Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Falconer, Alexander

807304Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 18 — Falconer, Alexander1889John Andrew Hamilton

FALCONER, ALEXANDER, Lord Falconer of Halkertoun (d. 1671), judge, was the eldest son of Sir Alexander Falconer of Halkertoun, by his wife Agnes, eldest daughter of Sir David Carnegie of Colluthie. On 9 July 1639 he succeeded Lord Woodhall as an ordinary lord of session, and in November 1641 was appointed anew by king and parliament to be judge ‘ad vitam aut culpam.’ He represented Kincardineshire in the convention 1643–4, and in the parliaments of 1644–5, 1645–7. He was a commissioner for the loan and tax in 1643, and a member of the committee of war for Kincardineshire in 1643, 1644, and 1646, and for Forfarshire in 1648. He was a commissioner for the plantation of kirks in 1644, a commissioner of the exchequer in 1645, a member of the committee of estates in 1645 and 1647, and a colonel for Aberdeenshire in 1648. On 20 Dec. 1647 he was created Lord Falconer of Halkertoun, but on 15 Feb. 1649 he was deprived of his seat in the College of Justice, and ‘ordained to lend money for the public use,’ on account of his accession to the ‘engagement.’ He appears, however, as Baron Falconer in the list of Scots nobility in 1650, and was a commissioner of supply for Kincardineshire in 1656 and 1659. He was reappointed to his seat in the College of Justice at the Restoration, and retained it till his death. In 1661 he was a commissioner of excise, and a member of the commission for visiting the university of Aberdeen. He appears as sitting in parliament as Lord Halkertoun till 1669, and died 1 Oct. 1671. He married Anne, only daughter of John, ninth lord Lindsay of Byres, by whom he had one son and one daughter.

[Acts Scots Parl.; Books of Sederunt; Brunton and Haig's Senators of Coll. of Justice; Douglas's Peerage, ii. 55.]

J. A. H.