Sir James Montgomery, 1st Baronet Stanhope, FRSE (1721 – 2 April 1803) was a Scottish advocate, judge, country landowner, agriculturalist and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1766 to 1775.

A learned lawyer and an improving landlord, he was peculiarly fitted to deal with the question of entails, which had now become pressing, owing to the extent to which details fettered the practical management of land.

[2] Montgomery was, like his father, skilled in farming, and in 1763 bought a half-reclaimed estate of Lord Islay's in Peeblesshire, originally called Blair Bog, but afterwards 'The Whim,' which eventually became his favourite residence.

In 1767, he bought for £40,000 Stanhope and Stobo with its feudal barony in Peeblesshire, part of the estates of Sir David Murray, 4th Baronet, which had been confiscated for their owner's complicity in the Jacobite rising of 1745.

He thenceforward chiefly resided in the country, where his good methods of farming and the improvements which he promoted, notably the Peebles and Edinburgh road in 1770, gained for him the title of 'The Father of the County.

[2] Montgomery and his wife, Margaret Scott, are buried in a walled-off part of the cemetery at Stobo Kirk near Peebles, with an unusual wall lining of yew hedge.