Lawrence Dundas, 1st Earl of Zetland

Eldest son of Sir Thomas Dundas, 2nd Bt., 1st Baron Dundas and Lady Charlotte Fitzwilliam (1746–1833), daughter of the third Earl Fitzwilliam and a niece of the marquess of Rockingham. They had fourteen children, eleven of whom reached adulthood. Left £113,781 (Scottish probate) at death.

Lawrence's brothers included the Hons. Charles Lawrence Dundas, George Heneage Lawrence Dundas, and Robert Lawrence Dundas.

Lawrence succeeded his father as the 2nd Baron Dundas, 14 June 1820 and was created Earl of Zetland, 2 July 1838.

His descendents included Lawrence John Lumley Dundas, second marquess of Zetland (1876–1961), administrator in India (including Governor of Bengal, 1917–1922), politician, and author.

The Dundas family dynasty owed its rise to, above all, Sir Lawrence Dundas of Kerse, first baronet (1712–1781), who started as a wine merchant, became an army contractor and then one of the most powerful and richest of landowners in Britain, owning extensive tracts of land in Scotland, Orkney and Shetland, Yorkshire, Hertfordshire and London, as well as having extensive commercial and financial interests and political influence. He also acquired two slave estates in the West Indies - in Dominica and in Grenada.

T71/880 Grenada claim no. 604 (Dougalston Estate); T71/881 Dominica claim no. 576A & B (Castle Bruce); W.D. Rubinstein, Who were the rich? A biographical directory of British wealth-holders Vol. 1 1809-1839 (2009), p. 504 reference 1839/27. 

R. P. Fereday, ‘Dundas family of Fingask and Kerse (per. 1728/9–1820)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004); online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/64103, accessed 09/08/2012]. R. G. Thorne (ed.), The House of Commons, 1790-1820 (5 vols., London, Secker & Warburg for the History of Parliament Trust, 1986), vol. 3.