Sir John Lauder, 1st Baronet, of Newington and Fountainhall (1595 – 2 April 1692) was a notable Scottish baillie and Treasurer of the City of Edinburgh Council, who was raised to a Nova Scotia baronetcy in 1688.
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Antecedents
Lauder was born at Melville Mill and baptised 17 August 1595 at Lasswade church, the son of Andrew Lauder of Melville Mill, Lasswade (d. June 1658) and his first wife, Janet (d. April 1617), daughter of David Ramsay of Polton and Hillhead. His son, Sir John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall, recorded his ancestry in his Holograph Notes. He gives the 1st baronet's father as Andrew Lauder, and his father as William Lauder, a "second brother of [Robert] Lauder of that Ilk", sons of Richard Lauder, younger, of that Ilk (k. June 1567).
As John Lauder of Newington he matriculated Arms with the Lord Lyon King of Arms c. 1672 as descended of a second son of Lauder of that Ilk.
Merchant career and estates
Lauder, mentioned in his mother's Testament, became a highly successful merchant-burgess in Edinburgh, being admitted as a Burgess on 23 November 1636. He served as Treasurer of the City of Edinburgh Council in 1652, and as bailie from 1657 to 1661. He purchased (before 1672) the estate of Newington, Edinburgh, and subsequently (10 June 1681) the lands of Woodhead and Templehall, which along with others in Edinburghshire and Haddingtonshire, were erected by Crown charter into the feudal barony of Fountainhall on 13 August 1681. He later purchased the lands of Idingtoun (now Edington) near Chirnside, Berwickshire, from his third father-in-law, George Ramsay of Idingtoun.