Dunbar Douglas, 6th Earl of Selkirk

The son of Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk and Joan Wedderburn-Colville, was born on 22 April 1809 in London, styled as The Lord Daer from birth until 1820.

He died at Saint Mary's Isle, in Kirkcudbrightshire, on 11 April 1885 at age 75, without issue, being buried at Kirkcudbright Scotland, close to the family home.

[2] From at least 1820, until 1830, acting for Dunbar Douglas, the Estate of the 5th Earl was managed by a Board of Trustees, and lawyers with ‘powers of attorney’, whose motives and advice could be questioned.

'Appointed by the Last Will and Testamony [sic] of the Right Honourable Thomas Earl of Selkirk; there were four: Andrew Colville (Colvile) of Achiltrie and Crommie, John Hallbrith (Halketh) of Waring, Adam Maitland of Dundrennan, and Sir James Montgomery Baronet.'

He was appointed a member of the HBC's London Committee in November 1811, a few months after the Company had granted land to Selkirk, for the establishment of his colony.

An old man by 1802, the elder Montgomery turned over his affairs to the 2nd Baronet, who was said to lack the benefit of his older brother William's military service background and his Island experiences.

[9][10][11][12] The sixth Earl of Selkirk came of age in 1830; receiving the compliments Donald Mackenzie, then the shrewd and capable Governor of the Red River Settlement, the District of Assiniboia, as he was to ‘beg to congratulate you and all my employers’, he wrote to Andrew Colvile, 'on the prosperous state of the Colony.'

In 1834, the Sixth Earl of Selkirk acceded to the 'desire expressed by the Committee to have re-conveyed' the Grant of Assiniboia for £15,000 of the Hudson's Bay Company stock.

Much of his land gained directly through original grants from Lord William Campbell, the 5th Earl's interests having been secured through purchase by lease and release, from individual holders.

[18][19] The graves of Cecily Louisa and her husband Dunbar James sit at the top of a gentle slope, in The Galt-way (Gatta/Gata) Kirk Cemetery located southeast of Kirkcudbright, within its former churchyard, on the Farmstead of Banks, now held by Sir David Hope-Dunbar.

The Countess lies close to the graves of Captain John Hope R.N., a Selkirk grandson, his wife, and her children, he a son of Lady Isabella-Helen Douglas and The Hon.