Sir Robert Baird, 1st Baronet
Scottish merchant, landowner and investor
Sir Robert Baird (1630–1697) was a Scottish merchant, landowner, and investor in colonial enterprise in the Province of Carolina.
Family background
He was a son of James Baird, a lawyer and a younger son of Gilbert Baird of Auchmedden, and Bathia Dempster. Auchmeddan Castle is near Fraserburgh. His aunt Margaret Baird married James Harvey of the Ward of Kinmundy and is an ancestor of the Harvey family who owned plantations in Antigua and Grenada.
Career
Robert Baird became a merchant in Edinburgh. Baird acquired the estate of Saughtonhall to the west of Edinburgh in around 1665 from Janet Moodie, wife of a merchant Alexander Maxwell. Maxwell was a son of the religious writer Margaret Cunningham. The old mansion of Saughtonhall was demolished in 1954, and the grounds are now the public Saughton Park.
Baird's apprentices included, in 1665, Hugh Campbell, a son of Hugh Campbell of Cessnock. His older brother, George Campbell was a founder of the Scottish Carolina Company.
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