Sholto George Watson Douglas, 19th Earl of Morton, DL (5 November 1844 – 8 October 1935) was a major landowner in Scotland, a businessman with mining investments in what is now

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

, and politician, serving as a

Scottish representative peer This is a list of representative peers elected from the Peerage of Scotland to sit in the House of Lords after the Acts of Union 1707 abolished the unicameral Parliament of Scotland, where all Scottish Peers had been entit ...

(1886–1935) after being elected by the

Peerage of Scotland The Peerage of Scotland (; ) is one of the five divisions of peerages in the United Kingdom and for those peers created by the King of Scots before 1707. Following that year's Treaty of Union 1707, Treaty of Union, the Kingdom of Scots and the ...

Biography

In the early 20th century, entrepreneurs and national governments staked claims in the Arctic

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

, to develop resources and mining. Britain, the Netherlands, and Denmark-Norway all had interests there, soon followed by the Russian Empire. The Earl of Morton had several Arctic interests. He and Alexander Bruce Hugh, 6th Lord Balfour of Burleigh had major shares in the little-known Spitzbergen Coal and Mineral Ltd of London. In 1906 Morton became involved, with his son Rory, in the Spitzbergen Mining and Exploration Syndicate (SMES). Together with other major investors, they claimed land on the island of Spitsbergen, now

, and that year opened a coal mine at

Camp Morton Camp Morton was a military training ground and a Union prisoner-of-war camp in Indianapolis, Indiana, during the American Civil War. It was named for Indiana governor Oliver Morton. Prior to the war, the site served as the fairgrounds for the ...

. He and his sons Rory, Charley, Ronald and William sailed to

and Spitsbergen from May to July 1906 on the ''SY Latona''. The company was renamed Northern Enterprise Company Ltd (NEC) in 1910. Coal was mined there into the mid-1920s. NEC sold the properties to the Norwegian government in 1932. Douglas was elected by the

as a

to the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

in 1886, serving in that position to his death on 8 October 1935. He was a landowner and resident of Conaglen House in

Ardgour Ardgour () ( ; meaning ''high place of goats'') is an area of the Scottish Highlands on the western shore of Loch Linnhe. It lies north of the district of Morvern and east of the district of Sunart. Administratively it is now part of the wa ...

Argyllshire Argyll (; archaically Argyle; , ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a historic county and registration county of western Scotland. The county ceased to be used for local government purposes in 1975 and most of the area now forms part of ...

. He served as a Deputy Lieutenant for the County of

Argyll Argyll (; archaically Argyle; , ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a Shires of Scotland, historic county and registration county of western Scotland. The county ceased to be used for local government purposes in 1975 and most of the area ...

from May 1901. He married the Hon. Helen Geraldine Ponsonby, youngest daughter of Charles Ponsonby, 2nd Baron de Mauley. His eldest son, Sholto Charles, Lord Aberdour, predeceased his father on 29 September 1911. The Morton honours passed to the 19th Earl's grandson, Sholto Charles John Hay Douglas (1907–1976).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morton, Sholto Douglas, 19th Earl of 1844 births 1935 deaths Earls of Morton Scottish representative peers 19th-century Scottish landowners Deputy lieutenants of Argyllshire 20th-century Scottish landowners