Nabobs of the North

Sir Lawrence Dundas and Daughter, Zoffany, 1775

Bankers and men of property are some of the richest men on the planet today. Their relationship with governments and the democratic process is a battle for power fought in a war of attrition between the bankers' desire to operate freely and governments' desire for responsibility through regulation. Richer than countries and certainly richer than elected heads of state the influence of these multi-billionaires is profound but this is not a new phenomena as the story of the Dundas family reveals.

The Dundas family were one of Scotland's leading land owners but it fell on hard times during the failed Scottish rebellions: Head of the clan, William Dundas of Kincavel was imprisoned for his part in the 1715 Jacobite rebellion and many of the Dundas estates were forfeited to the British Crown after the 1745-1746 Jacobite rebellion.

Their humbler relatives were landless and urban living and working in trade and the newly emerging professions in Edinburgh. Lawrence Dundas the first of great Dundases was the younger son of landless branch of the family. His father,Thomas owned a drapery shop and woollen business in the Luckenbooths, a range of tenements which formerly stood immediately to the north of St. Giles' Kirk in the High Street of Edinburgh.

Sir Lawrence Dundas

Sir Lawrence Dundas (1710-1781)  known as the "Nabob of the North" even in his own lifetime was one of the new breed of men who made their fortune through servicing what we call the public sector today. He used the money he earned in the service of the King to invest in property and banking. He was the forerunner of many successful money men today who provide governments with armaments and supply multi-million pound government contracts.

Lawrence left his father's business and set up in as a merchant contractor and with his friend James Masterton, he obtained contracts to supplying the army of the Duke of Cumberland in the 1745 rebellion. Being successful with Cumberland further work came his way. His greatest money making opportunity  came during the Seven Years War (1756-1763), when he secured even greater contracts to supply the armies of the anti-French allies in Europe and Canada.  It was not all plain sailing though. He ran into trouble with Thomas Orby Hunter, the commissaries of control, and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick-Lüneburg the  a German-Prussian field marshal (1758–1766) who led the Anglo-German army in Western Germany. who, according to Prime Minister Walpole,  threatened to hang him for late fulfilment.

James Boswell claimed Lawrence Dundas brought home, 'a couple of hundred thousand pounds’ from that war but some historians estimate actual figure was nearer to £2 million the equivalent of more than £200m in today's money which put him in the class of a billionaire today.

Having made one fortune Lawrence went into two others, both in the 18th century's growth industries - banking and canals. Dundas was a man who understood the future was in money not land. Banking in Scotland was dominated by two Edinburgh based institutions; the Bank of Scotland and what became The Royal Bank of Scotland. The two institutions were fierce rivals. Both had the power to issue bank notes but the The Bank of Scotland was deemed to be tainted by its past Jacobite inclinations so it is no surprise, given his support for the British, Lawrence Dundas invested heavily in its rival the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Route of the Forth and Clyde Canal

He completed the development of the port of Grangemouth in 1777, which linked his other major investment the construction of the Forth and Clyde Canal to the sea. Dundas ran the canal through his estate, of Kerse House, near Falkirk, he was a canny operator.

Like Billionaires today who build themselves lavish houses in places like the Hamptons, Dundas set about building himself a few mansions. He built what Scottish writer Hugo Arnot described as  "incomparably the handsomest townhouse we ever saw," in St. Andrew Square, Edinburgh. Designed by Sir William Chambers, it became the headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1825.

Head Office of the Royal Bank of Scotland

In 1754 he made his second attempt to gain a seat in Parliament. He lost but not before he had spent a fortune on bribes which was the 18th century way of currying favour with the electorate and he was disappointed again in 1761 election. Having failed to get a seat he turned to his friend Lord Shelburne for help. On 19 August 1762 Shelburne wrote to Henry Fox: ‘Dundas, the Nabob of the North, writes me to desire I’ll get him made a baronet.’ On 20 October Dundas duly received his baronetcy.

With his baronetcy in hand he made his move south but not without comment. He bought the Aske Estate, near Richmond in North Yorkshire in 1763 from Lord Holderness for £45,000 and proceeded to enlarge and remodel it in Palladian taste by the premier Yorkshire architect, John Carr, who also designed new stables for him.

Aske Estate

On 3 May 1763 Lord Hardwicke wrote to Lord Royston,"Sir Lory Dundas, who extends his conquests from North to South, has purchased Moor Park from Lord Anson’s heirs for £25,000 for which he ordered a set of Gobelins tapestries with medallions by François Boucher and a long suite of seat furniture to match, for which Robert Adam provided d

esigns: they are among the earliest English neoclassical furniture. A few months later he bought Lord Granville’s London house for about £15,000.

