Fullarton

This name is often spelt ‘Fullerton’, and the principal family of this name held the barony of Fullarton in Ayrshire. The name itself may be a derivative of ‘fowler’, and relate to the keeping of birds, or may come from ‘fuller’, meaning a ‘bleacher of cloth’. The family are said to be of Anglo–Saxon or Norman origin, and the first recorded instance of the name occurs towards the end of the thirteenth century, when Alunus de Fowlerton founded and endowed a convent of Carmelite or White Friars at Irvine towards the end of the thirteenth century. Adam de Fowlerton received a charter to the lands of Fowlerton, granted between 1283 and 1309, from James, High Steward of Scotland. Fergus de Foulertoun received the estate of Kilmichael on Arran, confirmed by a royal charter of Robert III on 26 November 1391. Reginald de Fowlertoun of that Ilk was taken prisoner at the Battle of Durham in 1346. He remained a prisoner of the English king for many years. The family remained in royal favour and extended their land holdings considerably over the next century. James Fullerton of Fullarton married the daughter of a kinsman, Fullerton of Dreghorn, at the beginning of the seventeenth century and the principal family thereafter was styled ‘of Fullarton and Dreghorn’. The family followed a fairly martial career thereafter, John Fullarton rising to the rank of colonel in the army of Louis XIII of France. Sir Archibald Fullarton of Kilmichael served throughout the Peninsular War (1808–14), during which he was severely wounded at the Battle of Salamanca. John Fullarton, second son of the Laird of Carstairs, was elevated to the Supreme Court Bench in 1829, taking the title of ‘Lord Fullerton’.