Sir James Lamont, 1st Baronet

[1][2][3] A large inheritance then enabled him to resign from the army and devote himself to travel;[1] this came from his father's illegitimate half-brother John Lamont (1782–1850), and derived from slave-worked sugar plantations in Trinidad, West Indies.

James Lamont inherited several plantations in Trinidad, which he retained, as well as the Benmore Estate near Dunoon in Scotland, which he sold for £17,000.

[7] Lamont made his first Arctic voyage in 1858, and visited various locations in the Svalbard (Spitzbergen) archipelago on the sailing vessel Ginevra, including overwintering on Edge Island.

[8] In 1859, he returned to the Edge Island region on the Anna Louisa, a vessel designed for hunting walrus, and in 1862 visited Nova Scotia and Labrador.

[1] According to his obituaries in The Times and for the Royal Geographical Society, the primary purpose of these expeditions was hunting,[2][9] and in addition to walrus, he pursued seals, reindeer, polar bears and grouse.

[1][2] After his brief parliamentary career, Lamont had the schooner Diana constructed for him; the three-masted vessel with steam power, adapted for sailing in the Arctic seas, was launched in March 1869.

[12] He was accompanied on these later voyages by the surgeon Charles Edward Smith and the artist and amateur botanist, William Livesay.

[17] Augusta published a biographical account of her father in the Scottish Geographical Magazine in 1946, and compiled a volume of Records and Recollections in 1950.