LONE BARONET’S END

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12507, 24 July 1926, Page 11

LONE BARONET’S END

1 TOO POOR TO LIVE IN CASTLE |

TOO poor to inhabit the castle he ruined himself in restoring, an old Highland baronet has lived and died alone in London. Hereditary Keener of Barcaldine Castle, Argyllshire, secretary of the Order of the Thistle, a member of the King’s Bodyguard of Scotland, and of the Koval Company of Archers, Sir Duncan Alexander Dundas Campbell spent the last 30 years of his life in loneliness’ in a detached villa in Ridgeway Palace, Wimbledon, where lie devoted himself to glorying in the history of his dan and writing many books on the subject. He was taken ill in a taxi-cab and died before he could be driven to a hospital. LIVED IN THE PAST Proud' and not a little eccentric, Sir Duncan lived completely in the past with loVe of clan as the dominating note of his life. So averse was he to modern methods that he would not have gas or electricity in his rooms, and worked by candlelight. There he turned out volume after volume of the history of his clan, his only company the portraits of ancestors, who gazed down on him from walls hung with dirks and claymores. Usually this stranye knight s-ocmt his days at a West End club, and his nights in his suburban Highland stronghold—with its locked rooms and no visitors—where, aloof from the times, he wrote, read books about

i the clans, and pursued heraldic stui dies. At home, where he was looked after by Mrs Knightling, his housekeeper, jhe used only two rooms, his bedroom jand the dining-room. Most of the others were empty, and two in which relatives had died were looked ujion as sacred and kept always locked. YEARLY VISIT TO CASTLE Every autumn Sir Duncan paid a visit to his castle in the picturesque wilds of Argyllshire, but he never lived there. He exhausted most of his fortune restoring it-, and could not afford to inhabit it. In the summer lie let it, and in the winter It was guarded by an old piper. In Wimbledon his shabby clothes and sbamb-* ling gait made him something of a character. Usually he wore an old hat and a more ancient waterproof, thick with candle grease, and carried an umbrella. When be went to a local barber to have bis hair cut lie always kept bis hat on in ease they cut his hair too thin. He never let go his umbrella while in the clinir. When. Sir Duncan attended the last Coronation he carried his ceremonial robes through Wimbledon in a newspaper parcel >vith the ends of the garments dangling down. Latterly be suffered from nervous trouble anil was threatened with blindness. TTo . was 69 years of age. The heir to the baronetcy is a cousin, Lieut.-Colonel »j Alexander Dennistoun, who is 78 - years of age.