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Lieutenant-General John Lindsay, 20th Earl of Crawford (4 October 1702 – 25 December 1749) was a Scottish peer and the first colonel of the Black Watch on its formation in 1739.

Biography

Lindsay was the son of Lieutenant-General John Lindsay, 19th Earl of Crawford and Emilia Stuart and inherited his titles on the death of his father in 1714. He was educated at University of Glasgow and the Vaudeuil Military Academy, Paris.

The Earl of Crawford was commissioned into the 3rd Foot Guards in 1726, but later served in the Austrian and Russian armies. In the summer of 1739, during the Battle of Grocka (part of Siege of Belgrade), he was badly wounded by a bullet to his thigh and was almost abandoned for dead on the battlefield. However, after partial recovery and against advice, he travelled back to Vienna, and onward to Britain, where he took command of the Black Watch (1739–1740).

He was then Colonel of the 2nd Troop of Horse Grenadier Guards (1740–1743) and Colonel of the 4th Troop of Horse Guards ('Scottish Horse Guards') (1743–1746), fighting at the Battle of Dettingen on 16 June 1743. He gained the rank of Brigadier-General in 1744 and Major-General in 1745. He fought in the Jacobite rising of 1745 and the Battle of Fontenoy on 30 April 1745.

Crawford was Colonel of the 25th Foot (1746–1747). He fought in the Battle of Rocoux on 11 October 1746 and gained the rank of Lieutenant-General in 1747. He was Colonel of the 2nd Dragoons ('Scots Greys') (1747–1749)

In 1732 Crawford was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1734 he was Grand Master of the Premier Grand Lodge of England.

Family

Crawford married Lady Jean Murray, daughter of James Murray, 2nd Duke of Atholl, in 1747, but she died only nine months after their marriage. The widowed Crawford shared his London home, 35 Upper Brook Street, with his mother-in-law, the Duchess of Atholl.

He died on 26 December 1749, from a leg wound received at the Battle of Krotzka in 1739. He was the last member of the Lindsay family to be buried in the mausoleum in the cemetery at Ceres, Fife, Scotland.

He was half brother (through a common mother, Lady Emelia Stuart, Countess of Crawford) to the judge Alexander Fraser, Lord Strichen.

Notes

1. Beograd u delima evropskih putopisaca [Belgrade in the Works of European Travel Writers] (PDF) (in Serbian). Belgrade: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. 2003. pp. 67–84.
2. "Upper Brook Street: South Side Survey of London: Volume 40, the Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part 2 (The Buildings)". British History Online. LCC 1980. Retrieved 5 January 2025.
3. "Count Alexander Fraser, 7th Lord of Strichen". 17 December 2022.

Bibliography

• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages

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