Colonel John Blackadder

John Blackadder
Portrait of Lieutenant-Colonel John Blackadder (or Blackader), 1664-1729; published 1824
Born	14 September 1664 Glencairn, Dumfriesshire, Scotland
Died	31 August 1729(1729-08-31) (aged 64) Stirling, Scotland
Nationality	Scottish
Occupation	Soldier
Known for	Lieutenant-colonel of the Cameronian Regiment

Lieutenant-Colonel John Blackadder (14 September 1664 – 31 August 1729) was a Scottish soldier who served with the Cameronian Regiment during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

The fifth son of dissenting minister John Blackadder, he was a devout Calvinist, and joined the Cameronians – a predominantly religious regiment – as a volunteer cadet when they were raised in 1689 to fight for King William III. He soldiered with the regiment through the campaign in Flanders, where he was court-martialled and later pardoned for killing an officer in a duel, and then during the War of the Spanish Succession. He was wounded at the Battle of Blenheim, and twice wounded at the siege of Lille; after the Battle of Malplaquet he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, and took command of the regiment. He resigned his commission two years later, and retired to Edinburgh.

In later life he focused his work on ecclesiastical matters, becoming a member of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. During the First Jacobite Rising in 1715 he was appointed colonel of a regiment raised in Glasgow to guard the city, and after the war made deputy-governor of Stirling Castle.

John Blackadder was born in September 1664 at Glencairn in Dumfriesshire, the fifth son of John Blackadder and Janet Haining. His father was a Presbyterian minister who had been removed from his parish in 1662, forbidden to preach, and briefly imprisoned before retiring to Glencairn. John's brothers included William, the eldest son, later a doctor and conspirator with William of Orange, and Adam, the second son, who wrote a history of the covenanting movement.