Collection MS 369 - Baxter family wills and related papers

Sir George Washington Baxter (1853-1926) was the second son of William Edward Baxter (1825-1890), Liberal MP for Montrose Burghs from 1855 until 1885. W. E. Baxter was the nephew of the textile baron Sir David Baxter, and of Mary Ann Baxter, the founder of University College, Dundee. Sir George was a key figure in the family textile firm, Baxter Brothers, as well as being a prominent Liberal Unionist and President of University College. He married Edith Fagan, who was also a notable Unionist politician in the years after the Great War. On his death the bulk of his estate passed to his nephew, Colonel George Lewis Baxter DSO (1883-1962), second son of his older brother Edward Armitstead Baxter and Isobel Scott-Elliot. In December 1933 George L. Baxter married Mrs Jeanette Elizabeth Edith Grizel Don (b. 1894) - known as Grizel - the second daughter of Brigadier General William Douglas of Brigton, who had been divorced from her husband Captain William Gilbert Don a few days earlier. Their only child, a daughter, was killed in a riding accident in 1948 at the age of 12. Major Hebert Home Baxter (1885-1932) was the younger brother of George Lewis Baxter. Their cousin was Captain Walter Travers Scott-Elliot, Labour MP for Accrington 1945-1950, who was murdered in 1977 by his butler, the serial killer Archibald Hall.