Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.
Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty
March 14 1771 to June 10 1851
Dundas was born in Edinburg, the only son of Henry Dundas, the 1st Viscount Melville. He was educated there at the Royal High School and in 1786 went on a tour of the continent. He enrolled at the Gottingen University and then continued his studies at the Edinburgh University and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in 1788 and then became his father’s private secretary from 1794. He was also bought in as MP for Hastings in 1794 and then Rye in 1796. In 1796 he married the heiress Anne Saunders and took her name also. They had four sons and two daughters.
Dundas was appointed Keeper of the Signet for Scotland and elected MP for Midlothian in 1801. He did not speak in parliament until 1805 and 1806 in defense of his father who was being impeached. He was tested when trying to negotiate being left in charge in Scotland. He failed but he won respect. The Duke of Portland rewarded him with the presidency of the Board of Control for India in 1807.
His main task now was to frustrate Napoleon in his alliance with Russia from doing anything against India. Dundas courted the Shah in Persia against France. He formed alliances with Lahore and Kabul. He took over Portuguese factories in India and China, Java and French Mauritius and Reunion. Dundas also saw to the decline in the finances of the East India Company which was suffering because of the war. Having found that the privileges accorded the Company were inefficient, he wrote legislation that was adopted to change those privileges in the Companies charter.
Dundas was tasked in 1809 as Chief Secretary for Ireland, and then when Spencer Perceval succeeded Portland, he wanted to make Dundas Secretary for War. Dundas’ father did not wish this, and so the son returned to his duties at the Board of Control. The first Viscount died, and Robert became Viscount in May of 1811. In 1812 under Lord Liverpool, Dundas became First Lord of the Admiralty.
During the Napoleonic wars, as First Lord, he was to maintain British Supremacy on the seas. He saw that with France controlling the ports of Holland and Italy in early 1813, that the enemy would soon surpass Britain’s strength should the war continue. The Duke of Wellington noted that he too was having a problem with the convoys that were supplying him, much of that due to American privateers that now were enemies due to the outbreak of hostilities with that nation starting in 1812.
With the Peace between France and the sixth coalition, Britain drastically cut its Navy. But Britain was also now the only true colonial power. It really had increased needs to keep all its possessions across the globe connected. Dundas wanted 100 ships of the line to support this empire, and the cabinet wanted 44. Dundas now looked for every economy so he could maintain a fleet against such a foolish notion by the cabinet. He was successful, some of this due to improving ship design and durability. He however was against the introduction of steamers, believing it an infant technology that would unreliable and expensive. By the late 1820s he was able to see his fleet achieve parity with France and the United States’ new construction spending.
He had a great affinity still for Scotland while serving as First Lord. He was appointed a governor of the Bank of Scotland and elected chancellor of the University of St. Andrews in 1814. He was made a Knight of the Thistle in 1821. When George Canning succeeded Liverpool as Prime Minister, he left office but returned under Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. Again taking the positions he had held before, President of the Board of Control and First Lord of the Admiralty. The Reform act changed matters, and in 1830 he resigned office never to hold it again. His wife died in 1841, and he died ten years later at Melville Castle.
