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Edmund Burt, also known as Edward Burt (died 4 January 1755), was an English author and a rent collector for the British government in Scotland (Stevenson, 2004). In 1725, he referred to his wife living in London (Stevenson, 2004). On 31 May 1725, he was appointed Receiver General and Collector of Rents on the unsold Forfeited Estates in Scotland, and from 24 June, received £400 per annum to cover salary and expenses (Stevenson, 2004). Virtually all the Scottish estates forfeited after the Jacobite rising of 1715 had been sold except for those of Glenmoriston and Seaforth. Burt was concerned with collecting rents on them until they too were sold, in 1730 and 1741, respectively. His work involved close co-operation with General George Wade. However, he had no part in the building of the "Wade roads" in the Highlands.
In August 1725, Burt accompanied General Wade at the disarming of the Seaforth Mackenzies at Brahan Castle near Dingwall, when he was promised a punctual payment of rents. However, on 28 September, Wade was obliged to sign an order authorising military support to help him extract the promised rents, which the Seaforth tenants had failed to deliver. [1]
A letter by a magistrate of Inverness dated 1 January 1726 reveals that Burt was then a Justice of the Peace, part of the 'haughty, keen and unsupportable government of these military and stranger judges set over us' (Salmond, 104). In 1729 he was appointed manager of the lead mines at Strontian in Argyll, [2] and he continued to be employed in the Highlands for some years after 1741 (Stevenson, 2004).
In about 1727 and 1728 Burt wrote a series of letters, later published as Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland to his Friend in London (including a further letter written in around 1737), in which he summarized Wade's road-building achievements (Stevenson, 2004). The Letters contain important early engravings of Highland dress in and around Inverness.
Burt realized that the conditions he described would be regarded as highly offensive by Scots, so he swore his unknown correspondent in London to secrecy: "It would do me no great honour to be known to have made a collection of Incidents, mostly low, and sometimes disagreeable" (Burt, 1.3). When the letters were published anonymously in London in 1754, the editor claimed that he had bought them from the author, and stated that the author had "died some time ago, and through Losses, unsuccessful Law-Suits, and other Disappointments, left his Family in none of the best of Circumstances" (ibid., 1.vii).
After Burt's death in London on 4 January 1755, the obituaries in the Gentleman's Magazine and the Scots Magazine ascribed authorship of Letters to him (Stevenson, 2004). The announcement in the Scots Magazine, in Volume xvii, January 1755, page 52, states: "At London. Edmund Burt Esq; late agent to Gen. Wade, chief surveyor during the making of roads through the Highlands, and author of the letters concerning Scotland." The Scots Magazine reviewed the book in Volume xvi (July 1754), page 359.
Subsequent editions appeared in Dublin in 1755, in London in 1759 and 1815, and at Haarlem and Hanover. The latest was edited by R. Jamieson, with contributions by Sir Walter Scott, London, in 1818.
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses.
Field Marshal George Wade was a British Army officer who served in the Nine Years' War, War of the Spanish Succession, Jacobite rising of 1715 and War of the Quadruple Alliance before leading the construction of barracks, bridges and proper roads in Scotland. He went on to be a military commander during the War of the Austrian Succession and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces during the Jacobite rising of 1745.
James Stirling was a Scottish mathematician. He was nicknamed "The Venetian".
Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, nicknamed 'the Fox', was a Scottish Jacobite and Chief of Clan Fraser of Lovat, known for his feuding and changes of allegiance. In 1715, he had been a supporter of the House of Hanover, but in 1745 he changed sides and supported the Stuart claim on the crown of Great Britain. Lovat was among the Highlanders defeated at the Battle of Culloden and convicted of treason against the Crown, following which he was sentenced to death and subsequently beheaded.
James Macpherson was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of epic poems.
Andrew Moray, also known as Andrew de Moray, Andrew of Moray, or Andrew Murray, was an esquire, prominent in the First Scottish War of Independence. He raised a small army at Avoch Castle in early summer 1297 to fight against King Edward I of England, successfully regaining control of north Scotland for King John Balliol. He subsequently merged his army with that of William Wallace, and jointly led the combined army to victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on 11 September 1297. Moray was mortally wounded in the fighting at Stirling, dying at an unknown date and place later that year.
Strontian is the main village in Sunart, an area in western Lochaber, Highland, Scotland, on the A861 road. Prior to 1975 it was part of Argyllshire. It lies on the north shore of Loch Sunart, close to the head of the loch. In the hills to the north of Strontian lead was mined in the 18th century and in these mines the mineral strontianite was discovered, from which the element strontium was first isolated.
