Alexander Jardine (British Army officer)

Alexander Jardine (died 1799) was a Scottish artillery officer, spy, and writer on travel and politics.

Life

He was an illegitimate son of Sir Alexander Jardine, 4th Baronet.[1] He entered the Royal Artillery as a private matross in March 1755, and was transferred to the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, as a cadet in June 1757. He passed out of the academy as a lieutenant-fireworker on 8 February 1758. His subsequent career was as second lieutenant on 11 September 1762, first lieutenant on 28 May 1766, and captain-lieutenant on 28 April 1773.[2]

For four years from 1776, Jardine acted as a British intelligence agent in Spain.[1] He was transferred to one of the Royal Artillery's invalid companies, on 1 November 1776. He became captain in 1777, brevet-major in 1783, and brevet lieutenant-colonel in 1793.[2]

Jardine died in Portugal on 16 July 1799.[2]

Works

Jardine wrote:

Both works reflect the views of Jardine as a reformer, and friend of William Godwin, particularly on the equality of the sexes.[1][3] Jardine relied on stadial theory in arguing for the equality of women.[4] His Letters was cited by Mary Hays, in her Appeal to the men of Great Britain in behalf of women (1798).[5]

The second work was with the publisher James Ridgway in 1792, but was not actually published. Antonio Borghese was a French composer. Dybikowski concludes, of Jardine's contribution to the Essay, that it was "an amalgam of Godwinian personal and social ideals structured by a Williams-like political organization".[6][7]

While stationed at Gibraltar Jardine collected military observations, and presented them in 1772 to the Regimental Society, Woolwich, which he helped to establish in 1772–5. The papers went to the Royal Artillery Institute.[2]

Family

Jardine married a Spanish woman. They had a family of at least five children.[1] Their daughter Charlotte married Robert Dallas.,[8] Their daughters, Charlotte (1768-1792) and Joanna (c 1769-1830), are mentioned in 'The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney Vol V 1782 to 1783'

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Dybikowksi, J. "Jardine, Alexander". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/14658. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5  Lee, Sidney, ed. (1892). "Jardine, Alexander". Dictionary of National Biography. 29. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  3. ↑ Arianne Chernock, Cultivating Woman: Men’s Pursuit of Intellectual Equality in the Late British Enlightenment, Journal of British Studies Vol. 45, No. 3 (July 2006), pp. 511–531. Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The North American Conference on British Studies. DOI: 10.1086/503589 JSTOR 503589
  4. ↑ Arianne Chernock (18 December 2009). Men and the Making of Modern British Feminism. Stanford University Press. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-8047-7293-8.
  5. ↑ Barbara Taylor (13 March 2003). Mary Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination. Cambridge University Press. p. 290 note 11. ISBN 978-0-521-00417-6.
  6. ↑ J. Dybikowski, Society Restored and its Authors, pp.105–114, Enlightenment and Dissent No. 11 (1994) (PDF)
  7. ↑ "Borghese, Antonio D.R - composer, theorist : Grove Music Online - oi". Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  8. ↑  Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1888). "Dallas, Robert (1756-1824)". Dictionary of National Biography. 13. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1892). "Jardine, Alexander". Dictionary of National Biography. 29. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 

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