Henry Dundas, the First Viscount Melville: why and how should Scotland remember him?
It is remarkable how history has largely forgotten about Henry Dundas, the First Viscount Melville.
After all, the New Town area of Edinburgh is dominated by his statue, raised up 140 feet high on a column in the middle of St Andrews Square. And there are three streets in that same area named in honour of him and his family (Dundas Street, Melville Street, and Melville Crescent).
Dundas was a major political figure of his time, in the late eighteenth century. He was a close friend and ally of William Pitt the younger, and they were in government together through the British loss of the American colonies, the growth of the new empire in Asia, and the Napoleonic wars.
So why should we remember him? Perhaps we should just allow his memory to disappear into the obscurity of history.
He was man who came from a background of privilege. During his lifetime he exercised considerable power — in both his private and public life — and not always for the benefit of others. In the last part of his life he was involved in a public scandal that could have led to his imprisonment.
But he was also very much of his age, and his life tells us a lot of about the world that he lived in. Remembering Dundas helps us to understand a little bit more about how modern Scotland and Britain was shaped at a very significant time in its history. And Dundas’ life is a reminder of the many skeletons hidden within British history — in particular, the ambivalent legacy of Britain’s shameful history of slave trading.
So here are 11 reasons why Scotland should remember Henry Dundas:
- Dundas was a dominant figure in late eighteenth century politics in both Scotland and the United Kingdom
Henry Dundas was a very powerful political figure during the 1790s and in the first few years of the nineteenth century. This was a time when Britain’s international power was transformed and then consolidated. Britain had recently ‘lost’ the Thirteen Colonies that had declared independence in 1776 as the United States and the Independence War finally ended with British withdrawal in 1783.
So this was a time when Britain turned its attention to the building of a new empire in Asia, particularly in India. Dundas held office as Home Secretary, War Secretary, chief secretary for India, and eventually the First Lord of the Admiralty. He was for nearly two decades a very close adviser and ally to the Prime Minister, William Pitt.
He was therefore involved in many political decisions of great historical consequence, including the expansion of British interests in India, the reconstruction of the navy that enabled Nelson to win Trafalgar, and the incorporation of Ireland into the United Kingdom.
His role was always one of a practical political fixer, rather than an ideologue. Dundas himself believed that Pitt could not have governed in the way he did without Dundas’ own ability to deliver the votes and the support, in the house of commons and further afield.
He was a man of privilege, but not considerable wealth — indeed he was successful in losing a lot of money during his lifetime, as his impeachment was based on his inability to prevent those who worked for him considerably mispending public money. In many respects he was similar to the figure of Frank Underwood in the TV drama House of Cards — that is, the pursuit of power was of far more interest to him than the pursuit of money. Unlike Underwood, however, he did not seek the highest office, he was more content with wielding the significant (whilst largely absolute) power that came with being the lieutenant to Pitt.
His relationship with Pitt was in fact notorious — they were very regular drinking buddies. One story goes that they had both consumed rather a lot of wine one evening when they were called back into the house of commons. Pitt found difficulties, saying to his friend Dundas that he could not see the speaker. Dundas replied that he had no such problem seeing the speaker, in fact he could see two of him.
Dundas was not a member of any political party, and indeed he was known to change allegiance across party lines to further his political career. But due to his close relationship with Pitt, and the length of their partnership, he had an important role in the establishment of the Tory political tradition.
2. Having such a dominant role, there are numerous figures of his era, such as Walter Scott and Robert Burns, who have commented on him
It is quite surprising Dundas has become so forgotten. Having the position and influence that he had, we have on record many comments from influential figures of his time. Sir Walter Scott was a close friend of Dundas’ son, Robert (who became the 2nd Viscount of Melville, and is also honoured with a statue in Melville Street in the western part of the New Town).
Following the news of Dundas’ death in 1811, Walter Scott described ‘Lord Melville’s noble intellect’ as having a ‘brilliant acuteness’ and said that
‘it shall be my prayer to God that, in my very subordinate walk, I shall never be found altogether [unworthy] of the regard with which Lord Melville honoured me’
Dundas supported and engaged with Adam Smith, being one of the first to read his book The Wealth of Nations, and introducing it to William Pitt.
Robert Burns in his poem titled Ballad on the American War on British politics named Dundas, describing him as: ‘damned auldfarran’ (old fashioned and behind the times) and ‘slee Dundas’ (crafty)
The writer James Boswell, who knew Dundas from their days together at the University of Edinburgh, described him (half jokingly) as a ‘coarse, unfettered, unfanciful dog’.
