Robert Dundas of Arniston, the younger, FRSE (18 July 1713 – 13 December 1787) was a Scottish judge. He served as Solicitor General for Scotland from 1742 to 1746, as Lord Advocate from 1754 to 1760, and as Member of Parliament for Midlothian from 1754 to 1761. He was Lord President of the Court of Session from 1760 to 1787, losing his popularity for giving his casting vote against Archibald Douglas in the famous Douglas Cause.
Contents
Life and career
Robert Dundas was the eldest son of Robert Dundas of Arniston (1685–1753), Lord President of the Court of Session, by Elizabeth Watson, his first wife. He was educated first at home and at school, and then at the University of Edinburgh. In 1733, he proceeded to Utrecht University, then celebrated for the teaching of Roman law, and also visited Paris.
Returning to Scotland in 1737, Dundas was admitted an advocate in 1738. He was quick, ingenious and eloquent, and had a retentive memory. Like his father, he was convivial and shirked drudgery. He is said, though a good scholar, never to have read through a book after leaving college. Being solely ambitious of attaining to the bench, he refused many cases, especially those which involved writing papers, and took only such work as seemed to lead to advancement. For his first five years, his fees only averaged £280 per annum. Through the favour of the Carteret administration, he was appointed Solicitor General for Scotland on 11 August 1742, and, no change occurring in the Scotch department on Lord Wilmington's death, held that post through the arduous and responsible times of the Jacobite plots and the rising of 1745. Being, however, unable to act easily with Lord Milton, the lord justice clerk, he resigned in 1746 upon the change of ministry, but was at once elected dean of the faculty.