Who was Robert Dundas, Lord Arniston?
Robert Dundas, Lord Arniston (also known as Robert Dundas the Elder), was the second son of Robert Dundas, the 2nd Lord Arniston (died 1726). He inherited the Arniston estate because his elder brother, James, died before their father.
Dundas was born on 9 December 1685, the second son of Robert Dundas, Lord Arniston, a judge of the court of session, and his wife Margaret Sinclair, daughter of Sir Robert Sinclair of Stevenson. The family's Edinburgh house was at the head of Old Fishmarket Close on the Royal Mile The house was later destroyed in the Great Fire of Edinburgh.
In 1728, he reintroduced into Scottish juries the possible verdicts of guilty or not guilty as against proven or not proven. He was Lord President of the Court of Session from 1748 to 1753.
In 1726, he commissioned William Adam to design Arniston House, a few miles south of Edinburgh and this became his family home.
Sources:
Richard Scott, ‘Dundas, Robert, Lord Arniston (1685-1753)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/...; [accessed 7 April 2008]
http://www.historic-scotland.g... [accessed 7 April 2008]