James Loch

James Loch (7 May 1780 – 28 June 1855) was a Scottish economist, advocate, barrister, estate commissioner and later a member of parliament.

Loch was born near Edinburgh on 7 May 1780. He was eldest son of George Loch of Drylaw, Edinburgh. His mother, Mary, was daughter of John Adam of Blair, Kinross-shire, and sister of Lord-commissioner Adam. After his father's death in 1788, he lived on the Blair Adam estate with his uncle.

In 1801 Loch was admitted an advocate in Scotland, and was called to the bar in England at Lincoln's Inn on 15 November 1806, but abandoned the law after a few years of conveyancing practice.

He became interested in the management of estates, and was simultaneously auditor to the George, Marquis of Stafford (who married Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland, and became shortly before he died Duke of Sutherland), to Lord Francis Egerton, afterwards Earl of Ellesmere, to the Bridgewater trustees, to the Earl of Carlisle, and to the trust estates of the Earl of Dudley and of George, Viscount Keith.

In this capacity he was responsible for much of the policy respecting the agricultural labourers and the improvement of agriculture pursued over tens of thousands of acres both in England and Scotland. The "Sutherlandshire clearances" of George, Marquis of Stafford, by which between 1811 and 1820 fifteen thousand crofters were removed from the inland to the seacoast districts, were carried out under his supervision.

For much of his life, Loch worked to effect the clearances and "to so mould and control the lives of 'the ignorant and credulous people' that at one time the young among them had to go to his agents for permission to marry". According to Loch's writings, "In a few years the character of the whole of this population will be completely changed... The children of those who are removed from the hills will lose all recollection of the habits and customs of their fathers".

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