Born on the island of Bute, the eldest son of Dugald Bannatyne the Glasgow postmaster, Andrew Bannatyne was educated at Glasgow, Edinburgh and Heidelberg. He entered the Faculty of Procurators in 1825 and was to serve as Dean of the Faculty from 1860-65.
Along with his brother Dugald John, Andrew Bannatyne was active in many aspects of Scottish business, most notably when inaugurating the Edinburgh and Glasgow railway company. He was a supporter of parliamentary and municipal reform, and a noted member of the Liberal Party. He promoted the Bankrupt Act of 1839 and the Procurators' Act of 1865, and in 1866 was a commissioner on the inquiry into registration of heritable property.
Having been made an honorary Doctor of Law by Glasgow University in 1868, Bannatyne died at home at Milheugh, Blantyre, on 12 June 1871. He was survived by his wife, two daughters and six sons.
MR. ANDREW BANNATYNE was born in 1798, and was the elder son of Mr. Dugald Bannatyne, a cadet of the ancient family of Bannatyne of Kames, in the Island of Bute. After carrying on business for many years as one of our principal merchants, and taking a very prominent part in public affairs, and also in our Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Dugald Bannatyne was appointed to the Postmastership of the city - an office which he held till his death in 1842.
Mr. Dugald Bannatyne, of whom an admirable portrait now adorns the walls of the Merchants' House of Glasgow, was remarkable for great sedateness and sagacity, much soberness of judgment, great earnestness of purpose, and also thorough reliableness - qualities which undoubtedly descended to his son, and formed a very important part of his character. As he was possessed of considerable literary tastes and attainments, he enjoyed the friendship of many distinguished men of the day, among whom we may mention Mr. Dugald Stewart, with whom, indeed, he was connected by the ties of relationship, and Mr. John Millar, the celebrated Professor of Law in the University of Glasgow. His son, Mr. Andrew Bannatyne, was thus brought up in truly intellectual society; and in it he acquired that refinement of manner and culture of mind which distinguished him through life. With the family of Millar he was afterwards connected by marriage.
At the age of fifteen Mr. Andrew Bannatyne entered the chambers of Messrs. McGrigor & Murray, of Glasgow, a firm now represented by McGrigor Donald & Co., with a view to becoming a writer in the city; and during his apprenticeship with those gentlemen he attended the Arts Classes in the University of Glasgow. In 1820, prompted by a desire for that excellence to which he afterwards attained, he removed to Edinburgh, where he served an apprenticeship with Mr. James Gibson, Writer to the Signet, afterwards Sir James Gibson-Craig of Riccarton, Baronet, and at the same time attended the University of Edinburgh, the various law classes in which he passed through with distinction. During his residence in Edinburgh he was much in the society of his relative, Dugald Stewart, and of many of those who still sat at the feet of the venerable philosopher; and he was the intimate companion of many of the young men who came to the Bar between 1812 and 1820, some of whom afterwards reached the highest honours of the profession. His principal friend, however, was Mr. Archibald Fletcher, advocate, a gentleman whose services in the cause of burgh reform can never be sufficiently recognized, and at whose hospitable table, presided over by a lady whose singular beauty was allied with every excellence of character, he frequently enjoyed the society of the great advocates of the day, all still in the cold shade of opposition - the Clerks, the Jeffreys, the Cranstouns, the Moncreiffs, the Fullertons, the Cockburns, and the Murrays.
Not satisfied, however, with what he had acquired in Glasgow and Edinburgh, he went to Heidelberg, and studied in the University there for upwards of a year - his favourite subject being Roman Law. On his return to Scotland in 1825, he entered the Faculty of Procurators in Glasgow, then, as still, the great leading body of the West, and to whose highest honours he was destined ultimately to attain.
He had hardly begun business when he found himself engaged along with Charles Tennant, William Stirling, and Colin Dunlop in the great agitation for parliamentary and municipal reform. These distinguished citizens have long since passed away from among us; but some of their contemporaries still survive, and can well remember how much these excellent men, and all who were associated with them, owed, in all their deliberations, and in every difficulty, to the good sense, the comprehensive views, and the judicious counsels of their young adviser.
