Born at Killearn, Stirlingshire. The son of a minor Stirlingshire laird, he was educated at the local parish school until fourteen. He then studied at St.Andrews and Paris under John Major (see below). When he was prosecuted in Scotland as a heretic he fled to England. He journeyed to France and then Portugal, where the Inquisition imprisoned him for a year and a half. During the years 1551-1561 he was in Paris. By 1566 he was back in Scotland and principal of St.Leonard's College at St.Andrews. He became James VI's personal tutor. He exercised a very strong influence over the King, although James did not share Buchanan's severe Calvinist beliefs. His fame was not based on merely one area. The greatest Latinist of his day, (Latin was the universal language of scholarship at that time) he wrote Latin plays and poems, tracts against Mary Queen of Scots and even one in which he defended tyrannicide. His obsessive hatred of Mary would be of interest to a psychologist, particularly in view also of his religious fervour. He also wrote a 'History Of Scotland' which, as was usual in those days (and, dare I say it, not that unusual nowadays), reflected his own prejudices. In his time he was much more famous a poet and dramatist than William Shakespeare.
Born at Arbroath. He emigrated to the U.S.A. (Detroit) and invented a process for coating baths. In 1902 he founded a car manufacturing company but, despite creating a famous car name, he died in poverty.
Born in Donegal, Ireland. A royal prince in Ireland, he fled after difficulties with King Diarmit. He established a religious base on the island of Iona. Although his sphere of activity was generally the kingdom of Dalriada, originally established by other immigrants from Ireland, he went to Inverness to negotiate with the king of the Picts.
The Grassmarket in Edinburgh was a traditional place of execution and in 1728 Maggie Dickson was to have met her judicially approved end there. She was hanged and her body carted off. As the cart passed through Musselburgh, over cobbles, the jolting revived her. Subsequently she mothered many children,
Born at Logierait. A major 'Enlightenment' figure. Originally a military chaplain to the Black Watch regiment, then a librarian at the Advocates' Library (by this time a copyright library, entitled to a copy of every book published in Britain) and tutor to an aristocratic family, he became professor of natural philosophy (approximately equivalent to physics) at Edinburgh University, then professor there of moral philosophy.
A wine and tea merchant in Edinburgh. He was twice Lord Provost and left a legacy (£166,000) which eventually (1865-70) was enough to build a boarding school for boys. The school was designed by David Bryce, the doyen of the 'Scottish baronial' style. Tony Blair, the current leader of the British Labour Party and Prime Minister, is a former pupil, as is 007, James Bond.
Famous in Scottish history as helping 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' to evade capture after the debacle of the Battle of Culloden. For this she was first imprisoned in Dunstaffnage Castle then on a prison hulk off Leith, Edinburgh's port, and finally in London before being released without suffering the draconian punishment meted out to many of the other Jacobite rebels. She emigrated to America in 1774, perhaps surprisingly taking a loyally British position when the colonists rebelled, before returning to Scotland in 1779.
Born in Ayr. He emigrated to America in 1770 but was a loyalist and returned to Britain in 1783. His professional interests were varied, involving coke and tar and also supplying the navy with food. He developed an interest in road engineering but did not have a professional post in the field until he was sixty, in 1816, at Bristol. His idea of a road consisting of a drained bed with a layer of small stones on top, to be bonded by pressure of traffic, was soon enthusiastically adopted.
Jamaican estate manager, he became a strong campaigner against slavery. Father of Thomas Babington Macaulay.
Son of Zachary, the campaigner against slavery. He was the Member of Parliament for Edinburgh between 1839 and 1847 (he was Secretary for War between 1839 and 1841) then between 1852 and 1856. He contributed to the 'Edinburgh Review' but is most famous for his 'History of England'. In 1857 he was made a baron.
Daughter of the Provost of Edinburgh. Burned as a witch, allegedly having tried to kill James VI with witchcraft.
Member of a clan long notorious for its plundering ways. He was a farmer and cattle-dealer, speculating in livestock. When his business failed he indulged in extortion of 'protection money'. This was known as 'blackmail' at that time. He was present at the Battle of Sherriffmuir with a group of MacGregors and Macphersons, in theory on the Jacobite side against the government, but they decided not to fight. He was captured several times and was famed for his escapes from custody. Near the end of his life he was to be transported but was given a pardon.
