Sir James Smollett, MP of Stainflett and Bonhill, Dunbarton

SMOLLETT, Sir James (c.1648-1731), of Stainflett and Bonhill, Dunbarton; and Edinburgh

Family and Education

b. c.1648, o. s. of John Smollett of Stainflett, by Jean, da. of William Bontine of Ardoch, Perth. educ. Dumbarton g.s.; Glasgow Univ. matric. 1661, MA 1664. m. (1) Jean (d. ?1696), da. of Aulay MacAulay of Ardincaple, Dunbarton, 4s. (2 d.v.p.) 2da. 4 other ch. d.v.p.; (2) June 1709, Elizabeth, da. of William Hamilton of Orbiston, Lanark, s.p. suc. fa. to Stainflett 1681; kntd. 1698.1

Offices Held

Dep.-clerk regality of Lennox 1676; burgess, Dumbarton 1681, provost, 1683–6, 1694–6, 1705–17, 1729–31; commr. excise, Dunbarton 1684; burgess, Edinburgh 1689, judge of commissary ct. 1690

References and Sources

• http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/sm...
• http://www.electricscotland.com/history/nation/smollett.htm

From http://lengenealogy.com/getperson.php?personID=I481&tree=tree1===

• James was a Knight of the realm. Sir James Smollett.
• His will was published 13 Feb 1732.
• Sir James SMOLLET was born 1648.
• In 1645 he was apprenticed to Walter EWING, a writer to the signet.
• In 1676 he was appointed Depute-Clerk of the Regality of LENNOX, but within 3 years afterwards a prosecution was entered against him, at the instance of His Majesty's Advocate, for presuming to exercise his office without having signed the oath of allegiance. He is likely to have made the required submission in this instance, as there is no evidence that he suffered in either person or estate from this cause.
• He was suspected by the Episcopalian party as a favourer of fanatics, and he was subsequently removed to Edinburgh.
• In 1681 he had a resignation from his father of Pillanflatt and was infeft in Stainflett as his heir, and also in Howatshaws in 1681.
• In 1683 he was elected Provost of Dumbarton and remained in this position until 1686, when the ordinary elaction was superceded by King JAMES II.
• In 1684 he purchased the remainder of the Bonhill estate from the William and Anne LINDSAY.
• In 1685 he was chosen Commissioner for the Burgh to the Scottish Parliament, and sat no less than 12 times.
• In 1690 he was made Judge of the Commissary Court, Edinburgh.
• He purchased Dalquhurn from Charles FLEMING in 1692.
• Having been an active supporter of the revolution, he was knighted by King WILLIAM III in 1698 and was appointed to one of the judgeships of the Commissionary or Consistory Court in Edinburgh.
• He purchased Croslet from David WATSON in 1700.
• As a zealot advocate of the proposed union between England and Scotland, he was in 1707, appointed one of the Commissioners for framing the Articles of Union with England.
• He was the first member who represented the Dumbarton district of burghs in the British Parliament at Westminster.
• In 1708 he compiled his "Memorials" in which he commented that the Instructions of his Constituents to oppose the Union as being detrimental to the welfare of Scotland, were an undue interference with his own independence.
• A communication was then made by his constituents explaining that their instructions "were never designed to invade the liberty of your own conscience, whether as to the Union or any other matter, not to bind you up from following your own light according to the oath of Parliament"
• At his marriage to Elisabeth HAMILTOUNE in Baldernock on 9 June 1709 he is referred to as Sir James.
• He held important commissions in the burgh of Dumbarton being repeatedly elected to the Scottish Parliament from the district of burghs. He was created a Deputy-Lieutenant of the County in 1715.
• He was frequently chosen as ruling elder for them at the Assembly, and in 1720, when the Burgesses resolved that no non-resident Burgesses should in future be elected a Commissioner, an exception was made in favour of Sir James's family.
• In 1721 he executed a deed of entail in favour of James, his Grandson, and nearest male heir, whom failing to James, another Grandson , son of George SMOLLETT.
• He died in 1738 according to the booklet "Smollett's Scotland". (1731 elsewhere)

