Annotation:Lord Kilmaur's
X:1 T:Lord Kilmaur’s Reel M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel B:John Riddell – Collection of Scots Reels, Minuets & c. for the Violin (c. 1782, p. 12) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:Edor E2 (EF) DEFD|E/E/E (EF) GABc|(ded)F DEFD|eBdG F2E2:| |:e3f defd|e/e/e (eb) agfd|(g/a/b) fa defd|eBdG TF2E2:| |:EeGe DEFD|EeGe EeGe|fadf DEFD|eBdG F2E2| g e2f defd|g e2 b agfd|(g>b)(f>a) defd|eBdG TF2E2:|]
LORD KILMAURS. Scottish, Reel (cut time). E Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCCDD. John Glen (1891) finds the earliest appearance of the tune in print in biography:John Riddell's c. 1782 publication A Collection of Scots Reels, Minuets, etc. (p. 12, No. 14), Glasgow.
Lord Kilmaurs, at the time of the publication of Riddell's volume, was James Cunningham, 14th Earl of Glencairn (1749-1791), born in Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire. He succeeded to the Earldom on his father's death in 1775. He was a Captain in the Western Fencibles Regiment from 1778, and served as one of the 16 representative peers from 1780 to 1784. Kilmaurs [1] was the name of the ancient family estate in Ayrshire, but in 1786 Glencairn sold it to Henrietta Scott, later to become the Marchioness of Titchfield. He contracted consumption (tuberculosis), and though he attempted to improve his deteriorating health by wintering in Portugal, upon his return to Falmouth he succumbed to the disease. Glencairn was a friend and patron of poet Robert Burns and was instrumental in the production of the Second Edition of Burn's Poems when he introduced the subject of Burns at a meeting of the gentlemen of the Caledonian Hunt in the winter of 1786. He made a motion, which was carried unanimously, that each gentleman subscribe for one copy of Burns’ Poems and pay a guinea for it. The publisher’s price was only six shillings. Not only did this bring in immediate financial relief to the destitute Burns, but the example of the Hunt members was imitated by many of the nobility and gentry of Scotland, earning Burns the sum of ₤500. [ed. the average yearly income was approximately ₤50 for actors, writers, and similar professions. As is true today, there was little money to be made in poetry, except by subscription, with the most lucrative money to be made in writing for the theatre. One of the top selling novels of the century, Fielding's Tom Jones, netted the author ₤600].