Carnegie, James, 9th Earl Of Southesk

(1827-1905)

   Carnegie succeeded his father as sixth baronet of Pittarow at Kinnaird Castle, Brechin, Scotland. They lost the 5th earldom in 1715 when they supported the Jacobite uprising. James successfully had it restored in 1869. He explored the Rockies and the source of the Athabasca and Saskatchewan rivers, and in 1860 was made a fellow of the Geographical Society. He was honorary doctor of the universities of St. Andrews and Aberdeen. He was a collector of gems and Assyrian, Hittite, Babylonian, and Persian antiquities. His main publications are: Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains, 1875. Herminius: A Romance, 1882. Suomira, A Fantasy, 1899. Jonas Fisher: a Poem in Brown and White, 1875. One of his poems, The Flitch of Dunmow, tells he story of one of Britain's oldest and most popular ceremonies of the Town of Dunmow in Essex. The Dunmow Flitch Trials exist to award a flitch (side) of bacon to married couples (who may come from anywhere in the world) if they can satisfy the judge and jury of 6 maidens and 6 bachelors that in "twelvemonth and a day" they have "not wisht themselves unmarried again."

   Sources: Clan Carnegie (http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/atoc/carnegi2.html). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition, 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopedia of Britain. Bamber Gascoigne. London: Macmillan, 1994. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Official Dunmow Flitch Trials Committee website (www.dunmowflitchtrials.co.uk).