Sir Lawrence Dundas 1st Bart.

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.

1. In Dominica, St David Lots nos. 45-48, originally purchased by James Bruce, were shown under Sir Law. Dundas, James Bruce and Simon Frazer as 'present proprietors' c. 1773.

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.

1. John Byres, References to a plan of the island of Dominica as surveyed from the year 1765 and 1773 (London, 1777).