest of Athole in the County of Perth, in
the Peerage of the United Kingdom, which gave
him and his descendants a permanent seat in the
House of Lords.
George Murray, 5th Earl of Dunmore, bought the
Estate of Harris from Alexander Norman Macleod
for £60,000 in 1834. In 1839, the people of
South Harris were ejected from their homes by
armed soldiers and a posse of Glasgow policemen
acting on orders from the government, at the
behest of the Earl of Dunmore. The 6th Earl of
Dunmore, Alexander Edward Murray, had inherited
Harris upon the death of his father on 11
November 1836 and would in turn be succeeded by
his son, Charles Adolphus, following the 6th
Earl's death on 14 July 1845. Thus the 6th Earl
was about halfway through his proprietorship of
the island when he was providing a pound per
person for those electing to leave.
The seventh Earl of Dunmore served as a
Lord-in-waiting (government whip in the House of
Lords) in the second Conservative administration
of Benjamin Disraeli and was also Lord
Lieutenant of Stirlingshire. The 7th Earl
relinquished ownership of the North Harris
Estate to his bankers, in particular the Scott
family. He was succeeded by his son, the eighth
Earl. He was a soldier and was awarded the
Victoria Cross in 1897. Lord Dunmore later held
political office as Captain of the Honourable
Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (government chief
whip in the House of Lords). On the death in
1980 of his grandson, the ninth Earl, the line
of the fifth Earl failed and the barony of
Dunmore became extinct.
The late Earl was succeeded by his distant
relative (his fourth cousin once removed), the
tenth Earl. He was the great-great-grandson of
the Hon. Alexander Murray, second son on the
fourth Earl, and lived in Tasmania, Australia.
As of 2017 the titles are held by his nephew,
the twelfth Earl, who succeeded his father in
1995. He also lives in Tasmania, Australia and
is a well-respected Freemason.
As a male-line descendant of the first Marquess
of Atholl he is also in remainder to this
peerage and its subsidiary titles and by special
remainder to the Dukedom, which are now held by
his kinsman Bruce Murray, 12th Duke of Atholl.
The family seat was Amhuinnsuidhe Castle, on the
Isle of Harris and Dunmore Tower, near Airth,
Falkirk |