William Wilberforce once said that ‘Dundas was a loose man’ which made him consider Pitt’s relationship with Dundas ‘unfortunate’. However, he also remarked that although people often ‘thought him a mean, intriguing creature… he was in many respects a fine warm-hearted fellow’.
William Pitt wrote in 1794 that he considered every act of Dundas as ‘being as much mine as his’.
3. He was the last peer of the realm to have been impeached — although he was acquitted of the charges against him
This came about due to financial irregularities during his time as Treasurer of the Admiralty, in particular some clearly dodgy transactions made by Alexander Trotter, involving transferring sums amounting to £15 million pounds from the treasury to his own accounts. It was never clear the extent to which Dundas was aware or not of what Trotter was doing, since Dundas himself refused to speak in his own defence at the impeachment proceedings. The impeachment was heard in 1806, with his chief critic being Samuel Whitbread, the son of the founder of the English brewing company.
Dundas’ acquittal from the impeachment did not completely exonerate him, and he retired from much of public life after it had been completed.
4. He inherited his wealth and estate from his wife who he later divorce and disinherited, preventing her from ever seeing her children again
Dundas married his first wife, Elizabeth Rannie, in 1765. Through the marriage, Dundas took ownership of Elizabeth’s considerable family wealth — including the estates of Melville Castle near Dalkeith (south of Edinburgh) and around £10,000. He did not have any real personal income of his own, and so much of what he came to rely on (in both land and money) came from this marriage.
Dundas’ life took him more and more away from home, particularly after his move to London — since Elizabeth remained on their Scottish estate at Dunira near Crieff. When she had an affair with a man called Captain Faukener in 1778, Dundas’ response was to divorce her immediately.
Thanks to the divorce laws of the time, their divorce was resolved fully in favour of Dundas, as the husband. As a result of this, Dundas kept her family wealth and property, and Elizabeth was estranged from her four children, who she never saw again, even after Dundas’ death (she lived to the age of 97, dying in 1847). The one consolation from this story is that Elizabeth went on to marry Faukener after her divorce.
These were harsh times for women at all levels of society, as exemplified by Dundas’ behaviour towards Elizabeth.
5. He succeeded in diluting William Wilberforce’s bill for the abolition of the slave trade in 1792, which in effect delayed this for 15 years
By the 1790s there was a considerable political movement in London for the abolition of both the transatlantic slave trade and slavery itself (particularly the enslavement of Africans in north America). This was led by the reformer William Wilberforce, who introduced a bill in 1792 seeking to abolish the slave trade, that is the shipping by the British of people taken from Africa across the Atlantic.
Dundas had considerable political power and leverage in Parliament, and so was in a pivotal position when it came to the passing of the bill.
At the time, Dundas’ intervention in this respect was considered to be favourable to the bill — that is, he managed to mobilise enough support within parliament for the bill to be passed and for a decision to bring an end to the slave trade. This was a considerable achievement in itself, and it is hard to know if it would have passed without Dundas.
But Dundas’ role in this respect was more complicated, since the price he extracted from the passing of the bill was to add a slight amendment to it that in fact delayed the ending of the Atlantic slave trade by as much as 15 years.
Dundas did not directly oppose the Bill. Instead, he was politically astute enough to propose support for the bill with a seemingly agreeable amendment. He cannily inserted a simple word into the bill, which gained it enough votes to be passed into law. That is, the abolition of slave trading (not the owning and abuse of slaves) in British jurisdiction would occur, but by Dundas’ efforts this would occur ‘gradually’.
This was a delaying mechanism, that we can only think in hindsight was an attempt to prevent the inevitable occurring at some point.
What it meant in practice was that full abolition of the trading of slaves did not happen until 1807, 15 years after Dundas put in his amendment. That is, by promoting the ‘gradual’ abolition, Dundas allowed the trading (and kidnapping) of slaves to continue for a full fifteen years.
A rough quantification of Dundas’ amendment suggests that because the abolition did not happen until 1807, around half a million people were kidnapped from western Africa and taken across the Atlantic to the West Indies and America by the British. Estimates put the slave trading by the British at that time at somewhere between 10–15,000 people per year, which during the period between the 1792 and 1807 Acts amounts to between 450–600,000 men, women, and children kidnapped, shipped, and enslaved.
6. In contrast, as an advocate in Edinburgh he successfully represented a former slave (Joseph Knight), and won for him the legal right to live in freedom in Scotland
At an earlier stage in his life, in 1777, while practising as an advocate in Edinburgh before moving to London, Dundas was the legal representative in an unusual case. This involved a former slave, called Joseph Knight, who had been brought from Jamaica to Scotland by his owner James Wedderburn. The story of Joseph Knight formed the basis of the recent (2004) book by James Robertson.
