Notes on the foundation and history of Marischal College / [W. Martin ].

  • Willy Martin
Date:
[1849?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on the foundation and history of Marischal College / [W. Martin ]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    seems likewise to have taken place under an arrangement, which Thom was able to effect in favour of a nephew. The person appointed in consequence was Alexander Dauney, Advocate in Aberdeen, who was elected to the office, jointly with Thom, on the 9th of January 1793, having on the day previous obtained the Degree of LL.D. from King’s College and University. We are aware that the mere tradition of a society or a community is not always a safe interpretation of the legal effect of a decision. But, in the present case, the persons whose proceedings we have cited were Lawyers by profession, and had both occasion and op¬ portunity for ascertaining accurately the true import of the decision. Dalrymple had resided in Old Aberdeen, and there had mixed enough in the society of the Professors of King’s College to form a predominant party in his favour; neither could he fail to obtain, for his own guidance, such accurate information re¬ specting the purport of the decision, as Parliament House in Edin¬ burgh could then still afford. Thom was a Nephew of Catanach’s, and was left by Catanach (who had no family of his own), heir to his property, and successor to his busi¬ ness and all his papers. He had been clerk to Catanach, and in that capacity wrote and witnessed the Instrument of Catanach’s admission. As if this position were not op¬ portunity enough to ensure his thorough acquaintance with the decision of the House of Lords in his Uncle’s case, he also, in 1760, upon failing in his election, (having a lawsuit on many points of detail with Dalrymple, which he carried to the Court of Session, and thence to the House of Lords), consulted, as Counsel, his Uncle’s old antagonist, Charles Hamilton Gordon. The next Civilist, Dauney, stood in the same relation to Thom as Thom did to Catanach. It is true that on the fourth and last election, forty years afterwards, namely, in the year 1833, an apparent illegality took place, inasmuch as the present Civilist was not a Graduate in Laws, either at the time of his election or at the time of his admission, nor until near a twelvemonth after his admission, when the honorary Degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by Marischal College and University, his Alma Mater. There was no other Candidate voted for at his election. Thus, in the four elections to the office of Civilist that have
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