Exactly one year ago, Jamesboswell.info had been lying pretty much dormant for some time, due to limited time on the part of the webmaster and an obsolete technical platform. Most of 2018 has been spent making up for that, and the site is now well and truly ready for 2019 and the years to come!
British soldier. Oughton was the illegitimate son of Colonel Augustus Oughton (d. 1736) and Frances Dickenson. He married the widow Mary Dalrymple.
Oughton was educated at Coventry, Charterhouse School and Trinity College, Dublin, before entering the army in 1741. At the Battle of Culloden in 1746, he commanded a company of the 37th Foot Regiment. Some years later, at the famous Battle of Minden (1759), he commanded the entire regiment.
Around 1768, he was appointed Deputy Commander-in-Chief of North Britain (Scotland), and in 1778 he was elevated to the senior position as Commander-in-Chief of North Britain, succeeding John Campbell, the Marquess of Lorne. Oughton was for many years Secretary of the Cumberland Society, which was founded to commemorate the victory over Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746, and we was
Oughton attended a dinner at Boswell's in Edinburgh on August 16, 1773, during Dr Johnson's visit to that city just before the beginning of his and Boswell's tour of Scotland. Also present were the Duchess of Douglas, Lord Chief Baron Ord, Sir William Forbes, William Robertson and Mr Cullen, advocate. Boswell wrote of Oughton that he was:
not only an excellent officer but one of the most universal scholars I ever knew, had learned the Erse language, and expressed his belief in the authenticity of Ossian’s poetry. Dr Johnson took the opposite side of that perplexed question, and I was afraid the dispute would have run high between them. But Sir Adolphus, who had a very sweet temper, changed the discourse, grew playful, laughed at Lord Monboddo’s notion of men having tails, and called him ‘a Judge a posteriori’, which amused Dr Johnson, and thus hostilities were prevented.1
Daughter of James Douglas of Mains, Dunbartonshire, and Isabel Corbet. In 1758 she married her distant kinsman, Archibald Douglas (1694-1791), the 1st Duke of Douglas, who also bore the titles of Earl of Angus and 3rd Marquess of Douglas. Their marriage was childless, but the Duchess moved to ensure, that her husband's estate would not go to the young Duke of Hamilton, who inherited all of the Duke's subsidiary titles, but rather to Archibald James Edward Stuart, the supposed child of the Duke of Douglas' sister, Jane. This resulted in a lengthy legal struggle known as the Douglas cause in which Boswell took great interest, siding with Archibald Stuart and the Duchess of Douglas. The House of Lords eventually, in 1769, decided in Stuart's favour.
The Duchess was apparently known for her lack of sophistication, but she was shrewd and with outspoken wit, which gained her some reputation. She was remembered as "the last of the nobility to be attended by halberdiers when going about the country[, and w]hen she visited she left her dress behind her as a present."2
Boswell had known the Duchess's nephew Archibald Stuart at least as early as 1762, and when the legal struggle concerning the extensive Douglas estates was at its highest in 1767, he served as a legal advisor to Stuart and even wrote the tale Dorando as a thinly disguised comment on the ongoing legal battle.
On August 16, 1773, the Duchess dined at Boswell's house in honour of Dr Johnson, who was staying there for a few days before the beginning of his and Boswell's tour of Scotland. Also present at the dinner was, in Boswell's own words, "Sir Adolphus Oughton, Lord Chief Baron, Sir William Forbes, Principal Robertson, Mr Cullen, advocate."3
Longtime Keeper of Records at the Parliament House in Edinburgh. He was appointed on October 20, 1746, and continued to hold the office until February 1777, when he resigned on account of his age and infirmities.
Boswell took Dr Johnson to visit the Records Office at the Lower Parliament House in Edinburgh on August 16, 1773, and there had a discussion with Ker and others, recounted in Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.
Son of James Hay of Cocklaw. Hay was an advocate who in 1806 was raised to the bench as Lord Newton.
Hay was one of Boswell's closest friends for some years until the mid-1770s, when they seem to have fallen out with each other.
Boswell dined with Hay, William Forbes, William Scott and Robert Arbuthnot on August 15, 1773, during Dr Johnson's stay in Edinburgh, before Johnson and Boswell set out on their tour of Scotland and the Hebrides. Hay has, however, the dubious honour of being one of a few people in Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, who is not mentioned by name but merely referred to as "another gentleman". His identity is established by Boswell's notes and journals.
Boswell refers to Hay a couple of times in his journal in 1777, writing that "I was disgusted with the vulgarity of Braxfield and with Hay’s fulsome flattery of him" (January 25, 1777), and "Charles Hay there. Disgusting meanness. Vexed to recollect intimacy with such." (July 12, 1777)
Son of John Hamilton and Margaret Montgomery. Married to Lillias Montgomerie (1743-1827),3 with whom he had several children, including John Hamilton, who succeeded his father as Laird of Sundrum, and Alexander West Hamilton (d. 1837), who inherited the Belleisle estate in Ayr from his uncle Hugh Hamilton of Pinmore (1746-1816).
Boswell introduced Hamilton to Dr Johnson on August 15, 1773, in Edinburgh. He described Hamilton as "my neighbour in the country".
