James Stewart-Menteith

Rev James Menteath, in later life James Stuart Menteath of Closeburn (c.1718–1802) was a Scottish clergyman of the Church of England, and friend of Adam Smith.

Born at Burrowine, Perthshire (now in Fifeshire) around 1718, he was son of William Menteath of Burrowine. He matriculated at the University of Glasgow in 1732. He then matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford on 9 April 1736, graduating B.A. 1739, M.A. 1742. He was supported there from 1736 by a Snell Exhibition, which he vacated in 1747.

Menteath took holy orders in the Church of England, being ordained deacon in 1740, priest in 1741. He shortly became a curate at Adderbury in Oxfordshire, where John Cox was vicar. He was rector at Bishop's Cleeve, from 1754. He then moved on, as rector of All Saints Church, Barrowby in Lincolnshire, in 1759. He owed the Barrowby living to Sackville Tufton, 8th Earl of Thanet.

Sanderson Miller of Radway in Warwickshire cultivated a number of clerical friends with Oxford educations, including Richard Jago and William Talbot of Kineton, as well as Menteath. A statue of Caractacus by James Lovell was commissioned by Lord North as a gift to Miller, for his tower on Edge Hill; it was modelled from Menteath. After a number of breakdowns, Miller was put into the hands of Francis Willis for treatment for his mental illness. While under Willis, he wrote a digressive Memoir of Menteath, dated from internal evidence to the years 1772–4.

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