Gourlay is a Scottish surname of Norman origin, brought north in the twelfth century and most closely associated with Fife, where the Gourlays of Kincraig held land for centuries. Tradition traces the family to Ingelram de Gurley, said to have come to Scotland with William the Lion in 1174.
A Norman name comes to Scotland
The Dictionary of American Family Names classes Gourlay as Scottish and English, of Norman origin, and a variant of Gourley, which it explains as possibly a habitational name from North or South Gorley in Hampshire or from an unidentified place in Normandy. Like many Anglo-Norman families, the Gourlays arrived in Scotland under kings who encouraged knights and administrators from England and France to settle.
The family’s own nineteenth-century historian, the Reverend Charles Rogers, whose Memorials of the Scottish House of Gourlay was privately printed in Edinburgh in 1888, recorded the tradition that Ingelram de Gurley accompanied William the Lion when the king returned from captivity in England in 1174, and that he received lands in Lothian and Clydesdale.
Gourlays in thirteenth-century records
By the thirteenth century the name appears regularly in Scottish charters. Rogers noted that Ingelram’s son Hugh held lands in the Lothians and Fife, while an Ingelram de Gurley witnessed charters under Alexander II; that in 1261 a Hugh de Gourlay appears as steward to the earl of Dunbar; that in 1293 William de Gourlay gave lands to Newbattle Abbey; and that several Gourlays did homage to Edward I in 1296. These references place the family among the landholders of the southeast long before the name spread more widely.
The Gourlays of Kincraig
The family’s best-known seat was Kincraig, on the Fife coast near Elie. According to Rogers, Simon de Gourlay married Elizabeth, heiress of John Alderston, and in 1345 she conveyed the barony of Alderston to him, which he annexed to his barony of Kincraig. The Gourlays of Kincraig remained one of the established landed families of east Fife, and Fife has stayed a heartland of the surname ever since.
Norman Gourlay, Reformation martyr
A member of the name was among the first Protestant martyrs of the Scottish Reformation. Norman Gourlay, who had embraced reformed views, was condemned for heresy at Holyroodhouse along with David Straton. On 27 August 1534 the two men were led to a place beside the Rood of Greenside, on the slope of Calton Hill in Edinburgh, and there hanged and burned. John Knox later recorded their deaths in his history of the Reformation.
Robert Gourlay, the radical of Upper Canada
Three centuries later a Fife Gourlay caused a political storm in North America. Robert Fleming Gourlay was born at Craigrothie in Fife on 24 March 1778, the son of the landowner Oliver Gourlay. He arrived in Upper Canada in 1817 to promote emigration and compile statistics on the province, sending questionnaires to every township. His inquiries turned into political agitation against the colonial government, and proceedings under the sedition act began in December 1818; he was jailed in January 1819, tried in August and banished.
His two-volume Statistical Account of Upper Canada, published in London in 1822 with reports from 57 townships, remains a valuable picture of the province in its early years. Gourlay, who once described himself as “quite a radical, but … one of my own sort,” died in Edinburgh on 1 August 1863.
Gourlay, Gourley and Gorley
The spellings Gourlay and Gourley are closely related. Within FamilySearch’s Family Tree, Gourlay has its largest group of entries associated with Scotland, while Gourley has larger groups associated with the United States and Ireland. Both spellings, and older forms such as Gurley, should be searched together.
For Scottish families, begin with the Old Parish Registers of Fife and the Lothians and with statutory registers from 1855. Testaments and sasines help follow the Kincraig and other landed branches.
The Gourlay name appears on our woven blanket, accent mug and ceramic ornament. Explore our Gourlay Scottish family gifts.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the Gourlay surname come from?
It is of Norman origin, possibly from Gorley in Hampshire or a place in Normandy, and was brought to Scotland in the twelfth century.
Where did the Gourlays live in Scotland?
Early Gourlays held land in Lothian and Fife, and the Gourlays of Kincraig, near Elie, were a long-established Fife family.
Are Gourlay and Gourley the same name?
Yes, they are variant spellings. Search both forms when tracing a family through Scottish, Irish or American records.
Who was Robert Gourlay?
A Fife-born reformer (1778–1863) who was banished from Upper Canada in 1819 and wrote the Statistical Account of Upper Canada.