Dundas, Henry

1742-1811

The soubriquets 'uncrowned king of Scotland' and 'Harry the ninth' were applied to the man whose political power was unrivalled in Scotland during his ascendancy.
Henry Dundas received his education at Edinburgh High School and University and was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates 1763. He served as MP for Midlothian from 1774-9 and for Edinburgh from 1790-1802. During his highly successful political career he served in the Cabinet as Home Secretary 1791-4 and as Secretary of War 1794-1801 during the early phases of the Napoleonic wars. He was also involved in Imperial affairs. He was a proponent of harsh punishment for the rebellious colonists in the Americas and, with the Prime Minister, William Pitt, brought the East India Company under the supervision of Parliament in 1783. It was principally due to his patronage that so many of his countrymen gained employment in the British territories of the Indian subcontinent.

Dundas was charged to keep Scotland quiet under his system of political 'management'. This involved providing patronage and other incentives to prominent political figures in order to maintain equilibrium. It is testament to the perception of the extent of Dundas' control that, during the outbursts of political and social unrest in Scotland due to the outbreak of the revolution in France, it was effigies of Dundas and not the king that were burnt.

As Treasurer of the Navy, then First Lord of the Admiralty, Dundas had secured an extremely strong position in public life and in 1802 he was created 1st Viscount Melville. However, his political opponents had him impeached in 1806 for mismanagement of naval funds. He was acquitted but did not re-enter politics.

He is commemorated by the 41 metre high Melville Monument, designed by William Burn in 1823, in St Andrews Square in the city of his birth. The advice of the lighthouse engineer Robert Stevenson was sought for the building of its foundation.

Further reading:
Fry, Michael, The Dundas Despotism, (Edinburgh, 1992)
Furber, Holden, Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, 1742-1811: political manager of Scotland, statesman, administrator of British India, (Oxford, 1931)
Ingram, Edward, (ed.), Two views of British India the private correspondence of Mr Dundas and Lord Wellesley, 1798-1801, (Bath, 1970)
Matheson, Cyril, The Life of Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, 1742-1811, (London, 1933)
Murdoch, Alexander, 'The people above' politics and administration in mid-eighteenth-century Scotland, (Edinburgh, 1980)

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