Dudley Marjoribanks, 1st Baron Tweedmouth


Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, 1st Baron Tweedmouth, also known as the Laird of Guisachan and Glenaffric,, was a Scottish businessman and a Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1853 until 1880, when he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Tweedmouth.

Life

Marjoribanks was the son of Edward Marjoribanks of Greenlands who was a senior partner in Coutts Bank. He was unable to acquire the partnership in the Bank but he inherited a substantial fortune from his father, a partner in Coutts & Co Bank from 1796 until his death on 17 September 1868, aged 92. As to his parentage there was some controversy. Although the Lyon Office of Scotland registered his family pedigree, he was accused of being a charlatan. The disproofs were offered as a statement of contradiction concerning his descent. Burnett of the Lyon's Herald wrote an article in The Genealogist upholding the Lyon Office's original assertion of genuine authenticity.
Dudley Coutts, as his banking second name implies, acquired considerable family wealth of his own after the purchase of Meux Brewery. He grew rich as a partner of Meux & Co's brewery, and later a director of the East India Company. With some of this wealth he built the mansion of Brook House in London's fashionable Park Lane and, by 1846, had purchased the highland deer forest of Guisachan in Glen Affric, Inverness-shire, and the substantial estates of Hutton and Eddington near his family roots in Berwickshire. Marjoribanks had large kennels at Guisachan and was largely responsible for developing the then new breed of dog, known now as the golden retriever.
He married Isabella Hogg, daughter of Sir James Hogg, Bt, in 1848. Their children were:
Marjoribanks was descended from James Marjoribanks, a younger son of Thomas Marjoribanks of Ratho, head of the lowland Clan Marjoribanks, both of whom lived in the 16th century in Edinburgh.