The excitement of political life, however, was not allowed to stand in the way of professional duties. A few years after beginning business he assumed as a partner his brother, Mr. Dugald John Bannatyne; and ere long the firm of A. & D. J. Bannatyne, now represented by Bannatyne Kirkwood McJannet & France, acquired a leading position in the very front rank of the profession. We cannot name Mr. D. J. Bannatyne, also now no more, without saying that in the conduct of railway and parliamentary business he stood unrivalled. For the elder brother, the subject of this memoir, the details of parliamentary business had, generally speaking, few attractions; yet, as will appear presently, he was deeply impressed with the desirableness, or rather the great importance, of a railway system for Scotland. Constitutionally, his tastes were those of a judge or of an adviser, rather than those of an advocate or of an agent. But just as the younger brother was pre-eminent in one walk, so the elder was pre-eminent in the other which he preferred. He was endowed with an intellect singularly acute, and with judgment singularly sound; his views were of great breadth; no excitement of any kind ever ruffled the calmness of his temper. Moreover, he was a thorough master of the principles of jurisprudence, and thoroughly skilled in applying them; and to the consideration of every question submitted to him he brought not only the amplest experience, but also a mind completely exempt from bias or prejudice.
The two brothers made themselves remarkable by inaugurating the system of railways in Scotland - the one originating the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, now part of the North British system, and the other the Glasgow and Ayrshire Railway, with the various ramifications of both lines. Their success in these undertakings led to their employment in parliamentary business to an extent greater than that of any other firm in Scotland. In as far as relates to railways they had charge of the Scottish Central Bill of the Dumfries and Carlisle Bill, and of the connections of both lines; as also of the opposition to the Bill for the formation of the Caledonian Railway. And as regards other parliamentary business, they were entrusted with the opposition to the Clyde Trust Consolidation measure of 1858; with the parliamentary contests of the Glasgow Water Company; and with the preparation and promotion of the Glasgow Police Bill of 1862. Added to all this, their general business was very extensive, and embraced some of the most important cases and interests connected with the West of Scotland. Among these may be mentioned the various suits both here and in England - no fewer than twenty in number and all going on at one time - regarding the celebrated hot blast patent.
In 1860, on the death of his friend Mr. Morrison of Ballinakill Mr. Bannatyne was elected Dean of the Faculty of Procurators, an appointment which was exceedingly gratifying to him on many accounts, but chiefly because of the perfect harmony of opinion which existed among his brethren in favour of his election. This office he held for five years. During the whole of that period his services to the Faculty were invaluable; indeed, so impressed were the members with a sense of his worth that, several weeks before the expiration of his term of office, he was presented with a requisition, signed by upwards of one hundred and fifty of their number, earnestly soliciting him to allow himself to be re-nominated. He declined to be re-nominated, but the Faculty being desirous to commemorate their sense of his services, and of the dignified manner in which he had discharged the duties of Dean, placed a bust of him in their hall. This bust, a duplicate of which was presented to himself, is admirably expressive of the breadth and mass both of his intellect and of his character.
Shortly after his elevation to the office of Dean he was the subject of a complimentary notice in a French periodical, the "Repertoire Historique des Contemporains." The article, after adverting to the distinction to which he had attained as a lawyer and a law reformer, and to the unanimous choice which had placed him at the head of the Law Faculty in Glasgow, concludes thus:- "C'est dans les pays de liberte et d'ordre legal que des fonctions si honorables conservent tous leurs prix."
The services to which we have adverted, as rendered by Mr. Bannatyne, were partly in the way of law reform, of which, from his youth, he had been the earnest advocate, but chiefly in the way of advancing legal studies. Hardly had he entered upon the office of Dean when he set himself to raise the standard of education for admission to the Faculty, a change the advantages of which are now apparent; and also to inaugurate a system of voluntary examinations for clerks and apprentices, a system which has been productive of most beneficial results. In an address which he delivered to his brethren in 1861, he directed particular attention to the state of the Law Faculty in the University of Glasgow, in which no provision existed for the teaching of conveyancing; and the result was that shortly afterwards a Chair of Conveyancing was instituted.
