ERNEST GAMMELL was the 8th child and youngest son of Lt. General Andrew Gammell and Martha Stageldoir. It is believed he was born in London, but no record of his birth has been traced. He was only a boy when his father died, and we do not know how or where he was educated. Unlike his brothers, he did not join the Army when he was of age, but appears to have from the start led the life of a gentleman of leisure. This was made possible by the fact that at the age of nineteen, that is in 1823, he was presented by his grandfather, James Gammell the banker, with the barony and lands of Porthlethen, in Kincardineshire, Scotland. Porthlethen was an estate of about 830 acres and included the village of Porthlethen, situated on the coast, halfway between Aberdeen and Stonehaven, but there was no residence on the property, and it comprised merely houses and agricultural land. The estate had been purchased by James Gammell in August 1816, expressly for the purpose of presenting it to his youngest grandchild, and he duly handed it over to Ernest in 1823, some two years before his death.

As far as we know, Ernest took little interest in his lands, other than presumably the income therefrom, as he lived the whole of his life in England. We do not know the date or place of his first marriage, but it was to a lady called ELIZABETH (surname unknown). There were no children of his marriage, and Elizabeth died at the age of 38 of dropsy in Chelsea on November 8th 1846.

On March 12th 1850, Ernest married for the second time. His bride was ROSA ANN BERTRAM, daughter of Charles Bertram, a wine merchant in London, and the wedding took place at the parish church of St. Marylebone. We do not know where or when Rosa was born, nor when she died, but this marriage started a close tie up between the Gammell and Bertram families. There were no children of this marriage either, and Ernest died not long after they were married at Twyford in Berkshire in the spring of 1855, leaving his entire estate, including the lands of Porthlethen to his wife Rosa.

After Ernest's death, Rosa married for the second time on August 20th 1857 in Hampstead, a surgeon by the name of James Taylor. They had no children, and we have no record of what happened to them, but it is of interest that the lands of Porthlethen were still (1974) in the hands of the Trustees of Rosa Taylor. It is thought that the interest may lie now with the Bertram Family.