James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton

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Coat of arms of the Earls of Morton
James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton, (left) with his family, 1740

James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton (* 1702 in Edinburgh , † October 12, 1768 in Chiswick , London ) was a Scottish peer from the House of Douglas , politician and a naturalist who dealt primarily with astronomy .

Life

Family and early years

James Douglas was born in Edinburgh in 1702 as the eldest of three sons of George Douglas, 13th Earl of Morton (* 1662; † 1738) and his second wife Frances, daughter of William Adderley of Halstow . In 1722 he graduated from King's College, Cambridge with a Master of Arts degree . He then traveled the continent for several years, devoting himself to studying physics. The knowledge he had acquired in this way made him one of the most respected scholars among Scottish scholars on his return to Scotland; among these he had a particularly close friendship with the great mathematician Colin Maclaurin . In the meantime he has probably deepened his studies at the University of Edinburgh .

Since his father inherited the title of 13th Earl of Morton in 1730 , James Douglas apparently carried the courtesy title of Lord Aberdour as his marriage . When his father died in 1738, he inherited him as the 14th Earl of Morton. In the same year he was accepted by King George II as a Knight Companion in the exclusive thistle order . In 1750 he bought Dalmahoy House near Edinburgh, which belongs to the Earls of Morton to this day and has been leased as a golf hotel since 1927.

Lord Morton died in Chiswick in 1768 and was probably buried in Edinburgh after his body was anatomized there by Sir John Pringle .

Lord Morton was married twice; from his first marriage to Agatha Halyburton (1711–1748), daughter of James Halyburton , landlord of Pitcur in Angus , he had two daughters and two sons, including his eldest son and successor Sholto Charles Douglas, 15th Earl of Morton (* 1732 ; † 1774). From his second marriage to Bridget Heathcote (1723-1805), daughter of Sir John Heathcote, 2nd Baronet, he had a son and a daughter.

academic career

From 1737 until his death he was the founding president of the Society for Improving Arts and Sciences , the society of scholars, which was shaped by natural sciences , the predecessor society of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , which he and his friend Maclaurin were instrumental in founding. In 1763 he was also elected to succeed George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield as President of the Royal Society of London , of which he had been a member since 1733. He took office after Macclesfield's death the following year and held it in turn until his death. He also took Macclesfield's place as one of the eight foreign members of the Paris Académie des Sciences .

As an astronomer and sponsor of James Cook , Lord Morton decidedly committed himself to the realization of his first South Sea voyage on the Endeavor from 1768, the purpose of which was primarily to observe an astronomical phenomenon. Morton's tasks as President of the London Royal Society then also included the acquisition of the necessary state funding.

In addition, James was one of the first administrator of the British Museum and has established itself as Keeper of Records of Scotland ( keeper of the records rendered outstanding services) to the Scottish archives.

Political career

James Douglas was elected in 1739 to succeed the late Charles Douglas, 2nd Earl of Selkirk, as one of the 16 Scottish Representative Peers who were members of the British House of Lords as representatives of the Peerage of Scotland . In Parliament he was part of Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne , but his policy remained opaque. In 1742 he obtained an act of parliament that made him the absolute owner of Orkney and Shetland . However, he sold his rights to the islands soon after due to various difficulties. In 1746 he was arrested in Paris and imprisoned on the Bastille for three months . This was justified with inadequate personal documents, but his Jacobite tendencies are assumed to be the real reason.

1739 James became the Lord of the falconer and 1760 for Lord Clerk Register appointed, the oldest of the remaining highest state offices in Scotland and was one of the Great Officers of State ( Large state officials ) of Great Britain .

Miscellaneous

On his first South Sea voyage in 1770, James Cook named Moreton Bay after Morton, who was still President of the Royal Society when Cook left in 1668 . The wrong spelling is due to a typo.

On his move to Edinburgh, Morton had the 12-meter-high Aberdour House Obelisk built between his manor in Aberdour ( Aberdour House ) and the previous ancestral seat of the Earl of Morton Aberdour Castle , around 15 km (as the crow flies over the Firth of Forth ) to make out distant homeland.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c The Douglas Archives : James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton , accessed December 5, 2013
  2. a b Dictionary of National Biography , Volume 15, pp. 331 f.
predecessor Office successor
George Douglas Earl of Morton
1738-1768
Sholto Douglas