Guthrie of Taybank
Meet the Guthries of Taybank
Among the old Guthrie territorial names of Angus, Taybank is the late arrival. It does not emerge from the medieval charter landscape of Guthrie, Gagie, or the older branches of the family. Its story belongs instead to the prosperous merchant world of eighteenth-century Dundee, when commercial success, property ownership, and the growth of the town eastward toward Broughty Ferry created a very different kind of Guthrie estate.
The family at Taybank descended from the same Dundee merchant family that produced the later Guthries of Craigie. Charles Guthrie’s father, Alexander Guthrie, was a Dundee merchant and a son of James Guthrie and Christian Scott. Alexander’s brother, James Guthrie, established the continuing landed Craigie line. This gives Taybank a secure place within the documented Dundee-Craigie family network, while the family’s deeper ancestry must be understood through the corrected Craigie and Eassie reconstruction rather than the compressed pedigree formerly repeated in published accounts.
Guthrie of Guthrie,
and Guthrie of Gagie,
Guthrie of Taybank,
and Guthrie of Craigie.
By the nineteenth century, Taybank had become memorable enough to take its place in this published provincial rhyme naming four prominent Guthrie territorial identities. The verse preserves something important about how these families were remembered, but it should not be mistaken for a pedigree. The four houses did not arise at the same time, nor did they acquire their lands in the same way.
On 2 July 1794, the male-servant tax already styles the first Charles Guthrie “of Tay Bank”. By the mid-nineteenth century, Ordnance Survey records describe Taybank as a well-built residence on the north side of Broughty Ferry Road, surrounded by wooded and ornamental ground. His son, another Charles Guthrie, carried the family into Dundee’s civic and commercial life and became known for an altogether more unusual legacy: raising and exhibiting new varieties of fruit and other seedlings at Taybank.
The direct male Guthrie succession at Taybank ended when the younger Charles died on 20 September 1870, but the estate passed to his only surviving child, Helen Kinloch Guthrie. The 1871 Lyon Office record states explicitly that Helen succeeded to Taybank and Charles’s other property under his Disposition and Deed of Settlement dated 24 November 1866, registered in the Books of Council and Session on 23 December 1870.
Helen had married the Rev. Roger Rowson Lingard in 1858. The same Lyon record explains that Roger assumed Guthrie after Lingard in compliance with a recommendation contained in Charles’s settlement. On 17 February 1871, his assumption of the surname was formally recognized and arms for Lingard-Guthrie were matriculated for Roger and the descendants of his marriage to Helen.
Taybank therefore tells a compact but distinctive story: a Dundee merchant family became landed proprietors, developed a recognizable suburban estate, entered the remembered quartet of Guthrie houses, and carried the Guthrie name and Taybank inheritance forward through a daughter rather than a male heir.
On this page, “of Taybank” is treated as a territorial style associated with the property, not as evidence of an ancient lairdship. The surviving records allow us to follow the family from Dundee commerce into property ownership with unusual clarity. The 1871 Lyon record now clarifies how Taybank passed to Helen in 1870, but one earlier question remains open: exactly when, and through which of Charles Guthrie’s Craigie-area property acquisitions, the estate known as Taybank was first created.
The Family at a Glance
The Guthries of Taybank belonged to a well-established Dundee merchant family whose documented connections also lead into the Guthries of Craigie. Taybank itself appears only in the later eighteenth century, so the family can be followed with much greater documentary precision than many of the earlier Angus branches. The newly examined 1871 Lyon Office record for Roger Rowson Lingard-Guthrie adds an unusually detailed contemporary pedigree of Helen Guthrie’s immediate ancestry and confirms several relationships already reconstructed from Dundee parish records.
James Guthrie and Christian Scott stand at the head of the securely documented ancestry used for this Taybank profile. James belonged to the Dundee merchant family, while his monument records a Stockholm apprenticeship and an international mercantile career; the 1871 Lyon record styles him merchant in Stockholm.
Their son Alexander Guthrie, also a Dundee merchant, married Elizabeth Moray. The 1871 Lyon record identifies Alexander as the fifth son of James Guthrie and Christian Scott and Elizabeth as a daughter of Robert Moray, a younger son of Sir Robert Moray of Abercairny.
Their son Charles Guthrie, born in 1748, became a Dundee merchant and was styled of Tay Bank by 1794. The 1871 Lyon pedigree describes him as Alexander Guthrie’s only son who left issue. He married Bridget Yeaman, daughter and coheir of Patrick Yeaman of Blacklaw, Provost of Dundee.
Their only son, another Charles Guthrie, was born in 1799 and succeeded at Taybank. He married Margaret Kinloch, daughter of George Kinloch of Kinloch and Carnoustie, Member of Parliament. Charles became active in Dundee civic and institutional life and was also known for raising and exhibiting new fruits and other seedlings at Taybank.
Roger Rowson Lingard-Guthrie
Charles and Margaret’s only child, Helen Kinloch Guthrie, married the Rev. Roger Rowson Lingard on 25 August 1858. When Charles died on 20 September 1870, Helen succeeded to Taybank and his other property under his Disposition and Deed of Settlement of 24 November 1866. Roger then assumed Guthrie after Lingard in compliance with a recommendation contained in that deed. His assumption of the surname was formally recognized and Lingard-Guthrie arms were matriculated on 17 February 1871.
The connection between Taybank and Craigie is now supported from two directions. Dundee baptismal records for Alexander Guthrie’s children identify James Guthrie of Craigie as their uncle. The 1871 Lyon record goes further and explicitly describes James Guthrie of Craigie as Alexander’s elder brother. Together these records securely place Taybank within the same Dundee-Craigie family.
Older published pedigrees attempted to carry this ancestry much farther back through a compressed sequence of medieval generations. The revised Craigie and Eassie research shows that those deeper relationships cannot be presented with the same certainty. For Taybank, the secure working reconstruction therefore begins with James Guthrie and Christian Scott.
James Guthrie and Christian Scott are the earliest couple in this documented reconstruction from whom two independently established direct-male descendant lines have produced matching Guthrie Family Group 1A Y-DNA results. One tested line descends through their son James Guthrie of Craigie; the other descends through their son Patrick Guthrie.