From 1766 Dundas set about securing his political influence in Scotland. In July that year be he purchased the Orkneys and Shetlands from the Earl of Morton for £63,000, thereby obtaining the parliamentary seat for his brother, he obtained Stirlingshire for his friend Masterson, Linlithgowshire and Fife went to another friend James Wemyss, the Yorkshire seats of Richmond were given to two proxies Norton and Wedderburn to be controlled directly by Dundas himself; the seat for Edinburgh he kept for himself. His 'purchase' of these seats secured him 8 or 9 votes in the Commons which he was willing to be courted by both Government and opposition alike but generally he voted in support of the Hanoverian king.

East India House, Leadenhall Street, 1800

Although Dundas never obtained high office either for himself or his followers it was generally believed that ‘without the name of minister’ he had ‘the disposal of almost everything in Scotland’ and in the East India Company. The Duke of Queensberry or Lord Marchmont got most of appointments available in Scotland through his influence but many he saved for himself. As governor of the Royal Bank of Scotland, 1764-77, he exercised great influence in the financing of new projects, notably his own project, the Forth and Clyde canal, while he worked in Parliament to prevent his rival, Lord Argyll, developing the Glasgow and Clyde Canal. He also provided government supporters with shares in the East India Company to boost their wealth to meet the selection criteria in the 1770 election.

But as the 1770s progressed Sir Lawrence's star was dimming. His new rival came not from the aristocracy but from a distant family connection Henry Dundas, with whom Sir Lawrence's family had  long been on bad terms.

Henry Dundas

Henry was a skilled lawyer and was as unscrupulous as Sir Lawrence when it came to politics and the two would wage war on each other's interests in Scotland and the East India Company through their proxies until Lawrence died.

Henry rose quickly through the Scottish legal system and became a Member of Parliament in 1774. The two men were arch enemies. Henry was more than a match for the older man when it came to politics.After holding subordinate offices under William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne and William Pitt the Younger, he entered the cabinet in 1791 as Secretary of State for the Home Department where he successfully held back the abolition of slavery arguing the country made too much money out of it to give it up in a time of war.

Always viewed as an outsider, and as a man more interested in himself than King and country, Sir Lawrence's influence waned. He never received the peerage he felt he deserved for his support to the King neither did he manage to maintain his family's political position. He died on 21 September 1781, leaving an estate worth £16,000 p.a. and a fortune of £900,000 in personal and landed property. His son Thomas was elevated to the peerage as Baron Dundas of Aske in August 1794, and was also Lord Lieutenant and Vice Admiral of Orkney and Shetland. In 1892, the family gained the title Marquis of Zetland.

Henry Dundas went onto to be Prime Minister Pitt's fixer and War Secretary at the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1802 he was elevated to the Peerage as Viscount Melville and Baron Dunira and in 1804 he became First Lord of the Admiralty. He introduced a number of improvements there but questions were asked about his financial management of the department which resulted an impeachment trial for the misappropriation of public funds.

Henry Dundas was an accomplished politician and scourge of the Radicals, his deft and almost total control of Scottish politics through the 1790 when no monarch visited the country, led to him being pejoratively nicknamed King Harry the Ninth, the "Grand Manager of Scotland" a play on the masonic office of Grand Master of Scotland, or the "Great Tyrant" and "The Uncrowned King of Scotland." Indeed by 1790 Dundas was in Pitt’s own word the ‘indispensable’ coadjutor of his ministry and the prime minister’s friend par excellence. His hold over Pitt seemed to many observers unaccountable: but, "Dundas brought to market qualities rarely combined in the same individual. Conviviality at table: manners frank and open and inspiring confidence: eloquence bold, flowing, energetic and always at command: principles accommodating, suited to every variation in government, and unencumbered with modesty or fastidious delicacy."(1)

But Henry over stepped the mark and was accused of withdrawing money from the Bank of England and placing it in his own account at Coutts for speculation, primarily in the East India Company. Although Dundas lost his job as Minister Treasurer of the Navy in 1783 he was made a member of the Board of Control for India in 1784 and became its President from 1793-1802. During this period he held a number of other political appointments most notably from 1791-1794 as Home Secretary, during which he defended the East India Company from his position as Secretary of War in 1794. When it came to his trial his prosecutors found he had conveniently destroyed all his records so the case was largely based on the testimony of his accusers. Lacking any material evidence Dundas could only be formally censured by the House of Commons Henry and was acquitted 1806, but he never held public office again.

Melville Monument

Henry is commemorated by one of the most prominent memorials in Edinburgh, the 150-foot high, Melville Monument at St Andrew Square, which stands looking down on the house of his rival Lawrence. The house is now the headquarters of The Royal Bank of Scotland.

In 2008, the UK Treasury had to inject £37 billion ($64 billion, €47 billion, equivalent to £617 per citizen of the UK) of new capital into Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, Lloyds TSB and HBOS plc, to avert financial sector collapse.

