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Adam Smith, 1723-90
ECONOMIST
Adam Smith (1723-90) is generally regarded
as the founder of economics as a separate
discipline;Smith was Professor of Moral
Philosophy at Edinburgh (1748-51) and
Glasgow (1751-63). His two major books
were The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
and the Wealth of Nations (1776), which
is claimed to be the most successful not
only of all books on economics but, with
the possible exception of Darwin's Origin
of Species, of all scientific books that
have appeared to this day." Smith
was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, and his boyhood
friends included the Adam brothers, who
were destined to achieve their own fame
as architects.
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Allan Ramsay the Elder, 1686-1758
POET
Ramsay was originally a wig-maker in Edinburgh,
which he gave up for bookselling. He founded
what is thought to have been the first
circulating library in Britain. He published
his collected poems a few years later.
His best known work, The Gentle Shepherd,
on a pastoral theme, had instant success.
Ramsay is said to have been a great conversationalist
and immensely interested in the theatre,
He opened a playhouse in Carrubber's Close,
but it was closed down by the Town Council.
Ramsay built an octagonal home, the "Goose-pie",
which still stands at Ramsay Garden, Castlehill,
near the top of the Royal Mile.
He is buried in Greyfriars Churchyard
and his marble statue stands at the junction
of Princes Street with the Mound; the
medallion portraits around the pedestal
are members of his family and descendants.
|
Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-94
WRITER
Robert
Lewis Balfour Stevenson was born in Edinburgh
(at 8 Howard Place) on 13 November 1850.
He adopted the more romantic "Louis"
as a student. Both his father (Thomas
Stevenson) and his grandfather were lighthouse
engineers; his mother, Margaret Isabella
Balfour, was the daughter of a church
minister. He was a sickly child and his
closest companion was his nurse Alison
Cunningham. His days in bed stimulated
his imagination, and later inspired "A
Child's Garden of Verses" (1885),
which he dedicated to "Cummy".
In 1857 the family moved to 17 Heriot
Row, and after periods recuperating in
England and abroad Stevenson matriculated
at Edinburgh University in 1867. He initially
intended to follow his father's example
and study engineering, but switched to
law. He qualified as an advocate in 1875.
In the same year he met W. E. Henley,
and Stevenson began his literary career
with contributions to Henley's "London
Magazine", and also the "Cornhill
Magazine" edited by Leslie Stephen
(1832-1904). Henley (who is remembered
for his poem "Invictus") had
had a leg amputated, and it has been suggested
that he may have been the inspiration
for Long John Silver. Stevenson was to
collaborate with him on four plays during
the 1880's, one of which ("Deacon
Brodie") is based on the well-known
Edinburgh figure who was a respectable
councillor by day and a criminal by night,
partly inspiring the character of Dr.
Jekyll.
Stevenson's first published books were
travelogues: "An Inland Voyage"
(1878) describes a canoe trip in Belgium
and France; "Travels with a Donkey"
(1879) is based on his tour of the Cevennes.
He had spent time at the artist's colony
at Fontainbleau, and there he met Fanny
Osbourne, a married American ten years
his senior. Stevenson followed her to
California and they were married in May
1880. They lived in Bournemouth until
1887, the year in which Thomas Stevenson
died in Edinburgh. Stevenson wrote his
first novel, "Treasure Island"
(1883), after a summer holiday in Braemar.
It was first serialised in "Young
Folks Magazine", then published in
volume form soon after. This was followed
by two more books for young people, before
Stevenson found fame with "Kidnapped"
(1886) and "The Strange Case Of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1886). The
death of his father marked Stevenson's
final break with Scotland. He and Fanny
went to America, and in 1888 they chartered
a yacht and sailed to Tahiti and Honolulu,
then settled in December 1889 at Upolu
on Samoa, where they bought the estate
of Vailima. Stevenson died there on 3
December 1894. His last work, the unfinished
"Weir of Hermiston" (1896),
is widely considered his masterpiece. |
James Connolly, 1868-1916
SOCIALIST
Probably Edinburgh's most famous son,
yet least known or recognised by the people
of the city itself.
