Material relating to Sir Rupert Iain Kay Moncreiffe

The collection is composed of two bound volumes of the work Origins and background of the law of succession to arms and dignities in Scotland with Volume 1 focussing on 'Heirs before Scots law', and Volume 2 focussing on 'Heirs by Scots law'.

Volume 1 is inscribed ' For Professor Croft Dickinson, to whom this thesis was due, with very many thanks, from Iain Moncrieffe of that Ilk. Unicorn'. Volume 2 is inscribed ' For Professor Croft Dickinson, with every good wish, from Iain Moncrieffe of that Ilk. Easter Moncrieffe, Perthshire

Genealogist and British officer Rupert Iain Kay Moncrieffe, 11th Baronet of Moncrieffe, was born on 9 April 1919. He was educated at Stowe, Heidelberg, Christ Church Oxford, and Edinburgh University. At Edinburgh he studied Scots Law, and took a Ph.D. with a thesis on the Scots law of succession to peerages. The baronetcy derived from the feudal barony of Moncreiffe, near Perth, Scotland. He succeeded his first cousin the 10th Baronet in 1957.

During the Second World War he served in the Scots Guards and was ADC to General Sir Andrew Thorne, 1944-1945, military liaison officer to Admiral Sir William Whitworth, and attache and private secretary to the British Ambassador in Moscow in 1946. In 1950, Moncrieffe was called to the Scottish Bar. He became a Q.C. in 1980.

He was a member of the Royal Company of Archers, the Queen's Body Guard for Scotland, and was Chairman of Debrett's Peerage Ltd., 1977-1981, and President of Burke's from 1983.

Sir Rupert Iain Kay Moncrieffe of that Ilk died on 27 February 1985. He was succeeded by his son Merlin Sereld Victor Gilbert Hay, 24th Earl of Erroll, Bt.

Generally open for consultation to bona fide researchers, but some material closed. Please contact repository for details about access to the collection in advance of any visit.

Item acquired June 2010. Accession no: E2010.27.

Compiled by Graeme D. Eddie, Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections.