Clan Galbraith

History

Galbraith is a Gaelic name meaning 'British stranger', and it looks back to the Britons of Strathclyde, whose capital was Dumbarton. The Clan Galbraith Society links the family to that kingdom from its earliest days. Our earliest firm evidence is a Lennox charter of 1208, witnessed by Gillescop Galbraith on a grant made by the Lord of Lennox.

For the next century or so the Galbraiths turn up often in Lennox charters. Their early stronghold is usually given as Inchgalbraith, a small island in Loch Lomond near Luss, which is said to have belonged to the Galbraiths of Bandry. Historic Environment Scotland's Canmore record describes the ruins of a rectangular tower and ascribes the castle to the period 1542 to 1700. Yet the mapmaker Timothy Pont called it 'old' in the 1590s, and later survey work has suggested that some of the masonry details are far earlier, perhaps thirteenth century. The dating is plainly unsettled.

The Society says a branch of the family took Culcreuch, near Fintry in Stirlingshire, about 1320, and that this line later inherited the chiefship. Accounts of the castle differ. The Culcreuch Castle site credits Sir Arthur Galbraith and his son Maurice with building it between 1296 and 1320, and dates the family connection from about 1320. We would not insist on any one year.

By the end of the fifteenth century the Galbraiths were seen as a clan in their own right. Thomas Galbraith of Culcreuch is called 'Chieffe of the Galbraiths' in 1489, and the Acts of the Scottish Parliament name the Galbraiths as a clan in 1587 and 1594. Elsewhere the surname is often listed under other clans, among them the Macfarlanes and the Macdonalds, so older sept lists are not a safe guide.

Culcreuch stayed with the chiefly line into the early seventeenth century. Robert Galbraith of Culcreuch, pressed by debt, gave up the lands to his brother-in-law, Alexander Seton of Gargunnock, a Lord of the Session. Sources date this to 1622 or 1624, and the Fintry Museum and the castle's own history give 1624 for the final transfer. We have not found that the chiefly family ever regained the estate.

Today the clan has no chief recognised by the Lord Lyon, and is described as armigerous. That leaves it without standing under Scots law as a recognised clan, though the Society keeps it very much alive. It uses the motto Ab obice saevior, 'fiercer because of the obstruction'. Some sources give suavior, 'gentler', and we have not been able to settle which reading is the older.