It was last century that I followed my father, Gordon, and my grandfather, Alexander (socially always Alastair), into the presidency of the Society of Messengers-at-Arms and Sheriff Officers. (Mr Rutherford, although in 1922 the founding vice-president of the Association, later called the Society, never managed to become the president.)
Messengers-at-arms, as bearers of the royal arms on their blazons, or badges, have since the Officers of Arms Act 1587 been counted amongst the maximum of 200 office holders admitted by the Lord Lyon. My grandfather was admitted to that office in 1939; my father in 1969; and I in 1987. I held the office of Lyon Macer – the officer of the Court of the Lord Lyon who is always a messenger-at-arms – from 2012 until 2018, when I was appointed Falkland Pursuivant Extraordinary.
My great grandfather, William Gordon Macpherson, sometime a Glasgow spirit merchant (a poor relation of the Gordon Smiths of the Glenlivet Distillery), worked in Rutherford & Macpherson until his death in 1955. He was never a sheriff officer, far less a messenger-at-arms (although he did become something of an expert in bankruptcy law). He and his younger brother were born at Tomintoul, Banffshire. The brother, our Uncle Jimmy, a great old character, was an officer of law, I like to note, during the years in which he held appointment as a water bailiff on the River Spey.
Their mother’s great-great granduncle, James Grant, was a messenger-at-arms in Glenlivet, firstly at Blairfindy then, after returning from Canada, at neighbouring Tomnavoulin. We know he had returned to Glenlivet by 30 December 1776, for the following announcement was published that day in the Aberdeen Journal:
NOTICE. It has been reported to the Prejudice of JAMES GRANT, Messenger in Glenlivat, that he was struck off the List of Messengers, as being sometime abroad in America. This method is therefore taken to acquaint the Public, that he acts in the Office as usual, and those who are pleased to employ him will be served with Care and Fidelity, upon reasonable Terms, and their Diligence returned in due Course.
Mysteriously, he does not appear to have managed to acquaint the Lyon Court of his return to messengery (‘the office of Messenger-at-arms with attendant duties’ – Scottish National Dictionary). Yet I have copies of some of his official executions and fee notes from the 1780s. Moreover, the Aberdeen Journal of 31 January 1791 identifies the date and place of death of the ‘Messenger in Glenlivet’: 4th January, ‘among the snow in Glenfiddich’.
In a further mystery (yet one caused by a mere journalistic slip, I feel sure), poor James was put in print, fatally, as ‘Peter’. Five generations later, Peter was the name of another of William’s brothers. Uncle Peter was a railway surfaceman. Follow the track here, to a Macpherson family story about a railway station. More whisky history is available on the way.
Background
Armorial badges
