FRASER, Archibald Campbell (1736-1815), of Lovat, Inverness.

Fraser, after his father’s execution in 1747, was educated by his mother, who sent him to Glasgow, ‘a place of known loyalty’.Forfeited Estates Pprs. (Sc. Hist. Soc.), 32-34, 46. He was granted an award of some £55 p.a. from the forfeited Lovat estates for his maintenance. Subsequently he became a merchant.

On his half-brother’s death in 1782 he succeeded to the restored Lovat estates, which had been vested in trustees until all debts should be paid off. Fraser resented this ‘injustice’, which reduced his electoral interest and gave the trustees ‘more to say with their name than the present lord’.C. Fraser Mackintosh Antiquarian Notes (ser. 2) 8; Adam, Pol. State of Scotland 1788, p. 173. However, he was returned unopposed for Inverness-shire.

During his two years in the House some ten speeches by Fraser are reported, mainly on economic and Scottish affairs. In his maiden speech, on 17 June 1782, he seconded Lord Graham’s motion to repeal the Act prohibiting Highland dress, as a ‘kindness’ likely to discourage emigration.Debrett, vii. 235-7. ‘Every effort is laudable’, he wrote on 1 July, ‘whose motives have a tendency to divert transatlantic notions.’C. F. Mackintosh, Letters of Two Centuries, 344. He voted against Shelburne’s peace preliminaries, 18 Feb. 1783, and spoke and voted for Fox’s East India bill, 27 Nov. 1783.

Robinson in December 1783 classed Fraser as an opponent of Pitt’s Administration, but in January 1784 as a supporter. Fraser belonged to the St. Alban’s Tavern group which tried to unite Pitt and Fox, and in the House on 12 Jan. declared that ‘he was not pledged to vote on either side’ but ‘would defend the constitution and the present royal family of Hanover with his life’.Debrett, xii. 522. In Stockdale’s list of 19 Mar. he was noted as absent.

He did not stand in 1784 but gave his interest to Lord William Gordon.

He died 8 Dec. 1815.