James Douglas (1790-1869) worked for Commercial Bank of
Scotland, 1812-53.
James Douglas was born in 1790. Little is
known about his early life, except that by his early twenties he was the
only son of a widowed mother.
In 1812 Douglas secured a job in
the accountant’s office of the recently-established Commercial Bank of
Scotland. He remained there for the rest of his career, serving from
1823 until his retirement in 1853 as the bank’s accountant.
Although he was not one of Commercial Bank’s founding staff, Douglas
joined the bank barely more than a year after it started trading. The
first generation of the bank’s workers became a second family to each
other. When Alexander MacArtney, retired manager of the bank, died in
1838, Douglas began wearing a memorial ring in his memory. He continued
to wear it for the rest of his life.
James Douglas married Martha
Brook, grand-niece of Sir William Fettes, bart., the founder of
Fettes College' on 15 March 1821. Their first child, William Fettes Douglas, was
born in 1822. He went to work for Commercial Bank of Scotland in 1836
but left in 1847 to become an artist. He became principal curator of
National Gallery of Scotland in 1877 and president of the Royal Scottish
Academy in 1882. He was knighted in the same year, and died in 1891.
James and Martha had five further children, the second of whom was
Robert who died in Paramaribo, Surinam, 7 November 1874; the youngest was
Charles Edward Douglas, born in 1840. Like his eldest brother, he
initially went to work in Commercial Bank of Scotland, but in 1862 he
emigrated to New Zealand, where he became a well-known explorer and
surveyor, nicknamed ‘Mr Explorer Douglas’, discovering and recording New
Zealand’s landscape, flora and fauna. He died in 1916.
James
Douglas, like his sons William and
Charles, was a talented painter,
although his interest remained no more than a hobby.
James
Douglas died at home in Edinburgh on 26 March 1869 |
