Sir Lawrence Dundas, 1st Baronet (22 October 1712 – 21 September 1781) was a British merchant and Whig politician.

Life

He was the son of Thomas Dundas and Bethia Baillie. He made his first fortune as Commissary General: supplying goods to the

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

during the

Jacobite rising of 1745 The Jacobite rising of 1745 was an attempt by Charles Edward Stuart to regain the Monarchy of Great Britain, British throne for his father, James Francis Edward Stuart. It took place during the War of the Austrian Succession, when the bulk of t ...

and the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...

. Dundas subsequently branched out into banking, property (he developed

Grangemouth Grangemouth (; , ) is a town in the Falkirk (council area), Falkirk council area in the central belt of Scotland. Historically part of the Counties of Scotland, county of Stirlingshire, the town lies in the Forth Valley, on the banks of the Firt ...

in 1777) and was a major backer of the

Forth and Clyde Canal The Forth and Clyde Canal is a canal opened in 1790, crossing central Scotland; it provided a route for the seagoing vessels of the day between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde at the narrowest part of the Scottish Lowlands. This allow ...

which happened to run through his estate, centred on Kerse House, near

Falkirk Falkirk ( ; ; ) is a town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire. It lies in the Forth Valley, northwest of Edinburgh and northeast of Glasgow. Falkirk had a resident population of 32,422 at the ...

. 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 The Society of Dilettanti (founded 1734) is a British society of noblemen and scholars that sponsored the study of ancient Greek and Roman art, and the creation of new work in the style. History Though the exact date is unknown, the Society i ...

in 1750. He bought the Aske Estate, near

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, a city in the United States * Richmond, London, a town in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town ...

in North Yorkshire in 1763 from Lord Holderness for £45,000 and proceeded to enlarge and remodel it in

Palladian Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

taste by the premier Yorkshire architect, John Carr, who also designed new stables. Dundas also acquired ownership over two

slave plantation A slave plantation is an agricultural farm that uses enslaved people for labour. The practice was abolished in most places during the 19th century. Slavery Planters embraced the use of slaves mainly because indentured labor became expensive ...

s in the

British West Indies The British West Indies (BWI) were the territories in the West Indies under British Empire, British rule, including Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Antigua and Barb ...

, one in

Dominica Dominica, officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. It is part of the Windward Islands chain in the Lesser Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of t ...

and one in

Grenada Grenada is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea. The southernmost of the Windward Islands, Grenada is directly south of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and about north of Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidad and the So ...

. In 1768, he acquired a tavern "Peace and Plenty" on the land destined to become Edinburgh's New Town. This was shown on James Craig's plan as a potential site for a church, but Dundas's wealth and ownership of the site allowed him to design his own mansion here, somewhat off the grid of the New Town. This house, now Dundas House in St. Andrew Square, was designed by

Sir William Chambers __NOTOC__ Sir William Chambers (23 February 1723 – 10 March 1796) was a Swedish-British architect. Among his best-known works are Somerset House, the Gold State Coach and the pagoda at Kew. Chambers was a founder member of the Royal Academy. ...

, became the headquarters of the

Royal Bank of Scotland The Royal Bank of Scotland Public Limited Company () is a major retail banking, retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest and Ulster Bank. The Royal Bank of Sco ...

in 1825. The facade and later 1857 ceiling feature on the current designs of the banknotes issued by the Royal Bank. He purchased

Giacomo Leoni Giacomo Leoni (; 1686 – 8 June 1746), also known as James Leoni, was an List of Italian architects, Italian architect, born in Venice. He was a devotee of the work of Florence, Florentine Renaissance architecture, Renaissance architect Leon Ba ...

's grand house near London, Moor Park, for which he ordered a set of Gobelins tapestry hangings with medallions by

François Boucher François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...

and a long suite of seat furniture to match, for which

Robert Adam Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (architect), William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and train ...

provided designs: they are among the earliest English neoclassical furniture. Other new furnishings, for Aske and for Sir Lawrence's magnificently appointed London house at 19 Arlington Street, were supplied by

Thomas Chippendale Thomas Chippendale (June 1718 – 1779) was an English woodworker in London, designing furniture in the mid-Georgian, English Rococo, and Neoclassical styles. In 1754 he published a book of his designs in a trade catalogue titled ''The Gen ...

(1763–66), and Chippendale's rivals, the royal cabinet-makers William Vile and John Cobb, and Samuel Norman (Gilbert). A pair of marquetry commodes in the French taste by a French cabinet-maker working in London, Pierre Langlois, is at Aske.

Capability Brown Lancelot "Capability" Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783) was an English gardener and landscape architect, a notable figure in the history of the English landscape garden style. Unlike other architects ...

worked on the park at Aske and provided a design for a bridge. In the 1770s, Sir Lawrence turned to Robert Adam for further remodelling and designs for furnishings. The Aske estate included the

pocket borough A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act of 1832, which had a very small electo ...

, so Sir Lawrence was, therefore, able to appoint the Member of Parliament. Sir Lawrence married Margaret Bruce, and they had one son, Thomas Dundas.

James Boswell James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 ( N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of the English writer Samuel Johnson, '' Life of Samuel ...

described Dundas as "a comely jovial Scotch gentleman of good address but not bright parts ... I liked him much". 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 Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...

Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of clas ...

and Teniers. 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 Falkirk Old & St. Modan's Parish Church, also known as "Falkirk Trinity Church", is a congregation of the Church of Scotland in Falkirk, central Scotland. The medieval old parish church is located in the centre of Falkirk, and may have been found ...

where his wife Margaret and son Thomas eventually joined him.

Notes

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. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dundas, Lawrence, 1st Baronet 1712 births 1780 deaths Nobility from Falkirk (council area) 19th-century Scottish businesspeople Baronets in the Baronetage of Great Britain Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Scottish constituencies Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Newcastle-under-Lyme British MPs 1747–1754 British MPs 1761–1768 British MPs 1768–1774 British MPs 1774–1780 British MPs 1780–1784 Clan Dundas Scottish slave owners