Renton

This name appears to be a shortened form of the old English personal name Raegenweald. Renton is thus the ‘tun’, or small village, of Raegen. The Rentons first appear holding lands around Coldingham in Berwickshire in the reign of William the Lion. They were hereditary foresters of Coldingham, and Ricardus de Renington, ‘forestarius’, appears in charters of that time. They rose to particular prominence in Berwickshire in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Robert de Rentun witnessed a charter by the Abbot of Kelso around 1225. Symon of Rennyngton rendered homage for his lands to Edward I of England in 1296. The early line is said to have ended in an heiress who married Ellem of Ellemsford, but a branch of the family had acquired the lands of Billy and thereafter the estates of Lamberton. Agnes, daughter of Renton of Billy, married Alexander (‘Sandy’) Leslie, the great seventeenth century soldier and first Earl of Leven. Sir Thomas Renton was a descendant of the Lairds of Billy, and rose to be personal physician to George I. The king was so pleased by the skill and attention of Dr Renton that he not only created him a knight but ordered a patent to be prepared, with the intention of elevating him to the peerage as Baron Renton. Sir Thomas considered that he had already received too great an honour and modestly declined to accept the title. He frequently accompanied the king on his visits to Hanover. Renton in Dunbarton-shire was named after Cecilia Renton, who married into the Smolletts of Bonhill who developed the town in 1782.