Robert Gayre

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(George) Robert Gair (6 August 1907

peer-reviewed academic journal which has been described as a "cornerstone of the scientific racism establishment".[2] An authority on heraldry, he also founded The Armorial, and published a number of books on this subject.[3] He achieved notoriety for claiming to be the Chief of "Clan Gayre" and "Clan Gayre and Nigg", it being subsequently found that such a "clan" had never existed; per the Glasgow Herald, Gayre created "a Scottish clan from scratch, providing it with traditions, rituals, precedences and privileges". Further, not only did he not have legitimate male-line Gair descent (his father being the illegitimate child of a working-class woman of the name of Gair), but he had falsified a pedigree, given to Burke's Peerage among others, connecting his ancestor to a minor (not chiefly) family of the name resident at Nigg.[4] Many biographical details, such as ranks, degrees, and titles he claimed, are not independently verifiable, deriving from his own writings.[5]

Early life and education

Gayre was born as George Robert Gair on 6 August 1907 in

joiner. Jessie Gair was described on her son's birth certificate as a "fancy goods shopwoman". Two years after the child's birth, now described as a "drapery saleswoman", she became the second wife of William Sutherland, a journeyman plasterer of Glasgow, who died aged 45 at a Glasgow poorhouse. Jessie died in 1897 aged 47 at a Gourock asylum, her occupation given as "sewer".[5]

He earned an MA from University of Edinburgh, then completed research but did not take a degree at Exeter College, Oxford.[7] He would later also claim to have three PhDs (sometimes mentioning them to be "honorary") from Italian universities: in Political Science from the University of Palermo, in Philosophy from the University of Messina, and in Science from the University of Naples-[7] awarded in 1943 and 1944, at which time Britain was at war with Italy.[8]

Military service

Per his own account, Gayre served as an "officer of the Regular Army Reserve"

University of Saugor from 1954 to 1956.[3]

Heraldry

Gayre was author of a number of books on heraldry. As Chief of Clan Gayre, Gayre appended "of Gayre and Nigg" becoming Grand Almoner, and Hereditary Commander of Lochore, of the Order of Saint Lazarus (statuted 1910).[17]

His books on Heraldic Standards and Other Ensigns (1959) and Heraldic Cadency (1961) are considered valuable and authoritative contributions to the field, and he also contributed on the topic to the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Mankind Quarterly and publications on race

Gayre was one of the founders of Mankind Quarterly and an editor from 1960 to 1978. He was honorary editor-in-chief thereafter.[18]

The magazine has been called a "cornerstone of the scientific racism establishment" and a "white supremacist journal",[2] "scientific racism's keepers of the flame",[19] a journal with a "racist orientation" and an "infamous racist journal",[20] and "journal of 'scientific racism'".[21]

In 1968 he testified on behalf of members of the Racial Preservation Society who were charged under the Race Relations Act for publishing racialist material. They prevailed in their defence. In his evidence to the court Gayre described blacks as being "feckless" and he maintained that scientific evidence showed that blacks "prefer their leisure to the dynamism which the white and yellow races show."[22]

Falsified ancestry; creation of "Clan Gayre"

Even according to the falsified pedigree he provided to Burke's Peerage for publication, previous generations of Gayre's Gair ancestors all used the spelling "Gair" as far back as the 17th century.[23] Gayre's university degree in the mid-1920s was likewise issued with the "Gair" spelling, but he began spelling it "Gayre" at least as early as 1943. In 1957, after the death of his father, he changed his surname to "Gayre of Gayre and Nigg", a title that had never before been used.[24]

Gayre claimed to be the Chief of "

Glasgow Herald Newspaper, on 14 June 1975, wrote "Robert Gayre, of Gayre and Nigg, is singular among genealogists, dynasts and the like, if only for the reason that, alone among them, he has been able to create a Scottish clan from scratch, providing it with traditions, rituals, precedences and privileges..."[26]

Titles and styles

In 1967 Gayre established a Commandery of the Order of St Lazarus. In 1971 he bought St Vincent's Church. It became its collegiate church, the seat of the Commandery of

Prince of Lippe (a prominent member of the Order of Saint Lazarus), Knight of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George of Naples, Knight Commander of the Cross of Merit (Military Division) of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Knight Commander of the House Order of Lippe, Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Military and Hospitaller Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem and Knight Grand Officer of the Order of the Crown of Italy.[31]

In the early 1960s, Gayre was appointed "Commissioner-General of the English Tongue" of the

self-styled orders that arose in the early twentieth century.[28]

In 1964, Gayre formed the

Terence MacCarthy[34] whose pedigree has been shown to be similarly bogus.[35]

Nazi ties

In 1944 Gayre wrote Teuton and Slav on the Polish frontier: a diagnosis of the racial basis of the Germano-Polish borderlands, with suggestions for the settlement of German and Slav claims using photos by the Nazi

