Rear-Admiral Sir John Lindsay KB (1737 – 4 June 1788) was a British naval officer of the 18th century, who achieved the rank of rear admiral late in his career.

In the last year of his life, he was promoted to rear admiral as an honorary position, as his failing health prevented him from taking a command.

He entrusted the girl to his maternal uncle William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield to raise free in England.

[2] While in the West Indies, Lindsay got an enslaved 14-year-old child named Maria Belle pregnant, she subsequently gave birth to a daughter in 1761 when she was about 15.

[5] After, the daughter was baptized as Dido Elizabeth Belle by her mother Maria Belle in November 1766 at St George’s Church Bloomsbury, Lindsay was absent from the baptism and record, Dido wasn't publicly acknowledged by her father hence she was given her mother's last name instead.

[5] His younger children, John and Elizabeth Lindsay weren't brought to Kenwood House, but both ended up being raised in Edinburgh, Scotland.

They were known to correspond with each other, later his son John became a colonel and when he died, he left his estate to his mother Francis and his sister Elizabeth.

It was said that Elizabeth didn't approve on social ground of her husband's friendship with poet Robert Burns.

[7][8][9] By the end of his life, Lindsay was known to reside in Scotland, he only acknowledged two children in his will, leaving £1,000 to "John and Elizabeth, my reputed son and daughter.

"[6] From August 1769 to March 1772 Lindsay was promoted to commodore and assigned as commander-in-chief of the East Indies Station, flying his broad pennant flown from the frigate Stag.

After giving evidence against Sir Hugh Palliser to the ensuing courts martial, he resigned straight after Keppel.

He refused to accept any command during Lord Sandwich's administration of the Admiralty, thus missing the American War of Independence.