Son of Robert Jardine. Married (1744) to Jean Drummond (d. 1766), daughter of George Drummond, sometime Lord Provost of Edinburgh. They had at least 5 children, Robert, George, John, Janet and Henry. Janet Jardine married George Home-Drummond in 1782, to the great joy of Henry Home, Lord Kames in his last few months - he died in December of that year.1 Jardine was probably born in Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire.
Sometime minister of Liberton and Lady Yester's (both in Edinburgh), and from October 11, 1754, of Tron Church parish in Glasgow. Dean of the Chapel Royal (1761-) and of the Order of the Thistle (1763-). He was a close friend of David Hume,2 Henry Home and John Home.
Rev. Alexander Carlyle wrote favourable about him in his autobiography, mentioning that Jardine's death was "a breach in our society which we long felt, as John Jardine was one of the pleasantest of the whole"3
- 1Henry Home's fondness of his daughter-in-law is described in Alexander Fraser Tytler's Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Honourable Henry Home of Kames.
- 2Fay. C. R. (1956). Adam Smith and the Scotland of His Day. p. 78
- 3Autobiography of the Rev. Dr. Alexander Carlyle, Minister of Inveresk: Containing Memorials of the Men and Events of His Time.
Boswell met John Jardine a few times at Lord Eglinton's in London in the summer of 1763. In his journal of June 24th of that year, he described Jardine as "a hard-headed, jolly dog."
Some of John Jardine's few writings were published in the short-lived Edinburgh Review in the 1750s.