Joseph L. Graves and others had close ties to other neo-Nazi organisations. Graves and William H. Tucker state that Gayre considered himself a Strasserist, an ideology "which emphasized the 'socialism' in National Socialism, rejecting both communism and capitalism as Jewish-dominated systems that had to be overthrown in favour of an approach based on white racial solidarity." He denied any links between Nazism and Mankind Quarterly while lamenting the identification by most of the word "Nazi" with "Hitlerian Nazi".[36]

Publications on ancient Zimbabwe

Gayre wrote some articles

male line from the creators of the original Zimbabwean civilisation, and citing evidence including burial and circumcision practices.[39]
He suggested that the Shona artefacts which were found at Great Zimbabwe and in numerous other stone ruins nearby, were placed there only after they conquered the country and drove out or absorbed the previous inhabitants; he added that the ones who remained would probably have passed some of their skills and knowledge to the invaders.

According to Gayre, the agricultural terracing and irrigation channels in the Nyanga District of northeast of Zimbabwe was a product of the same ancient civilisation – as too were the hundreds of ancient gold mines in the country.[39]

Most archaeologists disagree with Gayre's interpretation and conclusions: they maintain that Great Zimbabwe was constructed by ancestors of the Shona,[40][41][42][43][44][45] as were the terraces, furrows and settlements of ancient Nyanga.[46][47]

Selected publications

  • Teuton and Slav on the Polish Frontier: a diagnosis of the racial basis of the Germano-Polish borderlands, with suggestions for the settlement of German and Slav claims. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. 1944.
  • A New Interpretation of the Blood-Groups Phenomena in relation to Ethnology. Messina. 1944.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Italy in Transition: Extracts from the private journal of G. R. Gayre. London: Faber and Faber. 1946.
  • Gayre's Booke: being a History of the Family of Gayre. London: Phillimore. 1948–1959.; with Richard Leslie Gair (4 vols)
  • Wassail! In Mazers of Mead: An Account of Mead, Metheglin, Sack and Other Ancient Liquors, and of the mazer cups out of which they were drunk, with some comment upon the drinking customs of our forebears. London: Phillimore. 1948.
  • Common Herbs as Grown in the Hortyards at Gulval and their Uses. Gulval, Cornwall: Mead Makers. 1950.
  • The Heraldry of the Knights of St John. Allahabad: Garga Bros. 1956.
  • Heraldic Standards and Other Ensigns: their development and history. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. 1959.
  • The House of Gayre and an account of Minard Castle. Edinburgh: The Armorial. 1960.
  • The Nature of Arms: An Exposition of the Meaning and Significance of Heraldry, with special reference to its nobiliary aspects. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. 1961.
  • Heraldic Cadency: the development of differencing of coats of arms for kinsmen and other purposes. London: Faber and Faber. 1961.
  • A Case for Monarchy: a plea for the maintenance and the restoration of monarchy with particular reference to the House of Savoy. Edinburgh: The Armorial. 1962.
  • The Bantu Homelands of the Northern Transvaal. Edinburgh: Mankind Quarterly. 1962.
  • Who is Who in Clan Gayre: an authoritative account of the clan council, its members, the armigerous gentry of the clan, their arms and biographies. Edinburgh: The Armorial. 1962.
  • Roll of Scottish Arms. Edinburgh: The Armorial. 1964–1969.; with Reinold Gayre (2 vols)
  • Ethnological Elements of Africa. Edinburgh: The Armorial. 1966.
  • The Origin of the Zimbabwean Civilisation. [Salisbury, Rhodesia: Galaxie Press. 1972.; with E. Layland
  • More Ethnological Elements of Africa. Edinburgh: The Armorial. 1972.
  • Miscellaneous Racial Studies, 1943–1972. Edinburgh: The Armorial. 1972.
    ISBN 0900077034
    .     (2 vols)
  • The Knightly Twilight: a glimpse at the chivalric and nobiliary underworld. Valletta: Union Press. 1973.
  • Some Aspects of British and Continental Heraldry. Edinburgh: Lochore Enterprises. 1974.
  • The Lost Clan: Sant Andrea degli Scozzesi of Gurro, Novara, Italy. Edinburgh: The Armorial. 1974.
    ISBN 9780900077074
    .
  • Gayre of Gayre & Nigg: an autobiography. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Impressions. 1987.
    ISBN 9780951009932
    .

