FRASER, Archibald Campbell (1736-1815), of Lovat, Inverness.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790, ed. L. Namier, J. Brooke., 1964
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

28 Mar. 1782 - 1784

Family and Education

b. 16 Aug. 1736, 3rd s. of Simon, 11th Lord Lovat [S], by his 2nd w. Primrose, da. of Hon. John Campbell, M.P., of Mamore, and sis. of John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll; half-bro. of Simon Fraser. educ. under the parish minister of Petty, Inverness 1745-6; Glasgow Univ. 1750-2; acad. in London 1753. m. 1763, Jane, da. of William Fraser of Leadclune, Inverness, 5s. (all d.v.p). suc. half-bro. Simon 8 Feb. 1782.

Offices Held

Consul at Tripoli 1764-6, Algiers 1767-76.

Biography

Fraser, after his father’s execution in 1747, was educated by his mother, who sent him to Glasgow, ‘a place of known loyalty’.1 He was granted an award of some £55 p.a. from the forfeited Lovat estates for his maintenance. Subsequently he became a merchant.

On his half-brother’s death in 1782 he succeeded to the restored Lovat estates, which had been vested in trustees until all debts should be paid off. Fraser resented this ‘injustice’, which reduced his electoral interest and gave the trustees ‘more to say with their name than the present lord’.2 However, he was returned unopposed for Inverness-shire.

During his two years in the House some ten speeches by Fraser are reported, mainly on economic and Scottish affairs. In his maiden speech, on 17 June 1782, he seconded Lord Graham’s motion to repeal the Act prohibiting Highland dress, as a ‘kindness’ likely to discourage emigration.3 ‘Every effort is laudable’, he wrote on 1 July, ‘whose motives have a tendency to divert transatlantic notions.’4 He voted against Shelburne’s peace preliminaries, 18 Feb. 1783, and spoke and voted for Fox’s East India bill, 27 Nov. 1783.

Robinson in December 1783 classed Fraser as an opponent of Pitt’s Administration, but in January 1784 as a supporter. Fraser belonged to the St. Alban’s Tavern group which tried to unite Pitt and Fox, and in the House on 12 Jan. declared that ‘he was not pledged to vote on either side’ but ‘would defend the constitution and the present royal family of Hanover with his life’.5 In Stockdale’s list of 19 Mar. he was noted as absent.

He did not stand in 1784 but gave his interest to Lord William Gordon.

He died 8 Dec. 1815.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Edith Lady Haden-Guest

Notes

  • 1. Forfeited Estates Pprs. (Sc. Hist. Soc.), 32-34, 46.
  • 2. C. Fraser Mackintosh Antiquarian Notes (ser. 2) 8; Adam, Pol. State of Scotland 1788, p. 173.
  • 3. Debrett, vii. 235-7.
  • 4. C. F. Mackintosh, Letters of Two Centuries, 344.
  • 5. Debrett, xii. 522.