Family and Education

b. 1722, 1st s. of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, Lord Milton, S.C.J., lord justice clerk 1735-48, keeper of the signet 1746-66, by Elizabeth, da. of Sir Francis Kinloch, 2nd Bt., of Gilmerton. educ. Glasgow Univ. 1735; Ch. Ch. Oxf. 1739. m. 1764, Jeanie, da. of Sir Robert Myreton, 2nd Bt., of Gogar, Edinburgh, s.p. suc. fa. 1766.

Offices Held

Clerk of the pipe in the Exchequer [S] 1746-51; sec. to Duke of Argyll as keeper of the great seal [S], 1748-61; auditor gen. of the Exchequer [S] 1751-79 (£1,200 p.a.).

Biography

Fletcher was the son of ‘the confidential friend and deputy’ of Lord Ilay, afterwards Duke of Argyll,1 who managed Scotland under Walpole and the Pelhams. In 1747, when the restored Argyll régime routed their opponents (see Craigie, Robert), Fletcher, by an agreement between his father, Argyll, and Sir Hew Dalryrmple, was returned for Haddington Burghs.2 In 1748 he secured the reversion of Dalrymple’s office of auditor general of Scotland under a bargain by which his father gave up the office of lord justice clerk to Charles Areskine, but ‘retained the charge of superintending elections’.3 At the same time he succeeded John Maule as Argyll’s secretary and constant companion. He died 24 May 1779.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Romney R. Sedgwick

Notes

• 1. Ramsay of Ochtertyre, Scotland and Scotsmen in the 18th Cent., i. 87.
• 2. See HADDINGTON and HADDINGTON BURGHS.
• 3. Ramsay, 89.