Chief of the Drummonds in 1822

[figheadair]

Understood and thank you Rex .

Just to satisfy my own curiosity , should we assume the label was written by the person who received and sealed the specimen or by Drummond himself ?

That's a really good point and looking at the card again it looks pretty clear to me that the majority of the text is in the same hand as the date, 1822 but that the signiture appears to be a different hand. Unfortunately the HSL records of the period are woefully incomplete and it's not clear who sent the specimen but we may assume that it was the chief Peter Robert Drummond-Burrell, 2nd Baron Gwydyr, 22nd Baron Willoughby de Eresby (succeeded 1820). I can't make out the details on the seal but would assume that it was his.



It may be that the name is not in fact a signature but an descriptor added, possibly by the HSL Secretary who would have received the sample, to identify the sender, and that he got the initials wrong and used a colloquial reference rather than the full name.

[neloon]

I'm not sure, Peter. I could believe that the writing is all from the same hand. In that case, if you look very hard at the first word on the label, "Clann", the "C" doesn't seem to match the "C" in the supposed "CS." but the "L" does - in other words, is it actually "LS."? If so then it may stand for "locus sigilli" i.e. Latin for "the place of the seal" signifying the place in a document where the seal was to be affixed. It could appear before or after the signature. Do any of the other labels have an "LS."?
Alan

[NPG]

I am in agreement with Alan, that if the text is all in the same hand, then that may in fact be an L and not a C. It is even possible that the S is an f, though I'm not inclined to see it that way. While not my area of expertise, hand writing and even type face from earlier periods can be a bit of a guessing game. I know there were a few times working with Old Bailey cases where I was glad someone else had digitized the documents, because I had a hard time deciphering the originals.

[figheadair]

I'm not sure, Peter. I could believe that the writing is all from the same hand. In that case, if you look very hard at the first word on the label, "Clann", the "C" doesn't seem to match the "C" in the supposed "CS." but the "L" does - in other words, is it actually "LS."? If so then it may stand for "locus sigilli" i.e. Latin for "the place of the seal" signifying the place in a document where the seal was to be affixed. It could appear before or after the signature. Do any of the other labels have an "LS."?
Alan

Alan,

Not all the original seals and accompanying labels survive, including the Perth tartan (actually a second piece of Drummond) but those that do each appear to have been written by a different hand and none contains the prefix 'LS'.

[ThistleDown]

Another possibility for you, Peter. Peter Robert Drummond-Burrell, 2nd of Gwyder, married Clementina Sarah, the surviving child of James Lord Perth, Baron of Drummond, bringing the two baronetcies together. Is it possible that the initials are either Cl. or CS. and are Clementina Sarah's? She was Baroness Drummond in her own right, and Baroness Gwydir by her husband. Their son, Alberic, was born in 1821.