| Description | Hay was the son of Sir John Hay, 5th baronet and a banker in Edinburgh, and Hon Mary Elizabeth Forbes, daughter of James, 16th Lord Forbes. His grandfather, James Hay, was a physician in Edinburgh and had revived the baronetcy of Hay of Smithfield, dormant since the death of his grandfather’s degenerate third cousin, Sir James Hay, 3rd baronet, in about 1683.
Hay succeeded to the baronetcy and entailed estates in May 1830. He stood as Member of Parliament for Peeblesshire in the summer of 1831, without disclosing his views on parliamentary reform, and came in unopposed. He divided against the passage of the Grey ministry’s English reform bill, and the second reading of the Scottish bill. Hay’s confidence in his chances of being returned for Peeblesshire at the 1832 general election proved to be justified, and he sat for the county as a Conservative until his retirement in 1837. He died in Rome in November 1838, and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his next surviving brother Adam Hay.
The volume in the collection has Sir John Hay's bookplate at the front. It could have belonged to his grandfather who was a physician.
[Source: www.historyofparliamentonline.org]
Contents: Compendium volume of medical essays including 'The History of Chemistry' and 'The Chemical History of Vegetables' by William Cullen, c1760 |