George Chalmers
Encyclopedia
George Chalmers was a Scottish
antiquarian
and political writer.
, Moray
, in 1742. His father, James Chalmers, was a grandson of George Chalmers of Pittensear, a small estate in the parish of Lhanbryde
, now St Andrews-Lhanbryde, in Moray, owned by the family since the beginning of the 17th century. After completing the usual course at King's College, Aberdeen
, the young Chalmers studied law
at the University of Edinburgh
for several years.
Two uncles on the father's side having settled in North America
, he visited Maryland
in 1763, apparently to assist in recovering a tract of land about which a dispute had arisen, and thus began practising as a lawyer
at Baltimore, where for a time he met with much success. Having, however, espoused the cause of the Royalist party on the breaking out of the American War of Independence, he abandoned his professional prospects and returned to Great Britain. Several years elapsed before he obtained an appointment that placed him in a state of comfort and independence.
At length, in August 1786, Chalmers, whose sufferings as a Royalist must have strongly recommended him to the government of the day, was appointed chief clerk to the committee of Privy Council on matters relating to trade, a situation which he retained till his death in 1825, a period of nearly forty years. As his official duties made no great demands on his time, he had abundant leisure to devote to his favourite studies — the antiquities and topography of Scotland having thenceforth special attractions for his busy pen.
On his death, his valuable and extensive library he bequeathed to his nephew, at whose death in 1841 it was sold and dispersed. Chalmers was a member of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies of London, an honorary member of the Antiquarian Society of Scotland, and a member of other learned societies. In private life he was undoubtedly an amiable man, although the dogmatic tone that disfigures portions of his writings procured him many opponents. Among his avowed antagonists in literary warfare the most distinguished were Edmond Malone
and George Steevens
, the Shakespeare edition; Mathias, the author of the Pursuits of Literature; Dr John Jamieson
, the Scottish lexicographer; Pinkerton, the historian; Dr Irving, the biographer of the Scottish poets; and Dr Currie of Liverpool. But with all his failings in judgment Chalmers was a valuable writer. He uniformly had recourse to original sources of information; and he is entitled to great praise for his patriotic and self-sacrificing endeavours to illustrate the history, literature and antiquities of his native country.
. Enjoying free access to the state papers and other documents preserved among what were then termed the plantation records, he became possessed of much important information. His work, Political Annals of the present United Colonies from their Settlement to the Peace of 1763, (1780), was to have formed two volumes; but the second, which should have contained the period between 1688 and 1763, never appeared. The first volume, however, is complete in itself, and traces the original settlement of the different American colonies, and the progressive changes in their constitutions and forms of government as affected by the state of public affairs in the parent kingdom. Independently of its value as being compiled from original documents, it bears evidence of great research, and has been of essential benefit to later writers. Continuing his researches, he next gave to the world An Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Britain during the Present and Four Preceding Reigns (1782) which passed through several editions.
, Sir John Davies
, Allan Ramsay, Sir David Lyndsay
, Churchyard
and others, prefixed to editions of their respective works, the British government paid Chalmers 500 pounds sterling to write a hostile biography of Thomas Paine
, the author of the Rights of Man, that Chalmers published under the assumed name of Francis Oldys, A.M., of the University of Pennsylvania; and a life of Ruddiman
, in which considerable light is thrown on the state of literature in Scotland during the earlier part of the last century. His life of Mary, Queen of Scots, was first published in 1818. It is founded on a manuscript left by John Whitaker
, the historian of Manchester; but Chalmers found it necessary to rewrite the whole. Mary's history occupied much of his attention, and his last work, A Detection of the Love Letters lately attributed in Hugh Campbell's work to Mary Queen of Scots, is an exposure of an attempt to represent as genuine some fictitious letters said to have passed between Mary and Bothwell.
His Apology for the Believers in the Shakespeare Papers which were exhibited in Norfolk Street, appeared in 1797, followed by other tracts on the same subject. These contributions to the literature of Shakespeare seek to show that papers which had been proved forgeries
might nevertheless have been genuine. Chalmers also took part in the controversy on the identity of Junius
, and in The Author of Junius Ascertained, from a Concatenation of Circumstances amounting to Moral Demonstration (1817) sought to fix the authorship of the Junius letters on Hugh Boyd. In 1824 he published The Poetical Remains of some of the Scottish Kings, now first collected; and in the same year he edited and presented as a contribution to the Bannatyne Club
Robene and Makyne and the Testament of Cresseid, by Robert Henryson
.
