James Campbell (British Army officer, died 1745)

James Campbell of Lawers (c1680-1745) (Follower of Jean-Baptiste van Loo)

Lieutenant-General Sir James Campbell KB, of Lawers (c. 1680 – 2 May 1745) was a Scottish officer of the British Army and onetime a Whig Member of the Parliament of Great Britain.^[1]

He was the third and youngest son of James Campbell, 2nd Earl of Loudoun by his wife Margaret, daughter of Hugh Montgomerie, 7th Earl of Eglinton; Hugh Campbell, 3rd Earl of Loudoun was his elder brother.

Campbell was married by contract dated 29 March 1720 to Jean, eldest daughter of David Boyle, 1st Earl of Glasgow by his second wife Jean, daughter and heiress of William Mure of Rowallan. They had two children:

• James, born 11 February 1726, and
• Margaret, born 17 May 1727.

Jean Campbell died on 19 December 1729 and was succeeded in her estate of Rowallan by her son, who assumed the name of Mure. On 27 April 1782 he also succeeded his cousin as fifth Earl of Loudoun.

He was commissioned a Captain in the 21st Regiment of Foot in 1702, then was Lieutenant-Colonel in the 2nd Dragoons (later Royal Scots Greys) in 1706. He served under Marlborough in the War of the Spanish Succession and fought in the Battle of Blenheim. After the war, he was Colonel of the 9th Regiment of Foot 1715-17, and of the 2nd Dragoons (later Royal Scots Greys) from 1717 until his death. In the meantime he was promoted Brigadier-General in 1735, Major-General in 1739, and Lieutenant-General in 1742.^[1]

Campbell was Member of Parliament for Ayrshire from 1727 until defeated at the General Election of 1741. He was made Groom of the Bedchamber to King George II in 1727 and Governor of Edinburgh Castle in 1738, serving in both cases until his death in 1745.^[1]

At the outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession he accompanied the King to Germany in command of the British cavalry and fought at the battles of Dettingen, where he was knighted on the field in the Order of the Bath, and of Fontenoy where he lost a leg. He subsequently died of his wounds on 2 May 1745.^[1]

References

1. History of Parliament Online article by Romney R. Sedgwick.

• Richard Cannon, Historical Records of The Royal Regiment of Scots Dragoons, now The Second Royal North British Dragoons, commonly called the Scots Greys (1840) p. 124.
• Richard Cannon, Historical Record of the Ninth, or the East Norfolk Regiment of Foot (1848) p. 117-118.
• Charles Dalton, English Army Lists and Commission Registers 1661-1714, volume VI (1904) p. 314.
• Francis J. Grant, "Campbell, Earl of Loudoun" in Sir James Balfour Paul ed., The Scots Peerage, volume V (1908) p. 510-511.
• Romney R. Sedgwick, CAMPBELL, Hon. James (c.1680-1745), of Rowallan, Ayr. in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754 (1970).
•  Henry Morse Stephens (1886). "Campbell, James (1667-1745)". In Stephen, Leslie. Dictionary of National Biography. 8. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Henry Morse Stephens, rev. Jonathan Spain, Campbell, Sir James, of Lawers (c.1680–1745) in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004).