Robert Blair, Lord Avontoun

Robert Blair of Avontoun FRSE (1741–1811) was a Scottish advocate and judge who served as Solicitor General for Scotland from 1789 to 1806, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates from 1801 to 1808 and Lord President of the Court of Session from 1808 to his death.

He was the third son of Rev Robert Blair, the poet and Isabella Law, his wife, the daughter of Mr. William Law of Elvingston, East Lothian.

He was born in 1741 at the manse in Athelstaneford, where his father was the minister. Young Blair commenced his education at the Grammar school at Haddington, where he formed a friendship with Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, which only ended with their lives. From Haddington he was removed to the High School in Edinburgh, and thence was transferred to the University of Edinburgh.

In 1764, he was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates, and soon obtained a considerable practice at the bar, where he and Henry Erskine were often pitted against each other. In 1789, Blair was appointed by his friend Dundas one of the depute advocates, which office he continued to hold until 1806. For some years also he was one of the assessors of the city of Edinburgh.

In November 1783 he was one of the founding members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

In 1789, at the age of forty-seven, Blair became Solicitor General for Scotland. This post he continued to occupy until the change of ministry which was occasioned by Pitt’s death in 1806. During this period he twice refused the offer of a seat on the judicial bench, and both in 1802 and 1805 declined to accept the office of lord advocate. In 1801, he was elected dean of the faculty of advocates. Upon the return of his friends to power in 1807, he refused the offices of solicitor-general and lord advocate, but in the next year, upon the resignation of Sir Ilay Campbell, he accepted the presidency of the college of justice, thereafter being known as Lord President Blair..

...
Wikipedia