In the 1901 census of Scotland, four people were called Dunmore. Four, which ranked the surname 24,167th.
Set that beside the American map: a Dunmore in Pennsylvania, a Dunmore Town in the Bahamas, a Lord Dunmore's War in every Ohio Valley history, and a Dunmore County in Virginia that the state renamed in disgust in 1778. The name is louder in America than it ever was at home, and the reason is one Scottish peer who governed Virginia and lost it.
Separating title from surname is the work here: most people carrying Dunmore do not descend from the earls.
A Great Fort by the Forth
The Gaelic is Dùn Mòr, great fort, which is why the name repeats across Scotland and Ireland, from Galway to Waterford.
The Scottish one that matters sits on the Forth between Throsk and Airth, six miles southeast of Stirling, and was Elphinstone Pans until the Murrays renamed it. Our guide to Stirling and the clans covers the country around it.
The surname is more tangled than the place-name suggests. The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland treats Dunmore partly as English, from Dunsmore Heath in Warwickshire, recorded as Dunnesmor in 1235, from an Old English personal name Dunn plus mōr, moor, with the medial s falling out. In Scotland it makes Dunmore a variant of Dunsmore, from Denmuir, formerly Dundemore, near Lindores in Fife, or from Dunmore in Stirlingshire and Ross-shire.
Argyll is sometimes named as a source, and the standard references do not support it. Treat that as a claim to test, in the spirit of our guide to how surname meanings are established.
How the Murrays Acquired the Name
The earldom was created in 1686 for Lord Charles Murray, with the subsidiary title Viscount of Fincastle and a seat at Dunmore on the Forth. Our history of Clan Murray, Atholl and Dysart follows the wider kindred.
The Jacobite decades nearly finished them. William Murray, 3rd Earl, and his son John both came out in 1745, the boy serving as page to Prince Charles Edward Stuart. After Culloden the father went to the Tower of London and the family was put under house arrest, pardoned conditionally in 1750. Our survey of the clans at Culloden shows how routine that arc was.
The Governor Who Marched on the Ohio
John Murray, born 1730, succeeded as 4th Earl in 1756. Made governor of New York in 1770, he was moved against his wishes to Virginia, reaching Williamsburg on 25 September 1771. He bought two plantations and roughly a hundred enslaved people, and governed a year without consulting the House of Burgesses.
In 1774 he took Virginia militia west against the Shawnee and Mingo in what Americans still call Lord Dunmore's War. The trigger was the killing of a Mingo hunting party at Yellow Creek on 30 April by frontiersmen under Daniel Greathouse. Colonel Andrew Lewis fought the main action at Point Pleasant on 10 October, losing 75 killed and 140 wounded. The Treaty of Camp Charlotte on 19 October obliged the Shawnee to stop hunting south of the Ohio, opening Kentucky and fixing the river as the boundary. Our account of the Scottish clans who came before 1776 covers the settlers who followed.
What Dunmore's Proclamation Did and Did Not Do
Relations with the colony collapsed fast. On 20 April 1775 he had gunpowder removed from the Williamsburg magazine, fifteen half-barrels carried toward a Royal Navy ship, and militia turned out across Virginia. By summer he had gone aboard a warship.
On 7 November 1775, proclaimed a week later, he declared free all indentured servants and enslaved people belonging to rebels who were able and willing to bear arms for the crown. It is a pivotal document of the Revolution, and precision about it matters.
It applied only to people held by Patriots, not Loyalists, and required military service: a war measure by a slaveholding governor rather than a statement of principle. Between 800 and 2,000 people reached British lines during the war; about 300 were still with Dunmore when he left in 1776.
Those who enlisted formed the Ethiopian Regiment, which won a skirmish at Kemp's Landing on 17 November and was broken at Great Bridge on 9 December. Smallpox then killed roughly 500 of about 800 men aboard the crowded ships. On New Year's Day 1776 he ordered the Norfolk waterfront burned, and the fire took the town.
The colonial reaction was the reverse of what he intended: Edward Rutledge said it did more to produce an eternal separation than anything else could have. Virginia renamed Dunmore County as Shenandoah in 1778. Dunmore governed the Bahamas from 1787 to 1796 and died at Ramsgate in 1809.
A Pineapple in a Stirlingshire Garden
The same man built one of the strangest structures in Scotland. In the walled garden at Dunmore stands a hothouse crowned with a carved stone pineapple, about 46 feet to its tip, the archway keystone dated 1761. Some accounts date the pineapple later, after Dunmore returned from Virginia, where the fruit was a standard emblem of hospitality.
The architect is unrecorded. The Countess of Perth gave it to the National Trust for Scotland in 1974, and the Landmark Trust restored it and lets it as a holiday house. It has outlived everything political the 4th Earl tried.
The Countess Who Started Harris Tweed
The family's other lasting mark is a fabric. George Murray, 5th Earl, bought the Harris estate in 1834. When his son Alexander died in 1845, Alexander's widow Catherine, Countess of Dunmore, inherited some 150,000 acres and turned island weaving into a trade: she had the Murray tartan made up in tweed, paid for weavers to train at Alloa, and found a London market. Harris Tweed grew from that decade. Our guide to the island clans of Skye, Lewis and Harris covers the communities involved.
Dunmore as a Surname, and Where It Landed
Four bearers in 1901 is the number to hold. The same census counted 704 Dunsmores and 351 Dunsmuirs. The s forms are the living Scottish surname; bare Dunmore is chiefly English, Irish, or an American adoption of the title.
Dunmore, Pennsylvania, incorporated 1862, is named for Dunmore Park, and Dunmore Town in the Bahamas dates from the earl's governorship. Neither implies descent. Our roundup of famous Americans with Scottish clan surnames and our history of 1707 and the road to America cover how Scottish names crossed.
How to Trace a Dunmore Line
- Search Dunmore, Dunsmore, Dunsmuir, Dunsmure and Dinsmore together; the medial s comes and goes.
- Decide early whether the line is Scottish, English or Irish; the Warwickshire and Galway routes are separate from the Forth valley one.
- For a Scottish line, work Stirlingshire and northern Fife registers first, using our ScotlandsPeople guide for phonetic searching.
- Do not build on the earldom: it is a title, not a clan roll.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Dunmore Name
Does Dunmore mean great fort?
The Gaelic place-name does, from dùn mòr. The surname is a step removed and can equally come from Dunsmore Heath in Warwickshire, where the elements are English.
Am I related to the Earls of Dunmore?
Almost certainly not. The earls were Murrays who took a territorial title and never used Dunmore as a surname. A family called Dunmore usually comes from the place, the English name, or an adoption in America.
Was Lord Dunmore's proclamation an abolition of slavery?
No. It freed only those held by rebels who were able and willing to fight for the crown, and Dunmore himself held about a hundred enslaved people in Virginia. Its effect was large; its intent was military.
Is Dunmore Irish?
It can be: Dunmore in Galway and Dunmore East in Waterford generate it separately.
Sources and Further Reading
- Oxford Dictionary of Family Names: Dunmore — Dunnesmor 1235 and the variants.
- Dunmore in the 1901 Scottish census — four bearers.
- Earl of Dunmore — the 1686 creation.
- John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore — New York, Virginia and the Bahamas.
- Lord Dunmore's War — Yellow Creek, Point Pleasant.
- Dunmore's Proclamation — the text and its limits.
- The Dunmore Pineapple — the 1761 keystone and the restoration.
- National Trust for Scotland: the Pineapple — the garden.
- Catherine, Countess of Dunmore — Harris and the Alloa weavers.
Explore our Dunmore & Dunsmure Scottish family gifts to find keepsakes featuring the family name.