Andrew Crichton

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Andrew Crichton (1790–1855) was a Scottish biographer and historian. He was the youngest son of a small landowner and was born in the parish of Kirkmahoe, Dumfriesshire, in December 1790. He studied at Dumfries Academy and the University of Edinburgh. After becoming a licensed preacher, he taught in Edinburgh and North Berwick.

Crichton began writing in 1823 with the Life of the Rev. John Blackadder, followed by the Life of Colonel J. Blackadder (1824) and Memoirs of the Rev. Thomas Scott (1825). He contributed five volumes to Constable’s Miscellany: Converts from Infidelity (two volumes, 1827) and a translation of Christoph Wilhelm von Koch’s Revolutions in Europe (three volumes, 1828). In the Edinburgh Cabinet Library he published the History of Arabia (two volumes, 1833) and Scandinavia, Ancient and Modern (with Henry Wheaton) (two volumes, 1838).

In 1828 he began his newspaper career, editing the Edinburgh Evening Post (initially with De Quincey). He then ran the North Briton in 1830 and became editor of the Edinburgh Advertiser in 1832, a position he held until June 1851. He also contributed to many periodicals, including the Westminster Review, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, the Dublin University Magazine, Fraser’s Magazine, the Church Review, and the Church of Scotland Magazine and Review.

In 1837 the University of St Andrews awarded him a Doctor of Laws. He served as a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church and sat in the General Assembly as elder for Cullen for three years before his death. He died on 9 January 1855 at 33 St. Bernard’s Crescent, Edinburgh.

Crichton married twice: first Isabella Calvert in July 1835 (she died in November 1837), and then Jane Duguid in December 1844, daughter of Rev. John Duguid. He was a good friend and neighbour of Leitch Ritchie at St. Bernard’s Crescent.