The Gentleman's Magazine was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term magazine for a periodical. Samuel Johnson's first regular employment as a writer was with The Gentleman's Magazine.
Sir Robert Munro of Foulis, 6th Baronet was a soldier-politician whose life followed an 18th-century pattern. He fought in support of the Revolution Settlement and the House of Hanover, and their opposition to all attempts by the Jacobites to restore the House of Stuart either by force of arms or by political intrigue. He was killed at the Battle of Falkirk Muir in 1746.
William Mackenzie, 5th Earl of Seaforth, and 2nd titular Marquess of Seaforth, also known as Uilleam Dubh, or Black William, was a Scottish peer and head of Clan Mackenzie. Educated in France and brought up as a Roman Catholic, he was attainted for his part in the 1715 Jacobite Rising and also joined the 1719 Rising.
Donald Cameron of Lochiel, was hereditary chief of Clan Cameron, traditionally loyal to the exiled House of Stuart. His father John was permanently exiled after the 1715 Rising and when his grandfather Sir Ewen Cameron died in 1719, Donald assumed his duties as 'Lochiel.'
The Macaulay family of Uig in Lewis, known in Scottish Gaelic as Clann mhic Amhlaigh, were a small family located around Uig on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. There is no connection between the Macaulays of Lewis and Clan MacAulay which was centred in the Loch Lomond area, bordering the Scottish Highlands and Scottish Lowlands. The Macaulays of Lewis are generally said to be of Norse origin because of the etymology of their surname and also because of the islands' Viking Age past. However, a recent analysis of the Y-DNA of men with Scottish surnames has shown that a large number of Hebridean Macaulays are of Irish origin. In the 17th century, however, tradition gave the Macaulays an Irish origin. By the end of the 16th century the dominant clan on Lewis was Clan Macleod of The Lewes. Other notable Lewis clans were the somewhat smaller Morrisons of Ness and the even less numerous Macaulays of Uig. The Macaulays were centred in the area surrounding Uig on the western coast of Lewis, and had a deadly, long-standing feud with the Morrisons, whose lands were located on the northern coast around Ness. Today the Lewis surname Macaulay is considered to be a sept name of the Macleods of Lewis. There are two other nearby clans of Macaulays who may, or may not, be connected to the Lewis clan—the Wester Ross Macaulays, and the Uist MacAulays.
The Jacobite rising of 1745, also known as the Forty-five Rebellion or simply the '45, was an attempt by Charles Edward Stuart to regain the British throne for his father, James Francis Edward Stuart. It took place during the War of the Austrian Succession, when the bulk of the British Army was fighting in mainland Europe, and proved to be the last in a series of revolts that began in 1689, with major outbreaks in 1708, 1715 and 1719.
Clan Munro is a Highland Scottish clan. Historically the clan was based in Easter Ross in the Scottish Highlands. Traditional origins of the clan give its founder as Donald Munro who came from the north of Ireland and settled in Scotland in the eleventh century, though its true founder may have lived much later. It is also a strong tradition that the Munro chiefs supported Robert the Bruce during the Wars of Scottish Independence. The first proven clan chief on record however is Robert de Munro who died in 1369; his father is mentioned but not named in a number of charters. The clan chiefs originally held land principally at Findon on the Black Isle but exchanged it in 1350 for Estirfowlys. Robert's son Hugh who died in 1425 was the first of the family to be styled "of Foulis", despite which clan genealogies describe him as 9th baron.
The Battle of Coille Bhan was fought in 1721 near Attadale, in the county of Ross in the Scottish Highlands in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1719. It was fought between a British government force against Highlanders of the Clan Mackenzie.
John Jones was a Welsh clergyman and controversialist.
The Jacobite Rising of 1719, also called "the '19", was a failed attempt to restore the exiled James Francis Edward Stuart to the throne of Great Britain. Part of a series of Jacobite risings between 1689 to 1745, it was the only one to be supported by Spain, then at war with Britain during the War of the Quadruple Alliance.
Events from the year 1725 in Scotland.
George Mackay, 3rd Lord Reay (1678–1748), was a Scottish noble and chief of the Clan Mackay, a Scottish clan of the Scottish Highlands. During his life the Glorious Revolution took place which directly affected his family and estate, and during his chiefdom he served the British-Hanoverian Government during the Jacobite rising of 1715 and the Jacobite rising of 1745.
Duncan Forbes of Culloden was a Scottish lawyer and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1721 to 1737. As Lord President and senior Scottish legal officer, he played a major role in helping the government suppress the 1745 Jacobite Rising.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Chichester, Henry Manners (1886). "Burt, Edward". In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography . Vol. 07. London: Smith, Elder & Co.| General | |
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