McCulloch One Name Study

John McCulloch succeeded his grandfather in 1747 and, two years later, obtained a Crown Charter of the estate, subject to the liferent of his grandmother. He suffered from the family instability and is described in the entail litigation as ‘a person whose dispostion and habit rendered an easy dupe’, but the law suit shewed him to combine a certain amount of cunning with a total disregard of legal consequences. His attempt to sell Borness to his cousin, David McCulloch of Ardwall, was a case in point (see page 332). When his grandfather died it was his sister, Isabel, and not himself, who was nominated executor: and when his grandmother died, his own children were preferred to himself as executor dative644. Further in his grandfather’s last, entail of 1747, the property was left to John (iv)’s sons, then to his daughters, then to his sister, Isabel, followed by himself. It is, therefore, clear, that his weakness was recognised in the family.