Author: Beugo, John
Biography:
BEUGO, John (1759-1841: ancestry.co.uk) pseudonym An artist
Engraver. Complicating a search for biographical information are the alternative spellings of his name: Bengo and Beugo. These clearly refer to the same individual, and Beugo is probably correct. He was born at Edinburgh on 7 May 1759 to Gavin Beugo and Elizabeth (Pillans) Beugo and became the foremost Scottish engraver of his day. Among many others, he engraved the Alexander Nasmyth portrait of Burns (Burns unusually granted him separate sittings for the engraving) which was used as the frontispiece of the 1787 Edinburgh edition of Burns’s Poems. Likely he was twice married: in 1782 to Euphemia Baird who died in 1788, and on 4 Jan. 1808 to Elizabeth McDowell, with whom he had a daughter, Agnes. He died at Edinburgh on 13 Dec. 1841 and is buried in Greyfriars churchyard. (ancestry.co.uk 1 Mar. 2018, 26 Dec. 2024; SBTI; National Galleries of Scotland website) SR