HAY, George RC Bishop, Vicar Apostolic of Lowland District, Right Reverend Mr ^{1 2}

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  General Notes:

" Bishop Hay was of the Annathill family, in the parish of New Monkland, County of Lanark, and was educated a Protestant. His father was a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, and a strict Member of the Scotch Episcipalian Church (Jacobites,) and his son was brought up in the same principles. It was not till young Hay had finished his academic education in Edinburgh, and had gone to London for improvement of his business as a Surgeon, that he espoused the principles of the Roman Catholic religion, and determined on a monastic life. He soon after this became very zealous for the Catholic faith; and, having studied in Rome, he was ultimately consecrated a Bishop by the Pope."

from Annals of Glasgow




"Hay, George (1729\endash 1811), vicar apostolic of the lowland district, was born in Edinburgh on 24 August 1729, the second child and only son of James Hay (d. 1756×1759), writer to the signet, and his wife, Mary Morrison (d. 1756). His parents were Scottish Episcopalian, and his father a Jacobite who had been imprisoned for his part in the rising of 1715."

from Oxford DNB




"BISHOP HAY Was Born at Edinburgh, Aug . 24, 1729. He was the only son of James Hay, a 'Writer in Dalrymple's Oflice,' Edinburgh, a gallant Nonjuring Episcopalian, who was put in irons and sentenced to banishment in 1715 for his Stuart principles. The pedigree of the Bishop's father was a good deal larger than his purse. Not to detail all the branches of the noble House of Hay, given in Douglas' Peerage and other kindred books, we read the Revolution of 1688, when George Hay, the grandfather of the Bishop, possessed the small Estate of Annothill, in the Parish of New Monkland, lying between Airdrie and Kirkintilloch, and close to Inchknock. The Bishop's great-grand father, John Hay, was Parson of Monkland, at the Revolution. The male line of this branch of the House of the Marquises of Tweeddale, is said to have be come extinct in the person of this Bishop. Mary Morrison, the mother oft he Bishop, was just a simple pious woman, of no eventful pedigree, who taught her son to remember his Prayers night and morning. And to this good habit, he used, in later life, while relating this feature in his mother's character, to ascribe, in part, at least, his Conversion to the R. Catholic Church. At his Baptism, his Godmother was the Lady Clementine Fleming, then a child of ten years old, daughter, and subsequently heiress of the Jacobite Earl of Wigton. She lived into the present century, and used with great liberality to express her pleasure at the honourable distinction attained by her Godson."

from Scotichronicon

Note: In the absence of birth data for the forbears of Bishop George Hay, it is necessary to approximate the years of their birth. We know his father, James Hay, was 'out' in the 1715 Jacobite rebellion. That being the case, he is likely to have been born about 1700 at the latest, probably earlier, in the 1790s. That being so the father of James, George Hay, was likely born in the 1770s at least, but again possibly earlier. Now John Hay of Inchnock, named in the above excerpt as the great-grandfather of Bishop George Hay, only graduated from university in 1770, probably in his mid to late teens. Although it is not impossible that he was the father of the George Hay of Annathill, it is questionable. George is not listed as one of John Hay's children in the entry for that minister in Fasti Ecclesiae. George Hay of Annathill is more likely to have been a brother of the Reverend Mr John Hay of Inchhnock. ^{3 5 6 7}

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Became a Roman Catholic, 21 December 1749. ¹

2. Ordained a priest, 2 April 1758. ¹

3. Consecrated bishop, 21 May 1769. ¹