We have referred to Mr. Bannatyne as a law reformer. As far back as 1834 he was one of the principal witnesses examined under the Commission for the improvement of our law in the department of feudal conveyancing, and he lived to see carried into full effect not a few of the many important alterations which he then suggested. In 1866 he was appointed one of the Commissioners to inquire into the system of registration of writs relating to heritable property in Scotland; and, as is well known, the bill shortly afterwards laid upon the table of the House of Commons, and ultimately passed into law, was based chiefly upon the report prepared by him and his friend and colleague, Mr. Charles Morton, W. S.
It is impossible for us within the compass of these few pages to enumerate the various important measures which Mr. Bannatyne promoted, or with which his name was associated, but we may mention the Bankrupt Act of 1839, the Procurators' Act of 1865, and the Trusts (Scotland) Act of 1867. The Procurators' Act was suggested and promoted by the late Mr. James F. Murdoch, of Ayr; but, from our own knowledge, we are enabled to say that that excellent gentleman frankly and frequently acknowledged how much the measure, as ultimately carried, was indebted to the experience and sagacity of Mr. Bannatyne. The Trusts (Scotland) Bill, as laid upon the table of the House of Commons in 1864, and, indeed, as passed by that House, was one of the crudest measures possible. As ultimately carried, some of its most important enactments were simply the expression of clauses suggested by Mr. Bannatyne. We may also notice a bill which he prepared for the purpose of shortening and otherwise simplifying the law of prescription, and his reiterated efforts to effect an abolition of the Law of Deathbed, a change which did not take place until after his decease.
We have already stated that Mr. Bannatyne was an early supporter of parliamentary and municipal reform; and we should add that throughout his entire professional career he was regarded as the leading counsellor and guide of the Liberal party in Scotland. The services which he rendered in connection not only with our various city elections, but also with the contests in Lanarkshire, in Renfrewshire, in Ayrshire, and in Stirlingshire, are well known. Frequently on the occasion of a vacancy in the representation of our own city, his name was mentioned as that of a fitting candidate; and often it was remarked by leading members of the profession, both here and in Edinburgh, that his presence in the House of Commons would have been of immense service in connection not only with law reform, but also with every other measure relating to Scotland.
In the cause of education he ever manifested the deepest interest; and, indeed, he not only convened but presided over the first great meeting held in Glasgow for the purpose of pressing on the Government the urgent want of an Education Act for Scotland.
In University reform, and particularly in the Universities Act of 1858, he took a great interest; and so high was the estimate formed of his judgment and ability by the General Council of our own University, that, at their first meeting after the passing of the Act, he was elected as their Assessor. On the expiration of his term of office of four years a general wish for his re-election for another term was expressed, but he would not consent to act for more than another year. In 1868 the Senate of the University of Glasgow conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.
We must not omit to notice one other feature of his character as a public man - his entire unselfishness. Looking to the very prominent and active part which he had long taken in promoting the Liberal cause in the West of Scotland, it would not have been strange if some mark of favour had been conferred upon him; but, as is well known, he never either received or asked from any of the successive Governments who had been so much aided by his services, any favour either for himself or for any of his connections.
We conclude by saying that, whether regard be had to power of intellect, to legal attainments, to general accomplishments, to fairness of mind, or to soundness of judgment, Mr. Bannatyne was for the long period of forty years by far the most distinguished member of the profession, not merely in Glasgow but in the West of Scotland. When it is added that, with the qualities we have just enumerated, there were united great kindness of heart, and a manner not only perfectly natural, but at all times exceedingly agreeable, it will readily be understood how much he was beloved and admired not only by all his friends, but by every member of the profession of which he was so long the ornament.
Mr. Bannatyne died at his family seat of Milheugh, Blantyre, on 12th June, 1871, survived by his wife, the only child of Professor James Millar, of Milheugh, and by two daughters and six sons. The eldest son, John Millar, is a Lieutenant-Colonel in the army, and served in the Indian Mutiny; and a younger, Mark, is one of the partners of the present firm of Bannatyne Kirkwood McJannet & France, of which Anderson Kirkwood, LL.D., ex-Dean of the Faculty of Procurators, and Emeritus-Professor of Conveyancing in the University of Glasgow, is the senior member.
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