The Sterling genealogy

84 THE STERLING GENEALOGY
entertained freely, and where he associated intimately with the
men prominent in literature in his day: the Due d'Aumale, Lord
Dufferin, Thackeray, Monckton Mimes, and Prescott, the histo-
rian. He was elected a rector of St. Andrews University, Nov. 27,
1862, over Lord Dalhousie ; in 1870 a rector of Aberdeen Uni-
versity ; on Feb. 5, 1872, was installed rector of Edinburgh
University, and on Apr. 27, 1876, chancellor of Glasgow Uni-
versity. On June 21, 1876, he was created D.C.L. by the
University of Oxford, and the same year he had the exceptional
honor for a commoner of being nominated a knight of the
Thistle.
In 1865, by the death of his uncle, Sir John Maxwell, ninth
Baronet of Pollok, William succeeded to the title and estate and
assumed the additional name of Maxwell.
Sir William took great interest in the breeding of short-horned
cattle and Clydesdale horses, and was a member of the Highland
Agricultural Society in 1841 ; was elected honorary secre-
tary Jan. 15, 1868, and was also president of the Glasgow Agri-
cultural Society. His hobby was the collection of works of art
and vertu and of sixteenth century engravings ; of the bibliog-
raphy of proverbs, and in making additions to his extensive
library at Keir. He passed many hours in the reading-room of
the British Museum Library and was appointed a trustee of that
institution in 1872. He was also a trustee of the National Gal-
lery and a member of the senate of London University, 1874-1878.
A terra-cotta bust of Sir William is in the National Portrait
Gallery in London.
Five years after his death his most important literary work
was published, " Don John of Austria, or Passages from the
History of the Sixteenth Century, 1547-1578," 2 vols., 8vo. He
also contributed many papers to periodicals and issued some
thirteen volumes of an historical character, several of which were
privately printed. (For a more extended account of Sir Wil-
liam's career see the " Dictionary of National Biography," Vol.
LIV, London, 1898).
Sir William married first, in Paris, Apr. 26, 1865, Anna Maria,
third daughter of David Leslie Melville, tenth Earl of Leven and