Clan Baillie

History

The Baillies are usually traced to the Lamington lands in Lanarkshire. A genealogical blog on landed families repeats a family tradition that the name came from Bailleul in northern France, and links the line to the Balliols. The same account has William, a grandson of Sir Alexander de Balliol, making his home at Lamington and adopting the name Baillie. This is a single, secondary source, so we treat the early descent as tradition, not as proven.

A better known story ties Lamington to William Wallace. In it, Marion Braidfute, said to be Wallace's wife, was raised at Lamington Tower. Clydesdale's Heritage says the Baillie family began to tell these stories in the 16th century, and that the tower was the family's ancestral home. Its remains can still be seen on the edge of the village.

The northern branch has firmer records. Historic Environment Scotland ties the Dochfour estate to the family's service at the Battle of Brechin in 1452. The landed families blog adds a tradition that Alexander Baillie, of the Lamington line, fought alongside his cousin the Earl of Huntly, who sheltered him, and was granted Dunain, Dochfour, Leys and Torbreck. Those details come from a secondary source and we would treat them with care.

Dunain and Dochfour then went separate ways. Electric Scotland records Baillies of Dunain in documents of 1605 and 1619. It says that in 1657 Alexander Baillie of Dunain made over the Dochcairns lands to his second son David, described as of Dochfour. The Dunain line ended in the 19th century. Electric Scotland adds that when the last Dunain died in 1869 the estate fell to three heiresses and was then sold.

The Dochfour Baillies had a hard time in the Jacobite rising. Historic Environment Scotland says that in 1745 the house was burnt, the family being suspected of Jacobite sympathies, and the estate was forfeited. It came back to the Baillies through Lord President Forbes. A new house went up for Alexander Baillie in 1770, although another part of the same record dates it to about 1780. Evan Baillie later brought in William Robertson, who reshaped it into an Italianate villa, and Prince Albert had visited by 1847.

The landed families blog sets out how the Barony of Burton reached the family. The brewer Michael Arthur Bass was created 1st Baron Burton in 1886. His daughter Nellie married Colonel James Baillie of Dochfour in 1894, and when her father died in 1909 she held the barony in her own right. Her grandson became 3rd Baron Burton in 1962; after his death in 2013, Dochfour went to his second son. None of the sources we found calls anyone chief of the name, so we name no chief.