Grand Masters of the United Grand Lodge of England [ugle] and of Scotland

Honorary military appointments

Colonel-in-Chief of the Devonshire and Dorset Light Infantry

Colonel-in-Chief of The Lorne Scots (Peel, Dufferin and Halton Regiment)

Royal Colonel of the 1st Battalion, The Rifles

Deputy Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards

Honorary Air Commodore, RAF Leuchars

Honorary Air Chief Marshal, Royal Air Force

Other Appointments

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Atholl or Antient Grand Lodge

10 Jan 1728 to 14 Aug 1769 William Stewart, b. 7 Apr 1709; d. 14 Aug 1769, age 60

Created Earl of Blessington (qv) in 1745; Peerages extinct on his death

GM Ireland 1738; 3rd Viscount of Mountjoy

http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=maclaren&id=I65236

http://www.thepeerage.com/p13361.htm

Sir William Stewart, 1st and last Earl of Blesington was born on 7 April 1709. He was the son of Sir William Stewart, 2nd Viscount Mountjoy and Anne Boyle. He married Eleanor FitzGerald, daughter of Robert FitzGerald and Eleanor Kelly, on 10 January 1733/34. He died on 14 August 1769 at age 60 in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, London, England. He was buried on 31 August 1769 in Silchester, Hampshire, England.

He succeeded to the title of 3rd Baron Stewart of Ramalton, co. Donegal [I., 1683] on 10 January 1727/28. He succeeded to the title of 5th Baronet Stewart [I., 1623] on 10 January 1727/28. He succeeded to the title of 3rd Viscount Mountjoy, co. Donegal [I., 1683] on 10 January 1727/28. He held the office of Grand Master of the Freemasons [Ireland] between 1738 and 1740. He was created 1st Earl of Blesington, co. Wicklow [IRELAND] on 7 December 1745. He was invested as a Privy Counsellor (P.C.) [Ireland] on 26 August 1748. He held the office of Governor of County Tyrone.

On his death, his three peerages became extinct, and his baronetcy has inherited by a distant cousin, Sir Annesley Stewart.

William Stewart, 4th Baronet and 2nd Viscount Mountjoy, b. 1672, marr. Anne Boyle 23 Nov 1696. It was she who brought the Blessington estates into the family. Out of 6 sons and 6 daughters only two grew up; one daughter, Mary, and one son, William, who became the 5th Baronet Ramelton and 3rd Viscount Mountjoy.

Blessington House, ca 1745

His mother, Janet Pitcairn, was the daughter of a celebrated physician and poet. His father Alexander Erskine, the 5th Earl of Kellie, was incarcerated in Edinburgh castle for supporting the Jacobites in the 1745 Jacobite Rising. Around 1752 Thomas left for Mannheim in Germany to study under the elder Johann Stamitz and returned to Scotland in 1756 as a virtuoso violinist and composer, nicknamed "fiddler Tam". He began propagating the modern Mannheim style, of which he was to become widely acknowledged as the leading British exponent. Six of his three-movement "Overtures" (Symphonies) were published in Edinburgh in 1761. James Boswell borrowed five guineas from Erskine on 20 October 1762, and on 26 May 1763 took him on a visit to Lord Eglinton's in London, where the overture the Earl composed for the popular pastiche The Maid of the Mill (at Covent Garden in 1765) became exceptionally popular. In 1767 the Earl returned to Scotland, where he became a leading light of the Edinburgh Music Society, acting as deputy governor, and as an able violinist directed the concerts in Saint Cecillia's Hall in Niddry's Wynd, Edinburgh.

His dissolute life style extended to founding an (all-male) drinking club, and reportedly the playwright Samuel Foote advised Kellie to put his red nose into his greenhouse to ripen his cucumbers! He tended to compose on the spot and absent-mindedly give music away without further thought for it. His health suffered and he visited Spa, Belgium, but while returning was "struck with a paralytic shock" and while stopping for a few days at Brussels was attacked by a "putrid fever" and died at the age of 51.

