Clan Paterson

The name Paterson in Scottish Gaelic is MacPhadraig, which could be a shortened form of MacGille Phadraig which means son of the devotee of Saint Patrick.[2] This suggests that the ancestor may have been a churchman as the Celtic church allowed priests to marry.[2] Or it could mean that the ancestor was a "layman" who was part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.[2]

In around the end of the 13th century the Patersons had settled on the shores of Loch Fyne with name becoming widespread in the Scottish Lowlands.[2] As of 1994 it was amongst the twenty most common surnames in the Lowlands.[2]

A gentleman named William Paterson witnessed a charter in 1446 in Aberdeen.[2] In 1563 James Paterson was sheriff-depute of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.[2] He later became Provost of Inverness.[2]

William Paterson was a founder of the Bank of England, but he is better-remembered as being the architect of the disastrous Darien scheme.[2] The scheme was an attempt to establish a Scottish colony at the isthmus of Darien in Central America.[2]

A celebrated episode of the Paterson family was during the Jacobite rising of 1745 when Sir Hugh Paterson, 2nd Baronet (of Bannockburn) entertained Prince Charles Edward Stuart in January 1746.[2] Sir Hugh’s niece, Clementina, became Prince Charlie's mistress and bore him a daughter, Charlotte Stuart, Duchess of Albany.[2] Bannockburn House still stands today as it was when Bonnie Prince Charlie visited it.[2]