Innes Robinson
Who was the spouse of John McNeill (diplomat) from Jun 1814 to Nov 1816?
John McNeill ( diplomat ) Sir John McNeill ( 1795 – 17 May 1883 ) was a Scottish surgeon and diplomat . Early life . McNeill was born on 12 August 1795 at Oronsay House on the island of Oronsay in the Inner Hebrides . He was the third of the six sons of John McNeill , laird of Colonsay and Oronsay ( 1767–1846 ) and his wife , Hester McNeill ( died 1843 ) . He was the younger brother of the law lord Duncan McNeill , 1st Baron Colonsay and Oronsay . Education . He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh , where he graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1814 , at the age of nineteen . Career . India . On 6 September 1816 he was appointed assistant surgeon on the Honourable East India Companys Bombay establishment . He was moved to Persia in 1819 . He received his licence as a surgeon on 1 May 1824 and retired from the medical service on 4 June 1836 , thereafter concentrating on the diplomatic aspects of the East India Company . He was attached to the field force under Colonel East in Kutch and Okamundel in 1818–19 and was afterwards deputy medical storekeeper at the presidency . Persia . From 1824 to 1835 , he was attached to the East India Companys legation in Persia , at first in medical charge , and latterly as political assistant to the Minister , John Macdonald Kinneir , in which post he displayed great ability . For instance , in 1829 he was probably one of the instigators of the murder of Alexander Griboyedov by Persian mob in Teheran . On 30 June 1835 , he was appointed secretary of the special embassy sent to Tehran under Henry Ellis to congratulate Mohammad Shah Qajar on his accession to the Persian throne . McNeill received permission to wear the Persian Order of the Lion and the Sun of the first class , and on his return home in the spring of 1836 , he anonymously published a startling anti-Russian pamphlet , Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East . From 1836 to 1844 , McNeill was any envoy to Persia . See Siege of Herat . Scotland . In 1845 , McNeill was appointed chairman of the Board of Supervision , entrusted with the working of the new Poor Law ( Scotland ) Act 1845 , a post he occupied for twenty-three years . During the Highland Potato Famine – nearly as disastrous as the Great Famine of Ireland – he conducted a special inquiry into the condition of the western Scottish Highlands and Western Isles , during which he personally inspected twenty-seven of the most distressed parishes . During his stay in Scotland he lived at Granton House in Edinburgh . He was cofounder in 1851 , with Sir Charles Trevelyan , of the Highland and Island Emigration Society which during the Highland Clearances supported an exodus of nearly 5,000 people to Australia between 1851 and 1856 . Crimean War . At the outbreak the Crimean War in 1854 , McNeill published revised editions in French and English of his pamphlet Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East , with supplementary chapters dealing with the progress of events since 1836 , and insisting on the importance to Britain and to Christendom of the autonomy of Turkey and Persia . At the beginning of 1855 , when the Crimean disasters had roused public indignation , McNeill and Colonel Alexander Tulloch , an officer of great administrative experience at the War Office , were sent to the Crimea with instructions to report on the whole arrangements and management of the commissariat and the method of keeping accounts , and to the causes of the delays in unloading and distributing clothing and other stores sent to Balaklava . The commissioners started at once for the seat of war . They took no shorthand writer with them , as the remuneration sanctioned by the Treasury was insufficient to secure a qualified person . The McNeill–Tulloch inquiry was the most effective of the various inquisitions into the Crimean débâcle . It sharply criticised Lord Raglans personal staff in the Crimea and Commissary-General Filder , and it led to many recriminations as officers sought to clear their names when the report was published in 1856 . A board of general officers was convened to clear the army , but despite its protestations , the McNeill–Tulloch report led to professional reform of the commissariat by the Royal Warrant of October 1858 . Very unusually , the Commons , irritated by executive obfuscation , passed a resolution in 1857 calling for special honours and McNeill soon became a Privy Councillor and Tulloch was appointed a KCB . The University of Oxford made McNeill a Doctor of Civil Law and the University of Edinburgh chose him as chairman of its amalgamated societies ; his inaugural address on competitive examinations was published in 1861 . Personal life . McNeill married , firstly , in 1814 , Innes Robinson , fourth daughter of George Robinson of Clermiston , Midlothian – she died in 1816 ; secondly , in 1823 , Eliza Wilson , third daughter of John Wilson – she died in 1868 ; thirdly , in 1871 , Lady Emma Augusta Campbell , daughter of John Campbell , 7th Duke of Argyll . McNeill was the brother-in law ( by his 2nd marriage ) of the author John Wilson , and ( by his 3rd marriage ) of George Campbell , 8th Duke of Argyll . McNeill died at Poralto near Cannes in France , on 17 May 1883 . A memorial to his memory lies on the south-east wall of Liberton Cemetery in Edinburgh , at the grave of his third wife , Emma Augusta .