Basil Cochrane

Basil Cochrane (22 April 1753 – 12 or 14 August 1826 in Paris, France) was a Scottish civil servant, businessman, inventor, and wealthy nabob of early 19th century England.

The sixth son of Scottish nobleman and politician Thomas Cochrane, 8th Earl of Dundonald, by his second wife Jane Stuart, Cochrane was probably named for his father's brother Basil Cochrane (died 1788), at the time Governor of the Isle of Man and later a member of the Scottish Board of Customs. At the age of sixteen Basil was given a place in the East India Company in Madras. From 1783–5 he served as a revenue administrator in Nagapattinam, which had been seized from the Dutch in 1781. During his time there he was accused of having two locals, including one named Vaidyanada, beaten to death. After a trial in Madras in 1787, he was acquitted by a British jury.

In 1792 Basil Cochrane took over supply contracts for the British navy in India from his brother John, who had held them since 1790. The demand for provisions was so great that Basil had flour mills and bakeries built at Calcutta and Madras to fulfill his contracts. He also financed "Cochrane's Canal" (now the Buckingham Canal) which improved navigation to Madras. The contract was rebid in 1803 and Cochrane again won the bid.

In 1806 Cochrane handed over the contracts to the partnership of James Baker and James Balfour. He returned to England, having accumulated an enormous fortune (he had held contracts over the years totalling £1,418,236) to spend the next thirteen years disputing his accounts with the Victualling Board. He built a large house at 12 Portman Square, where he was able to socialise with his brother Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone, his nephew Lord Cochrane, and others. In 1807 he financed the campaigns of his brothers Andrew and George in the notorious rotten borough of Grampound to place them in Parliament, perhaps to increase pressure on the government to settle his accounts. He purchased, with partner George Hunter, the Scottish estate of Auchterarder in 1808 and assumed the titles. After Cochrane's accounts were settled in 1819, he published several works criticising the Victualing Board's conduct towards him and calling for reforms in the process.

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