Taybank descends through another son, Alexander Guthrie. The Y-DNA does not independently prove Alexander’s parentage, because the Taybank descent later passes through Helen and therefore does not provide a continuing direct-male Taybank test line. Instead, the two matching tested branches provide a genetic anchor for the paternal family into which the documentary records place Alexander.
James Guthrie + Christian Scott
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Alexander Guthrie + Elizabeth Moray
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Charles Guthrie of Taybank + Bridget Yeaman
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Charles Guthrie of Taybank + Margaret Kinloch
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Helen Kinloch Guthrie + Rev. Roger Rowson Lingard-Guthrie
Taybank in the Dundee Landscape
Taybank belonged to a very different landscape from the older rural Guthrie estates. It stood on Dundee’s eastern approaches, where the road toward Broughty Ferry passed through a developing belt of villas, gardens, small estates and cultivated ground. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the house and grounds can be identified with unusual clarity in the Ordnance Survey records.
- Taybank is named beside the house and its grounds.
- Ellengowan, Thornbank and Bellfield lie immediately to the southwest.
- Mayfield adjoins Taybank on the east.
- Craigie Terrace appears farther east, while West Craigie lies to the northwest.
- The road along the southern edge is the route toward Broughty Ferry.
“A neat and well built house on the North Side of the Broughty Ferry Road and surrounded by a small portion of wooded and ornamental ground, the property and residence of Charles Guthrie, Esq.”
The map and survey description help define what the territorial style “of Taybank” actually represented by the nineteenth century. Taybank was a well-built suburban residence with a modest area of wooded and ornamental ground on Dundee’s eastern fringe, rather than an old medieval barony or a great rural estate. That distinction is central to the Taybank story: its territorial identity grew from the commercial and residential world of modernizing Dundee.
From Merchant to “of Taybank”
The documentary trail does not begin with an ancient estate called Taybank. Instead, it catches Charles Guthrie during the period when Dundee merchants were acquiring feued land around the expanding town. Within only a few years, Charles appears first as a holder of land associated with Craigie and then unmistakably as “Charles Guthrie of Tay Bank.”
An 1821 land-tax volume preserves the results of a Decree of Division dated 30 April 1792 for the lands of Craigie. Among the divided properties are “Charles Guthrie’s Feu”, valued at £30, and a second feu held by Charles which the record says he had purchased from James Ballingall, valued at £25.
The male-servant tax provides the earliest secure territorial styling presently located. It names Charles Guthrie of Tay Bank and records a gardener in his service. The next entry names James Guthrie Esq. of Craigie, placing the two related Guthrie properties side by side in the tax roll.
Three years later the horse-tax roll records “Charles Guthrey Taybank” with two taxable horses. James Guthrey of Craigie also appears in the roll. Together with the 1794 servant-tax entry, this confirms that Taybank had become an established territorial designation for Charles by the later 1790s.
A Dundee Merchant
Charles’s documented career belongs firmly to Dundee’s merchant world. He was associated with George Leighton in the firm Lighton & Guthrie.
A later reported case concerning transactions made in 1808 records two cargoes of lint or flax seed imported into Dundee by Lighton & Guthrie for sowing. The partnership was formally dissolved in 1810, with notice published in the London Gazette.
What the Records Suggest
The sequence is compelling. By the time Craigie was formally divided in 1792, Charles controlled two separate feus. By July 1794 he was already being distinguished territorially as of Tay Bank.
The sequence therefore makes it plausible that Taybank developed from, or in connection with, Charles’s property holdings within the subdivided Craigie landscape. The later Ordnance Survey setting is consistent with that interpretation: Taybank appears as a well-built residence with wooded and ornamental ground among the properties on Dundee’s eastern approaches.
This is the central difference between Taybank and the older Guthrie branches. Charles did not inherit an ancient medieval lairdship called Taybank. The surviving evidence instead shows a Dundee merchant acquiring property and emerging as a suburban proprietor styled “of Tay Bank”. The territorial identity then persisted through the next generations.
We have not yet identified the title deed or sasine that first creates or names the property Taybank, nor have we proved whether Charles’s £30 feu, the £25 feu purchased from James Ballingall, or a combination of those holdings formed the later house and grounds. The 1792 division is therefore an important lead to the property’s origin, not yet proof of the precise acquisition history.
The Guthries of Taybank: Generation by Generation
The Taybank family can be followed through a compact series of Dundee merchant and property-owning generations. The territorial name itself does not appear until the time of Charles Guthrie in the late eighteenth century, but his ancestry connects securely to the same Dundee family associated with Craigie. The newly examined 1871 Lyon Office record for Roger Rowson Lingard-Guthrie independently confirms and extends several relationships already reconstructed from Dundee parish records.
James Guthrie & Christian Scott
The securely reconstructed Taybank ancestry begins with James Guthrie and his wife Christian Scott, married in Dundee in 1695. James belonged to the Dundee merchant family but also had a documented Stockholm mercantile connection; the 1871 Lyon pedigree styles him merchant in Stockholm.
Their son Alexander Guthrie continued the merchant tradition and became the father of Charles Guthrie of Taybank. The Lyon record identifies Alexander as their fifth son and describes James Guthrie of Craigie as his elder brother. Dundee baptismal entries independently identify James of Craigie as uncle to Alexander’s children, giving us contemporary family evidence for the same sibling relationship.
Earlier published pedigrees carried this family much farther back through a sequence now known to contain compressed and conflated generations. The Taybank profile therefore begins here with the securely documented Dundee family rather than repeating the older medieval chain as settled fact.
James Guthrie and Christian Scott are the earliest couple in this reconstruction represented by two independently documented direct-male descendant lines with matching Guthrie Family Group 1A Y-DNA. One tested line descends through their son James Guthrie of Craigie; the other through their son Patrick Guthrie.
Taybank descends through another son, Alexander Guthrie. Because the Taybank line later continues through Helen, Taybank does not itself provide a continuing direct-male test line. The two matching branches instead provide a genetic anchor for the paternal family into which the documentary records place Alexander.