His political writings are equally numerous. Among them may be mentioned Collection of Treaties between Great Britain and other Powers (1790); Vindication of the Privileges of the People in respect to the Constitutional Right of Free Discussion, etc. (1796), published anonymously; A Chronological Account of Commerce and Coinage in Great Britain from the Restoration till 1850 (1810); Opinions of Eminent Lawyers on various points of English Jurisprudence, chiefly concerning the Colonies, Fisheries, and Commerce of Great Britain (1814); Comparative Views of the State of Great Britain before and since the War (1817).
He had also been engaged on a history of Scottish poetry and a history of printing in Scotland. Each of them he thought likely to extend to two large quarto volumes, and on both he expended an unusual amount of enthusiasm and energy. He had also prepared for the press an elaborate history of the life and reign of David I
. In his later researches he was assisted by his nephew James, son of Alexander Chalmers, writer in Elgin
.
, the Pictish
, the Scottish and the Scoto-Saxon periods, from 80 to 1306 AD. In these we are presented, in a condensed form, with an account of the people, the language and the civil and ecclesiastical history, as well as the agricultural and commercial state of Scotland during the first thirteen centuries of our era. Unfortunately the chapters on the Roman period are entirely marred by the author's having accepted as genuine Bertram's forgery De Situ Britanniae; but otherwise his opinions on controversial topics are worthy of much respect, being founded on a laborious investigation of all the original authorities that were accessible to him.
The second volume, published in 1810, gives an account of the seven southeastern counties of Scotland — Roxburgh
, Berwick
, East Lothian ("Haddington")
, Edinburgh
/Midlothian
(all as "Edinburgh"), West Lothian ("Linlithgow")
, Peebles and Selkirk
— each of them being treated of as regards name, situation and extent, natural objects, antiquities, establishment as shires, civil history, agriculture, manufactures and trade, and ecclesiastical history.
In 1824, after an interval of fourteen years, the third volume appeared, giving, under the same headings, a description of the seven south-western counties — Dumfries
, Kirkcudbright
, Wigtown
, Ayr
, Lanark
, Renfrew
and Dumbarton. In the preface to this volume the author states that the materials for the history of the central and northern counties were collected, and that he expected the work would be completed in two years, but this expectation was not realized.
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
antiquarian
Antiquarian
An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient objects of art or science, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts...
and political writer.
Biography
Chalmers was born at FochabersFochabers
Fochabers is a village in the Parish of Bellie, in Moray, Scotland, not far from the cathedral city of Elgin and located on the east bank of the River Spey. Around 2,000 people live in the village, which enjoys a rich musical and cultural history...
, Moray
Moray
Moray is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland.- History :...
, in 1742. His father, James Chalmers, was a grandson of George Chalmers of Pittensear, a small estate in the parish of Lhanbryde
Lhanbryde
Lhanbryde is a village in Moray, Scotland, four miles east of Elgin. Previously bisected by the A96, it was bypassed in the early 1990s and now lies to the north of this busy trunk road....
, now St Andrews-Lhanbryde, in Moray, owned by the family since the beginning of the 17th century. After completing the usual course at King's College, Aberdeen
King's College, Aberdeen
King's College in Old Aberdeen, Scotland is a formerly independent university founded in 1495 and an integral part of the University of Aberdeen...
, the young Chalmers studied law
Scots law
Scots law is the legal system of Scotland. It is considered a hybrid or mixed legal system as it traces its roots to a number of different historical sources. With English law and Northern Irish law it forms the legal system of the United Kingdom; it shares with the two other systems some...
at the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
for several years.
Two uncles on the father's side having settled in North America
British North America
British North America is a historical term. It consisted of the colonies and territories of the British Empire in continental North America after the end of the American Revolutionary War and the recognition of American independence in 1783.At the start of the Revolutionary War in 1775 the British...
, he visited Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
in 1763, apparently to assist in recovering a tract of land about which a dispute had arisen, and thus began practising as a lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
at Baltimore, where for a time he met with much success. Having, however, espoused the cause of the Royalist party on the breaking out of the American War of Independence, he abandoned his professional prospects and returned to Great Britain. Several years elapsed before he obtained an appointment that placed him in a state of comfort and independence.
At length, in August 1786, Chalmers, whose sufferings as a Royalist must have strongly recommended him to the government of the day, was appointed chief clerk to the committee of Privy Council on matters relating to trade, a situation which he retained till his death in 1825, a period of nearly forty years. As his official duties made no great demands on his time, he had abundant leisure to devote to his favourite studies — the antiquities and topography of Scotland having thenceforth special attractions for his busy pen.