Sources
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/dundas-henry-1742-1811
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/dundas-sir-lawrence-1710-81
(1)W. L. Clements Lib. Pitt letters, Pitt to Dundas, 22 July [1790]; Wraxall Mems. ed. Wheatley, i. 266.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dundas,_1st_Viscount_Melville
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Lawrence_Dundas,_1st_Baronet

Bonnie Prince Charlie and Toad - What could they have in common?

Bonnie Prince Charlie Leaves Scotland
John Blake MacDonald

It is a surprising thing to say but Bonnie Prince Charlie and Kenneth Graham’s character Toad, (Wind in the Willows, 1908) have much in common. Both were good-natured, kind-hearted and not without intelligence but they were also spoiled, reckless and obsessive.

Toad fooling a policeman
in a TV adaptation of Wind in the Willows

Although one is a character of fiction and the other of history and legend they both escaped the forces of law enforcement dressed as a woman, a washerwoman in Toad’s case, whereas the Bonnie Prince took the disguise of an Irish seamstress, Betty Burke when he climbed aboard the Bonnie boat to Skye with Flora MacDonald on his way to France in 1746 leaving a trail of destruction behind him.

The retribution that followed the defeat of the Jacobite Army at Culloden in 1746 has passed into legend for its brutality and savagery and has formed the backdrop to many classic stories including Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped and more recently Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series of novels.

Today, we are so accustomed to picture of the suppression of the Highlands by the British Army painted in these novels that we are hardly surprised by it. However, when I looked at the records in the Scottish National Archive for this article I found the pastiche of brutality in the  films and TV shows suddenly and shaply transformed from fiction to fact and the true horror of what took place became fresh and alive once more.

I have chosen some examples from the records of the Fraser Clan to illustrate what happened as there is currently so much interest in it due to the success of the Starz Outlander TV series.

James Stuart: The man who arrived too late and left too early

James Stuart, The Old Pretender

When it comes to writing scenes for novels and films authors are often advised to get their characters to behave like good party guests that is: they should arrive late, and leave early. If James Stuart were a party guest he would indeed be a perfect one for this is exactly what he did in 1715.

With Queen Anne barely cold in her grave the Whigs in Parliament grabbed their opportunity to thwart any plans the catholic Stuarts had for their return and invited George Elector of Hanover to take the throne of Great Britain and Ireland while James Stuart was left politely sitting the in the independent Duchy of Lorraine waiting for his invitation to a coronation that of course would never came.


There was no great clamour for another Stuart King in 1715. Instead the rebellion attracted a coalition of support drawn from the politically and religiously driven, those dissatisfied with the 1707 Act of Union and those wanting to settle deep-rooted family or political antipathies like John Erskine the Earl of Mar.

John Erskine, 22nd Earl of Mar

The Treaty of Union had been pushed through the Scottish Parliament and although many Scots were patriotic unionists there were many other Scots who refused to accept the combination of political fixing, selfish economic deals and threats that got the union bill through the Scottish Parliament and saw its as an unforgiveable betrayal of the nation.

James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater

The 'Whig coup' did not go without reaction in England. Their political opponents the Tories were outraged and there were riots in some places but nothing to cause too much trouble to those in power.


A number of prominent English Tories led by James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater and his son Charles, and William Widdrington, 4th Baron Widdrington, Edward Howard son of the Duke of  Norfolk, and Robert Cotton a gentleman from Huntingdonshire were drawn into a pro-Stuart conspiracy.

In Scotland opposition to English Whigs and their king George I coalesced around the issue of dissatisfaction with the Union and the disgruntled and ambitious Tory, John Erskine the Earl of Mar a man who had risen to high office under the Tories and who, since the 'coup', was persona non grata in Westminster and the English Palace.

Treaty of Union between England and Scotland 1707

Despite receiving no commission from James to start the rising. On 27 August 1714 he held his first council of war at his seat in Braemar. On 6 September. Mar raised the standard of "James the 8th and 3rd" accompanied by 600 supporters determined to be the 'King Maker' and retrieve his position.



In London, Parliament responded by passing an Act giving tenants who refused to support the Jacobites the land of their landlords and some of Mar's tenants travelled to Edinburgh to prove their loyalty and acquire title to their land almost as soon as the proclamation was made.

Meanwhile Mar and his English allies, despite much petitioning of the French, found themselves thrown on their own resources which were at the beginning of the rebellion pretty evenly matched with those of the British Crown. Feeling confident of victory Mar marched south gathering men and resources until by the end of October he was more or less in control of whole of Scotland.

Duke of Argyll

With Mar appearing to be making progress the exiled James finally made his move and made Mar head of his army on 22nd October.

Mar however was not a brilliant general. He halted his advance and lost the initiative giving the Hanoverian forces under the command of the Duke of Argyll time to increase their strength.

