Edinburghshire (Midlothian)

County

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Background Information

Number of voters:

about 80

Elections

DateCandidate
1 Mar. 1715JOHN BAIRD
29 Mar. 1722ROBERT DUNDAS
 John Baird
1 Sept. 1727ROBERT DUNDAS
21 May 1734ROBERT DUNDAS
4 Aug. 1737SIR CHARLES GILMOUR vice Dundas, appointed to office
 George Lockhart
28 May 1741SIR CHARLES GILMOUR
10 Aug. 1742GILMOUR re-elected after appointment to office
13 Jan. 1744GILMOUR re-elected after appointment to office
 Sir John Baird
17 July 1747SIR CHARLES GILMOUR
14 Feb. 1751ROBERT BALFOUR RAMSAY vice Gilmour, deceased

Main Article

In 1715 John Baird, a government supporter and a ‘creature’ of Sir David Dalrymple, the lord advocate, was returned unopposed, George Lockhart of Carnwarth, the previous Tory Member, not standing as he knew that the sheriff appointed by the Crown would return a Whig in any case. In 1722 Lockhart assured Dundas, Dalrymple’s successor, that if he would preserve the estates of some Jacobites from being forfeited ‘I would take care so as to manage matters that he should be elected for this shire in opposition to Mr. Baird’.1 Dundas, who was successful, thereafter built up a personal interest which gave him the ‘entire command’ of the county.2 When he was raised to the bench in 1737, the freeholders followed his recommendation by returning Sir Charles Gilmour. On Gilmour’s death, Robert Balfour Ramsay was brought in to keep the seat warm for Dundas’s son, Robert, who succeeded to it in 1754.

Author: J. M. Simpson

Notes

  • 1. Lockhart Pprs. ii. 82, 89.
  • 2. Ramsay of Ochtertyre, Scotland and Scotsmen in 18th Cent. 72.