a pension in November 1843. Erskine then returned to England, and settled at Butler's Green in Sussex, where he died on 19 March 1855. He married three times, and left by his first wife a family of five sons [see Erskine, Edward Morris] and seven daughters.
[Gent. Mag. May 1855.]
ERSKINE, DAVID STEUART, eleventh Earl of Buchan (1742–1829), eldest son of Henry David, tenth earl, by his wife Agnes, daughter of Sir James Steuart, bart., of Coltness, was born 1 June 1742 (O.S.) He was a brother of the Hon. Henry Erskine [q. v.] and Thomas, lord Erskine [q. v.] During his father's life his title was Lord Cardross. He received his early education partly from his mother, who had studied mathematics under Colin Maclaurin, and partly from a private tutor, after which he entered the university of Glasgow. There he found leisure to study the arts of designing, etching, and engraving in the academy of Robert Foulis. An etching by him of the abbey of Icolmkill was prefixed to his account of that abbey in vol. i. of the ‘Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.’ After his university studies were completed his father endeavoured without success to obtain for him a commission in the guards, and he ultimately joined the 32nd Cornwall regiment of foot, with which he served for a few years. Through the interest of Lord Chatham he was in 1766 appointed secretary to the embassy to Spain, but, it is said, declined to proceed to Madrid on the ground that the ambassador, Sir James Gray, was a person of inferior rank to him. ‘Sir,’ said Johnson, ‘had he gone secretary while his inferior was ambassador, he would have been a traitor to his rank and family.’ According to another account he was prevented going to Spain by the illness of his father, who died shortly afterwards in 1767. The family were then staying at Walcot, near Bath, and the old earl, some time before his death, had joined the sect of the methodists patronised by the Countess of Huntingdon. The countess and her friends now exerted their influence to render the young earl ‘valiant for the truth,’ and with such success that ‘he had the courage to make public profession of his opinions, which drew upon him the laugh and lash of all the wits and witlings of the rooms.’ The countess and his mother also nominated three eminent ministers of the connexion as his chaplains, but it would appear that his methodist zeal did not long survive the change to Scotland. His special interest lay in the study of the history and antiquities of his native country, and there was always a substratum of sincerity underlying his eccentric vanity. At first, however, much of his attention was devoted to the improvement of his estates, which were much embarrassed. To encourage his tenants to introduce improvements he gave them leases of nineteen and thirty-eight years, an arrangement which has been intimately associated with the progress of agriculture in Scotland. Notwithstanding his expenditure of considerable sums on several eccentric projects, he accumulated immense wealth.
Shortly after succeeding his father, Buchan set himself to reform the method of electing Scotch representative peers. At the election of April 1768 he protested against the custom which had sprung up of lists being sent down by the government of the peers who they suggested should be elected; and by systematically protesting year after year he at last succeeded in abolishing the custom. On this subject he published in 1780 ‘Speech intended to be spoken at the Meeting of the Peers for Scotland for the General Election of their Representatives; in which a plan is proposed for the better Representation of the Peerage of Scotland.’ In 1780 he succeeded in originating the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, the establishment of which was finally determined on at a meeting held at his house, 27 St. Andrew Square, Edinburgh, on 14 Nov. of this year. The original plan of the society included a department concerned with the natural productions of the country, and also a pretentious scheme of the earl's for a ‘Caledonian Temple of Fame,’ which, through an elaborate system of balloting, in some cases extending over a series of years, should enshrine the names of illustrious Scotsmen living or dead. The comprehensive plans of the earl in its institution caused some alarm to the principal and professors of the university, and the curators of the Advocates' Library, who united in opposing the petition for a royal charter of incorporation, which was nevertheless granted, probably through the earl's influence with George III. To the first volume of the ‘Transactions’ of the society, published in 1792, he contributed ‘Memoirs of the Life of Sir James Steuart Denham, Bart.’ (pp. 129–39), and ‘Account of the Parish of Uphall’ (pp. 139–55).
In 1786 the earl purchased the estate of Dryburgh, whither he retired in 1787, and where he chiefly spent the remainder of his life. On the important occasion he wrote a pompous circular Latin epistle to his learned friends, which was sent for publication to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (vol. lvii. pt. i. pp. 193–4). He communicated an account of the old