Son of Robert Arbuthnot (1694?-1756), 1st Baronet of Haddo-Rattray, and Mary Petrie (1695?-1756). Married (1759) to Mary Urquhart (1745-1818), with whom he had four children, Robert (1760-1809), Elizabeth (1765-1841)4, George (1772-1843)5 and William (1766-1829).6
Arbuthnot was a merchant in Peterhead, before moving to Edinburgh at some time before 1772, settling as a banker. He was for many years Secretary of the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of the Manufacturers and Fisheries of Scotland, retaining the position until his death in 1803. He was succeeded in this position by his son William.
He was possessed of a genial and attractive disposition, and he counted among his friends the poet and philosopher James Beattie, as well as Sir Robert Murray Keith, British Ambassador in Vienna.7
Boswell presented Arbuthnot to Dr Johnson in Edinburgh on August 15, 1773, a few days before Johnson and Boswell set out on their tour of Scotland and the Hebrides. Boswell wrote of him, in Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, that he was "a relation of the celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot, and a man of literature and taste. To him we were obliged for a previous recommendation which secured us a very agreeable reception at St. Andrews, and which Dr. Johnson in his Journey8 ascribes to "some invisible friend"."
Robert Ord was a British lawyer and politician, who succeeded to the high office of Chief Baron of the Scottish Exchequer (1755-1775).
Ord was the son of John Ord, attorney and sometime Under-Sheriff of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and his second wife, Anne Hutchinson. He studied Law at Lincoln's Inn, qualifying as an advocate in 1724.
From 1734 to 1741 he served as Member of Parliament for Mitchell in Cornwall, and from 1741 to 1755 for Morpeth in Northumberland. He was Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1742–43), and Deputy Cofferer of the Household (1743–44) before, in 1755, he was appointed Chief Baron of the Scottish Exchequer, a position he kept until a few years before his death.
Ord married Mary, a daughter of Sir John Darnell, kt., with whom he had at least two children, Elizabeth9 and John (1729-1814)10
Boswell went with William Forbes, William Scott and Dr. Johnson to a sermon in the English chapel in Edinburgh on August 15, 1773. Following the sermon, Boswell "obtained promise from Lord Chief Baron Ord that he would dine at my house next day. I presented Mr. Johnson to his lordship, who politely said to him, "I have not the honour of knowing you, but I hope for it and to see you at my house. I am to wait on you tomorrow."
Boswell further noted, in his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, that "This respectable English judge will be long remembered in Scotland, where he built an elegant house and lived in it magnificently. His own ample fortune, with the addition of his salary, enabled him to be splendidly hospitable. [...] Lord Chief Baron Ord was on good terms with us all, in a country filled with jarring interests and keen parties; and, though I well knew his opinion to be the same with my own, he kept himself aloof at a very critical period indeed, when the Douglas Cause shook the sacred security of birthright in Scotland to its foundation."
Long-time reverend of the English Episcopal Chapel in Edinburgh.
Carr was born in Newcastle and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge. In 1726 he was appointed under-usher of the Royal Grammar School in St. Mary's Hospital in Newcastle, before, in 1737, moving to Edinburgh to become Senior Clergyman of the Episcopal Chapel in Edinburgh, a position which he kept until his death in 1776.
Following his death, his sermons were published in numerous editions by Sir William Forbes and others.
Boswell, William Forbes and William Scott accompanied Dr Johnson to the English chapel in Edinburgh on August 15, 1773, to hear a sermon by Rev. Carr. Boswell, in Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, lamented that "Johnson did not attend to the sermon, Mr. Carr's low voice not being strong enough to reach his hearing". He further noted, however, that Carr's sermons had "since his death, been published by Sir William Forbes, and the world has acknowledged their uncommon merit."
Various editions of Carr's sermons are available online on Google Books. Like many other similar works from the 18th century, they are, however, much more difficult to find in their original printed editions. It is sometimes possible to find 1st or 2nd editions via the AbeBooks used books search engine by searing for author "carr" and title "sermons", but beware of print-on-demand books.
Daughter of James Boswell (1740-1795) and Margaret Montgomerie (1738-1789).
Veronica died just four months after her father at the age of just 22.
When Dr Johnson arrived to see Boswell in Edinburgh at the beginning of their tour together through Scotland in August 1773, Veronica was Boswell's only living child, although just four months old. In Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides Boswell described how "Mr. Johnson was pleased with my daughter Veronica, [who] had the appearance of listening to him. His motions seemed to her to be intended for her amusement, and when he stopped, she fluttered and made a little infantine noise, and a kind of signal for him to begin again. She would be held close to him, which was a proof from simple nature that his figure was not horrid. Her fondness for him endeared her still more to me, and I declared she should have five hundred pounds of additional fortune."
For more than a century, it was thought that Boswell did not eventually follow through with his promise to grant his daughter an additional fortune. However, in 1937, a document was discovered by Colonel Isham, drawn up by Boswell on March 3, 1795, reading in part:
I, James Boswell, Esquire, of Auchinleck in the Country of Ayr, from the love which I have for my daughter Veronica Boswell, and also in consideration of myu having said that I would give her five hundred pounds of additional fortune when I was pleased with her infantine attention to my illustrious friend Doctor Samuel Johnson when he was in Scotland, do give and grant to her ... five hundred pounds sterling lawful money of Great Britain.11
Sadly, Veronica died before the grant was paid, and her funeral bills were charged against the bequest. The remainder was divided among her brothers, Alexander and James, and sister, Euphemia.
