John Wingfield Malcolm
(1833-1902)
18 April 1861

Volume 3, page 109, sitting number 3126.

Born on 16 April 1833, John Wingfield Malcolm was the son of John Malcolm, 14th of Poltalloch, and Isabella née Wingfield. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. From 1860 to 1880 he was the MP (Conservative) for Boston and from 1886 to 1892 he was the MP (Conservative) for Argyllshire. On 9 June 1896 he was created 1st Baron Malcolm of Poltalloch, county Argyll. On his death, his barony became extinct.

His father John Malcolm was an art connoisseur and a passionate collector of prints and drawings. Comprising almost 1000 drawings and more than 400 prints, the Malcolm Collection included works by Sandro Botticelli, Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Claude Lorrain and Watteau. In 1895 Parliament voted a special grant of £25,000 to the British Museum so it could buy the collection from John Wingfield Malcolm, an acquisition recognised as an important addition to the museum's holdings of old master drawings.

He married, firstly, on 25 July 1861 the Honourable Alice Frederica Irby, daughter of George Ives Irby, 4th Baron Boston. He married, secondly, Marie Jane Lilian Lister, widow of H. Gardner Lister, on 3 November 1897. Three days later it was announced that he had 'sailed for the West Indies, where he will spend the winter' (Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette, 6 November 1897). 

The Right Honourable John Wingfield Malcom of Poltalloch died without issue on 6 March 1902 at the Grand Hotel in Costebelle, a quarter of the town of Hyères in the southeast of France, in the Var département. The abstract of his will gives his addresses as '5 John-street Adelphi Middlesex' and 'Poltalloch, Lochgilphead, N.B. [North Britain].' His estate was valued at the enormous sum of £360,172.

[From an album probably compiled by either George Charles Pratt (1799-1866), 2nd Marquess Camden or by his son, John Charles Pratt (1840-1872), from 1866 3rd Marquess Camden.]