Sir Alexander Gibson-Maitland Bart.
The Maitland, later Gibson-Maitland, later
Ramsay-Gibson-Maitland, later Maitland
Baronetcy, of Clifton in the County of
Midlothian, was created in the Baronetage of the
United Kingdom on November 30, 1818 for General
the Hon. Alexander Maitland. He was the fifth
son of Charles Maitland, 6th Earl of Lauderdale.
The second Baronet - the subject of this tune –
assumed the additional surname of Gibson.
Obituary
Sir A.C. Maitland Gibson was born on the 21st
November 1755, and was consequently in his
ninety-third year, and probably the most aged
baronet in the United Kingdom. He was the eldest
son of General the Hon. Sir Alexander Maitland,
a younger son of the sixth Earl of Lauderdale,
by Lady Elizabeth Ogilvie, daughter of the Earl
of Findlater and Seafield.. His mother was a
grand niece of Lord Chancellor Cowper,
cousin-german of the poet, and sister of the
eminent Bishop of Peterborough, and of Spencer
Madan, his still more celebrated brother. He
succeeded to his father in 1820. By the annual
army lists it appears he entered the army on the
17th December 1772, and became Ensign in the
49th regiment of foot on the 22nd November 1775,
and Lieutenant in the same regiment on the 4th
October 1776, and Captain in the same regiment
on the 6th August 1778. In that regiment he
served in the American war, and was present at
the battles of Bunker’s Hill in 1775, and Long
Island in 1776, and Brandywine in 1777, etc.
etc. His more intimate friends may have heard
him relate an incident connected with this
portion of his life, which even the long
intervening time has not deprived of its
interest. Amongst the distinguished characters
who joined the American ranks, none was more
marked for chivalry and daring than the Marquis
de la Fayette. On frequent occasions this
gallant officer carried his reconnoisances to so
hardy an extent as brought him fairly within the
range of the English musketry, and in one
instance he approached so closely to the line of
the 49th regiment that he was specially
admonished by signal to retire, unless he choose
to stand the risk incident to his position. La
Fayette was not insensible to the courtesy of
the warning so conveyed to him, and he had very
shortly after a fitting opportunity to manifest
the feeling with which it inspired him. Sir
Alexander, towards the close of the war, on his
passage home with dispatches, was captured by a
French privateer, and conveyed to Tours, where
he was detained about a year. In the meantime,
the Marquis de la Fayette having returned to
France, lost no time in extending his
countenances to the imprisoned Captain of the
49th, and did not rest satisfied till he had
provided for his comfort, and obtained his
liberation. A letter from the gallant Marquis,
still in the possession of Sir Alexander’s
family, is couched in terms which do equal
honour to both of the parties.
On his return to this country, he was married in
1786, to Helen, daughter and heiress of
Alexander Gibson Wright of Clifton Hall and
Kersie, Esq. Lady Maitland Gibson, who died in
1834, was the cousin-german of Sir Thomas Gibson
Carmichael, Bart. and Sir James Gibson Craig,
Bart. Sir A.C. Maitland Gibson had long taken
the most active interest in the public matters
of this country, in which he was appointed one
of the Turnpike Road Trustees on Corstorphine
district in 1788, and on the death of Sir John
Inglis of Cramond, Bart. then convener, he was
unanimously elected convener of that district in
1799, and in that office his exertions for the
public have been most assiduous, useful, and
unceasing, during the long period of 49 years.
He was appointed one of the ordinary directors
of the bank of Scotland in 1798, and at his
death was Deputy Governor of that bank. It may
perhaps be considered somewhat remarkable, that
while the deceased had been engaged in the hard
fought battles above referred to in the war with
America, that his father in 1744, served under
Field Marshal Wade in Flanders, and in 1745
served in Flanders under Field Marshal the Duke
of Cumberland, and was engaged at the battle of
Fontenoy in April 1745, and with the rebels in
Scotland and Culloden 1746, and thereafter
personally took some prisoners of rank, who were
executed on Tower Hill and Hyde Park, London;
whose father, Charles. sixth Earl of Lauderdale,
who was born in 1688, served under the Duke of
Argyll at the battle of Sheriffmuir, in Nov.
1715, while another ancestor, the Secretary of
State and Lord High Commissioner, was taken
prisoner at the battle of Worcester in 1651,
while others fell on the fatal field of Flodden
in 1513; and others perished at the equally
disastrous battle of Neville’s Cross, near
Durham, in 1346. The deceased baronet was
formally Captain in the 49th regiment of foot on
leaving the army. He was brother of General
Frederick Maitland whose death was lately
announced, and many of his relatives have
greatly distinguished themselves as generals and
admirals of the army and navy. The late
Rear-Admiral Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland, who
died at sea off Bombay in 1839, while in command
of the squadron in the war against China, was
first cousin of the deceased, and it will be
remembered, that Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered
to Admiral Maitland., while he commanded the
Bellerophon, in July 1815. In regard to the late
General Frederick Maitland, a biographical
sketch of whose life has lately appeared in the
United Service Gazette, he left Grenada, of
which he was governor, after a service of 28
years in the West Indies, and was ordered to
Sicily in 1811, and became second in command to
Lord William Bentinck. It was at this period
also, when left in command by Lord William
Bentinck’s temporary absence in England, that an
intimacy commenced between General Frederick
Maitland and the present King of the French,
which continues with repeated acknowledgments
for the protection rendered to him against the
intrigues of his enemies, up to the latest
period of the general’s life, who at his death
lately, in the 86th year of his age, had been 69
years in the army, and was the fifth general on
the list. It may perhaps, therefore, be
considered a curious coincidence, that two
Frederick Maitlands, first cousins, an admiral
and a general, should have afforded protection
in time of danger to two such remarkable
characters of the age as Napoleon Bonaparte and
Louis Phillippe. For above 60 years, the
deceased baronet had taken the deepest personal
interest in the pursuits of agriculture, and the
most improved modes of the cultivation of the
soil, and was always alive to every improvement
from time to time introduced from all quarters,
and which he ever promoted to the utmost in his
power, and had long been a member of the
Highland Society of Scotland. During his
unusually long and active life he was always a
consistent Whig in his politics, and temperate
and moderate in his Liberal principles, from
which he never deviated.
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