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William Robertson, Historian
William Robertson (19 September 1721 – 11 June 1793) was a Scottish historian, cleric, and educator who served as Principal of the University of Edinburgh, Chaplain of Stirling Castle, and one of the Honorary Chaplain to the Queen, King's Chaplains in Scotland. Robertson made significant contributions to the writing of Scottish history and the history of Spain and Spanish America, and his historiographical approach had considerable contemporary influence (particularly his emphasis on the consistency of human nature across different eras and societies). He was a notable figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, as well as a prominent representative of the Church of Scotland, Church of Scotland's Moderate Party (Scotland), ''moderate party''. Early life Robertson was born at the manse of Borthwick, Midlothian, the son of William Robertson (Scottish minister, born 1686), Rev William Robertson (1686–1745), the local minister, and his wife Eleanor Pitcairn, daughter of David Pitcai ...
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Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter who specialised in portraits. The art critic John Russell (art critic), John Russell called him one of the major European painters of the 18th century, while Lucy Peltz says he was "the leading portrait artist of the 18th-century and arguably one of the greatest artists in the history of art." He promoted the Grand manner, "Grand Style" in painting, which depended on idealisation of the imperfect. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts and was Knight Bachelor, knighted by George III in 1769. He has been referred to as the 'master who revolutionised British Art.' Reynolds had a famously prolific studio that produced over 2,000 paintings during his lifetime. Ellis Waterhouse, EK Waterhouse estimated those works the painter did ‘think worthy’ at ‘hardly less than a hundred paintings which one would like to take into consideration, either for their success, their original ...
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Scottish History
The recorded history of Scotland begins with the Scotland during the Roman Empire, arrival of the Roman Empire in the 1st century, when the Roman province, province of Roman Britain, Britannia reached as far north as the Antonine Wall. North of this was Caledonia, inhabited by the ''Picti'', whose uprisings forced Rome's legions back to Hadrian's Wall. As Rome finally Roman withdrawal from Britain, withdrew from Britain, a Gaels, Gaelic tribe from Ireland called the ''Scoti'' began colonising Western Scotland and Wales. Before Roman times, prehistoric Scotland entered the Neolithic Era about 4000 BC, the Bronze Age about 2000 BC, and the Iron Age around 700 BC. The Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata was founded on the west coast of Scotland in the Scotland in the Early Middle Ages, 6th century. In the following century, History of Christianity in Ireland, Irish missionaries introduced the previously Pictish religion, pagan Picts to Celtic Christianity. Following S ...
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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 List of Principals of the University of Edinburgh, 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 Kir ...
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East Lothian
East Lothian (; ; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a Counties of Scotland, historic county, registration county and Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921. In 1975, the historic county was incorporated for local government in Scotland, local government purposes into Lothian Regional Council, 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, East Lothian, Haddington while the largest town is Musselburgh. Haddingtonshire has ancient origins and is named in a charter of 1139 as ''Hadintunschira'' and ...
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Dissenting Academy
The dissenting academies were schools, colleges and seminaries (often institutions with aspects of all three) run by English Dissenters, that is, Protestants who did not conform to the Church of England. They formed a significant part of education in England 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 Cambridge and Oxford, the ancient English universities. 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. At the University of Cambridge 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 were debarred from takin ...
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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. Burg ...
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The Royal Society Of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) 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 range of fields than the Royal Society of London, including literature and history. The Fellowship includes people from a wide range of disciplines: science and 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 unh ...
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Greyfriars Kirk
Greyfriars Kirk () is a parish church of the Church of Scotland, located in the Old Town, Edinburgh, 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' Cathedral, St Giles'. The church is named for the Order of Friars Minor, Observantine Franciscans or "Grey Friars," who arrived in Edinburgh from the Low Countries, Netherlands in the mid-15th century and were granted land for a Catholic Priory, friary at the south-western edge of the Old Town, Edinburgh, burgh. In the wake of the Scottish Reformation, the grounds of the abandoned friary were repurposed as a Greyfriars Kirkyard, cemetery, in which the current church was constructed between 1602 and 1620. In 1638, Covenanters, National Covenant was signed in the Kirk. The church was damaged during the Commonwealth of England, Protectorate, when it was used ...
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Dalkeith Grammar School
Dalkeith High School is a secondary school, 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, [it] maintained 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 Ros ...
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William Robertson (Scottish Minister, Born 1686)
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 Lad ...
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Manse
A manse () is a clergy house inhabited by, or formerly inhabited by, a minister, usually used in the context of Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and other Christian traditions. Ultimately derived from the Latin ''mansus'', "dwelling", from ''manere'', "to remain", by the 16th century the term meant both a dwelling and, in ecclesiastical contexts, the amount of land needed to support a single family. Many notable Scots have been called "sons (or daughters) of the manse", and the term is a recurring point of reference within Scottish media and culture. For example, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown was described as a "son of the manse" as he is the son of a Presbyterian minister. When selling a former manse, the Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland (CoS; ; ) is a Presbyterian denomination of Christianity that holds the status of the national church in Scotland. It is one of the country's largest, having 245,000 members in 2024 and 259,200 members in 2 ...
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Moderate Party (Scotland)
The Moderate Party as a church term normally refers to an important group of clerics in the Church of Scotland in the 18th century. It is often contrasted with the Evangelicals, but that is very much a simplification. Most members of both parties considered themselves orthodox Christians and the leaders Principal Robertson for the Moderates and his Edinburgh University colleague, John Erskine for the Evangelicals, had a very warm and mutually respectful relationship. * They were characteristically very much part of the Scottish Enlightenment contributing to and deriving intellectual nourishment from an impressive range of scholarly activities of the time: literary, philosophical, historical and scientific. * They shared, far too easily in the view of critics, widespread scepticism of Puritanical enthusiasm evident in the many revival movements of the age. (Dr James Meek's cool appraisal of the "Cambuslang Wark" is a good example.) * They distrusted dogmatism and what ...
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