Author: Riddell, Robert
Biography:
RIDDELL, Robert (1755-1794: ODNB)
The poet is remembered mainly as the friend and patron of Robert Burns (q.v.). He was baptized on 5 Oct. 1755, the eldest son of Walter Riddell of Newhouse and his wife, a cousin, Anna Riddell. He received a good education, at Dumfries Academy and at Edinburgh and St Andrews universities. In his professional life he was as a solider, first in the Scots Greys, later in the 32nd regiment of foot, and then in the 12th light dragoons. His most senior commission was that of captain. Really, he was a gentleman solider who never saw action. He devoted himself to building follies on his estates and to studying local antiquities (he was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a member of the Philosophical Society of Manchester). On 23 Mar. 1784 at Manchester (not 7 Nov. as in ODNB), he married Elizabeth Kennedy (1756-1801). There were no children by the marriage. His association with Burns commenced in the late 1780s; the two men were introduced by “Johnson,” whether by the London publisher James Johnson or by Dr Samuel Johnson is unclear. Poems and letters Burns sent to Riddell—collected as the Glenriddell manuscripts—are preserved at the National Library of Scotland. Besides his 1790 poem, Bedesman on Nidsyde, Riddell was the author of papers in Archaeologia; of a 1785 compilation, New Music; and of a posthumously published volume, A Collection of Scotch, Galwegian and Border Tunes (1794). His brother Walter (1764-1802) was the husband of Maria Riddell (q.v.). Burns’s part in a farcical prank that took place in Dec. 1793 led to an estrangement between himself and Riddell. It remained unhealed at the time of Riddell’s death, 21 Apr. 1794. He was buried in Dunscore Old Kirk Cemetery, less than a mile from Burns’s Ellisland Farm on the River Nith. (ODNB 8 Feb. 2024; ancestry.com 9 Feb. 2024; Google Maps 9 Feb. 2024) JC