In 1812 James Loch became the Chief Agent of George Granville Leveson-Gower, the second Marquess of Stafford and future first Duke of Sutherland. Leveson-Gower had extensive property in Shropshire, Staffordshire, and through his wife, a million acres in Sutherland in northern Scotland. The Estate also had significant interests in canals, mines, and industry.
Loch had overall responsibility at the strategic level and directed the agents of the individual estates. He seems to have made astute recommendations about new and extended canals, the risky transition from investing in canals to favouring railways, and the draining of wetlands like the Weald Moors to provide more food production for the growing population.
In Scotland he is associated with the controversial programme of Highland Clearances, in which inland tenants pursuing precarious subsistence farming were forced to leave and were provided with tenancies in coastal areas with wider opportunities to make a living. This change benefitted the Estate as profitable sheep farming could be introduced on the cleared land. The same pattern was subsequently followed by many other estates. Nowadays the clearances are portrayed as the heartless destruction of communities, and less recognition is given to the Highlands avoiding the mass deaths of subsistence farmers seen in Ireland during the potato famine a few decades later.
Of particular relevance to the Lilleshall Estate was his 1820 book “An account of the improvements on the estates of the Marquess of Stafford, in the counties of Stafford and Salop, and on the estate of Sutherland, with remarks”, which describes the improvement made on each Shropshire farm of the estate and the practical benefits to individuals of wider drainage schemes like the Weald Moors.
Loch was also a member of parliament from 1827 to 1852, and occasionally spoke during the debates of canal and railway bills. Along with the Leveson-Gowers, he was a supporter of the Great Reform Bill, widening the franchise and removing anomalies like pocket boroughs. He died in 1855 and his role as Chief Agent was taken on by his son George.