Sir William Miller, Lord Glenlee

British, 1755 - 1846

BiographyWilliam Miller was born on August 12, 1755, the only son of Sir Thomas Miller (1717-1789), lord president of the Court of Session in Scotland, and his first wife Margaret Murdoch (d. 1767). Following his admittance as a member of the Faculty of Advocates on August 9, 1777, he was appointed principal clerk in the high court of justiciary and briefly held a seat in the House of Commons (1780-81). On November 5, 1778, he married his cousin Grizel Chalmers (d. 1817), a daughter of George Chalmers of Fifeshire, an important Edinburgh grain merchant. They had six sons and three daughters. On March, 3, 1788, his father was created a baronet and when he died on September 27, 1789, Miller succeeded as Lord Glenlee. From May 1795 to January 1840, he served as a lord of session, and during those forty-five years he gained a high reputation for knowledge not only of jurisprudence but of mathematics and literature. His conversation was said to be "full of thought and curious original views." He died on May 9, 1846, six years after resigning his judicial seat, at the age of ninety. He was buried in the Miller family vault at Stair, Ayrshire. Miller's extensive library was dispersed in an eleven-day sale held from January 18-29, 1853.

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