!BIOGRAPHY: Sir Robert Douglas of Glenbervie, Baronet, THE BARONAGE
OF SCOTLAND, Edinburgh, 1798, p. 382.
!BIOGRAPHY: Rev. Dr. Donald MacKinnon and Alick Morrison, THE
MACLEODS--THE GENEALOGY OF A CLAN, Section II, Edinburgh, The Clan
MacLeod Society, 1968, pp. 34-35.
William Bannatyne, [THE CLAN MACLEOD MAGAZINE, 1957] born on the
26th January 1743, and having received a liberal education entered the
legal profession. He was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advoates
on 22nd January 1763 and was in the course of that year employed by
MacLeod to conduct the Grianam Case against Lord MacDonald of Sleat
over the disputed march between Harris and North Uist. The case was
finally settled in the House of Lords in 1781, when MacLeod of MacLeod
triumphed with £100 costs. William Bannatyne also became one of the
Curators of the MacLeod Estates. On 16th May 1799, he was promoted to
the Bench, with the title of Lord Bannatyne of Kames. His clear and lucid
exposition, his integrity and knowldege of Scots Law earned him
universal esteem. He was a founder of the Iona Club, and accumulated a
considerable library of rare and valuable books. In particular, he was
tremendously interested in Highland history and, though he never
managed to publish the fruits of his research, there is no doubt that at
least part of it appears in Donald Gregory''s HISTORY OF THE HIGHLANDS
OF SCOTLAND, the publications of the Iona Club and the Bannatyne
Manuscript. In the course of his researches, he discovered valuable old
Gaelic Manuscripts in Argyll, such as the Glenmasan and the Kilbride
MSS. Lord Bannatyne was knighted for his public services and spent the
evening of his days at Whiteford House in the Canongate, where he died
on the 30th November 1833, aged 90 years. He was unmarried.