Background
Born in Edinburgh, Southesk was the son of Sir James Carnegie, 5th Baronet and Charlotte Lysons, daughter of the Rev"d Daniel Lysons.
Born in Edinburgh, Southesk was the son of Sir James Carnegie, 5th Baronet and Charlotte Lysons, daughter of the Rev"d Daniel Lysons.
He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and in 1845 joined the 92nd Regiment of Foot, before transferring to the Grenadier Guards the next year, with whom he served for three years.
In 1849 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Kincardineshire, a position he continued to hold until 1856, when he sold his lands in Kincardineshire. Through his great-great-great grandfather, who was the fourth son of David Carnegie, 1st Earl of Southesk, James was the heir to the earldom of Southesk and the lordship of Carnegie. He managed to obtain a reversal of his kinsman"s attainder by Acting of Parliament in 1855, and became the ninth Earl of Southesk and Lord Carnegie of Leuchars and Kinnaird.
In 1869 he was made a Knight of the Thistle and created Baron Balinhard, of Farnell in the County of Forfar, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
This title gave him and the later earls an automatic seat in the House of Lords. In 1849 Southesk married Lady Catherine Hamilton Noel (1829–1855), daughter of Charles, Earl of Gainsborough.
In 1860 Southesk married Lady Susan Catherine Mary Murray (1837–1915), eldest daughter of Alexander, Earl of Dunmore. Lord Southesk died in February 1905, aged seventy-seven.
Southesk was the author of several books of poetry, including Jonas Fisher in which a young missionary describes his adventures among the London poor in simple direct verse.
lieutenant was published anonymously, and misattributed by one critic to another Scottish author of the time, Robert Buchanan. Buchanan successfully sued for libel. During a trip through Canada beginning in 1859 he commissioned and collected several Métis, Cree, Nakoda, Blood and Blackfoot artifacts which were recently auctioned at Sotheby"son
