James Scarlett, 8th Baron Abinger

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Lieutenant Colonel James Richard Scarlett, 8th Baron Abinger (28 September 1914 – 23 September 2002) was a British peer and farmer.

He was born in Datchet, Berkshire, the son of Hugh Scarlett, 7th Baron Abinger, and Marjorie McPhillamy. He went to Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he studied economics. He joined the Royal Artillery in 1936 and served in France, Norway, and India during his career, rising to lieutenant colonel before retiring in 1947. He earned an MA in 1946.

In 1943, after his father’s death, he became the 8th Baron Abinger and inherited Inverlochy Castle in Scotland. He later sold Inverlochy after World War II to a Canadian whiskey merchant and bought Clees Hall, a mixed farm near Alphamstone on the Essex/Suffolk border. In 1968 he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for Essex.

Scarlett was passionate about rural life and history. He sought to regulate amateur archaeologists who used metal detectors, working on reporting rules from 1979 to 1981. He chaired the Essex branch of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England (1972–1982) and co-founded the Colne Stour Countryside Association in 1974. He also led the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association, helped catalogue the Boscombe Collection of Shelley letters and manuscripts (now at the Bodleian Library), and served as Vice-President of the Byron Society. He was a Knight of the Order of St John.

In 1957 he married Isla Carolyn Rivett-Carnac; they had two sons: James Scarlett, who became the 9th Baron Abinger, and Hon. Peter Scarlett.

Scarlett sat in the House of Lords as a hereditary peer from 21 July 1943 until the House of Lords Act reduced the number of hereditary peers in 1999. He died on 23 September 2002, aged 87.