The Honourable Ronald Melville
(1835-1906)
11 April 1861
Volume 3, page 69, sitting number 2968.
Born on 19 December 1835, Ronald Ruthven Leslie-Melville was the son of John Thornton Leslie-Melville, 9th Earl of Leven and his second wife, Sophia, daughter of Henry Thornton, MP. He was educated at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford. In 1889 he succeeded his half-brother Alexander Leslie-Melville, becoming the 11th Earl of Leven and 10th Earl of Melville.
He was a Director of the Bank of England (1898-1906) and a Director of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. He was a Scottish representative peer from 1892 until his death, Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland from 1900 until his death, and Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for nine successive years (1898-1906). He was also Deputy Lieutenant for the City of London. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in the 1902 Coronation Honours list and was sworn a member of the council at Buckingham Palace on 11 August 1902. He was appointed a Knight of the Thistle in 1905.
On 7 May 1885 at St Marylebone he married Emma Selina Portman, daughter of 2nd Viscount Portman. He was 49 years old and his bride was 22.
He died, aged 71, on 21 August 1906 at Glenferness House near Nairn in Scotland. His estate was valued at £1,300, 013.
‘The late Earl, who was born in 1835, and was educated at Eton and at Christchurch, Oxford, was identified with many branches of commercial activity. He was the head of the banking firm of Melville, Evans, & Co., a Director of the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, and until a few years ago a Director of the Bank of England.
‘Lord Leven and Melville had been a representative peer of Scotland since 1892. He was Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal for Scotland and member of the Privy Council. […] In 1885 he married Emma, the eldest daughter of Viscount Portman, who survives him with four sons and one daughter. His eldest son, Lord Balgonie, who was born in 1886, succeeds to the title.
‘Lord Leven and Melville was an ideal King’s Commissioner, and well sustained the dignity of his office, receiving every assistance from his wife, who is remarkable for her extreme beauty, grace and dignity.
‘The Earl of Leven and Melville had not been in good health for some years, a severe attack of influenza having had a serious effect on his health and affected his breathing. Deceased came north to Glenferness three weeks ago, in the hope that the mountain air would do him good, but his illness took a serious turn some days ago’ (Dundee Courier, 23 August 1906).
Later that year numerous newspapers reported on the size of his estate. ‘By the death and succession duties of some £200,000 or £250,000 on the gross value of £1,300, 013 of the Earl of Leven and Melville’s estate (apart from settled property), the Chancellor of the Exchequer has his seventh “windfall” in millionaire’s [sic] wills within five months. The late earl leaves £40,000 for the restoration of Holyrood Chapel, Edinburgh, as a chapel for the Order of the Thistle, of which he was a knight’ (Western Gazette, 28 September 1906).
[From an album compiled by George Robert Denison.]