John Acheson (goldsmith)

This John Acheson, who had been appointed to collect a tax for Regent Arran with Hew Rig of Carberry in 1545, was killed at the battle of Pinkie in 1547.

[5] Acheson and his business partner John Aslowan received silver from the royal treasurer Robert Richardson, Prior of St Mary's Isle, to coin into testoons.

[9] In December 1565, David Forrest, Acheson, and the officers of the mint were directed to coin a new "Marie ryall" worth 30 shillings, depicting a crowned palm tree, with a tortoise, called a "schell padocke" (a toad in a shell) climbing the trunk, with the motto "Dat Gloria Vires", with "Exurgat Deus et Dissipentur Inimici Eius" around the edge.

On the other side the coin had the royal arms and inscription for Mary and Lord Darnley, "Maria et Henricus Dei Gratia Regina et Rex Scotorum".

[10] Mary Queen of Scots later used the emblem of the tortoise and the palm tree, with the same motto from Ovid, Tristia, V. 12, "Glory gives strength" in an embroidered panel among the Oxburgh Hall hangings.

[12] On 10 July 1567 Mary's opponents, the Confederate lords, ordered her servant Servais de Condé to surrender silverware in his keeping for coining to Acheson.

[17] In 1576 Regent Morton and John Acheson contracted with a Flemish metallurgist Abraham Peterson for the supply of refined silver.

[18][19] Peterson was also a business partner of the Flemish gold miner Cornelius de Vos, and became "melter of metal" in the mint in 1578.