James Connolly was born on June 5,
1868, at 107, the Cowgate, Edinburgh.
His parents, John and Mary Connolly, had
emigrated to Edinburgh from County Monaghan
in the 1850s. His father worked as a manure
carter, removing dung from the streets
at night, and his mother was a domestic
servant who suffered from chronic bronchitis
and was to die young from that ailment.
James Connolly went to St Patricks School
in the Cowgate, as did his two older brothers,
Thomas and John. Connolly took a job as
a printer's devil at the tender age of
eleven. When he was fourteen he joined
the British Army, spending seven years
stationed in Cork, Ireland. These years
were spent educating himself and Connolly
soon developed a healthy interest in Socialism
and Nationalism. After getting married,
Connolly returned to his native city where
he befriended the Scottish socialist John
Leslie, who converted him to Marx. He
accepted a job in Dublin in 1896 as organiser
for the Socialist Society. Within a few
days of his arrival, Connolly founded
the Irish Socialist Republican Party and
soon after established a newspaper, the
Workers' Republic. The party proved a
fairly unsucessful venture, although Connolly
was becoming renowned for his social thinking.
He left for a trip to America, touring
and lecturing until his return to Ireland,
where he accepted the position of organiser
for the Belfast branch of James Larkin's
new union, the ITGWU (Irish Transport
and General Workers Union). Connolly came
to Dublin to help during the 1913 Lockout
and was instrumental in founding the Irish
Citizen Army. With
the outbreak of World War One, Connolly
began to agitate for a rising against
British Rule , and was brought into secret
talks with the IRB. Connolly was Commander-General
of the Dublin Brigade during the 1916
Easter Rising . He was stationed in the
GPO, the Rebel HQ, and was badly wounded
in the fighting. He was brought to Kilmainham
Gaol on the 12th of May 1916, strapped
to a chair because he was too weak from
his wounds to stand, and was shot by a
British firing squad.
A march is held in Edinburgh each year
in June to commemorate this heroic man.

EQUALITY FOR
ALL |
Allan Ramsay theYounger, 1713-84 PAINTER
The eldest son of the poet, Alan Ramsay
excelled as a portrait painter, particularly
of women.
After receiving training in Edinburgh
and London, he went on to Italy and studied
further there for some two years. He then
made his name in London and was appointed
portrait painter to George III. Ramsay
had charm, liked conversation, was popular
in society and enjoyed travel, particularly
in Italy.
His burial Place in Greyfriars Churchyard,
Edinburgh. His work can be seen in the
National Gallery at the Mound and in the
National Portrait Gallery, Queen Street.
|
Alexander Graham Bell, 1847-1922
INVENTOR
The inventor of the telephone was born
in a house in South Charlotte Street in
the city, where there is an inscribed
stone beside the doorway. Bell, like his
father, was an educator of the deaf. He
went first to Canada and then to the United
States, where in 1873 he was
appointed a professor in the School of
Oratory, Boston University.
It was in pursuing his studies on behalf
of the deaf that Bell constructed his
first rough telephone in Boston in 1875.
The instrument that was to revolutionise
communications throughout the world was
introduced at Philadelphia in 1876 and
into Britain and France in the following
year. Bell returned to his native city
on visits, and in 1920 was made a freeman
of Edinburgh. He
moved to Nova Scotia and died there in
1922. |
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859-1930 WRITER
One of seven children, Doyle was born
on 22 May, 1859, the son and grandson
of artists (his grandfather was a political
cartoonist in "Punch" magazine).
He was educated at Stoneyhurst and studied
medicine at Edinburgh University. The
creator of Sherlock Holmes was born at
no. 11 Picardy Place. He graduated as
a doctor at Edinburgh University, where,
it is said, the remarkable ability of
one of his teachers, Dr Joseph Bell, to
make accurate deductions from his observations
led Conan Doyle later to create the character
of the great detective.
