Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/278

 appointed in his time, and by a story of his being kidnapped by a suitor, the Earl of Traquair, who thought him unfavourable in a cause before the court, and kept him for three months in a dark room in the country, when, the cause being decided, he was returned to the place where he had been seized. This story forms the subject of Scott's ballad of ‘Christie's Will’ [see, 1602?–1658?] in the ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.’ Patrick Fraser Tytler, in the appendix to his ‘Life of Sir Thomas Craig,’ mentions another version of the kidnapping of Durie in 1604, when he was only a clerk of session. Mr. Tytler thinks this was another and different incident.

[Douglas's Baronage of Scotland, 1798; manuscript Scottish Charters; Tytler's Life of Sir Thomas Craig, Edinburgh, 1823; Anderson's Scottish Nation; family memoranda.] 

GIBSON, ALEXANDER,  (d. 1656), Scottish judge, was eldest son of Sir Alexander Gibson (d. 1644) [q. v.], by Margaret, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Craig of Riccarton. He was made a clerk of session conjointly with his father upon the latter's promotion to the bench in 1621. He opposed Charles I's policy respecting the service-book, protested against the royal proclamations of 1638, and petitioned the presbytery of Edinburgh against the bishops, November 1638. He was commissary-general of the forces raised to resist Charles I in 1640, but was afterwards knighted 15 March 1641, and made lord clerk register 13 Nov. 1641. He was made a commissioner of the exchequer 1 Feb. 1645, and sat on the committee of estates (1645–8). He became lord of session in 1646, when he took the title of Lord Durie. He was deprived of his offices in 1649 by the act of classes, after joining ‘the engagement.’ He was one of the Scottish commissioners chosen to attend the English parliament in 1652 and 1654. Lamont writes in 1650, ‘Both Durie and his lady was debarred from the table because of their malignancie.’ He died in June 1656. He was twice married; first to Marjory Hamilton, by whom he had one daughter; secondly to Cecilia, daughter of Thomas Fotheringham of Powrie, by whom he left Sir Alexander Gibson of Durie, knt., commissioner to parliament in England for Fife and Kinross 1656–9, and for Fife 1659, who died at Durie 6 Aug. 1661.

[Brunton and Haig's College of Justice, pp. 317–18; Lamont's Diary (Maitland Club, 1830); family memoranda.] 

GIBSON, ALEXANDER (d. 1693), clerk of session, was eldest son of Sir John Gibson of Pentland and Addiston, co. Edinburgh (knighted circa 1647), by Jean, daughter and heiress of Alexander Hay of Kennet, Clackmannanshire. Sir John was second son of Sir Alexander Gibson, the first lord Durie (d. 1644) [q. v.] Douglas states that Sir John was a distinguished royalist, and was created a knight-banneret at the battle of Worcester, but there seems no other evidence than his assertion. Alexander was principal clerk of session and clerk to the privy council in Scotland. He was knighted in 1682, and died in 1693. He edited his grandfather's (Sir Alexander, first lord Durie) ‘Decisions of the Lords of Council and Session,’ also called ‘Lord Durie's Practicks,’ on the recommendation and permission of the court of session and the privy council. The volume was printed in folio, Edinburgh, 1690. Sir Alexander married Helen, daughter of Sir James Fleming of Rathobyers, Mid-Lothian, by whom he had (with five daughters) two sons, Sir John of Pentland, knighted in or before 1690, and died in 1704, and whose line ceased with his son; and Alexander, who purchased the estate of Durie from his brother John, and married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Foulis, and left an eldest son and heir, John, who married Helen, daughter of the Hon. William Carmichael of Skirling, second son of the first Earl of Hyndford, by Helen Craig of Riccarton, and sister and heiress of the fourth earl. The descendants of this marriage (the elder line having failed) are now the lineal male representatives of Sir Alexander Gibson, first lord Durie; and the present head of the family is the Rev. Sir William Gibson-Carmichael, bart., of Castle Craig, Dolphinton, N.B.

[Family memoranda.] 

GIBSON, ALEXANDER (1800–1867), botanist, was born at Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire, on 24 Oct. 1800. After taking his degree of doctor of medicine at Edinburgh, he obtained an appointment as assistant-surgeon in the East India Company's service in January 1825, in which year he went out to India, and served some years in the Indian navy. While thus engaged he studied the native languages, and passed examinations in Hindustani, Mahrati, and Gujerati. In 1836 he was appointed vaccinator for the Deccan and Kandesh, and while in this migratory office his knowledge of botany and agriculture procured him in 1838 the post of superintendent of the botanical garden at Dapuri. Here Dr. Gibson paid special attention to the introduction and cultivation of exotic trees and plants, and his successful