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The Poker Club
The Poker Club was one of several clubs at the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment where many associated with that movement met and exchanged views in a convivial atmosphere. History The Poker Club was created in 1762 out of the ashes of The Select Society. ''The Poker'' was the name given to the Militia Club at its third or fourth meeting. The ''Militia'' was formed in Edinburgh to promote the cause of establishing a militia in Scotland. It was thought that the formation of a democratic national force was essential to grace the dignity of the nation and the aim was to make up for the omission of that provision in the Militia Act of 1757 which applied only to England and the Scottish Militia Bill which was rejected in April 1760. The aim of the club provoked some unwelcome opposition and, at the suggestion of Adam Smith the name was changed so as to be enigmatic to the general public. Much as a fireplace poker stirs a fire to flame up, ''The Poker'' was to "stir up" the militia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Select Society
The Select Society, established in 1754 as The St. Giles Society but soon renamed, was an intellectual society in 18th century Edinburgh.Emerson, Roger L. ''The Social Composition of Enlightened Scotland: The Select Society of Edinburgh, 1754–1764''. (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century) (1973) The society was first a discussion club then shortly thereafter a debating club for the intellectual elite of Edinburgh. History The Select Society initially had fifteen members who included: * James Adam * John Adam * James Burnett, Lord Monboddo * George Drummond * Adam Ferguson * Francis Home * Henry Home, Lord Kames * David Hume Review of James Buchan's ''Crowded With Genius (Capital of the Mind'' in the UK) * John Monro * Alexander Monro ''primus'' * Allan Ramsay * William Robertson * Adam Smith By the end of its first year, The Select Society had eighty three members. Some years later, some of the members established The Poker Club. Their mission was articulate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Dempster (lawyer)
George Dempster of Dunnichen and Skibo Castle, Skibo FRSE FSA (Scot) (1732–1818) was a Scottish advocate, landowner, agricultural improver and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1761 and 1790. Dempster founded the bank George Dempster & Co. (also known as the Dundee Banking Company) in 1763, was a Director of the East India Company (England), East India Company from 1769, and served as Provost (local government), Provost of St Andrews (1780) and a Director of the Highland Society of Scotland (1789). Dempster, nicknamed Honest George, was a key figure of the Scottish Enlightenment and respected as an "independently minded, incorruptible and moderately radical MP". He dedicated the later years of his life to improving Scottish fishing and agriculture and improving the living conditions of his tenants. He was a lifelong friend of the philosopher Adam Ferguson and the minister Alexander Carlyle. Life and work George Dempster was born in 1732 in Dundee, the son o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Robertson (historian)
William Robertson FRSE FSA Scot (19 September 1721 – 11 June 1793) was a Scottish historian, minister in the Church of Scotland, and Principal of the University of Edinburgh. "The thirty years during which epresided over the University perhaps represent the highest point in its history." He made significant contributions to the writing of Scottish history and the history of Spain and Spanish America. He was Chaplain of Stirling Castle and one of the King's Chaplains in Scotland. Early life Robertson was born at the manse of Borthwick, Midlothian, the son of Rev William Robertson (1686–1745), the local minister, and his wife Eleanor Pitcairn, daughter of David Pitcairne of Dreghorn. He was educated at Borthwick Parish School and Dalkeith Grammar School. The family moved to Edinburgh when his father became appointed minister of Lady Yester's Church in 1733. His father moved to Old Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh in 1736. He studied divinity at the University of Edinburgh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Carlyle
Alexander Carlyle MA DD FRSE (26 January 172228 August 1805) was a Scottish church leader, and autobiographer. He served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1770/71. Life He was born on 26 January 1722 in the manse at Cummertrees the son of Rev Willam Carlyle, the local minister. The family moved to Prestonpans in 1724. He was educated in Prestonpans then studied first at Edinburgh University then Glasgow before finalising his studies at Leyden University in the Netherlands which was famed for its teaching of Theology. He graduated MA from Edinburgh in 1743. He was a witness to the aftermath of the Battle of Prestonpans in 1745 where he was part of the government militia, the Edinburgh Volunteers. He had spent the night in his father's nearby manse, but missed the battle itself as it was over by the time he got dressed. He went to the assistance of the wounded on the battlefield, and found the officers of the Highland army "gentleman-like and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scottish Enlightenment
The Scottish Enlightenment ( sco, Scots Enlichtenment, gd, Soillseachadh na h-Alba) was the period in 18th- and early-19th-century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By the eighteenth century, Scotland had a network of parish schools in the Scottish Lowlands and five universities. The Enlightenment culture was based on close readings of new books, and intense discussions took place daily at such intellectual gathering places in Edinburgh as The Select Society and, later, The Poker Club, as well as within Scotland's ancient universities (St Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh, King's College, and Marischal College). Sharing the humanist and rational outlook of the Western Enlightenment of the same time period, the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment asserted the importance of human reason combined with a rejection of any authority that could not be justified by reason. In Scotland, the Enlightenment was characterised by a thoroug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Blackwood
