Author: Jamieson, John
Biography:
JAMIESON, John (1759-1838: ODNB)
He was born on 3 Mar. 1759 at Glasgow to the Rev. John Jameson and Margaret (Cleland) Jameson. He later changed the spelling of his surname to Jamieson, which is given here, but his children used Jameson. He studied briefly at the Glasgow grammar school and entered Glasgow University at the early age of nine. He later ascribed his interest in language to being taught there by the Rev. George Muirhead. Jamieson was licensed to preach in 1779 and appointed minister to a congregation in Forfar where he remained for seventeen years. He married Charlotte Watson on 21 July 1781; they were to have seventeen children of whom all but three predeceased their father. In 1797 he was called to Edinburgh by a congregation of Anti-Burghers (that is those opposed to the oath affirming the established church in Scotland and required of all burgesses on taking office). Widely respected for his evangelical writings and his scholarship, Jamieson held ecumenical views and he was proud of his role in fostering the 1820 union of the Burghers and Anti-Burghers. The College of New Jersey conferred on him a DD and he held other honours, including fellowship in the Society of Scottish Antiquaries (as recorded on the title page of Eternity). Of his many works, he is best remembered for his monumental two-volume Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1808). His editions of John Barbour’s Bruce and Blind Harry’s Wallace were praised by Walter Scott. He outlived his wife and died on 12 July 1838 at Edinburgh; he was interred in the burial ground at Edinburgh’s St John and St Cuthbert. (ODNB 13 Aug 2019; ancestry.co.uk 13 Aug 2019) SR
Other Names:
- J. Jamieson