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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