WALTER SCOTT AS SHERIFF ADVOCATE GIVES A VERDICT SCOTT (Sir Walter, 1771-1832, Novelist & Poet)

Autograph Verdict Signed at the end of a Legal document relating the case of "Agnes Leishman residing at Farmlee vs Alexander Neil, Servant Linton Mill. Sir Walter Scott of AbbotsforD Bart, Advocate Sheriff Depute of the County of Selkirk ... it is humbly meant and shewn to us by Agnes Leishman ... the Complainer, upon the twenty ninth day of September 1821 ... was delivered of a natural female child of which Alexander Neil ... is the father and altho' he is conscious that he is the father of the said child yet he unjustly refuses and delays to pay the usual inlying charges, nursing fees and aliment unless compelled. Therefore he, the said Alexander Neil Defender ought and should be deemed and ordained by our Decrees to make payment to the said Pursuer of the following sums of money viz one pound ten shillings sterling per month during the first nine months from the birth ... in the name of nursing fees and the sum of four pounds sterling per anum from the time the child is three quarters old, until she shall attain the age of twelve years complete in name of aliment and for clothing educating and maintaining the said child ... Given at Selkirk and signed by the Clerk of Court the twenty second day of October 1822 ...", Scott has written "The Sheriff Depute finds the defender liable in the sum of three pounds per annum for aliment of the said child and for six pound during the first nine months in name of nursing fees deducting from the said six pounds a valuable proportion according to the time when the child is admitted to have been ... elsewhere than by the mother. Also for the sum of one pound six shillings of inlying charges deducting such payments as the Defender shall be able to further fund expenses ...", Signed by Walter Scott, Selkirk, 14th May 1823 with a further document on the final side saying that "Upon the Twenty fifth day of October Eighteen Hundred and Twenty two .. I William Dunlop Sheriff Officer by virtue of the within libelled summons lawfully summoned warned and charged the within designed Alexander Neil to compear before the Shire Depute of the shire of Selkirk or his substitute time and place within mentioned in the hour of cause with continuation of days to answer at the instance of the Pursuer also within mentioned in the matter libelled with Certification. This I did by delivering to the said Alexander Neil personally a full double of the within libelled summons to the will with a copy of my citation thereto enjoined ..." with a further annotation with the date by Scott, 4 sides folio, with revenue stamp, Selkirk,

As an advocate, judge and legal administrator by profession, Scott combined writing and editing with daily work as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire. He was prominent in Edinburgh's Tory establishment, active in the Highland Society, long a president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1820–1832), and a vice president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1827–1829). His knowledge of history and literary facility equipped him to establish the historical novel genre as an exemplar of European Romanticism. He became a baronet "of Abbotsford in the County of Roxburgh", Scotland, on 22nd April 1820, the title became extinct on his son's death in 1847.

Item Date:  1823

Stock No:  41723      £1475

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