Minister who became the `Father of fish farming’ is laid to rest in St Ninians
The other day I wondered around St Ninian’s new cemetery, the one round the current church, which dates from 1751. The older one, as many will know, having been blown up by Bonnie Prince Charlie’s troops in 1746.
The current church was built from the rubble recovered from the older medieval church which was quite an achievement.
No one ever really seems to visit this cemetery though it’s very peaceful and well worth going to.
Within a very elaborate cast iron enclosure I spotted the memorial pictured.
But who exactly was Arthur Herbert Drummond Ramsay-Steel-Maitland?
Well, it transpires he was an MP for Birmingham, first chair of the Conservative Party and occasional Government minister. He served as the wonderfully named UnderSecretary of State for the Colonies.
His connection to Stirling was his wife Mary, who was the daughter of someone else with a long triplebarreled name: Sir James RamsayGibson-Maitland, 4th Baronet of Barnton and Sauchie (try saying that after three pints).
Now Sir James was a true pioneer and a very interesting chap.
H e was behind the now closed Howietoun Fishery which opened in 1873 and developed to prove that trout could be raised like any other farm animal.
His experiments were incredibly successful, although at one point an earlier site flooded, the fish escaped and had to be rounded up.
Sir James won a series of awards including two gold medals in 1883 and 1885, at the International Fisheries Exhibition in Edinburgh.
Perhaps his key achievement was to develop a method for the successful transport of large quantities of live fish eggs.
It was so effective that eggs could be sent to New Zealand without being destroyed. Indeed, such was his reputation he was known as the `father of aquaculture. Given how important this science is going to be to feed future generations, it’s incredible to know that its modern origins liewith a man who is buried just up the road. Arthur Herbert