A son of the famous Rob Roy. During Bonnie Prince Charlie's 1745 rebellion he was on the Jacobite side. Later, he was imprisoned with his brother, under sentence of death, in Edinburgh Castle. They had abducted a wealthy Stirlingshire widow from her home. His brother was executed but he escaped to France after his daughter entered the castle disguised as a cobbler and swapped clothes with him.
As a young lady of twenty-two she raised around 300 men on behalf of Bonnie Prince Charlie's rebellion in 1745. They joined up with the Jacobite army in time for the Battle of Falkirk. She clearly did not see eye to eye with her husband, Aeneas Mackintosh of Mackintosh, for he had left some time before to command a company of militia for the British government. Seized from Moy Hall (her home) after Culloden, she was imprisoned by the government for a brief time, but two years later she danced at a ball with 'Butcher' Cumberland. It is said that at that ball, after dancing with the 'Butcher', she remarked "I've danced to your tune. Will you dance to mine?" Then, at her request, the band played 'Old Stewarts Back Again' and they danced to that.
Born in Glasgow. You've no doubt heard of raincoats being termed 'Mackintoshes'. This man is the reason why. His father George partnered David Dale in a Sutherland cotton mill. Charles experimented with naptha, a by-product of tar, and by using naptha in conjunction with rubber he invented the water-proofing process (patented in 1823) which made the 'Mackintosh' possible.
He was the village blacksmith at Keir in Dumfriesshire. Credited with the invention of the bicycle (though the French have their own contender) in 1840 by fitting pedals to a velocipede. In 1834 he had fitted pedals to a tricycle.
Also styled John Mair. He was born at Gleghornie in East Lothian. The most famous scholar of his day, he was rather old-fashioned in his thinking and resistant to the bold ideas of the Italian rennaissance. He studied at Cambridge and Paris, becoming professor of theology at first Glasgow then St.Andrews. After a further eight-year spell in Paris he returned permanently to St.Andrews. He is remembered for his 'History Of Greater Britain' which he wrote with a view to promoting Anglo-Scottish relations.
A contemporay of St.Columba, he also came over to Scotland from Ireland. He established a base on Lismore, an island in the Firth of Lorne, apparently to St.Columba's annoyance, since this was in Columba's sphere of influence. Not only was this getting in the way of Columba's religious message but religious and secular power were closely connected then. Perhaps because of this he is also associated with areas far to the north-east where he may have moved under threat.
Born in the castle of Merchiston which now forms part of Napier University. In those days well outside Edinburgh, but now a part of the city. His initial interests lay in the field of theology (he wrote 'A Plaine Discovery Of The Whole Revelation Of St.John' in 1593 which proved to the satisfaction of Scottish protestants that the Roman Curch was the 'scarlet woman' in the Book Of Revelation from the bible) but he switched his attentions to technology and mathematics. He formulated the theory of logarithms and invented a calculating apparatus known as 'Napier's Bones'. His intellectual legacy has been phenomenal but only a few appreciated his genius at the time. Fortunately those few included people such as the famous astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. Kepler recognized the huge significance of logarithms, providing for the 17th century the sort of boost which digital computers have provided for the 20th, in the field of computational science. In an era when witchcraft was generally believed in, he was suspected of being a necromancer, simply because of the quiet studious life he led. In Scotland, unlike other European countries, and fortunately for him, the nobility were generally immune from persecution for witchcraft, however.
A famous Victorian entrepreneur, he first produced oil from 'cannel coal' which was a type of coal which naturally burned with a bright flame. Subsequently (1865), in mid and west Lothian he became famous for producing oil from shale, thereby earning his sobriquet. He founded the Chair of Technical Chemistry at Anderson's Institute (established through a legacy of the professor of natural philosophy at Glasgow University, John Anderson 1726-1796, for the education of the 'unacademical classes') in 1870.
© Copyright Len Nicholson, 1996 - 2000