Heron

The family of Heron arose in the south-west of Scotland in Kirkcudbrightshire and the Stewartry, claiming descent from the Herons of Chipchase in Northumberland around the eleventh century. The English name appears to have originally been a nickname for a thin man with long legs. Walterus de Hayroun was clerk to William the Lion from about 1178 to 1180. The Herons were among many of the Borders riding clans who were crushed and scattered after the area was pacified by James VI in the decade after 1603. Some time after the Revolution of 1688, the Herons had their lands at Kerroughtree in Kirkcudbrightshire consolidated into the barony of Heron. A Robert Heron, the son of a weaver born in New Galloway in 1764, became a student at Edinburgh University in 1780. He wrote many books, including a memoir of Robert Burns which has been often quoted. He was also a spendthrift who was often in debtors’ prison in London until his death in 1807. Patrick Heron of Heron, Member of Parliament for Kirkcudbright, married Lady Elizabeth Cochrane, daughter of the eighth Earl of Dundonald. Their daughter, Mary, who was to become her father’s heiress, married Lieutenant General Sir John Maxwell of Springkell, Baronet. On the death of his father-in-law, Sir John assumed the additional surname, and quartered the arms, of Heron. Sir Nigel Heron-Maxwell, tenth Baronet, is the present representer of the line.