Knight had run away from Wedderburn, and when he had been found he filed a claim which ended at the Court of Session to protect him from becoming re-enslaved — claiming either freedom or wages for his service.
Dundas’ representation was assisted by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, and the case was heard by the writer Henry Home, Lord Kames.
The decision given by Lord Kames was in favour of Joseph Knight, stating that:
‘the dominion assumed over this Negro, under the law of Jamaica, being unjust, could not be supported in this country to any extent: That, therefore, the defender [Wedderburn] had no right to the Negro’s service for any space of time, nor to send him out of the country against his consent.’
This decision effectively underlined the lack of basis in Scots law for either slavery or ‘perpetual service’. That is, although slavery might be considered legal in Jamaica it was not in Scotland.
7. In office he had a strong impact on the development of the United Kingdom, both in strengthening the union between Scotland and England and also in incorporating Ireland into the UK
Dundas’ political career began in the shadow of the Jacobite uprisings of 1715 and 1745, which had both caused considerable strain on the newly created union of the United Kingdom (from 1707). British rule had been forced on Scotland in the wake of the 1745 rebellion, and in the 1770s there were still few Scots in London and even less holding any influence.
Despite this, Dundas refused to become anglicised when he moved to London, and kept his strong accent throughout his political career.
He also became well known for his patronage of Scots in his appointments, particularly with respect to the building up of British influence in India.
As Lord Rosebery once put it, he ‘Scotticised India, and Orientalised Scotland’.
And as Dundas’ biographer Furber commented,
‘there was scarcely a gentleman’s family in Scotland, of whatever politics, that had not at some time received some Indian appointment or some act of kindness from Dundas.’
In 1821, years after the death of Dundas, Walter Scott described the Board of Control (of India) as ‘the Corn Chest for Scotland, where we poor gentry must send our younger sons, as we send our black cattle to the South.’
One very significant part of Dundas’ power base (and hence the power of the Pitt government he was part of for so many years) was his dominance of Scottish politics. He had an extraordinary ability to manage the connections and levers of patronage in the political system of Scotland, and thus the members of parliament who were elected to Westminster.
Dundas became known as the ‘political manager of Scotland’, or otherwise as the ‘Grand Manager of Scotland’, or even the ‘uncrowned king of Scotland’, Harry the Ninth.
His position in London was well recognised in Scotland, to the extent that when riots occurred across the country in 1792, it was effigies of Dundas that were burnt in Perth and Edinburgh, and not of the Prime Minister Pitt.
When Dundas left public office in the 1800s, there is no doubt that not only the state of Britain as a whole, and the union of England and Scotland were much more secure than they had been at the time that he had become involved with national politics. This is not to say that Scotland had in itself benefitted from Dundas’ leading position, but certainly much of the nobility of Scotland had been given new opportunities to prosper and succeed in the new ventures of empire that came about in the wake of the loss of the American colonies and the opening up of new colonies and influence in Asia.
Alongside this, Dundas also oversaw the union of Ireland into the United Kingdom in 1800. Unlike the mainstream viewpoint, Dundas sought to implement the inclusion of Irish Catholics within the newly established polity, which made him unpopular for a while in both London and Scotland. He was not successful in this respect, particularly due to opposition by King George III, and so the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had embedded within it the marginalisation of the majority of the Irish population.
8. Whilst in office he oversaw the challenges of the French Revolution and the rise in Europe of an expanding France under Emperor Napoleon
The two decades in which he was at the centre of government were a time of major transformation in Europe. It was a time when the industrial revolution began, with significant population shifts and changes in the way in which labour was organised.
It also saw in 1789 the French Revolution, which caused significant fears in the UK of similar threats to the establishment, aristocracy, and monarchy. As Home Secretary, Dundas held a substantial responsibility to forestall the movement towards revolution, and to put down public demonstrations that support the French Revolution.
In the aftermath of the revolution, France saw the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, and his expansion across Europe. This brought the UK directly into war with France for much of two decades, as the two vied for ultimate dominance of Europe and the colonies of Asia.
Dundas had an active role in the management of this war, as War Secretary from 1794 to 1801 often quite unsuccessfully — and he developed a historical reputation for making poor military decisions.
However, Dundas did recognise the importance to British interests of the control of Egypt — before Napoleon launched his invasion — as well as the need to control the African coast, particularly Cape Town, to maintain British interests in India.
