Object description

James Macrae was most likely born in the parish of Ochiltree and escaped great poverty to become a sea captain and later an administrator who served as the Governor of Fort St George and in 1725 Governor of the Madras Presidency, modern day Chennai. He encountered the pirate Edward England and was noted for reforming the administration of Madras Presidency on behalf of the British East India Company. James returned from India with a fortune conservatively estimated at £100,000. He died unmarried at Monkton House that he had purchased circa 1739 and renamed 'Orangefield' and was buried in 1748 at Monkton Churchyard in, for reasons that are not entirely clear, an unmarked grave.