Paterson

In Gaelic this name is given as ‘MacPhadraig’, possibly a shortened form of ‘MacGille Phadraig’, ‘son of the devotee of St Patrick’. This indicates that the eponymous ancestor may have been either a churchman (the Celtic church permitted priests to marry) or a layman with an office in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The Patersons settled on the shores of Loch Fyne around the end of the thirteenth century, and the name soon became widespread in the Lowlands, where it is now among the twenty most common surnames. William Patrison ‘gentleman’ witnessed a charter in Aberdeen in 1446. James Paterson was sheriff-depute of Inverness in 1563, later becoming Provost of the city. Around this time, William Paterson was born near Dumfries. He was later to found the Bank of England, although he is perhaps better remembered as the architect of the ill-fated Darien Scheme. This scheme was planned to establish a Scottish colony at the isthmus of Darien in Central America. Many Scots invested heavily in the project and signed on as colonists. The scheme was wrecked by the intrigues of powerful merchant interests in England who convinced the London government to oppose it. Settlers died like flies in the fever-ridden colony, and many of the investors were ruined when it finally collapsed in 1699. The most celebrated episode in the history of this family occurred during the Jacobite rising of 1745. Sir Hugh Paterson of Bannockburn, whose baronetcy title dated from 1686, entertained Prince Charles Edward Stuart in January 1746 at his splendid mansion near the site of the famous battle. It was during his stay that the prince met Sir Hugh’s niece, Clementina Walkinshaw, who became his mistress, and later bore him a daughter, Charlotte, Duchess of Albany. Bannockburn House still stands today, looking much as the ‘Bonnie Prince’ would have remembered it.