Sir James Montgomery, 1st Baronet

Sir James Montgomery, 1st Baronet Stanhope FRSE (1721 – 2 April 1803) was a Scottish advocate, judge, politician, agriculturalist and landowner.

He was born at Magbie Hill in October 1721, the second son of William Montgomery, advocate, of Coldcoat or Magbie Hill, Peeblesshire. His mother was Barbara Rutherford, daughter of Robert Rutherford of Bowland, Stow, Midlothian.

After some schooling at the parish school at Linton, he studied law in Edinburgh, and was called to the Scottish bar on 19 February 1743. In 1748, after heritable jurisdictions had been abolished, he was appointed the first sheriff of Peeblesshire under the new system. On 30 April 1760, thanks to the influence of his friend Robert Dundas, then newly appointed lord president, he succeeded Sir Thomas Miller, Lord Glenlee as Solicitor General for Scotland jointly with Francis Garden (1721–1793). In 1764, he became sole solicitor-general, and in 1766 Lord Advocate in succession to Miller, to whose parliamentary seat for the Dumfries Burghs he succeeded also.

But at the general election of 1768, he was returned for Peeblesshire, a seat which he retained till he was raised to the bench. A learned lawyer and an improving landlord, he was peculiarly fitted to deal with the question of entails, which had now become pressing, owing to the extent to which details fettered the practical management of land. The existing statute was Sir George Mackenzie's Act of 1685, and since it passed 485 deeds of entail had been registered under it. The public demanded a reform ; the Faculty of Advocates had passed resolutions approving it. Montgomery accordingly introduced a measure in March 1770, which passed into law (10 Geo. Ill, c. 51) and considerably enlarged the powers of the heir of an entail in respect of leasing and improving the entailed lands, and even provided for the exchange of land in spite of an entail.

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