Sir Robert Ainslie, 1st Baronet
Sir Robert Ainslie, 1st Baronet (c. 1730 – 21 July 1812)
Biography
Early life and family
He was the third and youngest son of George Ainslie, Esq., from a
Ainslie, who was born about 1730, is described as having resided in the earlier part of his life at Bordeaux, where his father had been for some time settled as a merchant.[3] He is said to have returned to Scotland in 1727 and to have purchased the estate of Pilton, in the county of Midlothian.
Ambassador to Ottoman Empire
Ainslie is first noticed in the
He left England in May 1776 for
Member of Parliament
On 8 September 1796, Ainslie received a grant of a pension of £1,000 on the civil list to be held "during the joint lives of his majesty and himself" and was elected a Member of Parliament. It met on the 27th of the same month, with Lord Paget as his colleague, for the close borough of Milborne Port, Somerset. At the general election of 1802, his seat in Parliament was transferred to Hugh Leycester.[1]
He was created a
Ainslie died after a long illness aged 83 at
Numismatics
This section needs additional citations for verification. (December 2022) |
Ainslie took advantage of his position at Constantinople to amass a collection of ancient coins from
Sestini continued his exposition of the Ainslie collection in a smaller work, and more special in its scope, entitled Dissertazione sopra alcune Monete Armene del Principi Rupinensi della Collezione Ainslieana, 4to, Leghorn, 1790. This work is at present bound up with a copy of the first four volumes of the Lettere e Dissertazioni, which, according to an inscription, probably autographic, on the fly-leaf, was "presented from Sr Robt Ainslie, 5 June 1795", to the British Museum.
Another of Sestini's volumes is entitled Descriptio Numorum Veterum ex Museis Ainslie, Bellini, Bondacca, Borgia, Leipzig, 1796. Ainslie had been the 'Mæcenas' of Sestini's dedication of the Lettere e Dissertazioni of 1789; seven years later, in the preface to the Descriptio, he was a malignant speculator and trader in antiquities.
Research and commissions
Ainslie's researches embraced antiquities of various kinds, objects of natural history, and illustrations of the East and its current life. Ainslie was a friend of important German orientalist artist
Notes
- ^ a b c Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "M" (part 2)
- ^ Burke, John (1847). Burke's genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry, Volume 1. H. Colburn. p. 264.
- ^ a b c d e f g The Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Volumes 1-2. Longman, Brown. 1842. pp. 568–69.
- ^ "No. 11598". The London Gazette. 19 September 1775. p. 1.
- ISBN 0-8386-3688-8.
- ^ "No. 15744". The London Gazette. 9 October 1804. p. 1266.
- ^ "Art and Literature About Lycia". Lycian Turkey. Retrieved 12 August 2010.
References
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Ainslie, Robert (1730?-1804)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.