Catherine Tweddale Ruskin (1763-1817) was the paternal grandmother of John Ruskin. Daughter of the Rev. James Tweddale (1733-1777) and Janet Adair (1722-1775), she was descended from 'four notable Scottish families of Galloway'(see Burd, The Ruskin Family Letters, p.li). Her father was the minister of Old Luce Church in Glenluce, Wigtownshire, Scotland and her mother an Adair of Galloway whose brother DrJohn Adair (d 1794), Surgeon-General had served with General Wolfe in Quebec. According to Ruskin, his paternal grandmother 'brought with her what dim gleam of ancestral honour I may claim for myself' ( Works, 35.607). It is not known when she married John Thomas Ruskin but she gave birth to a daughter Janet in 1783 and to a son John James Ruskin (the father of John Ruskin) in 1785. In Praeterita Ruskin speculated: 'It must have been a little after 1780 that my paternal grandmother, Catherine Tweddale, ran away with my paternal grandfather when she was not quite sixteen' ( Works, 35.62). They first lived in the Old Town section of Edinburgh. Cook and Wedderburn, note that John Thomas was listed as a grocer 'the Edinburgh Directory gives [their] address as "head of Kennedy's Close," in the old town near the Tron Church' ( Works, 35.lix). They were later to move to a superior location at 15, St. James Square in the vicinity of Edinburgh New Town where they were joined by Margaret Cock (or Cox) (see Margaret Ruskin), Ruskin's future mother. It was from her uncle, Dr John Adair that Cathrine received a legacy of £1,500, which probably came at a fortunate time for the education of their son John James and provided the means for the family to move to the New Town area. In 1809, Catherine, her husband and Margaret moved to Dysart in Fife and by 1815 were living in Perth. Catherine died suddenly of apoplexy in 1817, at Bowerswell House Perth (see Viljoen, Ruskin's Scottish Heritage p. 167).