Lord Tweeddale was born on 29 January 1826 at Yester House, near Gifford, East Lothian to George Hay, 8th Marquess of Tweeddale (1787–1876) and his wife, Lady Susan Montagu. He was the third son (of six sons and eight daughters).
Being born into the Scottish aristocracy, Hay’s personal genealogy was well recorded and can be explored in armorials and guides to the peerage in the Society’s Library. His paternal grandparents were George Hay, 7th Marquess of Tweeddale and Lady Hannah Charlotte Maitland (a daughter of James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale).
His maternal grandparents were William Montagu, 5th Duke of Manchester and Lady Susan Gordon (third daughter of Alexander Gordon, 4th Duke of Gordon).
After studying at the Imperial Service College, Hay began his career in the Bengal Civil Service. He lived and worked in India between 1845 and 1862. Among his imperial positions were Deputy Commissioner of Simla and Superintendent of the Hill States of Northern India.
Shortly after he returned to settle in Britain, Hay turned to politics. He was elected Liberal Member of Parliament for Taunton, England in 1865, serving until 1868. In 1878, he was elected for Haddington Burghs in Scotland.
As the third son, he was not expecting to inherit the title of Marquess of Tweeddale. However, his eldest brother George Hay, Earl of Gifford (26 April 1822 – 22 December 1862) sadly died in an accident at the age of 40 before inheriting the title. The second eldest brother, Arthur Hay, the 9th Marquess died at the age of 54 in 1878.
Thus, from 1878, William succeeded his brother and became owner of around 40,000 acres in Scotland. He later became Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Chairman of the North British Railway Company, and was appointed a Knight of the Thistle. Among his other roles in later life were Deputy Lieutenant for the counties of Haddingtonshire and a Brigadier-General of the Royal Company of Archers. In 1881, he was able to continue his political career when he was created Baron Tweeddale of Yester, giving him a seat in the House of Lords.
On 18 May 1878, Lord Tweeddale married Candida Louise Bartolucci (1854–1925) at St Augustine’s Church, London. The couple had the following offspring:
● Lady Susan Elizabeth Clementine Hay (1879–1964)
● Lady Candida Louisa Hay (1882–1882)
● William Hay, 11th Marquess of Tweeddale (1884–1967)
● Lord Arthur Vincent Hay (1886–1914)
● Lt. Col. Lord Edward Douglas Hay (1888–1944)
Society of Genealogists
We held our inaugural meeting in July 1911. Tragically, the Marquess was dead by the end of the year. He died on 25 November 1911 at his house in London, 6 Hill Street, and was succeeded by his eldest son, the Earl of Gifford (born 1884). He is buried at Yester Parish Church in Gifford, East Lothian, close to his family home at Yester House. As his eldest son died without male issue, David George Montagu Hay, the son of his youngest son Lord Edward Douglas Hay, became the 12th Marquess of Tweeddale in 1967.
His obituary in The Times reported that, “Lord Tweeddale, which occurred at his residence in HIll-street on Saturday afternoon. . . His ancient honours were all in the peerage of Scotland, but he was created Baron Tweeddale in the peerage of the United Kingdom in 1881. He was born on January 29, 1826, and succeeded his brother, the ninth marquess, in 1878.
His father, the eighth marquess was the famous Field-Marshall who acted as Aide-deCamp to the Duke of Wellington during the Peninsular War and was the Commander-in-Chief at Madras from 1842 to 1848. His mother was Lady Susan Montagu, daughter of the fifth Earl of Manchester. She died in 1870.”
Further Reading:
SoG Data Online; Digital copy of the book A directory of British peerages … originally published by Society of Genealogists in 2002, a copy is held in the Society’s library (accession 107912a-d).
Society of Genealogists’ Library; India Shelves; Call number IND/ARM/LST; Item ID 19253; Clark, F (comp.), The East-India register & Army list for 1846; corrected to 12th May [1846], 2nd edn. (London: W. H. Allen & Co. Ltd. 2, 1846)
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