Sherlock Holmes first appeared in a series
of short stories in the Strand Magazine
in 1891. Conan Doyle's talents as a story-teller
are also demonstrated in his novels Micah
Clarke (1887), The White Company (1890)
and The Sign of Four (1890). In 1896 Doyle
became a war correspondent in the Sudan
and he served as a doctor in the 1899-1902
Boer War in South Africa. He was knighted
in 1902 for his service in the war. He
wrote a history of the Boer War which
proved popular at the time and as a war
correspondent he later wrote an account
of the British campaign in France and
Flanders.
His interest in spiritualism became known
during World War I and he wrote a number
of books on the subject. In 1927 the Sherlock
Holmes stories were published as "The
Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes." Doyle
was married twice and died in Sussex in
1930. |
Irvine Welsh, 1961-
WRITER
Scottish author who is acknowledged
as the voice of British youth culture
in the '90s. Irvine Welsh was born in
1961 in Scotland. Welsh grew up in the
heart of Edinburgh's working-class district
of Muirhouse, left school at 16, changing
jobs a myriad of times. He migrated to
London with the punk movement, and with
the move came a dependency on drugs. At
the end of the 80's he returned to Scotland,
taking a job with the Edinburgh District
Council and started an MBA course in computer
studies while writing on the side.
He had his first published work in 1994,
a collection of short stories entitled
The Acid House. His first novel (actually
written in 1993) was published later that
year and is his best known work Trainspotting.
It reached the last top ten for the Booker
prize.
The book was adapted to film and in 1996
became a notable success, reaching cult
like status. He completed his second novel,
Marabou Stork Nightmares in 1995, and
Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance,
a collection of short stories that was
published in 1996. His most recent work
Filth, was his most recent novel published
in 1998. Welsh also has written a stage
play, You'll have had your hole and several
short stories. His books have been translated
into eleven languages around the world.
He currently has homes in both London
and Edinburgh. |
David Octavius Hill, 1802-70
PAINTER
& BIOGRAPHER
Landscape and portrait painter, D.O.
Hill is nevertheless best known to history
as a pioneer photographer. Hill was born
in Perth and established himself as a
fine landscape painter. By the age of
19 he had published a series of landscapes
printed by a lithographic process. He
was also a founder member of the Royal
Scottish Academy in 1826 and was the secretary
of the RSA until his death. He was also
involved in the creation of the National
Gallery of Scotland in 1850. He was the
first artist to apply the new invention
of photography to portraiture, and many
of the calotypes which he made of eminent
figures are now a valued part of the national
photographic archive. Hill had a studio
on Calton Hill, and was closely associated
in his photographic work with Robert Adamson,
of St Andrews.
In the free church assembly hall, Edinburgh,
is a historic picture by Hill, containing
no fewer than 500 portraits of all the
leading lay and clerical members who demitted
from the Church of Scotland at the Disruption
in 1843. The picture shows the act of
signing the deed of demission, and it
took Hill more than 20 years to make all
the portraits. Hill is buried in the Dean
Cemetery, Edinburgh, where there is a
bronze bust of him by his widow. |
David Hume, 1711-76
PHILOSOPHER
& HISTORIAN
Born
in Edinburgh into a Calvinist family in
1711, Hume
entered Edinburgh University at the age
of 12 to study law,
leaving less than three years later, having
concentrated more
on his own interests than his course work.
He was described as the most acute thinker
in Britain in the eighteenth century and
his intellectual powers were recognised
with the publication of his Essays, Moral
and Political in two volumes in 1741 and
1742. Employed as librarian to the Faculty
of Advocates in Edinburgh, he wrote a
six- volume History of England which was
extremely popular and admired for its
elegant and lucid style. It placed him
in the first rank of historians.