Alexander Guthrie & Elizabeth Moray
Alexander Guthrie, fifth son of James Guthrie and Christian Scott according to the 1871 Lyon pedigree, was a merchant in Dundee. He married Elizabeth Moray, whose surname is also rendered Murray in later material.
The Lyon record identifies Elizabeth as a daughter of Robert Moray, a younger son of Sir Robert Moray of Abercairny. Alexander and Elizabeth were the parents of Charles Guthrie, born in Dundee in 1748. It was through Charles that this merchant family acquired the territorial identity of Taybank.
The relationship is now supported from two directions: Dundee baptismal records call James Guthrie of Craigie uncle to Alexander’s children, while the Lyon record explicitly calls James Alexander’s elder brother. Taybank therefore developed from within the same securely documented Dundee-Craigie family.
Charles Guthrie of Taybank & Bridget Yeaman
Charles Guthrie represents the decisive transition from Dundee merchant to territorial proprietor. He was engaged in commerce in Dundee and associated with George Leighton in the firm Lighton & Guthrie.
His marriage connected him to another prominent Dundee family. Bridget Yeaman was a daughter and coheir of Patrick Yeaman of Blacklaw, Provost of Dundee. The 1871 Lyon pedigree identifies Charles as the only son of Alexander Guthrie who left issue, and a later Dundee property contract independently identifies Bridget as the wife of Charles Guthrie of Taybank, merchant in Dundee.
Charles’s emergence as a landed proprietor can now be followed unusually closely. The 1792 division of Craigie records two feus in his possession. By 2 July 1794 a tax roll styles him “Charles Guthrie of Tay Bank” and records a gardener among his servants. A horse-tax record in 1797 again identifies him at Taybank.
The surviving evidence places Charles at Taybank by 1794, but the precise deed by which the property acquired that name has not yet been identified. His Craigie feus provide the strongest current lead.
Newspapers add an important generational clue. Between 1823 and 1825, his son repeatedly appears as “Charles Guthrie, Esq. younger of Taybank.” The styling confirms that the elder and younger Charles were being distinguished contemporaneously while both were associated with Taybank.
Bridget died at Taybank in 1820. A Forfar Sheriff Court inventory was recorded on 9 November 1827 for Charles Guthrie residing in Taybank. The inventory strongly supports the later death chronology, but the original record still needs to be inspected before assigning the elder Charles an exact death date.
A newspaper notice of 22 June 1855 reported that the cost of a church window erected in memory of Charles Guthrie, Esq. of Taybank had been paid by “Miss Guthrie of Taybank.” Because the younger Charles was still living, the memorial almost certainly referred to his father. The identity of Miss Guthrie has not yet been established and may reveal an unmarried daughter or another close female relative in the elder Charles’s household.
Charles Guthrie of Taybank & Margaret Kinloch
The younger Charles Guthrie was already being styled “younger of Taybank” in newspaper notices of 1823–1825. He married Margaret Kinloch, second daughter of George Kinloch of Kinloch and Carnoustie, Member of Parliament, in 1825.
Margaret’s life at Taybank was brief. A contemporary death notice records that she died there on 26 August 1830.
Contemporary newspapers reveal a much broader public career than the older Taybank profile suggested. Charles served as Chairman of the Directors of the Dundee & Arbroath Railway, appeared among the extraordinary directors of the East of Scotland Life Assurance and Annuity Company, served in local justice and parochial administration, and was appointed a director of Dundee High School.
His activities also crossed into social welfare. In 1854 the Dundee press credited Charles’s intervention with helping obtain placements for boys from the Dundee Industrial Schools as apprentices in the Royal Navy. In 1859 he appears sitting in a Dundee Justice of the Peace Court, and in 1861 he was called to the chair of a statutory meeting of the Dundee Parochial Board.
Newspaper reports now document Charles’s horticulture directly. In 1844 he exhibited seedling hollyhocks; in 1851 a seedling plum from Taybank appeared at a horticultural exhibition; and in 1852 he exhibited Himalayan bamboo, seedling hollyhocks, and a basket of seedling plums and raspberries. This contemporary evidence strongly supports the later pomological tradition crediting him with raising new fruit varieties.
One 1854 county meeting provides a remarkable snapshot of the wider Guthrie landscape. The same list included John Guthrie of Guthrie, James Guthrie of Craigie, and Charles Guthrie of Taybank — three distinct territorial Guthrie identities appearing together in a contemporary public record.
The Ordnance Survey later described Taybank as Charles’s property and residence, a well-built house on the north side of Broughty Ferry Road surrounded by wooded and ornamental ground. The 1871 Lyon record fixes his death at 20 September 1870.
That same record adds a major succession detail: under Charles’s Disposition and Deed of Settlement dated 24 November 1866, his only child Helen succeeded to the estate of Taybank and his other property. The deed was registered in the Books of Council and Session on 23 December 1870.
Helen Kinloch Guthrie & Rev. Roger Rowson Lingard-Guthrie
Helen Kinloch Guthrie was the only child of Charles Guthrie of Taybank and Margaret Kinloch according to the 1871 Lyon pedigree. Contemporary marriage announcements record her marriage to the Rev. Roger Rowson Lingard, M.A., on 25 August 1858 at St Paul’s Church, Dundee.
Roger had been educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, matriculating in 1844 and proceeding B.A. in 1847 and M.A. in 1850.
Following Charles’s death on 20 September 1870, Helen succeeded to Taybank and his other property under the Disposition and Deed of Settlement he had executed on 24 November 1866. The Lyon record states that Roger then assumed Guthrie in addition to and after Lingard in compliance with a recommendation contained in the deed.
Roger petitioned the Lyon Court on 16 February 1871 to recognize that assumption and to authorize Guthrie arms quartered with his paternal Lingard arms. The grant was matriculated on 17 February 1871 for Roger and the descendants of his marriage to Helen. This establishes both the timing and the immediate Taybank context of the Lingard-Guthrie identity.
In 1879, Helen inherited the Carnoustie property from her maternal aunt, Miss Cecilia Kinloch. Later twentieth-century newspaper accounts sometimes claimed that Roger changed his surname at that point. The 1871 Lyon record now proves that this recollection compressed two separate events: the Lingard-Guthrie name and arms were established in connection with the Taybank succession eight years earlier.
