Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stirling, James (1740?-1805)
STIRLING, Sir JAMES (1740?–1805), first baronet, lord provost of Edinburgh, born in 1740 or early in 1741, was the son of Alexander Stirling, cloth merchant in Edinburgh, by his wife Jane, daughter of James Muir of Lochfield, Perthshire. In early life he went to the West Indies as clerk to Archibald Stirling of Keir, an extensive planter there, who was great-uncle of Sir William Stirling-Maxwell [q. v.]; and not long afterwards he was appointed, through Stirling's influence, secretary to Sir Charles Dalling, governor of Jamaica. Having acquired in the West Indies a considerable fortune, he returned to Edinburgh, and became partner in the banking house of Mansfield, Ramsay, & Co., marrying Alison, the daughter of James Mansfield, the senior partner. Having entered the town council of Edinburgh in 1771, he filled the office of treasurer in 1773–4, and was thrice chosen lord provost—in 1790, 1794, and 1798. For his firm yet prudent conduct in connection with the reform riots in 1792 he was on 17 July of the same year created a baronet. He died on 17 Feb. 1805, leaving three sons and two daughters, and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son, Gilbert, on whose death in 1843 it became extinct.
[Kay's Edinburgh Portraits; Fraser's Stirlings of Keir, 1858, p. 185; Anderson's History of Edinburgh; Anderson's Scottish Nation.]