Sir Lawrence Dundas, 1st Baronet
Lawrence Dundas | |
---|---|
![]() Dundas, attributed to Nathaniel Dance-Holland) | |
Member of the British House of Commons | |
In office 1747 – 21 September 1781 | |
Succeeded by | James Blair |
Constituency |
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Personal details | |
Born | 22 October 1712 |
Died | 21 September 1781 | (aged 68)
Resting place | Falkirk, Scotland, United Kingdom |
Political party | Whig |
Sir Lawrence Dundas, 1st Baronet (22 October 1712 – 21 September 1781) was a Scottish merchant and politician.
Life
He was the son of Thomas Dundas and Bethia Baillie.[1] He made his first fortune as Commissary General: supplying goods to the British Army during the Jacobite rising of 1745 and the Seven Years' War. Dundas subsequently branched out into banking, property (he developed Grangemouth in 1777) and was a major backer of the Forth and Clyde Canal which happened to run through his estate, centred on Kerse House,[2] near Falkirk. He left his son an inheritance worth £900,000. Sir Lawrence was also a man of taste, elected a member of the Society of Dilettanti in 1750.
He bought the
In 1768, he acquired a tavern "Peace and Plenty" on the land destined to become
He purchased
The Aske estate included the
James Boswell described Dundas as "a comely jovial Scotch gentleman of good address but not bright parts ... I liked him much".[11]
Dundas was a great collector of art. Long after his death, Messrs Greenwood sold 116 of his paintings on 29–31 May 1794 from their room in Leicester Square. They included works by Cuyp, Murillo, Raphael, Rubens and Teniers.[12] Some of the Murillo's and perhaps other works would have been bought on commission by Dundas's friend John Blackwood.
Sir Lawrence died in 1781 and is buried in the Dundas Mausoleum at Falkirk Old Parish Church where his wife Margaret and son Thomas eventually joined him.
Notes
- ^ Edinburgh Old Parish Register 685/1 150 275.
- ^ Robertson, A 2012 The rediscovery of ‘Carss Castell’: A medieval hall-house within, Kerse House, Grangemouth. Vernacular Building 36, pp. 41-60
- ^ https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146656113
- ^ http://www.oldedinburghclub.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/BOEC-OS/Volume-22.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ Gilbert, p. 154
- ^ "Our Banknotes - The Ilay Series". The Royal Bank of Scotland Group. 2008. Archived from the original on 15 March 2008. Retrieved 14 October 2008.
- ^ "Dundas Mansion, Edinburgh". Edinburgh Architecture. Retrieved 14 October 2008.
- ^ Some of the seat furniture is at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
- ^ One is illustrated in Anthony Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture 1964, pl. 51.
- ^ Colvin
- ISBN 978-0-436-30420-0.
- ^ Greenwood, Messrs (1794). A Catalogue of the Magnificent Collection of Pictures of the late Sir Lawrence Dundas, Bart. London: Messrs Greenwood.
References
- Colvin, Howard. A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600–1840, 3rd edition 1995.
- Gilbert, Christopher. The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale 1978. vol I, pp 154–60.
- Leigh Rayment' s baronetage page[usurped]