Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/247

 duel. Both were imprisoned in the Tower, from which they were released on bail on 5 Aug. 1631 (Egerton MSS. 2553, f. 37). Among the Additional MSS. at the British Museum (No. 7083) is a volume entitled ‘The Manner of Donald, Lord Rey, and David Ramsay, esq., their coming to and carriage at theire Tryall on Monday the 28th day of November 1631, before Robert, Earle of Lindsey, Lord High Constable,’ and others (State Trials, iii. 483;, Historical Collections, ii. 113, original edition; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1631–3; cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. 1st Rep. p. 48 b, 2nd Rep. pp. 3 b, 174 b, 3rd Rep. p. 71 a). Ramsay obtained from the king the reversion of the post of filazer to the court of common pleas, which he farmed to [q. v.]

He died in 1642, and his will, dated 13 May, was proved on 3 Aug. of that year in the prerogative court of Canterbury (101 Campbell). The executors were James Maxwell, black rod; Sir John Meldrum [q. v.]; and David Forrett, nephew. He left legacies to his sister Agnes, his niece Barbara Forrett, his nephew John Forrett, Patrick Shawe, husband of his sister Barbara, and to his executors. He mentions a bond of 6,000l. which Fabian Philipps had entered into for the due performance of the office of filazer, and for the payment of the profits to him (cf. Cal. State Papers, 1643, p. 471).



RAMSAY, EDWARD BANNERMAN (1793–1872), dean of Edinburgh, fourth son of Alexander Burnett, advocate sheriff of Kincardineshire, by his second wife, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir Alexander Bannerman of Elsick, was born at Aberdeen on 31 Jan. 1793. His father (who was second son of Sir Thomas Burnett, bart., of Leys, by Catherine Ramsay) [see, (d. 1513)], after his succession in 1806 to the estates of Balmain and Fasque in Kincardineshire, left to him by his uncle, Sir Alexander Ramsay, assumed for himself and his family the name of Ramsay, was made a baronet by Fox (13 May 1806), resigned his sheriffship and lived at Fasque till his death in 1810.

Edward Ramsay spent much of his boyhood with his grand-uncle, Sir Alexander, who lived on his Yorkshire estate. He was sent to the village school at Halsey, after his uncle's death, and in 1806 to the cathedral grammar school at Durham. He completed his education at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1816. In the same year he was ordained to the curacy of Rodden, near Frome in Somerset, and in 1817 became curate also of Buckland Denham in the same county, where the absence of the rector gave him the whole pastoral charge. In the ‘Sunday Magazine’ of January 1865 he wrote ‘Reminiscences of a West of England Curacy,’ in which he describes his life at this period and his intimacy with the Wesleyan methodists among his parishioners. His favourite studies were botany, architecture, and music. He became an accomplished player on the flute, and had a special admiration for Handel. In 1824 he came to Edinburgh as curate of St. George's, York Place, where he remained two years, and after a year's incumbency of St. Paul's, Carrubbers Close, became in 1827 assistant of Bishop Sandford of St. John's Church. Succeeding Sandford in 1830, he remained pastor of that congregation till his own death.

Ramsay's English education had not made him a less patriotic Scot, but it enlarged his view of Scottish patriotism. He advocated consistently, and at last successfully, the removal of the barriers which separated the Scottish episcopal from the English church. In 1841 he was appointed by Bishop Terrot dean of Edinburgh, and, having declined Peel's offer of the bishopric of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and at later periods the bishopric of Glasgow and the coadjutor-bishopric of Edinburgh, he became familiarly known in Scotland as ‘The Dean’ or Dean Ramsay. He was a vice-president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and delivered the opening address in 1861. His only other contribution to the ‘Proceedings’ was a ‘Memoir’ of Dr. Chalmers, a friend for whose genius he had a high admiration. It was largely due to him that the statue of Chalmers was erected in Edinburgh. The ‘Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character’ (1858), which gave the dean his widest reputation, had their origin in ‘Two Lectures on some Changes in Social Life and Habits,’ delivered at Ulbster Hall, Edinburgh, in 1857. These were rewritten and much enlarged in successive editions, of which twenty-one were published during his life; the twenty-second was issued after his death with a notice of his life by Professor Cosmo-Innes. The book has been recognised as the best collection of Scottish stories and one of the best answers to the charge of want of humour made by Sydney Smith against the Scots. It is composed largely of stories and 