18th century print showing
James Stuart's arrival at Peterhead

Finally, on 22 December James Stuart landed in Scotland at Peterhead but both the initiative and and the war had been lost by then.  Argyll could not be stopped and on 4 February James wrote a farewell letter to Scotland and sailed for France the following day.

As is usually the case, justice and retribution was meted out deferentially.

After the Battle of Preston 1,468 Jacobites were taken prisoner, 463 of them English including several aristocrats: the Earl of Winton, Viscount of Kenmure, the Earl of Nithsdale, Lord Nairne, and Derwentwater's son all of whom were later sentenced to be executed for treason under an Act of Attainder.

However while these aristocrats were languishing in prison awaiting their grisly and humiliating fate the British Parliament passed the Indemnity Act in July 1717. This Act effectively pardoned the surviving rebels with a few exceptions which included the notorious Rob Roy MacGregor. Some two hundred men captured at the Battle of Preston were released at Chester, as were those held at Edinburgh and Stirling. The Act did not undo the effect of the attainders, and confiscated estates worth £48,000 a year in England and £30,000 a year in Scotland were surrendered to the crown.

Mar fled to France, where he would spend the remainder of his life his Writ of Attainder remained in place until 1824. He died in 1732. It is said that his wife Lady Frances went mad in 1728 due to the stress of their exile. She outlived him by 35 years.

Of the ordinary Highland clansmen defeated at the Battle of Preston, many were transported to the Americas prior to the passing of the 1717 Act.This was a fate considered a living death by their families who would never see them again even if they survived their sentence. As prisoners, they were placed in a system of indentured servitude, in effect they became slaves for 7-8 years. Merchants would transport the convicts then auction them off to plantation owners and such like. These Highland rebels would have been part of the estimated 50,000 British convicts to colonial America in the 18th century.

There were fifty-six executions in all: thirty-four in Lancashire in January and February 1716, five in the autumn of that year, a dozen in London between 1715 and 1716, and four military executions but this was less than half the number of people executed after the Forty-five rebellion and a fraction of the number hanged after Monmouth's Rebellion of 1685.

Highlanders retreat after defeat at Perth

Although the 1715 rebellion is one of history's damp squibs for over 70 years, the ruling government in the British Isles was threatened by conspiracies, uprisings and threats of foreign invasion lead by the exiled Scots wandering through the courts of Catholic Europe plotting to turn back the clock.


Sources: 
Sheriffmuir 1715: Stuart Reid
1715: The Great Jacobite Rebellion: Daniel Szechi
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13861
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Preston_(1715)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobite_rising_of_1715
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Radclyffe,_3rd_Earl_of_Derwentwater
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_colony

Outlander's Clair Fraser has jumped from second world war nurse, to eighteenth century healer cum witch to surgeon and that's what's great about fiction but the real story of female doctors, in Britain at least, is one of profound struggle and individual persistence. 

When Charlotte Leadam, in my up coming novel Sinclair, a story based on the real Leadam family who lived and worked as apothecary surgeons in Tooley Street from the late 18th century to the mid nineteenth century, inherits her husband's apothecary shop she was not allowed to run the shop on her own account - only men were allowed to be licensed as apothecaries.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836 – 1917) was the first woman in Britain who qualified as a physician and surgeon and she did this when in 1865, she finally obtained a licence (LSA) from the Society of Apothecaries.

Garrett's life's work was opening the medical profession to women. She started her quest by working as a surgery nurse at Middlesex Hospital, In 1860 she attempted to enrol in the hospital's Medical School. She was not accepted but was allowed to attend private tuition in Latin, Greek and materia medica with the hospital's apothecary, while continuing her work as a nurse.

She employed a tutor to study anatomy and physiology three evenings a week. Eventually she was allowed into the dissecting room and the chemistry lectures.

Gradually, Garrett became an unwelcome presence among the male students, who in 1861 presented a memorial to the school against her admittance as a fellow student, despite the support she enjoyed from the administration.

She was obliged to leave the Middlesex Hospital but she did so with an honours certificate in chemistry and materia medica.

Garrett then applied to several medical schools, including Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, Edinburgh, St Andrews and the Royal College of Surgeons, all of which refused her admittance.

Having privately obtained a certificate in anatomy and physiology and in 1862, she was finally admitted by the Society of Apothecaries who, as a condition of their charter, could not legally exclude her on account of her sex.

She continued her battle to qualify by studying privately with various professors, including some at the University of St Andrews, the Edinburgh Royal Maternity and the London Hospital Medical School.

She co-founded the first hospital staffed by women, was the first female dean of a British medical school, the first female doctor of medicine in France.

She was the first woman in Britain to be elected to a school board and, as Mayor of Aldeburgh, she was the first female mayor and magistrate in Britain.

Pictures: 1. Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe) in Outlander Season Two Finale "Dragonfly in Amber"
2. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson