John Cochrane (merchant)

John Hyndford Cochrane (3 July 1750 – 21 November 1801) was a wealthy merchant and author from a notable Scottish aristocratic family.

John Cochrane was born in 1750, the second living son of Thomas Cochrane and Jane Stuart. His father was serving as a Commissioner of the Excise for Scotland at the time, but unexpectedly inherited the title of Earl of Dundonald in 1758 on the death of his younger cousin William, the 7th Earl.

John Cochrane was sent to India at the age of 16, obtaining an appointment as a clerk or Writer due to the influence of his uncles Andrew Stuart and James Stuart.[1]

From 1779 to 1783, Cochrane acted as a deputy paymaster in British North America.[2] In May 1783, Cochrane was sued by General Haldimand for refusing to sue merchants himself for amounts owed the Crown for bills of exchange; Cochrane and the merchants lost in the provincial courts, a painful loss which demonstrated to the merchants the need for a better legal system in Quebec.[3]

From 1790 to 1792, Cochrane held the contract for victualling the British fleet in India. In 1792, he signed over the contract to his brother Basil, returning to London to be his brother's agent there.[4]

In 1793 Cochrane was appointed as Deputy Commissary for North Britain.[5]

  1. ^ East India Patronage and the British State: The Scottish Elite and Politics in the Eighteenth Century, George McGilvary, London/New York: I. B. Tauris, 2008, p. 173
  2. ^ Report on Canadian Archives, 1889, Douglas Brymner, Ottawa: Brown, Chamberlin, 1890, p. 58
  3. ^ The Empire of the St. Lawrence: A Study in Commerce and Politics, 2nd ed., Donald Creighton, 1956, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, reprint 2002, p. 95–6
  4. ^ Sustaining the Fleet, 1793-1815: War, the British Navy and the Contractor State, Roger Knight and Martin Howard Wilcox, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010, p. 164
  5. ^ The annual register, or, A view of the history, politics, and literature for the year 1794, Edmund Burke, London: J. Dodsley, 1799, p. 94