James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton

James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton, KT, PRS (1702 – 12 October 1768) was a Scottish astronomer and representative peer who was President of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh from its foundation in 1737 until his death. He also became President of the Royal Society (24 March 1764), and was a distinguished patron of science, and particularly of astronomy.

James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton, portrait with his family by Jeremiah Davison, 1740

He was born in Edinburgh as the son of George Douglas, 13th Earl of Morton and his second wife Frances Adderley. He graduated MA from King's College, Cambridge in 1722. In 1746 he visited France, and was imprisoned in the Bastille, probably as a Jacobite. He had a long lasting tendency to protest the actions of the British government.

Family

He was twice married: first to Agatha, daughter of James Halyburton of Pitcur, Forfarshire, by whom he was the father of three sons, two of whom died young, while the second, Sholto Douglas, 15th Earl of Morton, succeeded him; and secondly to Bridget, daughter of Sir John Heathcote, Bt., of Normanton, who bore him a son and daughter, and who outlived him thirty-seven years.

Legacy

Moreton Bay in Queensland, Australia was named after Lord Morton by Lieutenant James Cook (the spelling being an error in the published account of Cook's voyage in HMS Endeavour). Lord Morton had been influential in obtaining a grant of £4,000 to finance the voyage. Cook had been instructed by the earl to regard the native populations of the places he might visit as "human creatures, the work of the same omnipotent Author, equally under his care with the most polished European ... No European nation has the right to occupy any part of their country ... without their voluntary consent“.