Laing

This is clearly a descriptive name, being a reference to ‘long’ or ‘tall’. There can be no certainty as to the first prominent family of this name, but Black lists Thomas Laing as promising, in 1357, that Dumfries would pay part of the ransom for the return of David II from England. John Layng, the Rector of Newlands, rose to be Bishop of Glasgow and treasurer to James III between 1473 and 1474. The name is found frequently in the protocol books of the diocese of Glasgow in the sixteenth century. Malcolm Laing, a lawyer and historian from Orkney, was admitted to the Scottish Bar in 1785. He published a history of Scotland in 1800, and the poems of the Celtic bard, Ossian, with notes and illustrations in 1805. Major Alexander Laing was a renowned eighteenth-century African explorer, most famous for penetrating to the fabled town of Timbuctoo in 1826. He arrived in West Africa in December 1825 and set off into the desert in January 1826. He apparently arrived in Timbuctoo on 18 August, having survived the privations of the desert and attacks by Tuareg tribesmen. He remained for about a month in Timbuctoo but on his return journey he was murdered by his guides. The Most Reverend Cosmo Gordon Lang, descended from a Scottish family, was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1928 to 1942, and officiated at the coronation of George VI. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Lang of Lambeth in 1942.