John Buchan

Lord Minto John Buchan

The subject of this Memoir was born in London on July 9, 1845, at 36 Wilton Crescent, the house of his grandmother, Lady Hislop. He was given the family name of Gilbert, and the second name of John after his uncle and godfather, Lord John Russell. Two months later his father, Lord Melgund, who was then out of Parliament, carried off his wife and child on one of those protracted continental visits which were the fashion in that generation. The Melgunds took with them their carriage-in which a shelf had been fitted to serve as the baby's crib-a courier, a nurse, and a lady's maid, and made a leisurely progress up the Rhine to Switzerland, and then over the St. Gothard into Italy. The winter was spent chiefly in Rome and Turin with the British Minister, Sir Ralph Abercromby, [1] who had married Lady Mary Elliot. Country house visits filled the rest of that year, and at Cambridge Gilbert John took his first wavering steps on the lawn in front of the lodge at Trinity