[1] Archibald's younger brother, James Rannie Swinton, became a fashionable portrait artist, and sisters Catherine and Elizabeth, shared an interest in art.
[2] His father had law offices and a house at 9 Shandwick Place in Edinburgh's West End, just off Princes Street.
[3] He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, his classmates including Archibald Campbell Tait, later Archbishop of Canterbury.
He served on various royal commissions, and by his oratorical powers and legal knowledge won a foremost place as a layman in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
He was an unsuccessful Conservative candidate for the parliamentary constituency of Haddington Burghs in 1852 and for Edinburgh and St Andrews in 1868.