being the same constituency which was represented, in 1841–6, by his brother, William Baird, the first conservative returned by a burgh constituency in Scotland after the Reform Act, Retiring from parliament in 1857, James Baird devoted much of his time to religious and educational questions, and built and endowed a large number of schools. He was a firm believer in the teaching of the Bible in schools, and a staunch supporter of the so-called 'use-and-wont' platform. In 1871 he founded the 'Baird Lectures' for the defence of orthodox teaching, and his liberality culminated in a gift of 500,000l., made in 1873, to the established church of Scotland, which he passed over to a body described as the 'Baird Trust,' 'to assist in providing the means of meeting, or at least as far as possible promoting the mitigation of, spiritual destitution among the population of Scotland.' The benefaction was well intended, but it did not escape exception as being 'hampered by conditions distasteful to not a few of the more liberal members of the establishment' (Scotsman, 21 June 1876). A month before his death, Baird was credited with the design of devoting a second 500,000l. for the advancement of the higher education of the ministers of all presbyterian denominations, but no mention of this was made in his will. All the brothers of James Baird predeceased him, and by the death of Robert Baird in 1856 he succeeded to the estate of Auchmedden in Aberdeenshire. Besides being owner of smaller properties in Ayrshire, James Baird acquired the considerable estates of Cambusdoon in Ayrshire in 1853; of Knoydart in Invernesshire in 1857; and of Muirkirk in Ayrshire in 1863. He was a magistrate for Lanarkshire, and a deputy-lieutenant for the counties of Ayr and Inverness. He was twice married: the first time, in 1852, to Charlotte, daughter of Mr. Robert Lockhart, of Castle Hill, Lanarkshire, who died in 1857, and secondly, in 1859, to Isabella Agnew, daughter of Admiral James Hay, of Belton, Haddingtonshire, who survived him. He had no children by either marriage; and the firm, of which he continued a member to the last; and the annual profits of which in prosperous years were believed to exceed 1,000,000l., consisted, at the time of his death, of himself and three nephews. He 'left property valued at 3,000,000l. sterling' (Irving, Annals of our Time). Baird died after a few weeks' illness on 20 June 1876, at Cambusdoon, near Ayr, and was buried on the Friday following, 23 June, by the side of his first wife at Alloway, whose church he had endowed.
[Sir Bernard Burke's Vicissitudes of Families, 1869; Jeans's Western Worthies (Glasgow). 1873; Irving's Annals of our Time; Kings of British Commerce, 1876, part i. pp. 23–31; Times, Dundee Advertiser, and Edinburgh Courant, 21 June 1876; Falkirk Herald, 22 June 1876; Glasgow News, 21 and 24 June 1876; and Scotsman, 21 June and August 1876.]
BAIRD, Sir JOHN (1620–1698), of Newbyth in Aberdeenshire, judge, son of James Baird of Byth in the same county, advocate, and for some time commissary of Edinburgh, and Bathia, daughter of Sir John Dempster of Pitliver, was admitted advocate on 3 June 1647. It must have been about the same year that he married Margaret, daughter of Sir William Hay of Linplum, by whom he had four children, three sons and one daughter, viz. John, born on 4 Oct. 1648; Margaret, born on 23 Dec. 1649; John, born on 23 Sept. 1652; and William, born on 12 Nov. 1654. He appears to have been knighted by Charles II on his accession to the throne of Scotland in 1651, In the correspondence of the Earls of Ancram and Lothian (1616-67) we find him referred to as Sir John, under date 1653. Thenceforward his name occurs with some frequency in that correspondence, and usually in such a connection as to suggest that he was regarded as a person of some weight and sagacity. Like his father he belonged to the covenanting party, and was considered of sufficient consequence to be excluded from the operation of the Act of Indemnity passed by the parliament of Scotland in 1662, being then mulcted in the sum of 2,400l. His eminence at the bar, however, could not be ignored, and in 1664 he was created an ordinary lord of session, assuming the title of Lord Newbyth. In the Scottish parliaments of 1665 and 1667 he represented Aberdeenshire, and sat on the committee of taxation in the former, and on that of supply in the latter, parliament. He was not returned to the parliament of 1669. In that year a grant of the barony of Gilmertoun within the sheriftdom of Edinburgh, made in his favour by the crown in 1667, was ratified by the parliament. In 1670 he was nominated one of the commissioners to negotiate the then projected treaty of union between England and Scotland. In 1680 his youngest and only surviving son, William, was created knight baronet. By reason of his opposition to the arbitrary measures of the government he was superseded in the office of lord of session in 1681, Sir Patrick Ogilvie of Boyne being appointed in his place. He acted as commissioner of the cess for the shire of Edinburgh in 1685, and also as commissioner of supply for the same county. On the accession of
