Francis Wemyss Charteris (21 October 1723 – 24 August 1808) was a Scottish landowner who claimed to be7th Earl of Wemyss.[1]
Charteris was the second son ofJames Wemyss, 5th Earl of Wemyss and his wife Janet, daughter of the very wealthy ColonelFrancis Charteris. He was born with the name Francis Wemyss but on 24 February 1732, he legally changed it to Francis Wemyss Charteris, adopting his mother's maiden name on the inheritance of the estates of his maternal grandfather Colonel Charteris. In aHaddingtonshire Sasine registered on 8 August 1792, No.576, Francis Charteris, Earl of Wemyss was seised in the barony of Newmilns, or Amisfield, Haddingtonshire, plus half of the barony ofMorham and its lands, plus the grain mill of themonastery of Haddington called Abbey Mill.
His elder brotherDavid, Lord Elcho, was implicated in theJacobite rising of 1745, and was attainted in 1746. He died childless in 1787 and Charteris would have succeeded as seventh Earl but for the attainder. However, he still assumed the title.
In 1756 he commissionedIsaac Ware to build the monumentalAmisfield House on the site purchased by his maternal grandmother, and named after her home estate ofAmisfield. He further commissioned John Henderson to remodel the house in 1784, having purchasedGosford House in 1781 in which to reside during the construction works. When Amisfield House was ready for reoccupation Charteris commissionedRobert Adam to overhaul the entire design of Gosford House.[2]
Charteris died in August 1808, aged 84 and is buried in the Wemyss Mausoleum (a huge stone pyramid) nearGosford House, the estate he had acquired in 1781 or 1784 (depending on the source).[3][4] The Earl is the only member of the family to be buried within the mausoleum.[5] His grandsonFrancis obtained a reversal of the attainder in 1826 and became the eighth Earl of Wemyss.[6]
On 12 September 1745, he married Lady Katherine Gordon, daughter of the2nd Duke of Gordon. They had five children:
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| Preceded by | Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland 1747–1748 | Succeeded by |
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| Preceded by | Earl of Wemyss 1787–1808 | Succeeded by |
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