John Charles Grant Ledingham, 1875-1944

Abstract

Like so many Scots who have achieved distinction, Sir John Ledingham, whose death occurred on 4 October 1944, was of humble ancestry. His paternal grandfather, Alexander Ledingham, was the village blacksmith of Auchleven in Aberdeenshire, and it is from this district, apparently, that the ancestors of many of the Ledinghams found in different parts of the world have originated. His mother’s father, who hailed from Lochmaben, was of farming stock and his great grandfather, John Young, an Edinburgh surgeon, is the only representative of the medical profession to be found amongst Sir John’s ancestors. John Charles Grant Ledingham was born on 19 May 1875 at the Manse of Boyndie, Banffshire, where his father, the Rev. James Ledingham, was a minister of the Established Church of Scotland. His mother, Isabella Gardiner, was the daughter of the Rev. James Gardiner, minister of the parish of Rathven, and John was the sixth of a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters. His parents chose for him the names of the Earl of Seafield whose son the Rev. James Ledingham had coached.