Author: Armstrong, John
Biography:
ARMSTRONG, John (1771-1797: ODNB)
Born on 7 June 1771 at Leith, Scotland, to James Armstrong, a barber, and Mary (Lautie) Armstrong, he was baptised on 13 June. HIs parents had married in Leith on 9 June 1767. He was educated at Leith Grammar School and the Edinburgh High School before attending the University of Edinburgh (MA 1792). In 1790 he moved to London where he wrote for a daily newspaper. Under the pseudonym “Albert,” he published his Confidential Letters from the Sorrows of Werter (1790) and Sonnets from Shakespeare (1791). When his health broke down, he returned to Leith where he died on 21 July 1797. The Preface to his Juvenile Poems states they were written when Armstrong was aged 13 to 18; the book includes his prose essay on the prevention and punishment of crime. (ODNB 21 Jan. 2018; Gentleman’s Magazine 82 [1797]; ancestry.co.uk 18 Dec. 2024)