History of the Johnstones, 1191-1909, with ... - Electric Scotland

EDGBASTON HALL 275
the vendor might either insist on the completion of the purchase by the last
bidder with this penalty, or he might treat with the previous bidder, obliging
Galabank to pay for the extra expense and loss ; or he might consider the lands
unsold, put them up again for sale, and only amerce Galabank for his failure to
complete the purchase by the costs of the first auction. The vendor preferred
the third course, and, after receiving payment of the first auction expenses,
claimed the costs and penalties which would have been his due if the lands had
been offered again to the previous bidder, and also the fine for which Galabank
would have been liable if he had completed the purchase. The vendor put
them up again at the previous price, and, finding it too high, petitioned the
Lords in Council and Session in Nov. 18 15 to be allowed to lower the upset
price and then ;
sold Relief and Burnswark at a reduced price, holding back the
rest. He brought an action against Galabank and his agent for £3 129, 6s. 2d.
as penalty for not originally completing the purchase, and also for £5000 for
damage sustained by the Westerhall estate from selling the lands at a smaller
price (to a friend), and for any loss that might be sustained in the future sale of
the remainder.
The defendant showed that the petitioners had deliberately preferred
the alternative of declaring the sale void, and making the most of the lands by
separating them, but Lord Reston adjudged, Jan. 20, 1818, that the defendant,
Dr John Johnstone, domiciled in England, was liable for the sum claimed, and
also for any difference between his original offer and the price for which
the remaining lands may be sold. He again appealed, pointing out that this
decision enabled the Westerhall trustees "to carry on a speculation upon
these lands on the extraordinary footing that they were to draw the benefit
while he had all the loss" (June 3, 1818). But the Lords, undoubtedly annoyed
at the Curtis trustees thinking land in Scotland an unsafe investment, upheld the
previous decision, and John had to pay the costs, which, in the end, mounted up
to over £1 8,000. The affair was so mortifying that his wife induced him, for the
recovery of his spirits, to take a few months' holiday in London, on the pretext
of education for their two daughters, who received music lessons from the Abbe
Liszt and drawing lessons from the artist, Mulready.
The Curtis trustees were very short-sighted. They preferred an estate in
the Vale of Evesham, with a house, mentioned in Shakespeare as " Haunted
Hilboro'." This was sold by one of John's representatives for under £4000
a few years ago (it was valued at ^16,000 in 1868) ; and land in Annandale now
commands a fancy price.
Edward invested his second marriage settlement in the estate of Dunsley
Manor, near Kinver, and in a farm at Upton Snodsbury, lying in both East and
West Worcestershire. For some years he put a bailiff into Dunsley, and kept
the farm of several hundred acres in his own hands. Edgbaston Hall 1 was
1 Edgbaston Hall, says Dr Withering's biographer, was a spacious and commodious
mansion, surrounded by a park, affording an interesting combination of wood, water, and
undulating lawns. "There, launching upon the unruffled surface of the lake, he devoted
a summer's evening to angling, whilst the swan 'with arched neck proudly rowed with oary
feet,' or, attended by Newfoundland dogs, he would inspect his beautiful herd of French