SIR HUGH
SHAW-STEWART
THE present Baronet "of Greenock and Blackhall," is a direct
lineal descendant of a son of King Robert III., and his family have held the
lands of Ardgowan, Blackhall, and Auchingown, bestowed upon their ancestor by
that king in unbroken male succession till now. By marriage in the 18th century,
the house came also to represent the ancient families of Nicolson of Carnock.
Houston of that ilk, and Shaw of Greenock, and came into possession of the
entailed estates of Carnock, Greenock, Easter Greenock, and Finnart.
Son of the seventh Baronet and of Lady Octavia Grosvenor,
daughter of the second Marquess of Westminster, K.G., Sir Hugh was born in 1854,
and educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He was for a time captain in the
4th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. His chief interests, however,
have always been political, and from his election as a Conservative for East
Renfrewshire in 1886, he continued conscientiously to represent that
constituency in the House of Commons till 1905. Among other special
Parliamentary services, he was a member of the Royal Commission on Deer Forests
in 1892, which set at rest many of the questions and wild theories regarding
that once much abused method of employing land in the Highlands.
Sir Hugh married, in 1883, Lady Alice, daughter of the fourth
Marquess of Bath, and with her takes a deep interest in the charitable and other
enterprises of the country and of Glasgow and the West of Scotland. Inverkip is
indebted to him for a recreation ground of five acres, and he recently gave a
benefaction of £5,000 to the town of Greenock.
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Index of Glasgow Men (1909)