Annotation:Dr. Rutherford of Craigow’s Strathspey

Back to Dr. Rutherford of Craigow’s Strathspey

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DR. RUTHERFORD OF CRAIGOW'S STRATHSPEY. Scottish, Strathspey. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Composed by Borders fiddler-composer biography:John Pringle. Dr. Rutherford of Ballilisk and Craigow, Kinross, a physician, married firstly Beatrix Stedman (daughter of an Edinburgh physician) a few days after Christmas, 1774. Beatrix died in 1794 at Craigow. The Edinburgh Magazine, or Literary Miscellany of September, 1798, gives notice that "Dr. John Rutherford of Craigow married Miss Katherine Stedman of Little Seggie, youngest daughter of the deceased Dr. John Stedman, physician in Edinburgh" [Stedman, 1710-1791, was a founding member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh]. Apparently Dr. John married two of the Stedman girls! In 1809 in Edinburgh he married Miss Catharine Russell (daughter of Samuel Russell, of Selkirk). He died in at Craigow in 1811, leaving behind an 11 year old daughter, Margaret, his sole heir. A notice in The Scots Magazine (1804, p. 154) reads:

Dr. Rutherford of Craigow, who invented the ingenious Thermometer [in 1790], for ascertaining, with accuracy, the extreme degree of cold every night, has, we understand, also invented a Pentagraph, on a new construction, for enlarging or diminishing maps, plans, pictures, &c., with great accuracy, and much superior to the one presently used.

His obituary noted that "this ingenious gentleman, besides many other scientific and useful discoveries, was the inventor of a very curious instrument, the self-regulating thermometer, by which the greatest degree of cold, that has happened during the day or night, can be ascertained with the greatest accuracy."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Pringle (A Second Collection of Strathspeys, Reels & Jiggs &c.), c. 1805.

Recorded sources:

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