rest, and in the month of April following he was committed to the Fleet prison according to one authority, to Newgate according to another, ‘for the contempt of the Holy and Mother Church.’ Though Keith was in prison, marriages were celebrated for him in a house in Mayfair, which he had fitted up as a chapel, by four Fleet parsons, named respectively Peter Symson, Francis Devenan, John Grierson, and Walker. The ‘Daily Post’ for 20 July 1744 announced in an advertisement: ‘To prevent mistakes, the little new chapel in Mayfair, near Hyde Park Corner, is in the corner house opposite to the city side of the great chapel, and within ten yards of it, and the minister and clerk live in the same corner house … and the … fees … amount to one guinea as heretofore, at any hour till four in the afternoon.’ In 1749, while Keith was still in prison, his wife died. He caused her body to be embalmed, and to be kept above ground at an apothecary's shop in South Audley Street until he could attend her funeral. In this way the body was kept unburied for many months, in order to excite public curiosity (Daily Advertiser, 23 Jan. 1750). Four of his sons also died while he was in prison, and were buried at Norwood. The corpse of one who died in 1748 he caused to be carried on a bier by two men from the Fleet prison to the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. On the way thither the bearers halted several times, in order to enable the assembled crowds to read an inscription upon the coffin-lid referring to Keith's persecution (Craftsman, 6 Aug. 1748). In 1747 Keith published an uninteresting pamphlet, consisting of thirty-two pages, entitled ‘Observations on the Act for preventing Clandestine Marriages,’ with an engraving inscribed ‘The Rev. Mr. Keith, D.D.’ No copy is in the British Museum. While Keith remained in the Fleet prison the contemporary gossips declared, without authority, that he had a little chapel there, where in one year he married thousands of people; and others declared that he had been transported. He died in the Fleet prison on 13 Dec. 1758, after an imprisonment lasting nearly fifteen years.
[Burn's Hist. of the Fleet Marriages, ed. 1834, pp. 142–5; Gent. Mag. 1754, p. 141; Craftsman, 6 Aug. 1748; Daily Advertiser, 23 Jan. 1750; examination of the Fleet Registers at Somerset House.]
KEITH, ALEXANDER (d. 1819), founder of the Keith prize, was the son of Alexander Keith (1705–1792), an under-clerk in the court of session, by Johanna, third daughter of John Swinton of Swinton, Peeblesshire. His father purchased Dunnottar, Kincardineshire, from the last Earl Marischal in 1766, and his grandfather, Alexander Keith, an Edinburgh writer to the signet, had acquired Ravelston, an estate once belonging to the Keiths, from Sir Archibald Primrose of Dunipace, Stirlingshire, in 1726. The family claimed descent from Alexander Keith of Pittendrum, Aberdeenshire, fourth son of the third Earl Marischal (cf. Douglas, Peerage, ed. Wood, ii. 191, 198). Robert Keith (1681–1757) [q. v.] disputed the claim of Alexander Keith of Ravelston to the headship of the Keith family in ‘A Vindication of Mr. Robert Keith, &c.’ (republished, Spottiswoode Society, 1844). Keith was brought up a writer to the signet, but interested himself in antiquarian pursuits. He was a fellow of the Philosophical and Royal Societies of Edinburgh, and of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; he was a friend of Sir Walter Scott, who was a connection through the Swintons, and who occasionally visited him at Ravelston. Keith died at Dunnottar on 26 Feb. 1819. Scott tells a story illustrating his habitual irresolution (Lockhart, Scott, p. 479). He married, in April 1811, Margaret, youngest daughter of Laurence Oliphant of Gask, and left a son Alexander, who exercised the office of knight-marshal in 1822, when George IV visited Edinburgh, and was created a baronet on that occasion.
Keith contributed a few papers to the ‘Transactions’ of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. He left by his will 1,000l. to be applied to the promotion of the interests of science, and his trustees, in a letter to Sir Walter Scott, president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, dated 4 Dec. 1820 (cf. Transactions of the Royal Soc. of Edinb. ix. 259), announced that they had decided to devote 600l. to found a biennial prize ‘for the most important discoveries in science made in any part of the world, but communicated by the author to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and published for the first time in their “Transactions.”’ Among those who have received the Keith prize have been Brewster, Boole, and Clerk Maxwell. The remainder of the bequest was applied to the foundation of the Keith prize in the Royal Society of Arts of Edinburgh.
[Information kindly supplied by James Gordon, esq.; Anderson's Scottish Nation.]
KEITH, ALEXANDER (1791–1880), writer on prophecy, born in the manse of Keith-Hall, Aberdeenshire, 30 Nov. 1791, was son of George Skene Keith [q. v.] He was educated at the Marischal College and