Previous Notables (Click to see the Blog):
There will be many other notables coming, a full and changing list can be found here on the blog as I keep adding to it. The list so far is:
Home Popham
Colonel William Baillie
Sir Ralph Abercromby
Sir Hector Munro
James Kenney
Elizabeth Inchbald
George Colman the Younger
Thomas Morton
John Liston
Tyrone Power
Colonel William Berkeley
Barry Proctor
William Henry West Betty
Sir George Colebrooke
Joseph John Gurney
John Playfair
James Hutton
Robert Emmet
William Taylor of Norwich
Sir William Knighton
Dr. Robert Gooch
John Romilly
Sir John Herschel
John Horne Tooke
James Mill
Edward Hall Alderson
Henry Perronet Briggs
Robert Owen
Jeremy Bentham
Joseph Hume
Sir Walter Scott
Charles Lamb
John Stuart Mill
Thomas Cochrane
James Paull
Claire Clairmont
William Lovett
Sir John Vaughan
Fanny Imlay
William Godwin
Mary Wollstonecraft
General Sir Robert Arbuthnot
Harriet Fane Arbuthnot
Joseph Antonio Emidy
James Edwards (Bookseller)
William Gifford
John Wolcot (Peter Pindar)
Sir Joseph Banks
Richard Porson
Edward Gibbon
James Smithson
William Cowper
Richard Cumberland
Richard Cosway
Jacob Phillipp Hackert
John Thomas Serres
Wellington (the Military man)
Horatio Nelson
William Vincent
Cuthbert Collingwood
Admiral Sir Graham Moore
Admiral Sir William Sydney Smith
Admiral Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville
Howe
Viscount Hood
Thomas Hope
Baroness de Calabrella
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Harriet Martineau
Napoleon Bonaparte
Packenham
Admiral Israel Pellew
General Banastre Tarleton
Henry Paget
Francis Leggatt Chantrey
Sir Charles Grey
Thomas Picton
Constable
Thomas Lawrence
James Northcote
Cruikshank
Thomas Gainsborough
James Gillray
George Stubbs
Joseph Priestley
William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk 9th Duke of St. Albans
Horace Walpole
John Thomas ‘Antiquity’ Smith
Thomas Coutts
Angela Burdett-Coutts
Sir Anthony Carlisle
Rowlandson
William Blake
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Sir Marc Brunel
Marquis of Stafford Granville Leveson-Gower
Marquis of Stafford George Leveson-Gower
George Stephenson
Nicholas Wood
Edward Pease
Thomas Telford
Joseph Locke
Paul III Anton, Prince Esterházy
Thomas Egerton, 2nd Earl of Wilton
John Nash
Matthew Gregory Lewis
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Robert Southey
Thomas Hope
Henry Holland
Sir Walter Scott
Lord Elgin
Henry Moyes
Jeffery Wyatville
Hester Thrale
William Windham
Madame de Stael
Joseph Black
John Walker
James Boswell
Edward John Eliot
Edward James Eliot
Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough
George Combe
William Harrison Ainsworth
Sir Harry Smith
Thomas Cochrane
Warren Hastings
Edmund Burke
William Petty
Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice
Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk
Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond
Juana Maria de Los Dolores de Leon (Lady Smith)
Duke of Argyll, George William Campbell (1766-1839)
Lord Barrymore, Richard Barry (1769-1794)
Lord Bedford, Francis Russell (1765-1802)
Mr. G. Dawson Damer (1788-1856)
Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish (1748-1811)
Colonel George Hanger (c.1751-1824)
Lord Hertford, Francis Seymour-Ingram (1743-1822)
Lord Yarmouth, Francis Charles Seymour-Ingram (1777-1842)
Earl of Jersey, George Bussey Villiers (1735-1805)
Sir John , John Lade (1759-1838)
Duke of Norfolk, Charles Howard (1746-1815)
Duke of York , Frederick Augustus Hanover (1763-1827)
Louis Philippe Joseph, Duc de Chartres, acceded 1785 as Duc d’ Orleans (1747-1793)
Louis Philippe, Duc de Chartres, acceded 1793 as Duc d’ Orleans (1773-1850)
Captain John (Jack) Willett Payne (1752-1803)
Duke of Queensberry, William Douglas (1724-1810)
Duke of Rutland, John Henry Manners(1778-1857)
Lord Sefton, William Philip Molyneux (1772-1838)
Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour (1759-1801)
Sir Lumley St. George Skeffington Baronet (1771 – 1850)
Lord Worcester, Henry Somerset (1766-1835)
Lord Worcester, Henry Somerset (1792-1853)
Hon. Frederick Gerald aka “Poodle” Byng
The Dandy Club
Beau Brummell
William Arden, 2nd Baron Alvanley
Henry Mildmay
Patronesses of Almacks
Emily Lamb, Lady Cowper
Amelia Stewart, Viscountess Castlereagh
Sarah Villiers, Countess of Jersey
Maria Molyneux, Countess of Sefton
Mrs. Drummond Burrell
Dorothea Lieven, Countess de Lieven, wife of the Russian Ambassador
Countess Esterhazy, wife of the Austrian Ambassador
If there are any requests for personalities to be added tot he list, just let us know in the comments section
Leave a comment