Author: Dalrymple, James
Biography:
DALRYMPLE, James (1729-91: ancestry.co.uk)
James Dalrymple, elder brother of Alexander Dalrymple (1737-1808) who edited A Collection of English Songs, was the author of ten poems included in an appendix to the book. He was born on 3 Aug. 1729 and baptised on 4 Aug. at Inversk, Midlothian. He was one of many children born to Sir James Dalrymple (d 1751) and his wife Christian Hamilton, second daughter of the earl of Haddington. His father, the second baronet, was the auditor general for Scotland. Although he came from a well-documented family, little is known about Dalrymple’s life. He joined the Royal Regiment of Foot, perhaps in about 1750, and became lieutenant colonel in 1770 “by purchase.” He married Elizabeth St. Clair or Sinclair on 20 Sept. 1773 at the Canongate, Edinburgh; the poem “To My Wife” in A Collection is dated 7 Feb. 1774. By the time of Dalrymple’s death on 21 Nov. 1791 there were no surviving children. Burke refers to him as a “celebrated” poet but no other published poems have been located. The poems included in A Collection were given to Alexander Dalrymple by Elizabeth Dalrymple. Confirmation that Alexander Dalrymple was the hydrographer who has an entry in the ODNB comes from the preface to A Collection which states that he “found in Poetry the best relief to the Mind, in researches so fatiguing as the Investigation of Hydrographical Truth” (6). (ancestry.co.uk 17 June 2024; findmypast.co.uk 17 June 2024; ODNB [for Alexander Dalrymple] 17 June 2024; Aberdeen Journal 2 July 1770; Burke) SR