Helen died on 10 April 1887. Roger survived her and continued to appear as Lingard-Guthrie until his death in 1908.
Over these generations the family’s identity changes visibly: Dundee merchants → suburban proprietors → Guthries of Taybank → succession through Helen → Lingard-Guthries. The reconstruction is unusually well anchored from several directions: parish records, property and tax evidence, two matching GFG1A paternal descendant lines at the James Guthrie–Christian Scott generation, contemporary newspapers, and the detailed 1871 Lyon pedigree and succession statement.
Those records also restore the younger Charles as more than a gentleman living at Taybank: he was an active figure in Dundee’s commercial, civic, charitable and horticultural life.
Fruit-Raising at Taybank
One of the most distinctive parts of the Taybank story grew in its gardens. Charles Guthrie of Taybank was not merely a proprietor interested in ornamental planting. A nursery catalogue from 1843–4 already identifies named plums raised from seed by Charles at Taybank, while contemporary newspaper reports from the 1840s and 1850s show him continuing to raise and exhibit seedling plants and fruits. Later pomologists were therefore remembering a documented programme of experimental fruit-raising, not simply a family tradition.
The fruit associated most closely with Taybank is Guthrie’s Late Green, a late-ripening dessert plum remembered for its rich sweet flavour and yellow-green colouring.
We can now place the named cultivars within a much broader pattern of experimentation. Charles was already circulating named plum seedlings by the early 1840s and was exhibiting seedlings publicly during the 1840s and 1850s, including plums, raspberries and ornamental plants.
A Dundee horticultural report records a fine assortment of seedling hollyhocks exhibited by Charles Guthrie of Taybank.
A Caledonian horticultural exhibition included fruit of a seedling plum from Charles Guthrie of Taybank.
Taybank supplied hardy Himalayan bamboo, seedling hollyhocks, seedling plums and raspberries to a Dundee exhibition.
Guthrie’s Late Green
The best-known Taybank fruit was Guthrie’s Late Green, also recorded under the synonym Minette. Robert Hogg described it as a very fine dessert plum with yellow skin clouded with green and exceptionally rich, sugary flesh.
Hogg placed its ripening at the end of September, about a month later than the Green Gage. The modern National Fruit Collection gives an earlier picking window of late August to mid-September. Rather than force those descriptions into a single date, this profile treats it simply as a late-season dessert plum.
Guthrie’s Golden / Guthrie’s Apricot
Hogg also attributed Guthrie’s Golden, otherwise known as Guthrie’s Apricot, directly to the Taybank fruit-raiser. He described it as an above-medium-sized yellow plum, sometimes marked with crimson dots, with very juicy and very sweet flesh, ripening at the end of August.
The 1843–4 supplement to T. Rivers’s fruit catalogue adds two named plums that were not previously included in this profile: Tay Bank (Guthrie) and Topaz (Guthrie). A footnote states that “this and the following” were raised from seed by C. Guthrie, Esq., of Tay Bank, Dundee. Because the entries are consecutive, the statement applies directly to Tay Bank and Topaz.
This is especially valuable evidence because it is contemporary with Charles himself and predates the later pomological summaries. It shows that his named plum-raising work was already established by the early 1840s.
Robert Hogg discusses Guthrie’s Golden / Apricot and Guthrie’s Late Green together and expressly attributes both to the late Mr. Guthrie of Tay Bank, Dundee. He also records that Guthrie devoted considerable attention to raising new fruits.
The newspaper evidence now independently confirms the character of Hogg’s account. Charles was demonstrably exhibiting seedlings rather than simply growing established varieties in his garden.
Guthrie’s plums did not remain local curiosities. In 1847, the supplementary catalogue of Wm. R. Prince & Co. at Prince’s Linnaean Botanic Garden and Nurseries in New York already offered Guthrie’s Late Green for 75 cents and also listed a plum called Taybank for $1. The Taybank cultivars had therefore entered American nursery circulation during Charles Guthrie’s lifetime.
Guthrie’s Late Green still survives. The National Fruit Collection preserves it as accession 1927-044 and identifies Charles Guthrie, Taybank, Dundee as its raiser. The database gives the origin as “about 1850”, but that should not be read as a literal introduction date: the cultivar was already offered in an American nursery catalogue in 1847, and Charles’s other named seedling plums were documented by Rivers in 1843–4.
From Guthrie to Lingard-Guthrie
When Charles Guthrie died on 20 September 1870, the Taybank property line continued through his only child, Helen Kinloch Guthrie. The 1871 Lyon Office record now tells us exactly how the transition occurred: Helen succeeded to the estate of Taybank and Charles’s other property under his 1866 Disposition and Deed of Settlement, while her husband, the Rev. Roger Rowson Lingard, assumed the Guthrie surname in response to a recommendation contained in that deed. This securely separates the Taybank succession of 1870–71 from Helen’s later and independent Carnoustie inheritance in 1879.
Helen Kinloch Guthrie
Contemporary marriage announcements describe Helen as the only surviving child of Charles Guthrie of Taybank. The later Lyon pedigree is even more specific, calling her his only child. She married the Rev. Roger Rowson Lingard on 25 August 1858 at St Paul’s Church, Dundee.
Rev. Roger Rowson Lingard
Roger was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, matriculating in 1844. He received his B.A. in 1847 and M.A. in 1850 before entering his clerical career.
Alumni Oxonienses records that he later assumed the additional surname Guthrie. The Lyon entry supplies the fuller context: Roger was the fifth son of the late Roger Rowson Lingard of Mill Gate, Cheshire, and Heaton Norris, Lancashire, and his elder brother Richard Boughey Monk Lingard had obtained an English patent of arms on 5 January 1871.
Roger petitioned the Lyon Court on 16 February 1871 as Roger Rowson Lingard-Guthrie. His assumption of Guthrie was formally recognized and the combined arms were matriculated the following day.
