Mel Goldman has just sent me some amazing miniatures of the Ramsay of Gogar ancestors. I’m not sure yet of the provenance of these, but the first is Peter Ramsay the stabler who ran the “White Horse” Inn, in St. Mary’s Wynd. According to Hamish Bain, the miniature is by Sir Henry Raeburn the inscription reads “The Tattersall of Scotland”, which is what his family have always understood he was referred to. It also says he was born in 1730 and died in 1794. From what I’ve found out he was actually born in 1727 and died in 1794. Cassell’s Old and new Edinburgh : its history, its people, and its places ([1881-83?]) by James Grant has the following to say about his fortunes and offspring:
Ramsay’s inn was chiefly famous for its stables, and in that establishment he realised a large fortune. … In 1776 he advertised that, exclusive of some part of his premises recently offered for sale, he possessed “a good house for entertainment, good stables for above one hundred horses, and sheds for above twenty carriages.” He retired from business in St. Mary’s Wynd in 1790, with above £10,000, according to one account, and his death is thus recorded in the “Scottish Register.” “Jan. 1. 1794. At his son’s house of Gogar, Co. Edinburgh, Peter Ramsay, Esq., formerly an eminent innkeeper at the Cowgate Port, in which station he acquired upwards of £30,000. He has left one son, William Ramsay, jun., Esq., banker in Edinburgh, and one daughter, the widow of Captain Mansfield, of the South Fencible Regiment, who lost his life at Leith in 1779, when attempting to quell a mutiny.”
The second portrait seems to be Peter Ramsay (banker in Edinburgh), the grandson of Peter Ramsay the stabler. He was the son of William Ramsay of Gogar and Hon. Bethia Hamilton, daughter of Robert Hamilton, 6th of Wishaw and Susan Balfour.
I thought the last one might be my ancestor Susan Ramsay, the daughter of George Ramsay and Hon. Jean Hamilton. She married Alexander Maitland, son of Sir Alexander Charles Maitland, 2nd Bt. and Helen Gibson-Wright. It’s actually The Hon Susan Mary Hamilton, the daughter of William Hamilton of Wishaw, 7th Lord Belhaven and Stenton and Penelope Macdonald. She married Peter Ramsay the banker on 17 November 1820.
These are an amazing find, and wonder if there are more like these.
a tale of downward social mobility 
No I did not mean to say that the miniature of Peter the Stabler was by Raeburn. Rather that there was also a Raeburn portrait of him. It is listed in the monograph “Sir Henry Raeburn” by James Greig, 1911. At that time it was owned by D. Heinemann of Munich.
Hamish
I have just acquired a picture of Garion. My Grandfather Peter Belhaven Hamilton Ramsay inherited this castle from Lady Susan Hamilton, his grandmother. I can email it to you if I could have an email address.
From: Susan Hilda Hamilton Ramsay