James Baillie Fraser

James Baillie Fraser went to the West Indies in 1799, initially apprenticed to merchants in St Vincent and then moving to Berbice until 1811 to run the family's (unnamed) estate there. It was probably the estate given as No. 28 and No. 23 in Berbice, which in the 1818 registration was shown as the property of Edward Satchwell Fraser.

Born in Edinburgh, eldest of six children of Edward Satchwell Fraser (1751–1835) (q.v.) and his wife, Jane, daughter of William Fraser of Balnain. E. S. Fraser an early investor in Berbice. Brought up on Scottish family estate at Reelig, near Inverness; schooled in Edinburgh.

In January 1813 Fraser sailed for India, arriving in Calcutta, October 1813. The purpose was to help pay off family debts, but an initial trading partnership in Calcutta failed after only a year. In January 1815, he left for Delhi to meet his brother William Fraser (1784–1835), political and recruiting agent for the British forces engaged in the Nepal War.

They met at Nahan (in Sirmur, northern India). While there he sketched the Himalayan scenery. Published twenty landscapes in Views in the Himala Mountains (London, 1820) and Journal of a tour through part of the snowy range of the Himala mountains and to the sources of the rivers Jumna and Ganges (1820). Also employed Indian artists from Delhi to make portraits of local recruits and Gurkhas. 'These, which he collected with the co-operation of his brother, are now regarded as the finest of the company school genre.' (ODNB) Returned to Calcutta in 1816; joined another partnership in the shipping business, but mainly occupied in art, publishing aquatint sketches in Views of Calcutta and its Environs (London, 1824-26).
1820-1823: travelled through India and Persia, returning to London by 1823. Subsequently published Narrative of a Journey into Khorasan in the Years 1821 and 1822 (1825) and Travels and Adventures in the Persian Provinces of the Southern Banks of the Caspian Sea (1826). Also wrote historical novels including The Kuzzilbash, a Tale of Khorasan (1828), The Persian Adventurer (1830), The Highland Smugglers (1832), and Tales of the Caravanserai (1833) and An Historical and Descriptive Account of Persia (Edinburgh 1834).

On behalf of the Foreign Office Fraser travelled to Persia between December 1833 and May 1835 to report on Russian influence in the region. Appointed companion to three Persian princes making an official visit to London in 1836. Fraser published accounts of his experiences with the princes and of his former Persian travels, and two romances: Allee Neemro, the Buchtiaree Adventurer (1842) and The Dark Falcon (1844). His last publication was the Military Memoir of Lieut. Col. James Skinner, C. B. (1851).

On 4 September 1823 Fraser had married Jane Tytler, daughter of Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee. His last years spent on improvements on his Scottish estate, where he died in 1856.

T71/437 p. 275-277.

Toby Falk, ‘Fraser, James Baillie (1783–1856), traveller and artist', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004).