The current Chief, Richard Oliphant of that Ilk, is also Chieftain of the Condie branch of which, in the 19th and 20th centuries, scions include an Admiral, an Ambassador, a Chairman of the Hon. E. India Company, a Chief Justice of Ceylon two Generals, a few knighthoods, a President of the Madrigal Society who translated prolifically, vide: the English Hymnal, “Nos Galan” (carol) and “Men of Harlech” and, two MPs.
The Clan is fortunate that it has extant three further Oliphant Chieftains:
• Laurence Philip Kington Blair Oliphant of Ardblair and Gask’s line has the Chieftainship of Gask in the female line. The Gask branch produced Scotland’s greatest poetess, Carolina, latterly Lady Nairn and then in the female line and going by the name of Kington-Blair-Oliphant or Blair-Oliphant, has produced an Air Vice-Marshal and two composers in film and television. The Gask Chieftain today, Laurence, lives at Ardblair Castle, a Clan Blair seat inherited through a Robertson of Struan cousin. Ardblair contains not only the majority of the Gask Oliphant artefacts and portraits but also the Lords Oliphants’ charters and known possessions, so is hugely important to Clan Oliphant. Fortuitously (but not unsurprisingly, as it is a private home so, strictly by prior appointment) the colourful Laurence and his family do host Oliphant visitors, some of whom may be lucky enough to be regaled by Laurence with a wonderful collection of humorous stories. Laurence is suitably even-handed and also discharges his duties for the Blairs, for whom he is simultaneously the Chieftain of Ardblair, as Chieftain of the nearby Blairgowrie Games.
• John Oliphant of Rossie is Chieftain, also in the female line, of a branch which produced a Postmaster General of Scotland who, incidentally, appeared in Charles Lees’ reknowned 1847 painting “The Golfers” and, more recently, the late Betty Oliphant, the founder of the Canadian National Ballet School.
• David Olyphant of Bachilton is the other Chieftain in the male line, which is one of the earliest offshoot branches and is most closely linked to the Oliphants of Culteuchar, in Fife, where they were large landowners. From the Culteuchar Oliphants descend the largest number of American Oliphants.
The Kellie branch, currently without a chieftain, produced Margaret Oliphant, the author.
Other branches of Clan Oliphant do exist but as of today they still await rightful claimants for their chieftainly arms and the right to wear one or two eagle’s feathers. These have produced the US Civil War General, Samuel Duncan Oliphant, Sir Marcus Oliphant, a reknowned scientist who was in the team which split the atom and a reknowned author and journalist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Oliphant, whose wife is Susan Spencer, an NBC news anchorwoman.