Tain Museum Image Library

Lady Ross of Balnagown

Stereoscopic portrait photograph of Lady Ross of Balnagown with viewer, taken in about 1870. It consists of two images of Lady Ross taken from slightly different angles, mounted in an ornately carved wooden box with an integral viewer patented by Mascher of Philadelphia in 1852.

Lady Ross was Rebecca Barnes, the second wife of Sir Charles William Augustus Lockhart Ross and mother of Sir Charles Henry Augustus Frederick Lockhart Ross, the last of the Lockhart Rosses. After her husband died in 1883 she managed the Balnagown estate until the young Sir Charles was 21 in 1893.

Lady Ross had a stormy relationship with her son, who was determined to oust her from Balnagown Castle when he came into his inheritance. He eventually brought legal proceedings against her for mismanagement of the estate, setting off on a lifelong career of litigation against those he felt had wronged him.