James Wedderburn-Colville

James Wedderburn-Colville (1739-1807) was born James Wedderburn, the second son of Sir John Wedderburn, 5th Baronet of Blackness, an impoverished Perthshire gentleman who was executed following the Jacobite rising of 1745. Following his father's death, James travelled to Jamaica where, like his brother John Wedderburn, he made a fortune in the sugar trade. In 1773, he returned to Scotland where he married the heiress Isabella Blackburn in 1774, and purchased a country seat at Inveresk Lodge; raising a family of six children. In his later years, Wedderburn lived the life of a country gentleman (adding the extra name Colvile for reasons of inheritance) until his death in 1807.

Biography

Early life James Wedderburn was born on 28 August 1739 in Perthshire, Scotland, the second surviving son of Jean Fullerton and Sir John Wedderburn, 5th Baronet of Blackness, a Colonel in the Jacobite rising of 1745 who was captured, taken to London and executed for treason. Following this catastrophe, James and his older brother John Wedderburn travelled to Jamaica in 1747, where both brothers established themselves as "practitioners in physick and chirurgery" - despite having no medical qualifications.

Return to Scotland James Wedderburn returned to Scotland in 1773; he married Isabella Blackburn in 1774 and bought Inveresk Lodge, Midlothian, where he lived in comfort until his death in 1807. Isabella Blackburn was the daughter of Andrew Blackburn and the Honourable Margaret Aytoun and, when she inherited the property of Craigflower in Fife, she and James Wedderburn adopted the additional surname Colvile.

Family James and Isabella had four sons and two daughters