The Duke of Argyll, in announcing James appointment as Deputy-Lieutenant of Dumbarton writes:-

"His Majestie having been pleased to give me the command of the shyre of Dumbarton, I have appointed you to be one of the Deputy-Lieutenants. I am very sensible of the good affection of your shyre for His Majestie's person and government, and I don't at all doubt but you will exert yourselves upon this occasion, for supporting me in reducing the rebells now in arms against their Protestant King, in favour of the Popish pretender. All the unhappy consequences which necessary attend a war in the heart of our country, are the fruits of the rebellious practices of our enemies, and to be imputed to them alone. It was with the greater satisfaction that I lately received from the King the honour of the Lieutenancy of your shyres, in that not only my ancestors have formerly been authorised to lead your men, but the peculiar uninterrupted friendship which the gentlemen of your shyre have always had personally for my family, is what I and my posterity will always think our duty to remember and return. And you cannot increase the obligation we owe you more than by showing at this tyme a faithfull resolute zeall for his sacred Majestie, and thereby endeavouring to establish the peace of our native country, now violated by the unnatural rage of this avowed abettor of Poperye and slavery. - I am &c ARGYLL" From the original Smollett Papers.

• ... He married Jane, daughter of M'Aulay of Ardencaple, and by her had several sons and daughters. One of the number, Archibald, who married against his father's will, lived at Dalquhurn, near Renton, on an allowance of £300 per annum allowed him by his not too cruel sire, became father of the eminent Dr Tobias Smollett, whose memoir we gave under the heading of Renton, and also of Jean Smollett, who married Alexander Telfer, Esq., of Symington, Lanarkshire. This lady, upon the death of her cousin-german, Mr Commissary Smollett, succeeded to the family estates, and once more resumed her maiden name. Her son and successor, Alexander Telfer Smollett of Bonhill, married Cecilia, daughter of John Renton, Esq, of Lamberton, Berwickshire, and there was issue of the marriage one daughter and four sons--l, Alexander, Lieutenant-Colonel Coldstream Guards, and M.P. for Dumbartonshire, killed at the battle of Aikmaar in 1799; 2, John Rouett, a naval officer, who succeeded to the estate; 3, Tobias George, Captain 781h Regiment, Ross-shire Highlanders; 4, James, accidentally killed at sea. The second son, Rear-Admiral John Rouett Smollett, succeeded to Bonhill. He married first, Louisa, daughter of Wm. Rouett, Esq., of Auchendennan, Lochlomond-side, and by her had an only daughter, who died in infancy; secondly, in 1800, Elizabeth, the second daughter of the Hon. Patrick Boyle of Shewalton, Ayrshire, second son of the second Earl of Glasgow; issue, four daughters and two sons, Alexander and Patrick Boyle. Elizabeth, the eldest daughter, married in 1830 Charles Villiers Stuart, Esq., youngest brother of Lord Stuart of Decies.

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Sir James Smollett, of Bonhill

• https://www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info/genealogy/TNGWebsite/getpe...

Notes:

• James Smollett, extended the families landholdings with the purchase in 1684 of Bonhill, an estate in the Vale of Leven. In 1690 he received a knighthood from William of Orange. The Smolletts of Bonhill were by now substantial landed gentry, and Sir James added to the estates again in 1692 when he acquired Dalquhurn; the estate where, 29 years later, Tobias Smollett the celebrated 18th-century novelist had the distinction of being born under a tree. Land acquisition was but one of Sir James many talents. He was one of the commissioners responsible for drawing up the Act of Union in 1707, under which the Scottish parliament merged with that of England and Wales, and he went on to become the first Westminster MP for the Dumbarton burghs. On his death, the estates passed to his grandson, and then to another grandson, known as Commissary Smollett, a judge of the Commissary Court at Edinburgh. (http://www.incentives-scotland.com/history.html)