General Thomas Graham, 1st Baron Lynedoch, (19 October 174818 December 1843) was a British Army officer and politician. After his education at Oxford, he inherited a substantial estate in Scotland, married and settled down to a quiet career as a landowning gentleman. However, with the death of his wife, when he was aged 42, he immersed himself in military (and later political) career, during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. The historian James Taylor described Graham as "tall, square-shouldered, and erect, his limbs sinewy and remarkably strong. His complexion was dark, with full eyebrows, firm-set lips, and an open, benevolent air. His manners and address were frank, simple, and polished".
Early life and education Thomas Graham was the third and only surviving son of Thomas Græme of Balgowan, in Perthshire and Lady Christian Hope, a daughter of the 1st Earl of Hopetoun and sister to the 2nd Earl of Hopetoun.Balgowen House was on the family estates near Methven He was born in 1748, and was educated at home by the Reverend Fraser, minister of Moneydie, and afterwards by James Macpherson, the collector and translator of Ossian's poems. He went up to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1766, and the following year he inherited the family estate following the death of his father.
On leaving college, he spent several years on the Continent, where he learnt French, German and Spanish. On his return to Scotland he applied himself to the management and improvement of his estate, enclosing his lands, erecting farmhouses and offices, granting leases to his tenants, encouraging them to implement improved methods of husbandry, and to cultivate potatoes and turnips on a large scale, which had hitherto been regarded as garden plants. He also set himself to cultivate improved breeds of horses, cattle, and sheep.
In 1785, he purchased the estate of Lynedoch or Lednock, situated in the valley of the Almond, where he planted trees and oak coppices, and improved the sloping banks bordering the stream. Fond of horses and dogs, and distinguished for his skill in country sports, he rode with the foxhounds, and accompanied the Duke of Atholl—who subsequently became his brother-in-law—in grouse-shooting and deer-stalking on the Atholl moors. He later said that he owed much of that education of the eye with reference to ground and distances, a useful talent for a military man, to his deer-hunting at this period of his life in the Forest of Atholl.
Marriage
In a 1772 by-election, Graham stood as a Whig a candidate for Perth, in opposition to James Murray of Strowan, brother of the Duke of Atholl, but was defeated by a majority of only six votes out of 100. He remained active in the political field but withdrew shortly before the general election of 1774, having become engaged to the Honorable Mary Cathcart, second daughter of the 9th Lord Cathcart and Jane Hamilton, Mary's sister was betrothed to the 3rd Duke of Atholl's son and heir.
In 1774, Graham married Mary Cathcart and on the same day her elder sister Jane became Duchess of Atholl. "Jane," wrote 9th Lord Cathcart, "has married, to please herself, John, Duke of Atholl, a peer of the realm; Mary has married Thomas Graham of Balgowan, the man of her heart, and a peer among princes." A solicitous husband, when his wife discovered on the morning of an Edinburgh ball that she had left her jewel-box at Balgowan, Graham rode the to and from Balgowan using relays of horses to ensure that his wife would have her jewellery at the ball.
Her portrait by Thomas Gainsborough was highly acclaimed when exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1777. The painting Portrait of Mrs Mary Graham was covered over by Graham after her death. The painting now hangs in the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.National Galleries. Accessed 7 January 2023.
Graham spent the next eighteen years as a quiet country gentleman, spending his time on riding and sports, studying the classics and making occasional visits to London and Edinburgh. When he was driving to a party with his wife and her sister Duchess of Atholl, his carriage was stopped in Park Lane, London by a highwayman demanding money, jewels, and watches at gunpoint, while two accomplices seized the horses' heads, Graham, who was on the opposite side of the carriage, leapt across the ladies to the carriage-door, and collaring the assailant, threw him to the ground. Then, drawing his sword, which at the time formed part of a dress suit, he threatened to run the man through if his associates, who were holding the horses' heads, attempted to come to his assistance. They immediately fled, and the prostrate highwayman was arrested.
Death of his wife
Mary Graham's health began to decline, and in the spring of 1792, on the recommendation of her medical adviser, she went to the south of France with her husband and sister. However, during the voyage she died off the coast near Hyères, in the south of France, on 26June 1792. Her grieving husband hired a barge to take the casket ashore. However, on his way to Bordeaux French Revolutionary militia desecrated the casket and the body of his wife looking for contraband and valuables. Eventually Graham returned to Scotland where he interred her remains in a mausoleum he had specially built in the churchyard at Methven, Perth and Kinross. Graham would be laid to rest in the same tomb fifty years later.
Mary Graham is commemorated in a four-part Scottish fiddle tune composed in her honor, entitled "The Honourable Mrs. Graham of Balgowan."
The loss of his wife preyed deeply upon Graham's mind, and first he set out for twelve months of foreign travel. However, still overwhelmed by great sorrow, and now in his forty-third year, he tried to drown the thought of his loss by adopting a military career. Before the incident with Mary's coffin near Toulouse, Graham had sympathised with the French and their revolutionary ideals but from that point on he detested them and saw his military career as a way to take revenge.
Sir Walter Scott, in his The Vision of Don Roderick, refers to the romantic motive which led the grieving husband of Mrs. Graham to devote himself to a military career:
Career
Defence of Toulon In early 1793 he wrote to Charles O'Hara, seeking passage to Gibraltar, of which the latter was lieutenant-governor and sailed aboard the Resistance with Lord St Helens, ambassador to Spain. After France declared war on Great Britain and the Dutch Republic on 1February 1793, the British fleet under Admiral Samuel Hood assembled at Gibraltar. On his arrival there, Graham volunteered and went with the navy to Toulon, where he acted as aide-de-camp to Lord Mulgrave and fought in the defence of the town. According to Sir Gilbert Elliot, Graham "left the highest character possible both for understanding and courage".
At Toulon, Graham distinguished himself by his courage and energy: for instance, on one occasion, when a private soldier was killed, Graham snatched up his musket and took his place at the head of the attacking column. In a general order referring to the repulse of an attack by the French on an important fort, Mulgrave expressed "his grateful sense of the friendly and important assistance which he had received in many difficult moments from Mr. Graham, and to add his tribute of praise to the general voice of the British and Piedmontese officers of his column, who saw with so much pleasure and applause the gallant example which Mr. Graham set to the whole column, in the foremost point of every attack".
It was also at Toulon that Graham first became acquainted with his lifelong friend, Rowland Hill, then a captain, who ultimately became Viscount Hill, and commander-in chief of the British army.
Campaign of 1796 and return to Parliament After returning home in November 1793, with the support of Henry Dundas, Secretary of State for War, who had married his first cousin the previous year, he was given the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel and raised the first battalion of the 90th Regiment of Foot (Perthshire Volunteers), (Balgowan's 'Grey Breeks,' as they were called), although the addition of a second battalion was to put significant pressure on his finances. Rowland Hill became a major in the regiment, which was first deployed as part of the 1795 Quiberon Expedition. The following year they were dispatched to support the French Royalist Lieutenant-general François de Charette in his struggle with the Republicans.
In late 1795 the regiment went to Gibraltar on garrison duty, a role Graham soon tired of. He obtained permission to join the Austrian army on the Rhine as British Commissioner. In this capacity he shared in the disastrous campaign of 1796, and afterward assisted Wurmser in the defence of Mantua, when it was besieged by the French under Napoleon. The garrison was reduced to the greatest extremities from want of provisions, and Graham undertook the perilous duty of conveying intelligence to the Imperial General Alvinzi, at Bassano, distant, of their desperate situation.
He left the fortress wearing a country cloak over his uniform and on 24December, amid rain and sleet, he crossed the Mincio in a boat that was repeatedly stranded due to the darkness. He travelled by foot during the night, wading through deep swamps, and crossing numerous watercourses and the Po, in constant danger of losing his way, or of being shot by the French pickets. At daybreak he concealed himself until nightfall, when he resumed his journey. After surmounting numerous hardships and perils, he at length reached in safety, on 4January, the headquarters of the Austrian general. However, on the 14th the Austrians were defeated and soon after Mantua was forced to surrender.
On the political front, with the support of the Duke of Atholl, in 1796 he was returned to parliament unchallenged, despite Dundas' wishing to secure the seat for his own son. Graham insisted that Atholl's support had no effect on his independence and he later wrote that at the time he remained firmly in support of the war but "at the same time never to abandon those Whig principles which had brought about the revolution of 1688."
1797–1800
Colonel Graham now returned to Scotland, but in the autumn of 1797 he rejoined his regiment at Gibraltar. In the following year he took part, under Sir Charles Stuart, in the capture of Minorca, where he greatly distinguished himself.
He then travelled to Sicily and, at an audience with the King and Queen of Naples, he received royal thanks for his effective actions on their behalf. In 1798 he was appointed to take charge of the operations against the important island of Malta, which was at that time occupied by the French. Promoted to the local rank of brigadier-general, he had under his command the 30th and 89th Regiments of foot, Alexander Hamilton as his Brigade Major and some corps embodied under his immediate direction.
Owing to the great strength of the island, he chose to enforce a blockade, and after a siege lasting nearly two years, the garrison were compelled by famine to surrender in September 1800. The island became part of the British Empire, a position it retained until it achieved independence in 1964. Colonel Graham's services were barely acknowledged by the Government of that day, who reserved their patronage and honours for the officers belonging to their own political party.
1801–1807 In the summer of 1801 he travelled to Egypt, where his regiment, the 90th, had already distinguished itself under Sir Ralph Abercromby, but he did not arrive until the campaign had been completed by the capitulation of the French army. He took the opportunity, however, to make a tour of Egypt and subsequently also visited Turkey. He spent some time in Constantinople and then travelled on horseback to Vienna. He would later recall the journey as one of the most agreeable rides he had ever enjoyed.