Robert cunninghame graham biography

Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham lived from 24 May 1852 to 20 March 1936. He was a socialist politician who became the first president of the Scottish National Party.

The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

Cunninghame Graham was born in London before being brought up on the family estate in Renfrewshire. The eldest son of William Cunninghame Graham Bontine and Anne Elizabeth Elphinstone Fleeming, he was educated at Harrow School in England and in Brussels.

Robert cunninghame graham biography

He then went to Argentina where he became a successful cattle ranger. In 1877 he married a woman identified at the time (and for a century afterwards) as Gabrielle Marie de la Balmondiere, said by Cunninghame Graham to be a half-French, half-Chilean poet from a distinguished family.

She was really Caroline Horsfall, the daughter of a Ripon doctor who had repeatedly run away