Sir John Lindsay

Rear Admiral Sir John Lindsay was buried in the north transept of Westminster Abbey on 16th June 1788 aged 51, adjoining the grave of Lady Mansfield (ie. near the column opposite Sir Peter Warren's monument). He seems never to have had an inscribed gravestone and he has no monument.

He was the younger son of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Perth in Scotland and his wife the Honorable Amelia Murray (sister of William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield). By 1757 he was a captain in the Royal Navy and took part in the Rochefort expedition and one to Havana with Sir George Pocock. He was knighted for his gallantry on returning to England in 1764. Later he was Commander in Chief in the East Indies and in the Mediterranean. He was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral of the Red [squadron] in 1787.

On 19th September 1768 he married Mary, daughter of Sir William Milner and Elizabeth (Dawes). She was buried in the Abbey, aged 59, on 30th October 1779. He had no legitimate children but provided in his will for his "reputed" son John (1767-1821) and daughter Elizabeth Palmer (who married Peter Hill) (1766-1842) but not for his other daughter Dido Elizabeth Belle (who married John Daviniere in 1793). Dido's mother was a slave captured from a Spanish ship and Lord and Lady Mansfield cared for her at their residence at Kenwood.

Further reading

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography