GILMOUR, Sir Charles, 2nd Bt. (d.1750), of Craigmillar, Edinburgh.

Returned for Edinburghshire as an opposition Whig on the recommendation of Robert Dundas, Gilmour voted against the Spanish convention in 1739. Receiving through James Erskine a whip from Pulteney asking opposition Members to come to London some time before the next session, which might ‘determine the fate of our liberties, if not of our being an independent nation’, he voted against the Government on the Spanish convention in 1739 and the place bill in 1740. After Walpole’s fall Gilmour followed his friend, Lord Tweeddale, the secretary of state for Scotland, through whom he became attached to Tweeddale’s leader and future father-in-law, Carteret,HMC Polwarth, v. 173, 175; Walpole to Mann, 14 July and 9 Oct. 1742; HMC Egmont Diary, iii. 253. obtaining a place from the new Government. He figured in the court list for the ballot on the second committee set up to inquire into Walpole’s Administration, but was not elected to it; was put down as ‘Pelham’ in the Cockpit list of ministerial supporters in October; and voted with the Government on the Hanoverians, 10 Dec. 1742. Promoted to the board of Trade in December 1743, he was dismissed a year later when the followers of Carteret, now Granville, were turned out with their leader. He did not vote on the Hanoverians in 1746, when he was classed as ‘Granville’. Going over to the Government,Gilmour to Pelham, 21 July 1747, Newcastle (Clumber) mss. he was re-elected unopposed in 1747.

He died 9 Aug. 1750.