In France in 1763, Hume found himself
lionised in the salons of Paris, honoured
by royalty and regarded as a leading figure
of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Good natured, an engaging mix of simplicity
and shrewdness, Hume was on friendly terms
with virtually everyone. A recent poll
of academics voted Hume as the Scot who
had made the greatest impact on Scotland
in the last 1,000 years. Hume, who never
married, had several homes in Edinburgh,
the last of them in what is today St David
Street. His tomb is in the Old Calton,
Waterloo Place. |
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Sean Connery, 1930-
ACTOR
Born and brought up in Fountainbridge,
Edinburgh, Sean Connery earned an early
wage as a delivery boy on a horse-drawn
milk cart and as a coffin polisher after
leaving school. He gained his stage breakthrough
as a chorus boy in the musical South Pacific
(1951) and shot to stardom in films as
the first James Bond in Dr No (1962),
after both Cary Grant and Noël Coward
had turned the role down. Connery played
Bond a further seven times. However, by
this time the role, although a moneyspinner,
had become stereotyped and he moved on
to more demanding parts - as an obsessive
lover in Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964),
as a prison-camp rebel in Sidney Lumet's
The Hill (1965), as an ageing Robin Hood
in Robin and Marian (1976), and as a medieval
monk-detective in The Name of the Rose
(1986). Connery won an Oscar for best
supporting actor portraying a tough but
honest police officer in The Untouchables
(1987), which starred Kevin Costner. As
'Indy' Jones's professorial father in
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989),
he revelled in parodying his screen persona.
Latterly, he has also become known as
a high-profile supporter of the movement
for Scottish national independence. |
Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, 1924-
SCULPTOR
Sir
Eduardo Paolozzi Paolozzi was born in
Crown Place, Leith, on 7 March 1924, the
only son of Italian parents who owned
an ice cream shop in the town. His paternal
grandfather was named Michelangelo but
he says that did not influence his interest
in art. As a boy he attended Leith Walk
School and Holy Cross Academy. He trained
at Edinburgh College of Art, worked in
Paris for several years shortly after
the end of the Second World War, and then
taught in London.He was influenced by
cubist and surrealist artists but his
early works were collages of clippings
from media Images, advertisements and
comic strips (he had been brought up on
a diet of US films in Leith). A group
of three of his major sculptures, which
were commissioned jointly by the City
of Edinburgh and businessman Tom Farmer,
are on permanent display at Picardy Place.
Sir Eduardo has been Professor of Sculpture
at the Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste,
Munich, since 1981, and he holds honorary
degrees from several universities. He
was admitted a member of the Royal Academy
in 1979.
He was appointed a Commander of the Order
of the British Empire in 1968, and has
been Her Majesty's Sculptor-in-Ordinary
in Scotland since 1986. |
Elsie Inglis, 1864-1917
MEDICAL PIONEER
Elsie
Inglis was a pioneer in a number of ways
- most of them associated with the study
and practice of medicine. Born in India,
she studied medicine at Edinburgh, Glasgow
and Dublin, became a general practitioner
in Edinburgh, and in 1901 inaugurated
a maternity hospice, staffed entirely
by women, at Edinburgh Bruntsfield Hospital.
A recent collection of letters and diary
extracts has been published about Elsie
Inglis which shows that Elsie was not
just a compassionate heroine but also
a stern disciplinarian who struck fear
into patients and medical staff.
In 1906 Elsie Inglis founded the Scottish
Women's Suffrage Federation, from which
sprang, at the outbreak of the First World
War in 1914, the organisation of Scottish
Women's Hospitals. In the following year
she joined this organisation's Serbian
unit, and worked in the war-torn Balkans.
She also served in Russia and Romania,
and her humanitarian work was remembered
with gratitude long afterwards in the
Balkans. She worked long hours in appalling
conditions but was forced to return home
in October 1917, suffering from cancer.
She died on 26 November 1917 in Newcastle
and was buried in Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh.
In Edinburgh her name was commemorated
for many years in one of the city's maternity
hospitals, but the Elsie Inglis Hospital
is now closed. |
James Clerk Maxwell, 1831-79
PHYSICIST
James
Clerk Maxwell, Born in Edinburgh on 13th
June 1831, Maxwell showed earlysigns of
curiosity but was nicknamed "daftie"
by his fellowpupils at Edinburgh Academy.
Nevertheless, he sent his first paper
to the Royal Society in Edinburgh at the
age of 15 and entered Edinburgh University
at age 16. He moved to Cambridge University
in 1850 and graduated there in 1854. He
is generally regarded as one of the greatest
physicists the world has ever seen. Einstein
placed on record his view that the Scot's
work resulted in the most profound change
in the conception of reality in physics
since the time of Newton. Maxwell's researches
united electricity and magnetism into
the concept of the electro-magnetic field.
