He succeeded to the title of 5th and 2nd Baronet Anstruther, Lanarkshire on the death of his father on 26 January 1811. He inherited the estates of Carmichael and Westraw, Lanarkshire, on the death of his cousin, Andrew Carmichael, 6th Earl of Hyndford on 18 April 1817 and took the additional name of Carmichael.[2]
He died in 1818 from typhus. In 1817 he had married Jessie, the daughter of Major-General David Dewar of Gilston, and had 1 son, John, who was born nine days after his death and who would be fatally shot at Eton school in 1831.[1]