The Lyon record removes the uncertainty from this part of the Taybank story. Charles Guthrie had died on 20 September 1870. His daughter Helen succeeded to the estate of Taybank and his other property under Charles’s Disposition and Deed of Settlement dated 24 November 1866, which was registered in the Books of Council and Session on 23 December 1870.
Roger then assumed Guthrie in addition to and after Lingard “in compliance with a recommendation contained in the said Deed.” On 16 February 1871 he petitioned the Lyon Court to recognize that assumption and to authorize Guthrie arms quartered with his paternal Lingard coat. The grant was matriculated on 17 February 1871 for Roger and the descendants of his marriage to Helen.
The distinction in the record is important. The deed is described as containing a recommendation that Roger take the Guthrie surname; the Lyon excerpt does not say that succession to Taybank was conditional upon his doing so. We therefore should not describe this as a mandatory entail or name-and-arms clause unless the 1866 deed itself eventually proves otherwise.
What Did Charles Guthrie’s Settlement Actually Ask Roger to Do?
We now know the governing instrument by date and description, even though the full deed itself has not yet been examined. Charles Guthrie executed a Disposition and Deed of Settlement on 24 November 1866. After his death it was registered in the Books of Council and Session on 23 December 1870.
The Lyon patent says that Helen succeeded to “his said estate of Taybank and other property” under that deed. It then states that Roger had, in compliance with a recommendation contained in the deed, assumed the surname Guthrie in addition to and after Lingard.
Earlier versions of this profile treated a compulsory surname-and-arms condition as a possibility because such clauses were familiar in landed Scottish succession. The Lyon record now gives us more precise evidence for Taybank. Its wording is recommendation, not a statement that Helen’s inheritance depended upon Roger’s compliance or that failure to assume Guthrie would forfeit the estate.
The deed itself therefore remains worth locating, but for a narrower reason: to see Charles’s complete terms for Helen’s succession, identify the property included with Taybank, and determine whether the surviving Lyon excerpt summarizes or omits any additional provisions. We no longer need the deed merely to explain why Roger adopted Guthrie—the 1871 patent already tells us that.
The Lyon record proves that Helen actually succeeded to the estate of Taybank in 1870; this is no longer an inference from later residence or naming. Dundee directories then continue to place the Lingard-Guthrie family at Taybank House, Ferry Road during the later nineteenth century. By the 1890s the address appears as Taybank House, 204 Ferry Road.
Helen’s connection with Carnoustie came through her mother’s Kinloch family. In 1879, on the death of her maternal aunt Cecilia Kinloch, Helen succeeded to the Carnoustie property.
This later inheritance explains why the Lingard-Guthrie family became increasingly associated with Carnoustie House. It was, however, a separate Kinloch-family succession occurring eight years after the Taybank settlement, Roger’s assumption of Guthrie, and the 1871 armorial matriculation.
Helen Kinloch Guthrie was not merely the genealogical bridge between the Guthries of Taybank and the Lingard-Guthries who followed: she was the documented successor to Taybank itself. Charles’s 1866 settlement carried the estate through his daughter, and Roger’s 1871 adoption of the Guthrie surname—followed by the matriculation of combined arms—made that continuity publicly visible. Helen’s later Kinloch inheritance then added Carnoustie as a separate landed identity.
Family & Property Timeline
Taybank’s documentary history runs from the first Charles Guthrie’s emergence as “of Tay Bank” in the 1790s through Helen Guthrie’s succession and the creation of the Lingard-Guthrie identity in 1870–71. The timeline now also incorporates Charles’s newly documented fruit-raising work from the early 1840s and the precise succession sequence supplied by the 1871 Lyon Office record.
Charles, son of Alexander Guthrie and Elizabeth Moray, was born in Dundee and baptized two days later. He would become the first securely documented Guthrie of Taybank.
Charles married Bridget Yeaman, daughter and coheir of Patrick Yeaman of Blacklaw, Provost of Dundee.
An 1821 land-tax volume preserves a 1792 Division of Craigie listing “Charles Guthrie’s Feu”, valued at £30, and a second £25 feu which Charles had purchased from James Ballingall.
The male-servant tax names Charles Guthrie of Tay Bank and records a gardener in his service. The following entry names James Guthrie Esq. of Craigie.
The horse-tax roll records “Charles Guthrey Taybank” with two taxable horses. James Guthrey of Craigie also appears in the roll.
Charles and Bridget’s only son, another Charles Guthrie, was born in Dundee and would become the best-known proprietor of Taybank.
Contemporary publication notices record Bridget’s death at Taybank.
Repeated newspaper notices distinguish the younger Charles with this territorial styling, confirming that father and son were contemporaneously associated with Taybank.
The younger Charles married Margaret Kinloch, daughter of George Kinloch of Kinloch and Carnoustie, Member of Parliament.
A Forfar Sheriff Court inventory was recorded for Charles Guthrie residing in Taybank. The record supports the later death chronology but has not yet been inspected closely enough to assign him an exact death date.
Margaret died at Taybank, leaving Helen as the child through whom the Taybank inheritance would later continue.
T. Rivers’s fruit catalogue lists Tay Bank (Guthrie) and Topaz (Guthrie) and states that they were raised from seed by C. Guthrie, Esq., of Tay Bank, Dundee.
Horticultural reports document Charles exhibiting seedling hollyhocks, a seedling plum, Himalayan bamboo, and seedling plums and raspberries.
Wm. R. Prince & Co. in New York offered Guthrie’s Late Green and a plum called Taybank for sale during Charles Guthrie’s lifetime.
Shareholder reports repeatedly identify Charles Guthrie of Taybank as Chairman of the Directors.
A Forfarshire county meeting included John Guthrie of Guthrie, James Guthrie of Craigie, and Charles Guthrie of Taybank in the same published list.
The press credited Charles’s intervention with helping secure Royal Navy apprenticeship openings for boys from the Dundee Industrial Schools.
A newspaper notice reports a church window erected in memory of Charles Guthrie, Esq. of Taybank, paid for by “Miss Guthrie of Taybank.” Her identity remains unresolved.
Helen married the Rev. Roger Rowson Lingard, M.A. at St Paul’s Church, Dundee. Contemporary notices call her Charles’s only surviving child; the later Lyon pedigree calls her his only child.
