Author: Fergusson, Robert
Biography:
FERGUSSON, Robert (1750-74: ODNB)
Born at Edinburgh to William Fergusson, a legal clerk from Aberdeenshire, and Elizabeth (Forbes) Fergusson, he suffered poor health in childhood and was educated privately before being sent to the Edinburgh High School and the grammar school at Dundee. He studied at St Andrews University where the curriculum included English literary texts and one of his professors was the farmer-poet William Wilkie. He wrote poetry during his time at St Andrews, but he left the university without graduating and worked first at his uncle’s farm before moving back to Edinburgh where he was a legal copyist for the city commissary office. He began writing poetry in earnest and joined the Cape Club, a convivial group that met in various Edinburgh taverns. Late in 1773 he became seriously ill, was depressed, and suffered hallucinations (possibly he had syphilis). When he was unable to continue with his work at the commissary office, the Cape Club sought to aid him financially but, after a fall and an attack of delirium, Fergusson was confined to the Edinburgh Darien House Asylum where he died. He is buried in Canongate Churchyard, originally without a memorial but Robert Burns, who greatly admired his poetry, paid to have one erected on his grave. Fergusson’s most admired poems are those in Scots, and his Auld Reekie remains a vivid portrait of Edinburgh life in the eighteenth century. (ODNB 20 Feb. 2019) SR
Other Names:
- R. Fergusson
- Robert Ferguson