# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Riddell, James (d.1674)

​RIDDELL, JAMES (d. 1674), Scottish merchant and manufacturer, was the son of James Riddell. The latter's father, also ​James Riddell, who claimed descent from the Norman baron Galfridus Riddell of Blaye in Guienne, was the first of the English Riddells to settle in Scotland; for some time he carried on business as a merchant at Kasimierz in Cracow, Poland. Of this town he was made a free citizen about 1595, and the privileges of citizenship were confirmed by the king of Poland in 1602. Subsequently he returned to Edinburgh, of which he became a burgess and guild brother; and he married there Bessie, daughter of Adam Allan, an Edinburgh merchant. Their son James followed with success the business of his father, and acquired the lands of Kinglass, Linlithgowshire. During the civil war he was appointed by the Scots estates commissary-general to the forces in their expedition to the north in 1645, and it was probably in this capacity that he subsequently made the acquaintance of Oliver Cromwell, who is said to have stayed some time in his house in Leith. Riddell was also on friendly terms with General Monck. The soldiers of Monck—probably on account of the royalist sentiments of the minister—turned the parish church of south Leith into a stable, and prevented the parishioners from holding services in it; but, by the interposition of Riddell, Monck, before leaving Scotland, not only consented that the use of the church should be restored to them, but ordered that it should be re-roofed at his own expense. In return the parishioners granted to Riddell a space in the church for a free seat to his family and their descendants.
In January 1653 Riddell presented a petition to Cromwell's council of state for license to import pitch-tar, hemp-oil, or other materials useful for the navy to any port in England or Scotland (Cal. State Papers, 1652–3, Dom. Ser. p. 412), and having on 10 May 1654 presented a complaint that, notwithstanding the license he had obtained, a vessel of his with a cargo of oil had been seized at Leith by the commissioners (ib. 1654, p. 165), it was ordered on 29 May 1655 that the vessel should be discharged (ib. 1655, p. 187). In 1666 he gave information against the seizure of one of his ships by a Dover privateer (ib. 1666–7, p. 425). From the parliament which met at Edinburgh on 23 Sept. 1663 he obtained a monopoly, for nineteen years, for the erection of a manufactory of wool and tow cards, the first of the kind in Scotland; and all the materials imported for the use of the manufactory were to be free of import duty (Acta Parl. Scot. vii. 488). He was joined in partnership in the manufactory with John, earl of Crawford and Lindsay, their indenture being dated 6 Dec. 1663 [see Lindsay, John, first Earl of Lindsay, and seventeenth Earl of Crawford]. Riddell died in 1674. By his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of George Foulis of Ravelston, master of the mint, he had four sons and two daughters: James, a captain in the Dutch service, who died unmarried in 1688; George, of Kinglas, Argyllshire, a merchant in Leith, who succeeded his brother in 1688, and carried on the main line of the family; Adam, Andrew; Isabel, married to Walter Riddell of Minto; and Agnes, who became the second wife of Captain John Taylor.
Sir James Riddell of Belton (d. 1797), the grandson of George Riddell of Kinglas, and great-grandson of James Riddell, the merchant, acquired the estates of Ardnamurchan, Argyllshire, was for some time superintendent-general to the Society of the British Fishery, was made LL.D. of Edinburgh University on 27 Feb. 1767, and was created a baronet on 2 Sept. 1778.
T. F. H.