Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/367

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Graham
361
Graham

was the Duke of Wellington's comment on hearing of the failure (ib. viii. 408).

Graham returned home at the peace, and on 3 May 1814 received the thanks of parliament, and was created Baron Lynedoch of Balgowan in the peerage of the United Kingdom, but refused the pension of 2,000l. a year offered with the title. He became a full general in 1821, was transferred to the colonelcy of the 58th foot in 1823, to the 14th foot in 1826, and to the 1st royals (now Royal Scots) in 1834. He succeeded Lord Harris as governor of Dumbarton Castle in 1829.

In 1815 Lynedoch started the project of a general military club, on the principle of ‘Arthur's’ and other civil clubs then existing, to afford officers a respectable place of meeting in London, without resort to taverns. The scheme was afterwards extended, to include officers of both services. It was opposed by Earl St. Vincent on the ground that, ‘viewed in conjunction with other signs of the times,’ an assemblage of officers of the kind contemplated would be unconstitutional, although, he added, if all were like Lord Lynedoch, the objection would have no foundation (Delavoye, Life of Lynedoch, p. 752). The project was approved by many officers of distinction, including the Duke of Wellington (Gurwood, viii. p. 135), and a branch committee was established at Lord Hill's headquarters with the army of occupation in France. A site was secured in Pall Mall, and in 1817, as recorded on the building, the foundation-stone of the present Senior United Service Club was laid. A portrait of Lynedoch, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, is in possession of the club. Having carried out his project, Lynedoch visited St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Vienna, where he was received with much distinction. He took Cotsgrove Lodge in Leicestershire, where he resided a good deal, and it is recorded that at the age of seventy-four he rode twenty-four miles to a meet of the Pytchley hunt and followed the hounds through a fairly long run. In 1822 he acted as second to the Duke of Bedford in his duel with the Duke of Buckingham. A whig in politics, his vote, either personal or by proxy, was seldom wanting in support of ‘liberal’ measures, although in later years much of his time was passed in Italy, owing to enfeebled health. He was more than once couched for cataract, and was a confirmed believer in homœopathy. On the visit of the queen to Scotland soon after her marriage, Lynedoch, then in his ninety-second year, hurried home from Switzerland to do homage to his sovereign in the metropolis of his native land. Every year he passed a part of the autumn at Lynedoch, retaining his love of farming and stock-breeding to the last. His name repeatedly appears as a breeder of prize stock in the catalogues of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland. At the Epsom Meeting of 1839 he won a 50l. plate with Jeffy, a two-year-old colt of his own breeding, to his intense gratification, his success being honoured by a congratulatory notice from Queen Victoria. With the same horse he won a plate at the Newmarket Craven Meeting of 1842.

Lynedoch was a G.C.B. and G.C.M.G., and possessed the decorations of the Tower and Sword of Portugal, San Fernando of Spain, and Wilhelm the Lion of the Netherlands. He died at his town house, Stratton Street, London, 18 Dec. 1843, at the age of ninety-five. His estates devolved to his cousin, Robert Graham of Redgorton, a Scottish advocate, and for a time a lord of the treasury under the Melbourne administration. Robert Graham died in 1859, and was succeeded by another cousin, John Murray Graham [q. v.]

[A short account of the descent of the Balgowan Grahams appears in Anderson's Scottish Nation, ii. 351, prefatory to a biographical notice of Lord Lynedoch. Two biographies of Lynedoch have been published. One (2nd ed., with portraits, Edinburgh, 1877), compiled from private sources by John Murray Graham [q. v.]; the other compiled by Captain (now Colonel) A. M. Delavoye of the Staff College (London, 1880), from materials furnished by Mr. Maxtone Graham of Cultoquhey, who now represents the Balgowan family, and by Lord Cathcart, the latter not detailed in the report on the Cathcart Papers in Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. Colonel Delavoye has also published the History of the 90th (Perthshire Volunteers), London, 1880. A biography of Lynedoch appears in Philippart's Royal Military Calendar, 1820, ii. 147, and an obituary notice in Gent. Mag. new ser. xxi. 197. In addition to the particulars given by Murray Graham and Delavoye, papers relating to Lynedoch's services in the Mediterranean will be found enrolled under dates in the Foreign Office Papers, in the Public Record Office; also notices in H. Nicolas's Nelson Desp. vols. ii. iii. iv. v. vii. and Add.; of his Peninsular services in Napier's Hist of the Peninsular War, Gurwood's Wellington Desp. and the Wellington Suppl. Desp., vols. vi. vii. viii. xiii. xiv., the index being in Suppl. Desp. vol. xv. Details of the operations in Holland in 1813–14 are given in British Minor Expeditions (London, War Office, 1884).]

H. M. C.

GRAHAM, THOMAS (1805–1869), chemist, was born in Glasgow 20 Dec. 1805. He was the son of a merchant and manufacturer, and the eldest of a family of seven, of whom only one survived him. In 1811 he was placed under Dr. Angus at the English preparatory school in Glasgow. In