John Abercromby, 5th Baron Abercromby
of Aboukir and Tullibody

(1841-1924)
Archaeologist

Second son of the 3rd Baron, he succeeded his brother to the title in 1917. He entered the army in 1858, retiring in 1870 with the rank of Lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade. He served as Vice-President of the Folklore Society and President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. His publications included "A trip through the Eastern Caucasus" (1889); "Pre- and Proto-historic Finns", (2 vols, 1898); and "A study of the Bronze Age Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland" (2 vols, 1912). Dying without male heirs, he endowed the Abercromby Chair of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh and bequeathed ca 2,500 volumes, 400 pamphlets on archaeology, ethnology and linguistics, and a substantial body of correspondence and papers, to the University Library. The books are all entered in the pre-1985 guard-book catalogue, and an author and classified subject catalogue are available for consultation in the Special Collections Department.