Sir William Douglas (d.1809), of Castle Douglas, was a Scottish landowner and industrialist. He was the son of John Douglas Esquire and Mary, daughter of James Heron of Pennington. Between c.1778 and 1800, Douglas had laid out a new village in a small hamlet nearby Carlingwark which he named Castle Douglas. He also bought the estate of Castle Stewart from the Stewarts, Earls of Galloway and renamed the village of Newton Stewart 'Newton Douglas', however, it later reverted back to the title Newton Stewart. In both places he erected a series of factories, including cotton mills, to varying success. In 1801, he was created a Baronet and in c.1805, he built his own castle, called Gelston Castle, near Castle Douglas. He died unmarried in 1809 and the title became extinct.

In 1787-88, the Adam office made a series of finished drawings and designs for a large classical house for Sir William Douglas in Newton Stewart. These designs were not executed and instead Douglas built a castle at Gelston in c.1805 in a similar fashion to the Adam castle style.

Literature:
W. Betham, The Baronetage of England, Or the History of the English Baronets, and Such Baronets of Scotland, Volume 5, 1805, pp. 473-4;The New Statistical Account of Scotland, Volume IV, 1845, pp. 147-176; A.T. Bolton, The Architecture of Robert and James Adam, Volume II, Index, 1922, pp. 24, 68; D. King, The Complete Works of Robert & James Adam and Unbuilt Adam, Volume 2, 2001, p. 123; UCL, Legacies of British Slavery Database, online, [accessed 6 March 2024]

Louisa Catt, 2024