XXXVl 
Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinhurgh. 
Donald Beith. By Patrick Murray, Esq., W.S. 
(Read December 17, 1894.) 
Donald Beith was the son of Mr Gilbert Beith, farmer, Lochgilp- 
head, and was horn there on the 25th of November 1815. When 
he was quite a small boy, his father, who was a highly educated 
man, detected in a strolling player, called Dunlop, who came to Loch- 
gilphead, an excellent classical scholar. He learned that he was 
the son of a clergyman in the north of Ireland, and a graduate of 
Dublin University. The old man took a great interest in him, and 
urged him to give up his wild, wandering life, promising that if he 
stayed in Lochgilphead and opened a school, he should have Donald 
for his first pupil. This was done with very happy results, and 
Donald and his teacher became devoted friends, and in the later 
years of Dunlop’s life, when things were low with him, Donald 
Beith was his chief support, and no one knows how much he did 
for his old teacher. After being educated in Lochgilphead by 
Dunlop, he served in a legal office in Campbeltown for some years, 
and then came to Edinburgh, and was indentured to the law under 
Messrs James Greig & Charles Morton, W.S., Edinburgh. When 
he left that firm’s employment he went for some time into the office 
of Messrs Gibson-Craig, Dalziel, & Brodie, W.S., and, about the 
year 1848, he entered into partnership with Mr Andrew Murray, 
W.S., under the firm of Murray & Beith. In the year 1850 he was 
admitted a member of the Society of Solicitors before the Supreme 
Courts of Scotland, and in 1862 of the Society of Writers to the 
Signet. Upon the death of Mr Andrew Murray in 1869, Mr Beith 
was appointed to succeed him in the office of agent for the Woods 
and Forests in Scotland, an office which he held till his death, and 
he was also agent for a number of other Government departments 
in Scotland, including the Treasury, the War Department, the 
Harbour Department of the Board of Trade, the Board of 
Works, the Education Department, the Prison Commissioners 
for Scotland, &c. His business was, after the death of Mr 