Until the 1970s only a small number of his compositions was thought to survive, though the discovery in 1989 of two manuscripts containing chamber works at Kilravock Castle has doubled the number of his surviving compositions - notably with nine trio sonatas and nine string quartets. Interest in him was recently revived by John Purser, among others, and a CD of his works has now been made.

Bibliography: David Johnson,Music and Society in Eighteenth-Century Scotland (2nd edition, Edinburgh, 2003)

http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/families/erskines_kellie.htm

THE Erskines of Kellie trace their descent from Sir Alexander Erskine of Gogar, a younger son of the fourth Lord Erskine, and brother of the Regent Mar. The title of Earl of Kellie was conferred by James VI., in 1619, on Sir Thomas Erskine, the eldest surviving son of Sir Alexander, who had been the King’s schoolfellow, and was through life regarded by him with great favour. He assisted in rescuing James from the Ruthvens at Gowrie House, in the year 1600, and was rewarded with the grant of a portion of the fine estate of Dirleton, which had belonged to the Earl of Gowrie. Erskine accompanied James to England, and in 1606 was created Viscount Fenton. He received from the King at various times liberal grants of lands, including the barony of Kellie, in Fifeshire, from which his title was taken when he was advanced to the dignity of Earl. He died in 1639, and was succeeded by his grandson, THOMAS, who died unmarried in 1643. His brother, ALEXANDER, became third Earl. He was a zealous supporter of King Charles during the Great Civil War, was in consequence imprisoned in the Tower of London, was excepted from Cromwell’s Act of Grace and Pardon, and deprived of nearly the whole of his extensive estates. He was allowed, however, to retire to the Continent, but returned to Scotland after the Restoration, and died in May, 1677. His son, ALEXANDER, fifth Earl, took part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, and was imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh for upwards of three years. He was a person of weak intellect, and, in all probability for that reason, was set at liberty without being brought to trial. He brought new talent into the family, however, by marrying a daughter of Dr. Pitcairne, the celebrated Jacobite physician, and poet. The eldest son of this marriage was—

THOMAS ALEXANDER, sixth Earl, the well-known musical composer, who succeeded his father in 1756. He was a remarkably amiable person, and possessed a considerable share of the wit and humour for which both his maternal grandfather and the Erskines were noted; but he is now chiefly remembered for his extraordinary proficiency in musical science. His convivial habits, however, which widely prevailed at that time, weakened his constitution, and impaired his property. He was obliged to dispose of the Kellie estate, retaining only the old castle and a few fields surrounding it. He died unmarried in 1781. A younger brother of this Earl was the Honourable Andrew Erskine, whose vers de société and witty conversation are still traditionally remembered in Scotland.

The ‘Musical Earl’ of Kellie was succeeded by his brother ARCHIBALD, who was an officer in the army. He was for a number of years one of the Scottish representative peers, and it was chiefly owing to his exertions that the legal restraints imposed upon the Scottish Episcopalians were removed. Like his brothers, he was unmarried, and at his death the title devolved on SIR CHARLES ERSKINE of Cambo. He, too, was unmarried, and his two uncles, who held the earldom in succession, died without issue. The title was claimed, in 1829, by the fifteenth Earl of Mar, as heir-male general. His right was allowed by the House of Lords, and the earldom is now conjoined with that of Mar.

On 23 October 1753, he married his first cousin, Charlotte Murray, at Dunkeld. They had nine children:

Lord William Murray (1762–1796)

Lord Henry Murray (1767–1805)

Very Rev. Lord Charles Murray-Aynsley (1771–1808)

Lady Charlotte Murray (d. 1808)

Lady Amelia Murray (d. 1818)

Lady Jane Murray (d. 1846)

Lady Mary Murray (d. 1814)

John died in 1774, aged 45, after drowning in the River Tay in a fit of delirium and was buried at Dunkeld.