John Dalrymple, 10th Earl of Stair (1819 - 1903)

John Dalrymple represented Wigtownshire in Parliament from 1841-1856, was Governor of the Bank of Scotland from 1870 to 1903 and acted as Chancellor of the University of Glasgow from 1893 to 1903.  He became Earl of Stair on the death of his father in 1864.   Like many other local landowners Dalrymple was fascinated with archaeology.  He joined the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1856 and in 1877 was elected President of the newly formed Ayrshire and Wigtonshire Archaeological Association.  In 1870 he excavated the crannog site on Heron Island in the Black Loch, Castle Kennedy and ten years later he provided the workforce for the excavation at Barhapple crannog, Glenluce.   Dalrymple was told about any archaeological finds made by his tenants.  As early as 1856 he published a note on a prehistoric bronze axe which had been found during peat cutting on estate ground at Corsewall, Kirkcolm.   In 1879, encouraged by Rev. George Wilson of Glenluce, he donated a large number of prehistoric finds to the Society of Antiquities in Edinburgh.  Much of his collection, however, was kept at Lochinch Castle.  This was given to Stranraer Museum in 1964.