[1] One branch of the Blackwood family emigrated to France; the head of this line being Adam Blackwood (d. 1613), jurist, poet and divine, and senator of the presidial court of Poitiers.
DUFF-GORDON, LUCIE (1821-1869), English woman of letters, daughter of John and Sarah Austin (q.v.), was born on the 24th of June 1821. Her chief playfellows as a child were her cousin, Henry Reeve, and John Stuart Mill, who lived next door in Queen Square, London. In 1834 the Austins went to Boulogne, and at table d’hôte Lucie found herself next to Heinrich Heine. The poet and the little girl became fast friends, and years afterwards she contributed to Lord Houghton’s Monographs Personal and Social a touching account of a renewal of their friendship when Heine lay dying in Paris. Her parents went to Malta in 1836, and Lucie Austin was left in England at school, but her unconventional education made the restrictions of a girls’ school exceedingly irksome. She showed her independence of character by joining the English Church, though this step was certain to cause pain to her parents, who were Unitarians, and to many of her friends. She married in 1840 Sir Alexander Duff-Gordon (1811-1872). With her mother’s beauty she had inherited her social gifts, and she gathered round her a brilliant circle of friends. George Meredith has analysed and described her extraordinary success as a hostess, and the process by which she reduced too ardent admirers to “happy crust-munching devotees.” “In England, in her day,” he says, “while health was with her, there was one house where men and women conversed. When that house perforce was closed, a light had gone out in our country.” After her father’s death, she fell into weak health and was obliged to seek sunnier climes. She went in 1860 to the Cape of Good Hope, and later to Egypt, where she died on the 14th of July 1869. She had translated among other works Ancient Grecian Mythology (1839) from the German of Niebuhr; Mary Schweidler; The Amber Witch (1844) from the German of Wilhelm Meinhold; and Stella and Vanessa (1850) from the French of A.F.L. de Wailly. Her Letters from the Cape (1862-1863) appeared in 1865; and in 1865 her Letters from Egypt, edited by her mother, attracted much attention. Last Letters from Egypt (1875) contained a memoir by her daughter, Mrs Janet Ross. Lady Duff-Gordon won the hearts of her Arab dependents and neighbours. She doctored their sick, taught their children, and sympathized with their sorrows.
The Letters front Egypt were not originally published in a complete form. A fuller edition than had before been possible, with an introduction by George Meredith, was edited in 1902 by Mrs Janet Ross. See also Mrs Ross’s Three Generations of Englishwomen (1886).
DUFFTOWN, a municipal and police burgh of Banffshire, Scotland, on the Fiddich, 64 m. W.N.W. of Aberdeen by the Great North of Scotland railway. Pop. (1901) 1823. It dates from 1817 and bears the name of its founder, James Duff, 4th earl of Fife. Although planned in the shape of a cross, with a square and tower in the middle, the arms of the cross are not straight, the constructor holding the ingenious opinion that, in order to prevent little towns from being taken in at a glance, their streets should be crooked. The leading industries are lime-works and distilleries, the water being specially fitted for the making of whisky. The town has considerable repute as a health resort, owing partly to its elevation (737 ft.) and partly to the natural charms of the district. The parish of Mortlach, in which Dufftown is situated, is rich in archaeological and historical associations. What is called the Stone of Mortlach is traditionally believed to have been erected to commemorate the success of Malcolm II. over the Danes in 1010. The three large stones known as “The King’s Grave,” a hill-fort, and cairns are of interest to the antiquary. The old church of Mortlach, though restored and almost renewed, still contains some lancet windows and a round-headed doorway, besides monuments dating from 1417. A portion of old Balvenie Castle, a ruin, is considered to be of Pictish origin, but most of it is in the Scots Baronial. It has associations with Alexander Stewart, earl of Buchan and lord of Badenoch (1343-1405), son of Robert II., whose ruffianly conduct in Elginshire earned him the designation of the Wolf of Badenoch, the Comyns, the Douglases (to whom it gave the title of baron in the 15th century), the Stuarts and the Duffs. The new castle, an uninteresting building, was erected in 1724 by the earl of Fife, and though untenanted is maintained in repair. Two miles to the S.E. of Dufftown is the ruined castle of Auchindown, finely situated on a limestone crag, 200 ft. high, of which three sides are washed by the Fiddich and the fourth was protected by a moat. It dates from the 11th century, and once belonged to the Ogilvies, from whom it passed in 1535 to the Gordons. The Gothic hall with rows of fluted pillars is in fair preservation. Ben Rinnes (2755 ft.) and several other hills of lesser altitude all lie within a few miles of Dufftown. About 4 m. to the N.W. is Craigellachie—Gaelic for “the rock of alarm”—(pop. 454), on the confines of Elginshire. It is situated on the Spey amidst scenery of surpassing loveliness. The slogan of the Grants is “Stand fast Craigellachie!” The place has become an important junction of the Great North of Scotland railway system.
DUFFY, SIR CHARLES GAVAN (1816-1903), Irish and colonial politician, was born in Monaghan, Ireland, on the 12th of April 1816. At an early age he became connected with the press, and was one of the founders (1842) of the Nation, a Dublin weekly which was remarkable for its talent, for its seditious tendencies, and for the fire and spirit of its political poetry. In 1844 Duffy was included in the same indictment with O’Connell, and shared his conviction in Dublin and his acquittal by the House of Lords upon a point of law. His ideas, nevertheless, were too revolutionary for O’Connell; a schism took place in 1846, and Duffy united himself to the “Young Ireland” party. He was tried for treason-felony in 1848, but the jury were unable to agree. Duffy continued to agitate in the press and in parliament, to which he was elected in 1852, but his failure to bring about an alliance between Catholics and Protestants upon the land question determined him in 1856 to emigrate to Victoria. There he became in 1857 minister of public works, and after an active political career, in the course of which he was prime minister from 1871 to 1873, when he was knighted, he was elected speaker of the House of Assembly in 1877, being made K.C.M.G. in the same year. In 1880 he resigned and returned to Europe, residing mostly in the south of France. He published The Ballad Poetry of Ireland (1845), several works on Irish history, Conversations with Carlyle (1892), Memoirs (1898), &c. In 1891 he became first president of the Irish Literary Society. He was married three times, his third wife dying in 1889. He died on the 9th of February 1903.