STEWART, Hon. John (c.1709-96), of Pittendriech, Edinburgh.

John Stewart, who had long family connections with Fife and Elgin, stood against Ilay’s candidates for Elginshire and Anstruther Easter Burghs in 1741. Successful for the latter, presumably because of the unpopularity in Scotland of the sitting Member, Philip Anstruther, a government supporter, he voted against Walpole’s nominee for the chairman of the elections committee in December 1741. One of the group of Scotch Members known as the Duke of Argyll’s gang,4John Drummond to Ld. Morton, 2 and 11 Dec. 1742, Morton mss, SRO. he voted against the Hanoverians in 1742 and 1744. Receiving a commission in a newly raised Highland regiment in 1745, he was taken prisoner at Prestonpans, 21 Sept., but was forcibly released in January 1746, when he rejoined his regiment.5Origins of the Forty-five (Sc. Hist. Soc. ser. 2. ii), 363-4; More Culloden Pprs. v. 30. He was absent from the division on the Hanoverians in the following April, when he was claimed by the Administration as a ‘New Ally’. Removed in May 1747 ‘from Lord Loudoun’s regiment for his behaviour this winter, which indeed has been very imprudent’, he was appointed two months afterwards lieutenant-colonel of a new regiment which Lord Drumlanrig was raising in Scotland for the Dutch.6HMC Polwarth, v. 245. He did not stand again for Parliament but remained for many years in the service of the States-General, before returning to Scotland where he died 13 Aug. 1796.