William Fullarton (1754-1808) was a politician and colonial governor. He was the only son of William and Barbara Fullarton and inherited considerable property after the death of his father in 1758. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh before departing for his Grand Tour in 1769, with Patrick Brydone as his tutor. He spent a short time in Lincoln’s Inn before giving up diplomacy to become secretary to the embassy in Paris from 1775-8. Upon his return he was elected MP for Plympton Erle in 1779.

In 1780, he raised a regiment on his estate in collaboration with Thomas Mackenzie which landed in India, and in 1782 he was gazetted colonel in the army of the East India Company. He returned to Scotland and resumed his political career in 1787, sitting for for Haddington (1787-90), Horsham (1793-6) and Ayrshire (1796-1703), and becoming a spokesman on India. At the same time, he settled into his life on his Ayrshire estates. He married Marianne Mackay, daughter of George, 5th Lord Reay, in 1792. And he took an interest in agricultural improvement, publishing two memoirs on its progress, including a General View of the Agriculture of the County of Ayr in 1793. In the same year, he was elected fellow of the royal societies of Edinburgh and London.

He then became first commissioner to Trinidad in 1802 which brought awareness to the brutal leadership of Thomas Picton, who resigned in 1803, with Fullarton publishing his Statement, Letters and Documents, Respecting the Affairs of Trinidad in 1804. He sold his Fullarton estate in 1804 and died of lung inflammation in London in 1808 and was buried in Isleworth.

In c.1790, the Adam office made designs for a considerable-sized, castle-style county house along with a forecourt, stables and offices, and a Roman-style temple. There is also a design for a classical-style mausoleum for William Fullarton which is included with a design for a mausoleum at Alva for John Johnstone (SM Adam volume 10/45) and has been catalogued seperately, see: Johnstone Mausoleum, Alva Churchyard, Clackmannanshire.

Fullarton had grown up with William Adam, nephew of Robert and James, and it is possible that it was through this connection that he had contacted the Adam office to make designs on his estate. A house had already been executed by Fullarton’s father in 1745 but the Adam office designs appear to propose an entirely new hammer-head shaped building with an adjoining forecourt and stable block enclosing an internal courtyard. Only the south and west ranges of the stables were executed to the surviving designs, and there are two remaining piers from a forecourt thought also to have been executed at the same time and attributed to the Adam office. The existing house was demolished in the 1960s and the stables and offices have been converted into private accommodation.

Literature: A.T. Bolton, The Architecture of Robert and James Adam, Volume II, Index, 1922, pp. 14, 72; D. King, The Complete Works of Robert & James Adam and Unbuilt Adam, Volume 1, 2001, pp. 335-6, 360, Volume 2, pp. 138, 145, 158; M. Fry, ‘Fullarton, William, of Fullarton (1754–1808)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2008, online [accessed 4 December 2023]

Louisa Catt, 2023