Author: Glassford, James
Biography:
GLASSFORD, James (1771-1845: ODNB)
An advocate and legal writer, he was the second son of John Glassford, a prosperous tobacco merchant, and Lady Margaret (Mackenzie) Glassford, daughter of the third Earl of Cromarty. He was born on 19 Feb. 1771 at the family estate of Douglaston, Glasgow. Glassford was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1793 and he served as the sheriff-depute of Dunbartonshire (1805-15). He was twice married. On 24 Sept. 1808 he married Isabel Murray of Ochtertyre who died at Edinburgh on 4 July 1809. On 8 May 1812 at St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, he married Jane Mackay (1773-1840). He inherited Douglaston on the death of his brother, Henry, in 1819; their father, John, had entailed the estate in 1783 and the disposition of it was not settled until 1850. His 1820 Essay on the Principles of Evidence, a philosophical treatise that was innovative in treating evidence as a distinct subject, was his most important contribution to legal studies. Glassford's article on divorce law was published in QR in 1821. He visited Ireland in his capacity as a commissioner investigating the state of education in that country, and subsequently had privately printed Notes of Three Tours in Ireland, in 1824 and 1826 (1830?). He arranged for the profits from his Sphinx Incruenta (1835) to be donated to the General Assembly's education fund. In 1837 he had privately printed a modern reading from Thomas Chatterton (q.v.) as Chatterton's Ella, and Other Pieces, Interpreted. Glassford's 1818 and 1834 translations from Latin and Italian are wide-ranging and include some otherwise unfamiliar authors; he also translated Francis Bacon's Exemplum tractatus de fontibus juris (1823) and Aguesseau's Letter on the Christian Mysteries (1840). The 1841 Census shows him living at 16 Hill Street, Edinburgh. He died there on 28 July 1845 and was buried in Ramshorn cemetery, Glasgow. BL lists a 7-page work, High Harrowgate (1821), which may be verse but it has not been seen. (ODNB 7 Feb. 2019; ancestry.co.uk 11 Mar. 2025; contributions from JC) SR
Other Names:
- J. G.