He died relatively young, and indeed some
of the theories he advanced in physics
were only conclusively proved long after
his death. For example, he did not live
to see proved in the laboratory his theory
that when a charged particle is accelerated,
the radiation produced has the same velocity
as that of light: it is a unification
that remains one of the greatest landmarks
in the whole of science. It paved the
way for Einstein's special theory of relativity.
Maxwell's ideas also ushered in the other
major innovation of twentieth-century
physics, the quantum theory.
He died on 5th November 1879 and is buried
in the village of Parton, Dumfriesshire. |
William Playfair, 1789-1857
ARCHITECT
More
than any other architect, Playfair was
the man who earned Edinburgh its label,
"the Athens of the North".
His classical buildings, many on dramatic
sites, adorn the city, and lend the
physical environment a stature and dignity
that is unique in Britain. Playfair
was the leading influence in the shaping
of Edinburgh's architectural soul.
He was born in London, the son of the
architect James Playfair, and as a boy
came to live in Edinburgh with an uncle,
Professor John Playfair. On qualifying
as an architect, Playfair built a considerable
private practice in Edinburgh before
designing, in 1820, Royal Terrace, Carlton
Terrace and Regent Terrace, in the New
Town. His most important works include
the Royal Scottish Academy, the National
Gallery of Scotland, New College and
Assembly Hall, the Royal College of
Surgeons, Donaldson's Hospital, Advocates'
Library and the National Monument on
Calton Hill. He also enlarged the Old
College of Edinburgh University following
the death of Robert Adam.

|
John Knox, 1505-72
THEOLOGIAN & PREACHER
John Knox (1505-72), was born at Haddington;
and the site of his birthplace in Giffordgate
is marked by a tree which was planted
in 1881 in accordance with one of the
last wishes of Thomas Carlyle.The dominant
figure of the Protestant Reformation in
Scotland, Knox is associated in the public
mind with a narrow bigotry, the promotion
of guilt and joylessness, and a philosophy
that effectively stunted artistic expression.
Knox was a powerful preacher and influential
leader, has inevitably drawn the blame
for the consequences of powerful forces
which were abroad in the land and with
which Scots by temperament felt an emotional
sympathy.
Knox was ordained as a Roman Catholic
priest.
In 1546 he supported the murder of David
Beaton, Archbishop of St Andrews, and
was imprisoned for 18 months on a French
galley (The French Mary of Guise, widow
of James V, was Regent of Scotland at
this time). After his release he travelled
extensively, gaining favour at the English
court of the Protestant King Edward VI.
While in Geneva, he was influenced by
the ideas of Calvin and in 1558 he published
his "First Blast of the Trumpet
Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women".
In it he wrote "to promote a woman
to bear rule, superiority, dominion or
empire above any realm is repugnant to
nature, contrary to God." This was
aimed at Mary of Guise but Queen Elizabeth
of England, who came to the throne in
the same year, took it personally. Knox
came back to Scotland in 1559 and became
minister at St Giles in Edinburgh. In
1560 the Scottish Parliament, with guidance
from Knox, drew up the "Confession
of Faith" which established Protestantism
and government in the Church of Scotland
along the lines he had learned in Geneva.
The Catholic Mary Queen of Scots returned
from France in 1561 and she was subjected
to an unrelenting onslaught from Knox. |
Muriel Spark, 1918-
WRITER
Muriel Spark was already well known for
her critical studies and verse before
embarking on the novels that have established
her reputation as one of this country's
most respected writers.
She was born in Edinburgh and educated
at James Gillespie's School for Girls
and Heriot-Watt College.
Her first novel was The Comforters (1957),
which she has described as `a novel about
writing a novel', ie an experiment in,
and exploration of what it means to write
fiction. At about the same time she became
a convert to Roman Catholicism,and her
novels since have tended to take a parabolic
form combining overt, often wittily satirical
realism with implications of an extra-realist,
spiritual dimension. One of her best-known
works is The Prime ofMiss Jean Brodie
(1961), the story of the influence over
a group of schoolgirls of a progressive
spinster school teacher in Edinburgh.
