Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Craufurd, John Walkinshaw
CRAUFURD, JOHN WALKINSHAW (1721–1793), twenty-first laird of Craufurdland, Ayrshire, son of John Craufurd of Craufurdland, by his wife Robina, heiress of John Walkinshaw of Walkinshaw, was born in 1721. He entered the army in 1741 as cornet in the North British dragoons, and distinguished himself at Dettingen in 1743, and Fontenoy in 1745. Having returned to England in the summer of the latter year on sick leave, he in August 1746 accompanied his friend, the Earl of Kilmarnock, to the scaffold on Tower Hill, for which act of friendship his name, it was said, was placed at the bottom of the army list. He, however, subsequently served in America with the rank of captain, and was present at the capture of Quebec in 1759. Returning to England the following year he obtained the command of the 115th foot in 1761, and was promoted lieutenant-colonel in 1772. In 1761 he was appointed his majesty's falconer for Scotland, and in 1762 he received the freedom of the city of Perth. He died unmarried in February 1793. The estates to which he succeeded on the death of his father in 1763 he settled on Thomas Coutts, the London banker [q. v.], but the deed was disputed by his aunt, Elizabeth Craufurd, the next heir, and after a long litigation the case was finally decided in 1806 in favour of the natural heir. A correspondence between the sixteenth earl of Sutherland and Craufurd has been printed in the ‘Ayr and Wigton Archæological Collections,’ ii. 156–84.
[Burke's Landed Gentry; Ayr and Wigton Archæological Collections as above.]