sentences:  Lauder, mentioned in his mother’s Testament, became a highly successful merchant-burgess in Edinburgh, being admitted as a Burgess on 23 November 1636.He served as Treasurer of the City of Edinburgh in 1652, and as bailie from 1657 to 1661.He purchased (before 1672) the estate of Newington, Edinburgh, and subsequently (10 June 1681) the lands of Woodhead and Templehall, which along with others in Edinburghshire and Haddingtonshire, were erected by Crown charter into the feudal barony of Fountainhall on 13 August 1681.