William Robertson (historian)
   HOME
*



picture info

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]  


picture info

Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, and was knighted by George III in 1769. Early life Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723 the third son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, master of the Plympton Free Grammar School in the town. His father had been a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, but did not send any of his sons to the university. One of his sisters was Mary Palmer (1716–1794), seven years his senior, author of ''Devonshire Dialogue'', whose fondness for drawing is said to have had much influence on him when a boy. In 1740 she provided £60, half of the premium paid to Thomas Hudson the portrait-painter, for Joshua's pupilage, and nine years later a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

History Of Spain
The history of Spain dates to contact the pre-Roman peoples of the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula made with the Greeks and Phoenicians and the first writing systems known as Paleohispanic scripts were developed. During Classical Antiquity, the peninsula was the site of multiple successive colonizations of Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans. Native peoples of the peninsula, such as the Tartessos people, intermingled with the colonizers to create a uniquely Iberian culture. The Romans referred to the entire Peninsula as Hispania, from where the modern name of Spain originates. The region was divided up, at various times, into different Roman provinces. As was the rest of the Western Roman Empire, Spain was subject to the numerous invasions of Germanic tribes during the 4th and 5th centuries CE, resulting in the loss of Roman rule and the establishment of Germanic kingdoms, most notably the Visigoths and the Suebi, marking the beginning of the Middle Ages in Spain ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their name from the presbyterian polity, presbyterian form of ecclesiastical polity, church government by representative assemblies of Presbyterian elder, elders. Many Reformed churches are organised this way, but the word ''Presbyterian'', when capitalized, is often applied to churches that trace their roots to the Church of Scotland or to English Dissenters, English Dissenter groups that formed during the English Civil War. Presbyterian theology typically emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the Sola scriptura, authority of the Scriptures, and the necessity of Grace in Christianity, grace through Faith in Christianity, faith in Christ. Presbyterian church government was ensured in Scotland by the Acts of Union 1707, Acts of Union in 1707, which cre ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh
Greyfriars Kirk ( gd, Eaglais nam Manach Liath) is a parish church of the Church of Scotland, located in the Old Town of Edinburgh, Scotland. It is surrounded by Greyfriars Kirkyard. Greyfriars traces its origin to the south-west parish of Edinburgh, founded in 1598. Initially, this congregation met in the western portion of St Giles'. The church is named for the Observantine Franciscans or "Grey Friars" who arrived in Edinburgh from the Netherlands in the mid-15th century and were granted land for a Friary at the south-western edge of the burgh. In the wake of the Scottish Reformation, the grounds of the abandoned Friary were repurposed as a cemetery, in which the current church was constructed between 1602 and 1620. In 1638, National Covenant was signed in the Kirk. The church was damaged during the Protectorate, when it was used as barracks by troops under Oliver Cromwell. In 1718, an explosion destroyed the church tower. During the reconstruction, the church was partiti ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Lady Yester's Kirk
Lady Yester's Kirk was a parish church of the Church of Scotland and one of the burgh churches of Edinburgh. Founded in 1647, it served the south-eastern part of Edinburgh's Old Town until its union with Greyfriars Kirk in 1938. Margaret, Lady Yester gave a benefaction to establish the church in 1647; though a parish and minister were not allotted to the church until 1655. It was again without a regular congregation between 1662 and 1691. A secession from the congregation in 1764 led to the formation of Edinburgh's first Relief congregation. The church was notable for its close connection to the nearby University of Edinburgh and three of its ministers served as the university's principal. Though the Disruption of 1843 little affected the church, improvement works and population movement in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century depleted the congregation. In 1938, the congregation united with Greyfriars Kirk. The building was sold to the university, which ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

East Lothian
East Lothian (; sco, East Lowden; gd, Lodainn an Ear) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921. In 1975, the historic county was incorporated for local government purposes into Lothian Region as East Lothian District, with some slight alterations of its boundaries. The Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 later created East Lothian as one of 32 modern council areas. East Lothian lies south of the Firth of Forth in the eastern central Lowlands of Scotland. It borders Edinburgh to the west, Midlothian to the south-west and the Scottish Borders to the south. Its administrative centre and former county town is Haddington while the largest town is Musselburgh. Haddingtonshire has ancient origins and is named in a charter of 1139 as ''Hadintunschira'' and in another of 1141 as ''Hadintunshire''. Three of the county's towns were designated as roy ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Dissenting Academy
The dissenting academies were schools, colleges and seminaries (often institutions with aspects of all three) run by English Dissenters, that is, those who did not conform to the Church of England. They formed a significant part of England's educational systems from the mid-seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Background After the Uniformity Act 1662, for about two centuries, it was difficult for any but practising members of the Church of England to gain degrees from the old English universities, at Cambridge and Oxford. The University of Oxford, in particular, required – until the Oxford University Act 1854 – a religious test on admission that was comparable to that for joining the Church. The situation at the University of Cambridge was that a statutory test was required to take a bachelor's degree. English Dissenters in this context were Nonconformist Protestants who could not in good conscience subscribe (i.e. conform) to the beliefs of the Church of England. As they ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