Her three novellas, The Public Image (1968);
The Driver's Seat (1970) and Not to Disturb
(1971) exemplify the economy, precision
and hardness of her work; they invite
little sympathy for their characters,
but rather convey a strong sense of pattern
and fate underlying an apparent contingency
of events. Her other novels are: Robinson
(1958); Mememto Mori (1959); The Ballad
of Peckham Rye (1960); The Bachelors (1960);
The Girls of Slender Means (1963); The
Mandelbaum Gate (1965); The Hothouse by
the East River (1972); The Abbess of Crewe
(1972); The Takeover (1976); Territorial
Rights (1979); Loitering with Intent (1981);
The Only Problem (1984); A Far Cry From
Kensington (1988). Other
writings include a stage play Doctors
of Philosophy (1962), radio plays collected
in Voices at Play (1961), a further volume
of poetry, Going Up to Sotheby's (1982)
and short stories in Collected Stories
I (1967); and The Stories of Muriel Spark
(1985). Her recent work includes Symposium
(1990).
She was appointed OBE in 1967 and has
been awarded the honorary degree of Doctor
of Letters by the University ofStrathclyde
(1971) and the University of Edinburgh
(1989). |
Sir Patrick Geddes, 1854-1932
PLANNER
A Scot who has been called the father
of modern town planning, Geddes did much
of his pioneering work in the Old Town
ofEdinburgh, having made his married home
there in 1886. Geddes' name and spirit
are imperishably associated with Ramsay
Garden and the Outlook Tower, both in
Castlehill. He acquired the Outlook Tower
in 1892, and it became the nerve centre
from which his enlightened ideas on civics
and country and town planning radiated.
Patrick Geddes grew up and was educated
in Scotland, and studied biology in London.
He began his professional career as a
biologist in London and France, but settled
in the late 1880s in Edinburgh. There
he became involved in the renewal of Edinburgh's
Old Town, which was manifested most prominently
in the Ramsay Garden complex and the Outlook
Tower, the former a development of private
flats, a student hall of residence and
artists' studios, the latter a regional-sociological
laboratory. In 1889 Geddes became Professor
of Botany at Dundee University College
after a personal friend and benefactor
endowed a chair which required Geddes
to be in Dundee for a period of only three
months each year. In the following decades
Geddes developed a deep fascination with
the organization of human societies and
their spatial manifestation in the city
and the country. Geddes propagated a highly
individualistic theory of societies and
cities drawing from regional theories
in biology and geography, philosophical
ideas (especially those of Plato) and
political anarchist thought.
In 1911 he created a milestone exhibition,
Cities and Town Planning, which was studied
appreciatively not only throughout Britain
but also abroad. From 1920-23 he was Professor
of Civics and Sociology at the University
of Bombay, and in 1924 he settled at Montpellier,
in France. He died there in 1932, having
been knighted that year. |
Robert Adam, 1728-92
ARCHITECT
Robert
Adam (1728--1792), British architect,
the second son of William Adam of Maryburgh,
in Fife, and the most celebrated of four
brothers, John, Robert, James and William
Adam, was born at Kirkcaldy in 1728. For
few famous men have we so little biographical
material, and contemporary references
to him are sparse. He certainly studied
at the University of Edinburgh, and probably
received his first instruction in architecture
from his father, who gave proofs of his
own skill and taste in the Edinburgh Royal
Infirmary (now demolished). His mother
was the aunt of Dr W. Robertson, the first
English historian of Charles V., and in
1750 we find Robert Adam living with her
in Edinburgh, and making one of the brilliant
literary coterie which adorned it at that
period.
Robert
Adam is renowned for his fine buildings,
both public and private, in classical
style throughout Britain. In Edinburgh
his works include Register House, the
north side of Charlotte Square, and Edinburgh
University Old College. The magnificent
Hopetoun House, at Queensferry, has been
described as Scotland's greatest Adam
mansion.
