elected for East Sydney, but resigned in March 1879, upon appointment as agent-general for the colony in London, though he did not, after all, take the post up. At the general election of 1880 he was returned for Ilawarra, and became leader of the opposition against the Parkes-Robertson ministry, defeating them on the land bill of 1882 [see under Robertson, Sir John]. The ministry dissolved parliament and was defeated at the polls, and Stuart on 5 Jan. 1883 became premier. He at once, and without adopting the usual formal methods, arranged for the appointment of a committee of inquiry into the land laws, and in October brought in a land bill, based on their recommendations, which was discussed with heat and acrimony during the longest session on record in New South Wales, and finally passed into law in October 1884. The question of regulation of the civil service was the other principal matter which had Stuart's personal attention in that session, but at the end of the year the question of Australian federation was much debated, and he was a member of the conference which drew up a scheme of federation. Early in 1885 he had a sudden paralytic stroke, and after a holiday in New Zealand he came back to office so enfeebled that on 6 Oct. 1885 he retired. He was then appointed to the legislative council, and later in the year became executive commissioner for the colony for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886; after being publicly entertained at banquets at Woolongong and Sydney, he came to England to carry out his special service, but died in London, after the opening of the exhibition, on 16 June 1886. The legislative council adjourned on hearing of his death; but in the assembly Sir Henry Parkes successfully opposed a similar motion.
[Sydney Morning Herald, 18 June 1886; New South Wales Parl. Debates, passim.]
STUART, ANDREW (d. 1801), lawyer, was the second son of Archibald Stuart of Torrance in Lanarkshire (d. 1767), seventh son and heir of Alexander Stuart of Torrance. His mother, Elizabeth, was daughter of Sir Andrew Myreton of Gogar, bart.
Andrew studied law, and became a member of the Scottish bar. He was engaged by James, sixth duke of Hamilton, as tutor to his children, and through his influence was in 1770 appointed keeper of the signet of Scotland. When the famous Douglas lawsuit arose, in which the Duke of Hamilton disputed the identity of Archibald James Edward Douglas, first baron Douglas [q. v.], and endeavoured to hinder his succession to the family estates, Stuart was engaged to conduct the case against the claimant. In the course of the suit, which was finally decided in the House of Lords in February 1769 in favour of Douglas, he distinguished himself highly, but so much feeling arose between him and Edward Thurlow (afterwards Lord Thurlow), the opposing counsel, that a duel took place. After the decision of the case Stuart in 1773 published a series of ‘Letters to Lord Mansfield’ (London, 4to), who had been a judge in the case, and who had very strongly supported the claims of Douglas. In these epistles he assailed Mansfield for his want of impartiality with a force and eloquence that caused him at the time to be regarded as a worthy rival to Junius.
From 1777 to 1781 he was occupied with the affairs of his younger brother, Colonel James Stuart (d. 1793) [q. v.], who had been suspended from his position by the East India Company for the arrest of Lord Pigot, the governor of the Madras presidency [see Pigot, George, Baron Pigot]. He published several letters to the directors of the East India Company and to the secretary at war, in which his brother's case was set forth with great clearness and vigour. These letters called forth a reply from Alexander Dalrymple [q. v.]
On 28 Oct. 1774 Stuart was returned to parliament for Lanarkshire, and continued to represent the county until 1784. On 6 July 1779, under Lord North's administration, he was appointed to the board of trade in place of Bamber Gascoyne, and continued a member until the temporary abolition of the board in 1782. On 19 July 1790 he re-entered parliament, after an absence of six years, as member for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, for which boroughs he sat until his death.
On 23 March 1796, on the death of his elder brother, Alexander, without issue, Andrew succeeded to the estate of Torrance, and on 18 Jan. 1797 on the death of Sir John Stuart of Castlemilk, Lanarkshire, he succeeded to that property also. In 1798 he published a ‘Genealogical History of the Stewarts’ (London, 4to), in which he contended that, failing the royal line (the descendants of Stewart of Darnley), the head of all the Stuarts was Stuart of Castlemilk, and that he himself was Stuart of that ilk, heir male of the ancient family. This assertion provoked an anonymous rejoinder, to which Stuart replied in 1799. He died in Lower Grosvenor Street, London, on 18 May 1801, without an heir male. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir William Stirling of Ardoch, bart. After his death in 1804 she married Sir William Johnson Pulteney, fifth