James Burgh
James Burgh (1714–1775) was a British Whig politician whose book ''Political Disquisitions'' set out an early case for free speech and universal suffrage: in it, he writes, "All lawful authority, legislative, and executive, originates from the people." He has been judged "one of England's foremost propagandists for radical reform". Burgh also ran a dissenting academy and wrote on subjects such as educational reform. In the words of Lyndall Gordon, his widow acted as "fairy godmother" to early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, then a young and unpublished schoolmistress, helping her to set up her own boarding school. Wollstonecraft entitled her first book ''Thoughts on the Education of Daughters'' (1787), alluding to Burgh's ''Thoughts on Education'' (1747) which in turn alludes to John Locke's 1693 work, ''Some Thoughts Concerning Education''. Life and works Burgh was born and raised in Madderty, Scotland. His father was a minister of the parish in the Church of Scotland. Burgh w ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

The Royal Society Of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established in 1783. , there are around 1,800 Fellows. The Society covers a broader selection of fields than the Royal Society of London, including literature and history. Fellowship includes people from a wide range of disciplines – science & technology, arts, humanities, medicine, social science, business, and public service. History At the start of the 18th century, Edinburgh's intellectual climate fostered many clubs and societies (see Scottish Enlightenment). Though there were several that treated the arts, sciences and medicine, the most prestigious was the Society for the Improvement of Medical Knowledge, commonly referred to as the Medical Society of Edinburgh, co-founded by the mathematician Colin Maclaurin in 1731. Maclaurin was unhappy ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Greyfriars Kirk
Greyfriars Kirk ( gd, Eaglais nam Manach Liath) is a parish church of the Church of Scotland, located in the Old Town of Edinburgh, Scotland. It is surrounded by Greyfriars Kirkyard. Greyfriars traces its origin to the south-west parish of Edinburgh, founded in 1598. Initially, this congregation met in the western portion of St Giles'. The church is named for the Observantine Franciscans or "Grey Friars" who arrived in Edinburgh from the Netherlands in the mid-15th century and were granted land for a Friary at the south-western edge of the burgh. In the wake of the Scottish Reformation, the grounds of the abandoned Friary were repurposed as a cemetery, in which the current church was constructed between 1602 and 1620. In 1638, National Covenant was signed in the Kirk. The church was damaged during the Protectorate, when it was used as barracks by troops under Oliver Cromwell. In 1718, an explosion destroyed the church tower. During the reconstruction, the church was partiti ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Dalkeith Grammar School
Dalkeith High School is a secondary state school located in Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland. History Dalkeith High School was previously the historic Dalkeith Grammar School. A list of masters of the Grammar School at Dalkeith (located on the High Street) commences at 1582. No other reference is made to the age of the school. An extract from the National Gazetteer, 1868 says: "The parish school, otherwise known as the grammar school, has long borne a high character among Scottish seminaries; beside the usual branches of a classical education, French, German, Italian, and mathematics are taught." Alexander Bower suggests in his History of the University of Edinburgh that "for upwards of a century, tmaintained a distinguished reputation, as being one of the best seminaries in Scotland for acquiring a knowledge of classical learning". Archibald Pitcairne (1652–1713), the physician, studied at Dalkeith Grammar School as did Alexander Wedderburn, 1st Earl of Rosslyn (1733–1805) wh ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

William Robertson (1686-1745)
William Robertson (1686–1745) was a Scottish minister of the Church of Scotland. He was minister of the famous Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh and patriarch to the Robertson family who dominated Edinburgh society for a century. Life He was born at Chapel of Wemyss in Fife on 30 June 1686, the third son of William Robertson of Gladney and Brunton (near Cupar), and his wife, Margaret Mitchell. He was licensed to preach as a Church of Scotland minister by the presbytery of Kirkcaldy in 1711 and went to work in the Scots Church in London in the same year. In September 1714 he returned to Scotland as minister of Borthwick south of Edinburgh. After almost two decades in Borthwick he translated to Lady Yester's Church in Edinburgh in November 1733. Three years later he moved to Old Greyfriars, one of the city's most important charges.''Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae''; by Hew Scott His interest in history was passed on to his son, William Robertson who followed in his shoes both to Lady ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]