William Blackwood (20 November 177616 September 1834) was a Scottish publisher who founded the firm of William Blackwood and Sons. Life Blackwood was born in Edinburgh on 20 November 1776. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a firm of booksellers in Edinburgh, and he followed his calling also in Glasgow and London for several years. Returning to Edinburgh in 1804, he opened a shop in South Bridge Street for the sale of old, rare and curious books. He undertook the Scottish agency for John Murray and other London publishers, and gradually drifted into publishing on his own account, moving in 1816 to Princes Street. On 1 April 1817 the first number of the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine'' was published, which on its seventh number became ''Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine''. "''Maga''," as this magazine soon came to be called, was the organ of the Scottish Tory party, and round it gathered a host of writers, including John Neal, making Maga the first British literary journal to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crochallan Fencibles
The Crochallan Fencibles was an 18th-century Edinburgh convivial men's club that met in Daniel ("Dawney") Douglas's tavern on Anchor Close, a public house off the High Street (part of the Royal Mile). The 16th century doorway bore the inscription "O Lord In The(e) is All My Traist (trust)". History Its name was made up from two sources: ''Crochallan'' is derived from a song, "Crodh Chailein'" ("Colin's Cattle"), which was a favourite of the then Landlord Daniel Douglas, and ''Fencibles'' was a name for regiments of garrison troops which were raised for the defence of Great Britain (an 18th-century Home Guard). William Smellie, the editor of the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, was the founder of the club. He reminisced that: The members of the club use military ranks to designate their positions in the club (as if it were a real fencible regiment), hence William Dunbar (died 1807) was the colonel of the club (rather than its chairman or president). Smellie intro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edinburgh Cape Club
The Edinburgh Cape Society is a convivial Edinburgh tavern-based society which was first established in the 18th century. It is one of many Convivial Edinburgh Societies which were extant in the 18th century, but the only (known) one which survives to the present day. It was founded initially to support a Scottish Militia. It is known mostly for its connections to the poet Robert Fergusson. The original Edinburgh Cape Club The club was founded in the early 1700s, but was not formally constituted until 1764. Its main meeting place was then The Isle of Man Arms, run by a James Mann, in the middle of Craigs Close in the Old Town of Edinburgh. It met on a nightly basis, where "high jinks" would ensue.Grant's Old and New Edinburgh vol.2 p.230 Its insignia were a cape, or crown, worn by the Sovereign of the Cape, and two maces in the form of huge steel pokers (which can still be seen the National Museum of Scotland). The comedian Tom Lancashire was the first Sovereign of the club ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Robison (physicist)
John Robison FRSE (4 February 1739 – 30 January 1805) was a British physicist and mathematician. He was a professor of natural philosophy (the precursor of natural science) at the University of Edinburgh. A member of the Edinburgh Philosophical Society when it received its royal warrant, he was appointed as the first general secretary to the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1783–98). Robison invented the Siren (noisemaker), siren and also worked with James Watt on an early steam car. Following the French Revolution, Robison became disenchanted with elements of the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment. He authored ''Proofs of a Conspiracy'' in 1797—a polemic accusing Freemasonry of being infiltrated by Adam Weishaupt, Weishaupt's Order of the Illuminati. His son was the inventor Sir John Robison (1778–1843). Biography The son of John Robison, a Glasgow merchant, he was born in Boghall, Baldernock, Stirlingshire (now East Dunbartonshire) and attended Glasgow Grammar School an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Dalrymple (political Writer)
John Dalrymple (1734–1779) was a Scottish writer who twice served as Lord Provost of Edinburgh (1770 and 1779). He wrote numerous political tracts, among which ''Answers for the Right Honourable John Dalrymple, Lord Provost of the city of Edinburgh, and others; to the petition of James Stoddart, Esq; late old Provost, and James Stirling, Esq; late one of the bailies of said city, and others'' is the most widely preserved. John Taylor of Caroline, in his ''Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Governments of the United States'', noted that he had read a "book ..written by a Sir John Dalrymple, an Englishman sic">/nowiki>sic.html" ;"title="sic.html" ;"title="/nowiki>sic">/nowiki>sic">sic.html" ;"title="/nowiki>sic">/nowiki>sic/nowiki>, containing a proposition for a reunion between England [sic] and the United States, upon terms nearly similar to the constitution of Neuchattel" (p. 113). (Dalrymple was in fact a Scot, and the proposed reunion would have b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patrick Murray, 5th Lord Elibank
Patrick Murray, 5th Lord Elibank (1703–1778) was a Scottish soldier, lawyer, author and economist. Life He was the son of Alexander Murray, 4th Lord Elibank (1677-1736), and his wife Elizabeth (née Stirling; died 1756), daughter of George Stirling of Keir, and an eminent surgeon in Edinburgh. General James Murray (1721-1794) was his younger brother; as was Alexander Murray, who gained some notoriety as a Jacobite, not least during the 1750 by-election in Westminster. He was uncle of Major Patrick Ferguson killed at the Battle of King's Mountain in 1780. Although admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates in 1722, he soon turned from legal to military pursuits, becoming an ensign in the army, and subsequently major in Ponsonby's foot and lieutenant-colonel in Wynyard's marines. With the latter regiment he served at the Battle of Cartagena de Indias in 1740. After the failure of that expedition Murray quit the army. He had married in 1735, and had succeeded his fath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adam Ferguson
Adam Ferguson, (Scottish Gaelic: ''Adhamh MacFhearghais''), also known as Ferguson of Raith (1 July N.S./20 June O.S. 1723 – 22 February 1816), was a Scottish philosopher and historian of the Scottish Enlightenment. Ferguson was sympathetic to traditional societies, such as the Highlands, for producing courage and loyalty. He criticized commercial society as making men weak, dishonourable and unconcerned for their community. Ferguson has been called "the father of modern sociology" for his contributions to the early development of the discipline. His best-known work is his ''Essay on the History of Civil Society''. Biography Born at Logierait in Atholl, Perthshire, Scotland, the son of Rev Adam Ferguson, he received his education at Logierait Parish School, Perth Grammar School, and at the University of Edinburgh and the University of St Andrews (MA 1742). In 1745, owing to his knowledge of Gaelic, he gained appointment as deputy chaplain of the 43rd (afterwards the 42nd) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