Charles appears as a Justice of the Peace, chairs a Dundee Parochial Board meeting, and is appointed a director of Dundee High School.
Charles executed the instrument under which Helen would later succeed to the estate of Taybank and his other property. The deed also contained the recommendation that would lead Roger to assume Guthrie after Lingard.
Charles died on this date. The direct male Guthrie succession at Taybank ended, and his only child Helen succeeded under the 1866 settlement.
The 1866 Disposition and Deed of Settlement was registered in the Books of Council and Session after Charles’s death.
Roger petitioned the Lyon Court on 16 February to recognize his assumption of Guthrie in addition to and after Lingard and to authorize Guthrie arms quartered with his paternal Lingard coat. The grant was matriculated on 17 February 1871 for Roger and the descendants of his marriage to Helen.
Mrs. Lingard is recorded with approximately twenty acres in Dundee. The acreage is suggestive but should not yet be equated automatically with Taybank without a title or valuation match.
On the death of her maternal aunt Cecilia Kinloch, Helen succeeded to the Carnoustie property. This was a separate Kinloch inheritance occurring eight years after the Taybank succession and Lingard-Guthrie name-and-arms change.
Helen died on 10 April 1887.
Dundee directories continued to preserve the Taybank address under the Lingard-Guthrie family.
Roger died at Dundee on 24 October 1908.
Taybank’s defining period runs from the 1790s through the later nineteenth century: a Dundee merchant emerged as a suburban proprietor styled of Tay Bank; his son became prominent in public life and developed a documented programme of experimental fruit-raising; and Charles’s 1866 settlement carried the estate through his only child Helen. Roger’s 1871 adoption of Guthrie and matriculation of combined arms then made that continuity publicly visible as Lingard-Guthrie.
Taybank House remained identifiable on Ferry Road into the later nineteenth century. A Taybank housing scheme was being discussed by 1928, but the precise demolition date of the house and redevelopment history of its grounds remain to be established.
Questions Still Open
The Taybank evidence has become much more precise. The newly examined 1871 Lyon Office record closes several questions about Charles Guthrie’s death, Helen’s succession, and Roger Lingard’s adoption of the Guthrie surname. The remaining problems are now concentrated chiefly in the creation of the estate, the elder Charles’s chronology, the full terms of the 1866 settlement, later property history, and the extent of Charles’s commercial and horticultural activity.
The 1792 Division of Craigie records two holdings for Charles Guthrie: “Charles Guthrie’s Feu”, valued at £30, and a second feu valued at £25 which he had purchased from James Ballingall.
It is the earliest secure use presently identified, but an earlier disposition, sasine, feu contract, valuation, or estate paper may still survive.
The younger Charles was being called “younger of Taybank” in 1823–1825, and a Forfar Sheriff Court inventory for Charles Guthrie residing in Taybank was recorded on 9 November 1827.
His Dundee birth in 1799 is secure, but compiled material disagrees over the exact August date.
We now know the governing instrument: Charles Guthrie’s Disposition and Deed of Settlement, dated 24 November 1866, registered in the Books of Council and Session on 23 December 1870.
The 1872–73 landownership return records Mrs. Lingard with approximately twenty acres in Dundee. Since the Lyon record now proves that Helen had inherited Taybank, the comparison is especially tempting.
Later Dundee directories still identify Taybank House, 204 Ferry Road, while a housing scheme associated with Taybank was being discussed by 1928.
The secure list has already expanded. Contemporary and later sources now support Tay Bank (Guthrie), Topaz (Guthrie), Guthrie’s Late Green / Minette, and Guthrie’s Golden / Guthrie’s Apricot.
Charles’s documented activities include the firm Lighton & Guthrie, flax-seed transactions, railway leadership, insurance-company directorships, and later involvement in meetings connected with the winding-up of the Western Bank of Scotland.
A newspaper notice reported that a memorial window to Charles Guthrie, Esq. of Taybank had been paid for by “Miss Guthrie of Taybank.”
- The early Taybank title trail: recover the original Craigie division/title instruments and the earliest disposition or sasine naming Taybank.
- Charles Guthrie’s 24 Nov 1866 Disposition and Deed of Settlement: obtain the full deed for its property descriptions and complete succession terms.
- SC47/40/4: inspect the elder Charles’s 1827 inventory for his exact death date, heirs and family clues.
- The original 1799 Dundee parish entry: settle the younger Charles’s exact birth date.
- Miss Guthrie and the later estate: identify the woman in the 1855 memorial notice and trace Taybank through valuation, directory and redevelopment records.
- Commercial and horticultural follow-up: resolve Charles’s Western Bank role and test additional Guthrie-named fruit cultivars one by one.
Most Wanted Documents
Records That Could Complete the Taybank Story
Taybank is a comparatively late and unusually well-documented Guthrie estate. The family relationships are secure, the descent from the Dundee-Craigie family is established, and the 1870 succession through Helen Kinloch Guthrie is now explained by the official Lyon record.
The remaining gaps concern the estate itself: exactly how Charles Guthrie created Taybank from his Craigie-area property, what his later settlements say about the house and grounds, and how the property developed after the direct male Guthrie line ended.
1. The First Taybank Title — Which 1792 Craigie Feu Became the Estate?
By 2 July 1794, the male-servant tax securely styles Charles “of Tay Bank.”
The Question
Which of Charles Guthrie’s 1792 Craigie feus—or what combination of them—became the house and grounds known as Taybank?
Why This Matters
This would establish the legal and geographical beginning of the Taybank estate. At present we can place Charles in the Craigie property network before he is styled of Taybank, but we cannot yet point to the deed that created the recognizable estate.
What We Need
A complete title sequence showing boundaries, neighboring proprietors, purchase prices, former owners and any house or improvements already standing on the ground.
National Records of Scotland Catalogue
2. Charles Guthrie’s 1866 Settlement — Obtain the Complete Deed
The Question
What property did Charles include in the settlement, what interests did Helen receive, and exactly what did he say about continuation of the Guthrie surname?
