of Edinburgh, Session 1873-74. 
289 
Monday, 16th February 1874. 
Sir W. THOMSON, President, in the Chair. 
The following Obituary Notices of Deceased Fellows of 
the Society were read : — 
1. Obituary Notice of the Very Rev. Dean Ramsay. 
By the Rev. D. F. Sandford. 
The Very Reverend Edward Bannerman Ramsay, Dean of the 
Diocese of Edinburgh, in the Episcopal Church of Scotland, was 
horn in Aberdeen on the 31st day of January 1793. His father 
was Sir Alexander Ramsay, Bart., of Balmain and Fasque. Sir 
Alexander was the second son of Sir Thomas Burnett, Bart., of 
Leys, but had assumed the name of Ramsay, and been created 
a Baronet, on succeeding to the estates of his maternal uncle in 
Forfarshire. He was by profession an advocate at the Scottish 
bar, and Sheriff of his native county of Kincardine. In that 
county the family of Burnett of Leys have held lands and a high 
position for many hundred years. Bishop Burnet of Salisbury, the 
historian of his own times, and a divine of enlarged mind and 
liberal views, belonged to it. The Bishop’s picture, in his robes as 
Chancellor of the Order of the G-arter, is among the family portraits 
at Crathes Castle, the seat of the present Sir James Burnett, Bart. 
The Dean’s mother was Elizabeth, eldest daughter and co- 
heiress of Sir Alexander Bannerman, Bart., of Elsick, a lady of 
considerable personal attractions and marked character. She and 
her husband were in Paris at the outbreak of the great French 
Revolution. They escaped from France under the protection of 
a tricolour cockade worn by the Sheriff, which Dean Ramsay 
presented some years ago, as an interesting relic of the time, to 
the Antiquarian Museum in Edinburgh. On reaching Scotland 
they settled at Aberdeen, and so Edward Bannerman, their fourth 
son, who was born soon after, first saw the light in his own 
ancestral country. This was always a subject of deep gratification 
to one whose whole heart and sympathies were so eminently 
Scottish. In early life Edward Ramsay was sent to reside with 
