l6 Maria Riddell, the Friend of Burns. 



Presidential Address. 



By Hugh S. Gladstone of Capenoch, M.A,, F.R.S.E., 

 F.Z.S., F.S.A.(Scot.). 



Maria Riddell, the Friend of Burns. 



This time last year I took as the subject of my Presi- 

 dential address " The Addenda to The Statistical Account of 

 Dumfriesshire and Galloway, by Robert Riddell of Glen- 

 riddell." This proved to be a much longer paper than was 

 expected, and it was therefore arranged that it should be 

 printed separately and not in our Transactions. In the course 

 of my enquiries into the subject I naturally came across many 

 details concerning other members of the Riddell Family, and 

 the following remarks will, I hope, be interesting, since they 

 deal with Maria Riddell, who was so great a friend of Robert 

 Burns.i 



Maria Woodley, for such was the maiden name of my 

 heroine, was the daughter of William Woodley, ^ who in- 

 herited an estate in Antigua, and who was twice appointed 

 Governor and Captain-General of the Leeward Islands. He 

 married, at wSt. George's, Hanover Square, London, on 

 March 30th, 1758, Frances, only surviving- daughter and 

 heiress of Abraham Payne^ of St. Kitts, by whom he had 

 four sons and three daughters. His wife's mother was 



1 Much of my information has been obtained from a copy of 

 Maria Riddell' s MS. diary and other papers, made by Mr Stephen 

 Wheeler at the request of her grandson, the late Dr de Noe Walker ; 

 this copy is now (1914) in my possession. The copyist informs me 

 that the diary was much mutilated, and that those pages which 

 would probably now have been the most interesting had been torn 

 out; the present whereabouts of Maria Riddell's MSS. are unknown. 



2 For a Pedigree of the Woodley Family see The History of the 

 Island of Antigua; by Vere Langford Oliver, vol. iii. (1899), pp. 

 256-264. (See also Notes 7 and 41.) 



3 The History of the Island of Antigua (Vere Langford Oliver), 

 vol. iii. (1899), p. 256. For a pedigree of the Payne Family see 

 torn, cit., pp. 8-13. See also Footnote 103. 