Why This Matters
The Lyon record has resolved the broad succession, but the deed itself should determine the exact legal terms. In particular, the present evidence supports a recommendation that Roger assume Guthrie—not an unproved claim that changing his name was an absolute condition of inheriting Taybank.
What We Need
A complete registered copy including all property descriptions, trustees, beneficiaries, substitutions, surname language and later marginal registrations.
3. Charles Guthrie, Elder — Examine His 1827 Estate Record
The Question
What does Charles’s 1827 estate record reveal about Taybank, his business interests, family and moveable property—and can it finally explain the erroneous 1815 entry?
Why This Matters
Charles was the creator of the Taybank identity. His estate record may provide the clearest snapshot of the property and household at the end of the first generation and help separate him from other Dundee men of the same name.
What We Need
The full inventory, testament or confirmation and any associated court papers, not merely the index entry.
Scotland’s People
4. Lighton & Guthrie — Recover the Merchant Partnership Records
The Question
How much of Charles’s prosperity and Taybank property development can be connected directly to his Dundee mercantile business?
Why This Matters
Taybank differs from the older Guthrie estates because its story is fundamentally one of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century commercial wealth becoming landed property.
What We Need
Business records identifying capital, warehouses, imports, partners, creditors and property investment by Charles Guthrie.
5. Taybank House — Determine When the Residence Was Built
The Question
Did the first Charles Guthrie build Taybank soon after acquiring the Craigie feus, or did he adapt an earlier residence already standing on one of them?
Why This Matters
The answer would connect the legal creation of the estate with the physical house remembered as Taybank.
What We Need
Compare the 1792 property boundaries with late-eighteenth- and nineteenth-century maps, valuation records and building documents to identify the house footprint and later changes.
6. After Helen — Trace the Later Taybank Title and Redevelopment
The Question
How long did Taybank remain intact as a family estate, and when were the house and grounds divided, altered or absorbed into later Dundee development?
Why This Matters
The profile presently explains how Taybank entered the family and how Helen inherited it. Tracing the later title would complete the property’s history rather than ending the story at the surname transition.
What We Need
Follow Taybank through later sasines, valuation rolls, probate inventories, maps and municipal planning or property records.
Scotland’s People
Sources & Further Research
The Taybank reconstruction draws primarily upon contemporary parish, taxation, property, probate, heraldic, mapping, civic, newspaper and horticultural evidence. Y-DNA provides an additional paternal-family cross-check at the earlier Dundee-Craigie generation. Later pedigrees and retrospective newspaper histories remain useful for clues, but contemporary records receive the greatest weight whenever the evidence conflicts.
Family, Parish, Probate & Y-DNA Records
The Dundee parish records provide the documentary starting point for the securely reconstructed Taybank ancestry. James Guthrie and Christian Scott married in Dundee in 1695.
Their marriage is recorded in OPR 282/120/18. Baptismal evidence from the next generations also helps establish the relationship between the Taybank and Craigie families.
Two independently documented direct-male descendant lines from James Guthrie and Christian Scott have matching Guthrie Family Group 1A Y-DNA results: one through their son James Guthrie of Craigie and the other through their son Patrick Guthrie.
Taybank descends through another son, Alexander Guthrie. Because the Taybank descent later passes through Helen, Taybank itself does not provide a continuing direct-male test line. The two tested branches instead provide a genetic anchor for the paternal family into which the documentary evidence places Alexander.
View GFG1A Branch A — Descendants of James Guthrie & Christian Scott
Birth, baptism and marriage records provide the basic chronology for Alexander Guthrie and Elizabeth Moray’s family, the two Charles Guthries of Taybank, and the later Kinloch connection.
Forfar Sheriff Court record entered 9 November 1827 for Charles Guthrie residing in Taybank.
Dundee Sheriff Court probate material recorded 21 November 1870 for the younger Charles Guthrie of Taybank.
Probate material identifies Helen as wife of the Rev. Roger Rowson Lingard Guthrie and records her death on 10 April 1887.
Later Dundee probate material documents Roger following his death on 24 October 1908.
Property, Tax Records & Historical Maps
The record preserves the 30 April 1792 Division of Craigie and lists two holdings associated with Charles Guthrie: “Charles Guthrie’s Feu”, valued at £30, and a second feu valued at £25 which he had acquired from James Ballingall.
These holdings are the strongest present leads to the formation of Taybank, but no surviving title instrument yet proves that either one—or the two together—became the house and grounds later known by that name.
On 2 July 1794 the assessment names Charles Guthrie of Tay Bank and records a gardener in his service. This is the earliest currently identified contemporary record securely using the territorial designation.
The assessment of 19 October 1797 records “Charles Guthrey Taybank” with two taxable horses, confirming that Taybank was already an established territorial designation by the later 1790s.
Surveyed in 1860–62 and published in 1865, the Ordnance Survey explicitly labels Taybank and shows the house, grounds and neighboring properties on Dundee’s eastern approaches.
The Town of Dundee Name Book describes Taybank as a neat, well-built house on the north side of the Broughty Ferry Road, surrounded by wooded and ornamental ground, and identifies it as the property and residence of Charles Guthrie, Esq.
Taybank appears on page 10 of the Name Book.
Dundee directories continue to place the Lingard-Guthrie family at Taybank House, Ferry Road after Helen’s 1870 succession; by the 1890s the address appears as 204 Ferry Road.
Owners of Lands and Heritages in Scotland, 1872–73 also records Mrs. Lingard as a Dundee landowner with approximately twenty acres.
Succession, Heraldry & the Lingard-Guthrie Name
The Lyon Office record for Roger Rowson Lingard-Guthrie is one of the most important sources for the later Taybank family.
It records that Charles Guthrie died on 20 September 1870 and that Helen succeeded to his estate of Taybank and other property under Charles’s Disposition and Deed of Settlement dated 24 November 1866.
The settlement was registered in the Books of Council and Session on 23 December 1870. The Lyon record further states that Roger assumed Guthrie in addition to and after Lingard in compliance with a recommendation contained in the deed.
Roger petitioned the Lyon Court on 16 February 1871, and the combined Lingard-Guthrie arms were matriculated on 17 February 1871.