In 1804, on becoming First Lord of the Admiralty, Dundas made radical changes to the structures and policies of the navy that led to the building of 168 new ships in the space of a single year — which enabled Nelson to win the battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
9. He had a profound impact on the development of the ‘Second British Empire’ in Asia, including India, Malaya (the Straits of Malacca), and Australia
Following the independence of the US, Dundas largely led the British development of its interests in India. He immersed himself in the detail of the administration of India, which was something no other political figure of his time took the trouble to do. This made his insight the one that largely commanded the British political development of India as a new imperial project to replace what it had lost to the United States.
Dundas’s vision was one in which there was less emphasis on colonisation and settlement, which he saw as the main problem in America — since the settlers had learnt to see themselves as something other than British.
Instead, he saw the colonial project in India as one of economic exploitation for the sake of British interests — hence the relatively low levels of British settlement and the use of local labour and resources as required.
Dundas also oversaw British control over the important Straits of Malacca which led to China and the spice islands — through the acquisition of Prince Edward Island (now Penang), which was the precursor of Singapore.
Furthermore, he also oversaw British overseas interests during the time of the initial settlement of Australia, particularly the development of new colonies that included the penal colony of Botany Bay.
10. By overseeing the takeover of South Africa in 1795, Dundas established the British rule in the region that eventually became the apartheid system of the twentieth century
In his passion for British expansion in India and other parts of Asia, Dundas also strongly advocated the importance of British interests in the area of South Africa, particularly of Cape Town. He saw this as a vital strategic link in the development of the Asian empire. He oversaw the British takeover of Cape Town from the Dutch in 1795, and he ensured that it remained under British control after it was taken back from the French in 1806.
Indeed he called it his ‘favourite child’.
In effect, the political entity that became twentieth century South Africa was largely established under Dundas’ oversight. Although for years British rule gave franchise to black African voters, British rule also brought with it the colonial ideas of (what was considered) scientific racial difference.
Thus it was under British rule in the nineteenth century that the racist establishment was built up that became formalised as apartheid when South Africa took independence in the early twentieth century.
In many respects we can say if there had been no Dundas then there would not have been the need for Nelson Mandela.
11. He coined the word ‘starvation’ much to the amusement of his classically educated contemporaries in parliament
Dundas is even credited with inventing the word ‘starvation’, when he used the neologism in a speech on the American war of independence in 1775, much to the amusement of the Latin classicists.
Indeed for a number of years, the term ‘starvation’ was regularly used by his political opponents to taunt him — he gained the nickname ‘starvation Dundas’.
He refused to modify his Scots accent for the London political village, dominated by English. Apart from his obvious love of politics he refused to take up too many English ways — except for developing a strong taste for English beer.
Conclusion
There are indeed many reasons to dislike Dundas.
In particular, he left Scotland a mixed legacy often known as ‘Dundas Despotism’, due to his skilled political management of the system. In many respects, he built a power base on manipulation but also had the effect of paving the way for the later reforms.
His fingerprints are all over the development of what became the British colonialism of the nineteenth century.
But the things he did, and the role that he had, are also reasons to remember him, rather than to forget him.
He was an extremely influential figure in British politics during his time, and we should remember such figures for what they have done, and for the impact they have had on our history, for better or worse.
We do not need to glorify them, nor should we judge them too much according to the values of our own age rather than the one they lived in.
In retrospect, it is clear that the ending of the horrific practice of slavery was a necessity during the time of Dundas, and we can either celebrate the fact that he supported the legislation to do so — or condemn him for allowing it to continue for a further 15 years, at the cost primarily of the people who were shipped from Africa to America during that time.
It is questionable whether there is need for the 140 feet high column in St Andrews Square to bring this figure to our attention. But the column is there, and it is a long-standing part of the skyline of Edinburgh.
Perhaps a companion memorial should be added to it, to help us also remember the millions of Africans whose lives were destroyed by the inhumanity of the slave trade. Although slavery was distant from Scotland, in the Caribbean, it impacted in many ways on Scotland — as shown by the ambiguity of Dundas’ own life in this respect.
(This was first published in There Shall be an Independent Scotland, 2015)
A spoken/podcast version of this can be found at http://malorynye.com/nye-008-henry-dundas/
Malory Nye is an academic and writer who teaches at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. He can be found on Twitter (@malorynye) and on his website, malorynye.com.
He produces two podcasts: Religion Bites and History’s Ink.
Malory Nye is also the author of the books Religion the Basics (2008) and There Shall be an Independent Scotland (2015).
