25 May 1708, and in the same year was sworn a member of the English privy council. The office of keeper of the great seal had been created on the abolition of the post of lord chancellor, there being no further use for the judicial part of that office after the union. In addition to his salary of 3,000l. the queen granted him a pension of 2,000l. a year. In 1713 he was deprived of this office for refusing to comply with some of the measures of the tory administration. On the accession of George I in the following year he was again sworn a privy councillor, and in 1715 appointed lord-lieutenant of Ayrshire. He served as a volunteer under John, second duke of Argyll [q. v.], at the battle of Sheriffmuir, where he behaved with great gallantry. In 1722, 1725, 1726, 1728, 1730, and 1731, he acted as lord high commissioner to the general assembly of the kirk of Scotland. In 1727 he obtained a pension of 2,000l. a year for his life. At the union he was elected by the Scotch parliament as one of the sixteen Scotch representative peers, and was re-elected at six following general elections. He died on 20 Nov. 1731. The earl married, on 6 April 1700, Lady Margaret Dalrymple, only daughter of John, first earl of Stair, by whom he had one son, John (1705–1782) [q. v.], who succeeded to the title, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret. The countess, who was a highly accomplished woman, survived her husband for many years. She resided at Sorn Castle in Ayrshire, where she interested herself in agricultural pursuits, particularly in the planting of trees. After an illness of a few days she died, on 3 April 1777, at a very advanced age.
[Sir R. Douglas's Peerage of Scotland (1813), ii. 149, 150; Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice (1832), pp. 468–9; Sir H. Nicolas's Orders of Knighthood, 1842, iii., T. p. 32; Haydn's Book of Dignities.]
CAMPBELL, Sir ILAY (1734–1823), of Succoth, lord president, was born on 23 Aug. 1734. He was the eldest son of Archibald Campbell of Succoth, one of the principal clerks of session, by his wife, Helen, only daughter of John Wallace of Ellerslie, Renfrewshire, and was admitted an advocate 11 Jan. 1757. Early in his career he obtained an extensive practice at the bar, and was one of the counsel for the appellant in the great Douglas peerage case. This important case engrossed the public attention at the time, and so great was young Campbell's enthusiasm that he posted to Edinburgh immediately after the decision of the House of Lords, and was the first to announce the result to the crowds in the street, who, unharnessing the horses from his carriage, drew him in triumph to his father's house in St. James's Court. During his last fifteen years at the bar his practice had become so great that there were few causes in which he was not engaged. In 1783 he was appointed solicitor-general, in succession to Alexander Murray of Henderland, who was raised to the bench on 6 March in that year, but upon the accession of the coalition ministry he was dismissed, and Alexander Wight appointed in his place. Upon the fall of the coalition ministry he succeeded the Hon. Henry Erskine as lord advocate, and in the month of April 1784 was elected member for the Glasgow district of burghs. In parliament he never took a very prominent position, and but few of his speeches are recorded (Parliamentary History, xxiv–xxvii.) In 1785 he introduced a bill for the reform of the court of session, in which it was proposed to reduce the number of the judges from fifteen to ten, and at the same time to increase their salaries. The measure met with so much opposition that it was abandoned, and in the following year the salaries of the judges were increased, but their numbers were not diminished. After holding the office of lord advocate for nearly six years, he was appointed president of the court of session on the death of Sir Thomas Miller, bart. He took his seat on the bench for the first time on 14 Nov. 1789, and assumed the judicial title of Lord Succoth. In 1794 he presided over the commission of oyer and terminer which was opened at Edinburgh on 14 Aug. for the trial of those accused of high treason in Scotland. Both Watt and Downie were found guilty, and the former was executed (State Trials, xxiii. 1167–1404, xxiv. 1–200).
Campbell held the post of lord president for nineteen years, and upon his resignation was succeeded by Robert Blair of Avontoun. He sat for the last time on 11 July 1808, being the final occasion on which the old court of session, consisting of fifteen judges, sat together. After the vacation the court sat for the first time in two divisions. On 17 Sept. in the same year he was created a baronet. After his retirement from the bench he presided over two different commissions appointed to inquire into the state of the courts of law in Scotland. This work occupied him nearly fifteen years, during which he prepared a series of elaborate reports which to this day are most valuable as works of reference. During the later years of his life he chiefly resided at his estate of Garscube, Dumbartonshire, where he took a principal share in the transaction of county business, and amused himself in literary and agricultural pursuits. He died on 28 March 1823,
