John Ker

John Ker (8 August 1673 – 8 July 1726), born John Crawford in Crawfurdland, Ayrshire, was a Scots Presbyterian linked with Cameronian radicals who between 1705 and 1709 acted as a government informer against the Jacobites. Dogged by financial issues most of his life, he died in King's Bench Prison in 1726. Life Ker was born on 8 August 1673, eldest son of Alexander Crawfurd of Fergushill who appears as a Commissioner of Supply in the 1685 records of the Parliament of Scotland. He married Anna, younger daughter of Robert Ker, of Kersland, near Kilbirnie, whose only son Daniel Ker was killed at the Battle of Steinkeerke in 1692. Anna's elder sister Jean Ker sold him the family estates in 1697 and thereafter he assumed the name and arms of Ker. Career The 1690s were a time of extreme economic hardship and famine in Scotland, known as the seven ill years; in December 1696, the city of Edinburgh set up a refugee camp in Greyfriars kirkyard to house starving rural migrants. This impacted the viability of small estates such as Fergushill and John was already under financial pressure when he purchased Kersland.