Euphan Wardlaw Ramsay
Keeping the side up!
Euphan was the elder of Arthur Wardlaw Ramsay’s two daughters. She was born in 1931, and spent her childhood in Devon, with holidays on Exmoor. She married Richard Hanbury Tenison in 1955. Arthur left the Wardlaw Ramsay archive and surviving portraits to Euphan, who moved the larger portraits to Lough Bawn, a Tenison house in County Monaghan, Ireland, where they got damp. She applied to the Lord Lyon for confirmation of her right to the Wardlaw Ramsay arms, confirmed in this certificate of matriculation.
The archives were kept in two metal chests for several decades until Euphan decided to present them to the National Archives of Scotland. Subsequent enquiry showed that the Archives hold a letter from her father in which he had bequeathed the Wardlaw Ramsay archive to the National Archives on his death.
The large family portraits were given to the National Trust in Scotland, and hung in the National Trust offices in Charlotte Square for decades. When these offices were sold, the National Trust put all the displaced portraits into storage, until the decision was taken to return them to the donors. By that time Euphan had died, and her grandchildren, as her heirs, decided to divide the portraits among themselves, thus keeping them in the family.
The above charter is a modern confirmation by the Lord Lyon of Euphan Wardlaw Ramsay’s entitlement to these arms.
Right – William Hanbury Tenison at his mother’s grave
Below – Memorial in Trevethyn Church, Pontypool
