Family and Education

b. c.1688, 1st s. of Archibald Douglas of Cavers. unm. suc. fa. 1741.

Offices Held

Keeper of register of hornings 1728-d.; hereditary sheriff, Roxburghshire 1741-2.

Biography

William Douglas was returned for his county in 1715 on his father’s interest, voting with the Government in all recorded divisions, including that on Lord Cadogan, 4 June 1717.1 In 1722 he transferred to Dumfries Burghs on the Queensberry-Annandale interest, defeating the sitting Member, Alexander Fergusson. For the 1727 election he vacated his seat in favour of his father, moving back to the county. In this Parliament he voted, unlike his father, against the Hessians in 1730 but was absent from other recorded divisions. He did not stand in 1734 or 1741 but after his father’s death he resigned the hereditary sheriffdom in favour of his younger brother Alexander,2 so that he could stand again for the county at a by-election in 1742. One of the group of Scotch Members known as the Duke of Argyll’s gang,3 he voted with the Opposition in all three divisions on the Hanoverians. He died January 1748.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: J. M. Simpson

Notes

• 1. More Culloden Pprs. ii. 173.
• 2. HMC 7th Rep. 732.
• 3. John Drummond to Ld. Morton, 2 and 4 Dec. 1742, Morton mss, SRO.