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-312-29366-6
    . Some sources give 1905 as birth year.
  2. ^ a b Joe L. Kincheloe, et al., Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997, pg. 39
  3. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/75511. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  4. ^ Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 2, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 1531
  5. ^ a b Camp, Anthony (December 2017). "George Gair (or Sutherland) alias Robert Gayre of Gayre and Nigg". Genealogists' Magazine. 32 (8): 324–328..
  6. ^ "Supplement to Burke's Landed Gentry" (1952), "Burke's Landed Gentry of Great Britain: the Kingdom in Scotland" (2001) and, in an abbreviated form, in "Burke's Peerage" (2003).
  7. ^ a b c International Book of Honor, American Biographical Institute, 1987, p. 131
  8. ^ Patrick Comerford, "Robert Gair, a racist from Rathmines who invented his own clan", 2020
  9. ^ Miscellaneous Racial Studies, 1943-1972: 1943-1956, Robert Gayre, The Armorial, 1972, p. 12
  10. ^ The London Gazette, issue 33741, 4 August 1931, p. 5112
  11. ^ The London Gazette, issue 34093, 5 October 1934, p. 6250
  12. ^ Supplement to the London Gazette, issue 35278, 19 September 1941, p. 5404
  13. ^ Supplement to the London Gazette, issue 35473, 3 March 1942, p. 999
  14. ^ Supplement to The London Gazette, issue 38989, 11 August 1950, p. 4090
  15. ^ Gayre of Gayre & Nigg, Robert, A Case for Monarchy, Edinburgh, 1962: vii – ix
  16. ^ Gayre of Gayre & Nigg, Robert, A Case for Monarchy, Edinburgh, 1962: x
  17. ^ Gayre of Gayre & Nigg, Robert, with Dunn, John, The Armorial Who is Who, 5th edition, Edinburgh, 1978:135
  18. ^ Gayre, Robert, summary and photo of him on: Race and Nazi Racism and the Latter's Impact on Anthropology. Archived 10 March 2007 at the Wayback Machine The Mankind Quarterly, Vol. XVIII, No. 4, (April–June 1978), pp. 293–303.
  19. ^ William H. Tucker, The funding of scientific racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund, University of Illinois Press, 2002, pg. 2
  20. ^ Ibrahim G. Aoudé, The ethnic studies story: politics and social movements in Hawaiʻi, University of Hawaii Press, 1999 , pg. 111
  21. ^ Kenneth Leech, Race, Church Publishing, Inc., 2005, pg. 14
  22. ^ Billig, Michael (1979). "Mankind Quarterly: The editors". Archived from the original on 18 February 2002. Retrieved 18 July 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) in "Psychology, Racism & Fascism: A Searchlight Pamphlet.". Archived from the original on 26 August 2000. Retrieved 18 July 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) Birmingham: A.F. & R. Publications.
  23. ^ Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 2, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 1531
  24. ^ "Gayre of Gayre and Nigg, Robert, 1907-1996". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on 3 January 2014. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  25. OCLC 229108326
    .
  26. ^ a b "The Glasgow Herald - Google News Archive Search". Archived from the original on 6 April 2016. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
  27. ISBN 0971196672
    )
  28. ^ a b "The Hospitaller Order of Saint Laazarus" Archived 12 May 2014 at the Wayback Machine by Charles Savona Ventura, Association for the Study of Maltese Medical History, 2005
  29. ^ "St Vincent's as the Commandery of Lochore 1967-1996". September 2016.
  30. ^ Racial Irredentism, Ethnogenesis, and White Supremacy in High-Apartheid South Africa, Saul Dubow, The Micro-Politics of Knowledge Production in Southern Africa, no. 41 (special issue), Univ. of Western Cape, November 2015, pp. 236-264
  31. ^ "Race and Nazi Racism -- R. Gayre of Gayre". Archived from the original on 10 March 2007. Retrieved 18 July 2006. [dead link]
  32. ^ "The International Commission forOrders of Chivalry(I.C.O.C.)". Archived from the original on 8 July 2007. Retrieved 11 April 2013. | Prof. James J. Algrant
  33. ISBN 1-4567-1421-X
  34. ^ "The International Commission on Orders of Chivalry". Archived from the original on 6 January 2014. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  35. ^ "Irish Historical Mysteries: The MacCarthy Mór Hoax". Eircom.
  36. ISBN 978-0-8147-4271-6
    .
  37. ^ Gayre, R. (1967). "The Lembas and Vendas of Vendaland". The Mankind Quarterly. VIII. Edinburgh: 3–15.
  38. ^ Gayre, R. (1970). "Some further notes on the Lembas". The Mankind Quarterly. XI: 58–60.
  39. ^ a b c R. Gayre (1972). The Origin of the Zimbabwean Civilization. Zimbabwe: Galaxie Press. Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 15 May 2011.
  40. S2CID 162491076
    .
  41. JSTOR 3858132
    .
  42. S2CID 145283490
    .
  43. ^ Beach, D. N. (1994). A Zimbabwean past: Shona dynastic histories and oral traditions.
  44. ^ Ndoro, W., and Pwiti, G. (1997). Marketing the past: The Shona The Shona village at Great Zimbabwe. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 2(3): 3–8.
  45. doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2008.10.004
    .
  46. ASIN B0007JZPWM
    .
  47. ^ Summers, R. (1958). Inyanga: prehistoric settlements in southern Rhodesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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