James Andrew Blaikie ^54,836

  General Notes:

From The Times, December 31, 1929

Mr. James Andrew Blaikie, who died suddenly at Finchley last week in his 84th year, will be remembered by many old friends and colleagues as a Civil servant of an uncommon type, and a true and warm-hearted man.
He was the eldest son of Professor William Garden Blaikie, of Edinburgh, the biographer of Livingstone, and a pioneer in his day of social reform; while through his mother, Catherine Biggart, he belonged to the same family - the Balfours of Pilrig - as Louis
Stevenson. His grandfather, James Blaikie, a Lord Provost of Aberdeen, had been Byron's schoolfellow at the Grammar School, and always maintained that the poet was "quite a nice fellow" until he went to London.
From Edinburgh University young Blaikie went up to Caius College, Cambridge, and, after taking his degree as eighth Wrangler in 1870, was elected a Fellow of his college. He was at his death senior of the former Fellows with the exception of Sir Matthew Joyce, who was elected in 1862. After some years Blaikie left Cambridge to become a
house-master at Fettes College, then recently opened, marrying at the same time Georgina, daughter of Surgeon-General J. Dunbar. He had many of the gifts which make a good schoolmaster, but his constitutional deafness was a serious handicap, and ere long he transferred his services to the Scottish Education Department. Here again his deafness came in the way of full success as an inspector; though the children of scores of villages learned to love this unusual visitor, who asked the most unexpected questions about birds or ploughing or porridge, and a host of subjects never mentioned in their
books, while the kind, fatherly eyes, and the large hand, held up like an ear-trumpet, waited for their answers. Transferred to Dover house, this human and fresh-minded soul proved a sound and capable official, free from theories, and always master of his job.
Lacking the special literary gift of his father, or of his late brother Walter, the eminent Edinburgh painter, and author of the "Itinerary of Prince Charles Edward", James Blaikie had yet a wide circle of interests. These ranged from botany to mountaineering, and from stamp-collecting to Esperanto. He was an attached member of the Presbyterian Church of England; his eldest son Garden, who died a number of years ago, was a missionary of that Church in South China. He is survived by his wife, a daughter, and three sons.

From The Times, August 31, 1886

On Saturday, the 28th. Aug., at 6, York-crescent, Lower Norwood, S.E.,
the wife of James Blaikie, Scotch Education Department, of a son.

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Census UK 1881: 1881, 14 Viewforth Place, Edinburgh.

2. Census UK 1891: 1891, 6 York Crescent, Lambeth, London.

3. Census UK 1901: 1901, 6 Lancaster Road, Lambeth, London.

4. Resided: 21 December 1929, 15 Church Crescent, Finchley, London. ¹³

5. He had an estate probated on 14 February 1929 in London. ¹³

James married Georgina Jane Dunbar, daughter of James Alexander Dunbar and Georgina Fairlie MacWhirter, in 1874 in Kensington, London. (Georgina Jane Dunbar was born in 1852 in India and died on 3 December 1939 in Brownrigg, Copthorne, Sussex ⁵⁴.)