Edinburghshire (Midlothian)

<p>In 1715 John Baird, a government supporter and a ‘creature’ of Sir David Dalrymple, the lord advocate, was returned unopposed, George Lockhart of Carnwarth, the previous Tory Member, not standing as he knew that the sheriff appointed by the Crown would return a Whig in any case. In 1722 Lockhart assured Dundas, Dalrymple’s successor, that if he would preserve the estates of some Jacobites from being forfeited ‘I would take care so as to manage matters that he should be elected for this shire in opposition to Mr. Baird’.<a class='fnlink' id='t1' href='#fn1'>1<span><em>Lockhart Pprs.</em> ii. 82, 89.</span></a> Dundas, who was successful, thereafter built up a personal interest which gave him the ‘entire command’ of the county.<a class='fnlink' id='t2' href='#fn2'>2<span>Ramsay of Ochtertyre, <em>Scotland and Scotsmen in 18th Cent.</em> 72.</span></a> When he was raised to the bench in 1737, the freeholders followed his recommendation by returning Sir Charles Gilmour. On Gilmour’s death, Robert Balfour Ramsay was brought in to keep the seat warm for Dundas’s son, Robert, who succeeded to it in 1754.</p>