The next year she sold the lands to Dr. Andrew Melville and his wife, from

Edinburgh. After Dr. Melville’s death his widow ‘transferred’ the lands to

Mr. Andrew Melville, the minister of Monimail, in Fife, who was her husband’s

nephew. The Reverend Andrew Melville’s son Robert inherited the estates

in 1739.

Robert Melville had a distinguished career in the army, rising to the rank

of General, and he became Governor of Grenada, The Grenadines, Dominica,

St. Vincent and Tobago in the West Indies. With his large fortune made from

his sugar plantations in the West Indies he added more property to that which

his father had left him. One of the properties he bought was another part of

The Poffle which had also been forfeited to the Crown by James Malcolm who

had supported James Stuart in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715. Robert Melville

had no legitimate children and as the property was entailed his illegitimate, but

acknowledged, mulatto daughter Charlotte Melville would not have been able

to inherit the property. It went by way of his mother’s family to John Whyte

of Bennochy who had been acting as Robert Melville’s agent both in the West

Indies and in Scotland since at least 1776. In 1798 he was given royal per-

mission to add Melville to his name although he did not inherit the property

until 1803.

There were other landowners in Strathkinness, including Meldrum of

Kincaple, but the Melvilles were the largest of the landowners and were called

‘Melville of Strathkinness’. When John Whyte Melville died in 1813 his son

Robert who inherited the estates was a minor. He died soon after reaching

his majority, and his brother John was also a minor at the time of his brother’s

death in 1818 when he inherited the estate.

It was this John Whyte Melville who became so important and influential

in both Strathkinness and St. Andrews. Among other things he gave the land

for the church and the manse for the newly created quoad sacra parish of

Strathkinness in 1860. His son, George Whyte Melville, was a fairly distin-

guished Victorian novelist and a noted horseman. He spent most of his life

in England and seemed to take no part in the life of the village. He was killed

in a riding accident a few years before his father died in 1883.

John Whyte Melville’s cousin James Mackintosh Balfour inherited the

property and added Melville to his name as the first John Whyte had done

eighty five years earlier. At the time of James Balfour Melville’s succession to

the property it consisted of: Estate of Strathkinness, Farms of Strathkinness

and Rummond, Ballone, Lumbo, Clatto, Bonfield, Burnside, Clatto Muir,

Bishopton and Tongues of Clatto. Although the Balfour Melvilles owned the

property for eighteen years they do not appear in any of the records of the

time as taking part in any activities in Strathkinness.

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