Adam regularly worked in conjunction with
his architect brothers, John, James and
William. They were responsible for much
Georgian development in London, particularly
town housing that took the form of elegant
terraces. Robert became architect to George
III, and with James designed a number
of important mansions in different parts
of the country. Robert Adam is buried
in Westminster Abbey. |
Robert Fergusson, 1750-74
POET
Robert
Fergusson, one of Scotland's greatest
poets, was born at a house in Cap and
Feather Close, Edinburgh, on 5 September
1750. His parents were from Aberdeenshire
and had lived in Edinburgh since 1748,
where Robert's father, William Fergusson,
worked as a solicitor's clerk. Robert
attended the Edinburgh High School, and
in 1762 he won a bursary to Dundee Grammar
School and then to St. Andrews University,
where in April 1765 he wrote his first
known poem, the comic "Elegy on the
Death of Mr David Gregory, late Professor
of Mathematics". His
father's death in May 1767 cut short his
education; he left the University a year
later without graduating in order to support
his mother and sister. He worked as a
clerk in the Commissary Office in Edinburgh,
copying legal papers for a penny a page,
and found relief from this drudgery in
his poetry, contributing many pieces to
Walter Ruddiman's journal "The Weekly
Magazine, or Edinburgh Amusement".
His first appeared on 7 February 1771,
written in English in the pastoral style,
but the poems in Scots which Ruddiman
published throughout the following year
(beginning with "The Daft Days"
in January) brought Fergusson to the attention
of a small but enthusiastic circle of
admirers. Ruddiman was Fergusson's chief
literary patron, independently publishing
a
collection of his poems, as well as the
long poem "Auld Reekie" (1773).
A
hectic literary career of just three years
ended with "Codicile to Rob Fergusson's
Last Will", the last poem published
in his lifetime, which appeared in "The
Weekly Magazine" on 23 December 1773.
He had become ill with depression, and
had been forced to leave the Commissary
Office in the same month. His friends
rallied to his support, but his condition
worsened, and after collapsing and falling
down a flight of stairs in July 1774 he
was taken to the Edinburgh Bedlam, where
he died in squalid conditions on 17 October
1774. He left 50 poems in English and
33 in Scots (a mixture of Edinburgh and
Aberdeenshire dialect), and it was these
latter which were to have such a great
influence on Robert Burns, who called
him "my elder brother in misfortune,
by far my elder brother in the muse".
Burns paid for Fergusson's gravestone
in Edinburgh's Canongate Churchyard |
Sir Walter Scott, 1771-1832
WRITER
Born in Edinburgh, the ninth child of
a lawyer, Scott contracted polio as a
child which left him with a permanent
limp. He trained as a lawyer and it was
not until 1802 that he first published
a collection of ballads "The Border
Minstrelsy" and in 1814 his first
novel "Waverley" was published.
This was an instant success and he produced
a string of novels in the following years,
such as Rob Roy, Guy Mannering, Ivanhoe,
Old Mortality, and The Talisman.
Called to the bar at 21, he served on
the bench as sheriff depute for a spell
before being appointed a clerk of session
in 1806.
A prominent figure in Edinburgh society,
he entertained famous people like Washington
Irving and William Wordsworth. He was
knighted in 1820 and organised the visit
of King George IV to Scotland in 1822.
Scott's interest in things Scottish led
him to rediscover the Scottish crown and
sceptre which had been left, forgotten,
in Edinburgh Castle. He also fought
a successful defence of Scottish Banknotes
- his portrait is on current Bank of Scotland
notes in memory of that event. Scott's
management of his financial affairs left
much to be desired. He was extravagant
both in expanding his baronial country
mansion at Abbotsford in the Borders and
in buying historical Scottish artefacts.
In 1826 he found himself 100,000 pounds
in debt. Until that time all his novels
had been published anonymously (under
the name "The Great Unknown")
but from 1827 to 1831 we worked furiously
to produce work which would pay off his
debts. He had cleared 70,000 pounds by
the time he died in 1832 and the remainder
was paid by selling copyrights. In 1840
a grateful nation erected a magnificent
monument to him in Princes Street Gardens,
Edinburgh.
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The
Scott Monument being refurbished.

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