Great philanthropist

“Regarding the item about Riga in Latvia and the fact that it had a connection with Dundee,” emails Innes Duffus, “as was customary with merchants, the Armistead family from northern England sent one of their members to Riga to look after their flax interests there.

“Later in turn they sent George to Dundee for the same purpose. He married Jane Baxter, one of the Baxter Bros family, in an unhappy relationship which may have been an arranged marriage.

“They separated and the story goes that he, along with a lady friend, rented a country house in the Highlands for a month. Jane got to hear of this and rented the gate house. Every time his carriage went out she would stand in the centre of the entrance to block their path.

“George, however, was a great philanthropist and gave large sums of money to many organisations in Dundee. He was a strong supporter of tradesmen. He became MP for Dundee and it is said that he bankrolled Gladstone on his foreign holidays and for his country house in Kincardine.

“Certainly after his death Gladstone’s son had a beautiful sarcophagus made, carved in London and shipped up to the Western Cemetery. The Armistead coat of arms shows one of the two bearers as a tradesman holding the tools of his trade. Sadly, it is in very poor condition. I had the late Richard Middleton look at it, but he said that it was too degraded to repair. It is still well worth seeing. It backs on to the central wall in the cemetery.

George is still remembered today by the Armistead lectures held annually.

“To complete the story, I believe it was a nephew who became mayor of Riga and there is a statute of him in that city.”

This jay was pictured by a Dundee reader at Morton Lochs.