Although the Lyon record identifies and summarizes the governing instrument, the complete deed has not yet been examined.
Its value now lies chiefly in determining the full property descriptions, Helen’s complete succession terms, and whether any provisions were omitted or compressed in the Lyon account.
Records Roger’s education at Brasenose College, Oxford, and notes that he later assumed the additional surname Guthrie.
The Lyon record supplies the more precise reason and chronology for that change.
The published index cites the Lyon Register entry of 17 February 1871, independently preserving the pre-Carnoustie timing of the Lingard-Guthrie surname.
Its printed form “Rowton” is an indexing error; the official Lyon record gives Rowson.
This account identifies Margaret Kinloch as wife of Charles Guthrie of Taybank and records Cecilia Kinloch of Carnoustie, whose death in 1879 preceded Helen’s inheritance of the Carnoustie property.
It helps distinguish the later 1879 Carnoustie succession from Helen’s earlier 1870 succession to Taybank.
Later newspaper histories correctly preserve Helen’s 1879 inheritance from her maternal aunt, but some place Roger’s adoption of the Guthrie surname at the same time.
Newspapers, Commerce & Contemporary Public Life
Repeated Perthshire Courier notices identify Charles Guthrie, Esq., younger of Taybank. They provide unusually useful contemporary evidence that both Charleses were still being distinguished during this period.
Commercial records connect Charles with the firm Lighton & Guthrie and with flax-seed transactions in the early nineteenth century.
Important source leads include the London Gazette of 17 April 1810 and the litigation recorded in Watt v. Blair.
Exhibition reports document seedling hollyhocks in 1844, a seedling plum in 1851, and Himalayan bamboo, seedling hollyhocks, seedling plums and raspberries in 1852.
These reports independently establish that Charles was actively experimenting with and raising plants at Taybank rather than merely maintaining an ornamental garden.
Newspaper reports repeatedly identify Charles Guthrie of Taybank as Chairman of the Directors and record him presiding at shareholder meetings.
Notices from the 1840s and 1850 identify Charles among the company’s extraordinary directors.
A published meeting list names John Guthrie of Guthrie, James Guthrie of Craigie, and Charles Guthrie of Taybank together.
A contemporary report credits Charles’s intervention with securing openings for boys from the Dundee Industrial Schools as apprentices in the Royal Navy.
A newspaper notice reports a memorial window to Charles Guthrie, Esq. of Taybank, paid for by “Miss Guthrie of Taybank.”
The Oxford University and City Herald and Montrose Review independently report Helen’s marriage to the Rev. Roger Rowson Lingard and describe her as the only surviving child of Charles Guthrie of Taybank.
Reports from 1859–1861 document Charles serving as a Justice of the Peace, chairing a Dundee Parochial Board meeting, and being appointed a director of Dundee High School.
Numerous notices place Charles among those involved in meetings connected with the winding-up of the Western Bank of Scotland.
Published Horticultural Sources
Hogg attributes both Guthrie’s Late Green and Guthrie’s Golden / Apricot to the late Mr. Guthrie of Tay Bank, Dundee, and notes his attention to raising new fruits.
The newly assembled contemporary exhibition evidence substantially strengthens Hogg’s retrospective description of Charles as an active fruit-raiser.
The American nursery catalogue offers Guthrie’s Late Green for sale in 1847, proving that the Taybank cultivar had already entered international nursery circulation during Charles Guthrie’s lifetime.
The National Fruit Collection preserves Guthrie’s Late Green and identifies Charles Guthrie of Taybank as its raiser.
Published Context & Traditional Accounts
Chambers, Warden and later writers preserve the familiar rhyme naming Guthrie, Gagie, Taybank and Craigie.
It is useful evidence for the later social memory of the Guthrie territorial names, but it is not evidence of pedigree and does not establish that the four properties belonged to a single succession of lairds.
Older pedigrees remain useful for names and research leads, but several compressed or conflated generations have now been exposed by parish, Lyon Office and other contemporary records.
The Taybank ancestry is therefore shown securely from James Guthrie and Christian Scott rather than extending the profile backward through a disputed medieval chain.
The reconstructed Craigie and Eassie & Hiltoun profiles provide the wider family context against which older Guthrie pedigrees have been tested.
For Taybank, the important conclusion is narrower: contemporary Dundee baptismal evidence identifies James Guthrie of Craigie as uncle to Alexander Guthrie’s children, while the 1871 Lyon pedigree explicitly calls James Alexander’s elder brother.
No single source is expected to carry the entire reconstruction. Contemporary parish, taxation, property, probate and Lyon Office records establish the principal genealogy and succession. Newspapers add unusually rich evidence for Charles Guthrie’s commercial, civic and horticultural life, while historical maps define the physical setting of Taybank.
Y-DNA is used as complementary paternal-line evidence rather than as a substitute for genealogy. Later pedigrees and retrospective histories are retained as comparison sources, but they do not override conflicting contemporary evidence. This is particularly important for the Lingard-Guthrie surname: the 17 February 1871 Lyon record takes precedence over later accounts that moved the name change to the Carnoustie inheritance of 1879.
The major questions are now considerably narrower. Priority targets are:
- The original Taybank title: identify the deed, disposition or sasine that first created or named the Taybank property and determine which of Charles Guthrie’s two 1792 Craigie feus formed the estate.
- Charles Guthrie’s 24 November 1866 Disposition and Deed of Settlement: obtain the complete instrument for its property descriptions and full succession provisions.
- SC47/40/4: inspect the elder Charles’s 1827 inventory for his exact death date, heirs and family clues, and resolve the conflict with the older published date of 1815.
- The original 1799 Dundee parish entry: settle the younger Charles Guthrie’s exact August birth date.
- “Miss Guthrie of Taybank” and the later estate: identify the woman named in the 1855 memorial notice and trace Taybank House through later valuation, directory, title and redevelopment records.
- Commercial and horticultural follow-up: clarify Charles’s role in the Western Bank of Scotland winding-up, extend the record of Lighton & Guthrie, and test additional Guthrie-named fruit cultivars individually rather than assuming that all originated at Taybank.