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James Maitland Balfour

British politician

Summary

British politician

Field	Value
name	James Maitland Balfour
image	James balfour.jpg
caption	from his memorial
birth_date	5 January 1820
birth_place	United Kingdom
death_date
death_place	Funchal, Madeira
spouse	Lady Blanche Gascoyne-Cecil
children	8, including Eleanor, Arthur, Alice, Francis, Gerald, and Eustace
parents	James Balfour
Lady Eleanor Maitland

Lady Eleanor Maitland James Maitland Balfour (5 January 1820 – 23 February 1856) was a Scottish land-owner and businessman. He made a fortune in the 19th-century railway boom, and inherited a significant portion of his father's great wealth.

He was a Conservative Member of Parliament in the 1840s, and was the father of Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour.

Life

Balfour was the son of James Balfour and his wife Lady Eleanor, daughter of James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale. He was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Balfour inherited his father's neo-classical mansion Whittingehame House and his Highland estate in Ross-shire, as well as a house in Grosvenor Square, London.{{cite web | archive-date = 10 December 2014 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20141210143633/http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/balfour-james-1775-1845 | url-status = dead He also inherited his father's business skills, and became a director of the North British Railway at the height of the railway mania, which earned him a fortune.{{cite book

He served as Member of Parliament for Haddington from 1841 until 1847 and was also Major Commandant of the East Lothian Yeomanry Cavalry, who erected the Balfour Monument in his honour overlooking Traprain Law, 2+1/2 mi south west of East Linton in Scotland.

Balfour married Lady Blanche Mary Harriet Gascoyne-Cecil, daughter of James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury, on 15 August 1843 (her brother Robert later became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom). They had eight children, five sons and three daughters:

Eleanor Mildred Balfour (1845–1936), who married Henry Sidgwick and was Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge
Evelyn Georgiana Mary Balfour (1846/7–1934), married John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (1848–1930), Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905
Cecil Charles Balfour (1849–1881)
Alice Blanche Balfour (1850–1936), an entomologist, geneticist, naturalist and scientific illustrator.
Francis Maitland Balfour (1851–1882), Professor of Animal Morphology at the University of Cambridge
Gerald William Balfour, 2nd Earl of Balfour (1853–1945), Conservative politician who served as Chief Secretary for Ireland and President of the Board of Trade
Colonel Eustace James Anthony Balfour (1854–1911), an architect who served as ADC to King Edward VII.{{cite web

Balfour died of tuberculosis on 23 February 1856 in Funchal, Madeira, aged 36. Lady Blanche Balfour died in 1872.

References

{{acad
Opitz, Donald L. ""Behind folding shutters in Whittingehame House": Alice Blanche Balfour (1850–1936) and amateur natural history." Archives of Natural History 31, no. 2 (2004): 330–348. {{doi. 10.3366/anh.2004.31.2.330

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1820-births 1856-deaths people-educated-at-eton-college members-of-the-parliament-of-the-united-kingdom-for-scottish-constituencies 19th-century-deaths-from-tuberculosis uk-mps-1841–1847 tuberculosis-deaths-in-portugal british-railway-entrepreneurs 19th-century-scottish-landowners alumni-of-trinity-college,-cambridge people-from-haddington,-east-lothian balfour-family-(whittingehame) parents-of-prime-ministers-of-the-united-kingdom 19th-century-scottish-businesspeople

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