Annotation:Honorable Mrs. John Ramsay's Reel (The)

Back to Honorable Mrs. John Ramsay's Reel (The)

---

HONORABLE MRS. JOHN RAMSAY'S REEL, THE. AKA - "Mrs. John Ramsay." Scottish, Reel. B Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. Composed by John Gow (1764-1826), son of Niel Gow, who along with his brother, established a branch of the family's publishing concern in London. John Ramsay (1775-1842), a son of George Ramsay, 8th Lord Dalhousie, was a military officer who began as a Captain in the 92 Gordon Highlanders when they were raised in the early 1790's. He rose to the military rank of Lieutenant-General and became Colonel of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, the 79th, and was a Member of Parliament for Aberdeen Burghs, 1806–1807. He was brother to politician William Maule, 1st Baron Panmure, for whose family so many tunes were composed by the Gows. John Ramsay's wife was Mary Delise (d. 1843), daughter of Philip Delise of Calcutta, and the couple wed in April, 1800, a date which coincides with the Gow's Fourth Collection.

The Fourth Collection was published by the firm of Gow & Shepherd, Nathaniel Gow and William Shepherd. The firm also published, about the same time, Shepherd's Second Collection, which contains "Honorable Mrs. John Ramsay’s Strathspey", perhaps meant as a companion tune to John Gow's reel.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Carlin (The Gow Collection), 1986; No. 303. Gow (Fourth Collection of Niel Gow's Reels), 2nd ed., originally 1800; p. 33.

Recorded sources:

---