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ROSE, Hugh (1781-1827), of Kilravock, Nairn.
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Biography Detail
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Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
b. 8 Feb. 1781, 2nd and posth. s. of Capt. Hugh Rose, MD, of Brea and Broadley by 2nd w. and cos. Elizabeth, da. and event. h. of Hugh Rose of Kilravock. educ. ?Aberdeen Univ. 1793. m. (1) 5 Oct. 1805, Katherine, da. of Col. John Baillie of Dunain, Inverness, 3s. 4da.; (2) 22 Apr. 1819, Catherine Mackintosh of Farr, Inverness, 5s. 3da. suc. mother to Kilravock 1815.
Offices Held
Maj. Inverness militia 1802, lt.-col. 1803; lt.-col. commdt. Nairn vol. inf. 1806.
Biography
Rose was born three months after the death of his father, who had had a son, James, by his previous marriage. On the death of her brother in 1782 his mother became head of the Kilravock branch of the family, but her right of succession to the estate, which was ‘clogged with encumbrances’, was challenged in the courts by her stepson’s guardian. The dispute was settled in her favour by decision of the House of Lords in 1787 and she wrote to a friend:
I have ... fought for this old Highland castle, in which I now remain the solitary descendant of a long line of ancestors, devoting my time and powers to preserve, if possible, a remnant of their ample possessions for their infant representative; and, in the meantime, I will endeavour to give him such an education as may form him to be independent of my struggle, should it prove ultimately unsuccessful.1
Hugh Rose may have been the man of that name who was informed by the 2nd Lord Melville in September 1812 that he had no chance of securing the baronetcy which he coveted.2 He emerged briefly from obscurity when he was returned for Nairnshire by his distant kinsman John Campbell I*, Lord Cawdor, as locum for the Whig Sir James Mackintosh, whose qualification had not yet matured. Ministers listed him among their friends, but he is not known to have spoken or voted in the House. He was granted six weeks’ leave of absence on account of the illness of a near relation, 1 Mar. 1813, and made way for Mackintosh three months later.3 Rose died 29 Dec. 1827.
