Alexander Nicolson - (1827-1893)- Gaelic Scholar
He was born on 27th September, 1827, on the Isle of Skye. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh where he became assistant to Sir William Hamilton, and he abandoned his calling to the ministry of the Free Church. For a time he worked as a journalist but he turned instead to law and was called to the Scottish Bar in 1860. He continued his interest in literature by editing the Scottish Jurist, and in 1872 he was appointed Sheriff-Substitute of Kirkcudbright. Later he took up a similar position in Greenock and he acted as a commissioner in the Crofting Commission of 1883. He died on 13th January 1893 in Edinburgh. Nicolson was a prolific writer and contributed to most of the leading magazines andnewspapers of his day but his work in Gaelic studies is notable for his collection of proverbs, A Collection of Gaelic Proverbs and Familiar Phrases (1881) and for his revision of the Gaelic Bible. He also wrote a number of sentimental pastiches of Gaelic verse.
Works: The Lady of Beanmhor (1867); Facal Earail Mu'n 'Bhallot' (1880); A Collection of Gaelic Proverbs and Familiar Phrases (1881); ed., Memoirs of Adam Black (1885); Song (1893); Verses (1893).
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