Author: Garden, Francis
Biography:
GARDEN, Francis (1721-93: ODNB)
Judge and philanthropist. He was born at Edinburgh, the son of Alexander Garden of Troup, Banffshire, and Jane (Grant) Garden. Educated at Edinburgh University, he was admitted as an advocate in 1743, became sheriff-depute of Kincardineshire in 1748, and was appointed one of the assessors to the Edinburgh magistrates in 1759. He worked on the celebrated Douglas case to determine the rights of inheritance to the Douglas estates and, in 1764, was named a lord of the session with the title Lord Gardenstone, a position he held until his death. Garden built a village on an estate he purchased at Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire; the scope of this involved him in financial difficulties but he was helped by inheriting his family’s estates and fortune after the death of his older brother. His travels abroad for his health (1786-88) are described in his Travelling Memorandums (three volumes: 1791, 1792, and 1795 with a memoir). Garden befriended the impoverished James Thomson Callender (q.v.) and the Miscellanies in Prose and Verse may have been intended for Callender’s financial assistance. He died at Morningside, near Edinburgh, and is buried in Greyfriars Churchyard. (ODNB 13 Feb. 2019) SR