On his death, his valuable and extensive library he bequeathed to his nephew, at whose death in 1841 it was sold and dispersed. Chalmers was a member of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies of London, an honorary member of the Antiquarian Society of Scotland, and a member of other learned societies. In private life he was undoubtedly an amiable man, although the dogmatic tone that disfigures portions of his writings procured him many opponents. Among his avowed antagonists in literary warfare the most distinguished were Edmond Malone
Edmond Malone
Edmond Malone was an Irish Shakespearean scholar and editor of the works of William Shakespeare.Assured of an income after the death of his father in 1774, Malone was able to give up his law practice for at first political and then more congenial literary pursuits. He went to London, where he...
and George Steevens
George Steevens
George Steevens was an English Shakespearean commentator.He was born at Poplar, the son of a captain and later director of the East India Company. He was educated at Eton College and at King's College, Cambridge, where he remained from 1753 to 1756...
, the Shakespeare edition; Mathias, the author of the Pursuits of Literature; Dr John Jamieson
John Jamieson
John Jamieson FRSE was a Scottish minister of religion, lexicographer, philologist and antiquary.The son of the Rev John Jamieson, Minister of the Associate Congregation, Duke Street, Glasgow, he was educated at Glasgow Grammar School.He was educated at the University of Glasgow, and subsequently...
, the Scottish lexicographer; Pinkerton, the historian; Dr Irving, the biographer of the Scottish poets; and Dr Currie of Liverpool. But with all his failings in judgment Chalmers was a valuable writer. He uniformly had recourse to original sources of information; and he is entitled to great praise for his patriotic and self-sacrificing endeavours to illustrate the history, literature and antiquities of his native country.
Early works (1776-1786)
Before his Privy Council appointment, Chalmers applied himself to investigating the history and establishment of the English colonies in North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. Enjoying free access to the state papers and other documents preserved among what were then termed the plantation records, he became possessed of much important information. His work, Political Annals of the present United Colonies from their Settlement to the Peace of 1763, (1780), was to have formed two volumes; but the second, which should have contained the period between 1688 and 1763, never appeared. The first volume, however, is complete in itself, and traces the original settlement of the different American colonies, and the progressive changes in their constitutions and forms of government as affected by the state of public affairs in the parent kingdom. Independently of its value as being compiled from original documents, it bears evidence of great research, and has been of essential benefit to later writers. Continuing his researches, he next gave to the world An Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Britain during the Present and Four Preceding Reigns (1782) which passed through several editions.
Mature works (1786-1824)
Besides biographical sketches of DefoeDaniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
, Sir John Davies
John Davies (poet)
Sir John Davies was an English poet and lawyer, who became attorney general in Ireland and formulated many of the legal principles that underpinned the British Empire.-Early life:...
, Allan Ramsay, Sir David Lyndsay
David Lyndsay
Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, was a Scottish Lord Lyon and poet of the 16th century, whose works reflect the spirit of the Renaissance.-Biography:...
, Churchyard
Thomas Churchyard
Thomas Churchyard , English author, was born at Shrewsbury, the son of a farmer.-Life:Churchyard received a good education, and, having speedily dissipated at court the money with which his father provided him, he entered the household of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey...
and others, prefixed to editions of their respective works, the British government paid Chalmers 500 pounds sterling to write a hostile biography of Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
, the author of the Rights of Man, that Chalmers published under the assumed name of Francis Oldys, A.M., of the University of Pennsylvania; and a life of Ruddiman
Thomas Ruddiman
Thomas Ruddiman was a Scottish classical scholar.-Life:He was born at Raggal, Banffshire, where his father was a farmer, and educated at the University of Aberdeen. Through the influence of Dr Archibald Pitcairne he became an assistant in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh...
, in which considerable light is thrown on the state of literature in Scotland during the earlier part of the last century. His life of Mary, Queen of Scots, was first published in 1818. It is founded on a manuscript left by John Whitaker
John Whitaker (historian)
John Whitaker B.D., F.S.A. , was an English historian and Anglican clergyman. Besides historical studies on the Roman Empire and on the early history of Great Britain he was a reviewer for London magazines and a poet.-Life:He was the son of James Whitaker, innkeeper, and was born in Manchester on...
, the historian of Manchester; but Chalmers found it necessary to rewrite the whole. Mary's history occupied much of his attention, and his last work, A Detection of the Love Letters lately attributed in Hugh Campbell's work to Mary Queen of Scots, is an exposure of an attempt to represent as genuine some fictitious letters said to have passed between Mary and Bothwell.
His Apology for the Believers in the Shakespeare Papers which were exhibited in Norfolk Street, appeared in 1797, followed by other tracts on the same subject. These contributions to the literature of Shakespeare seek to show that papers which had been proved forgeries
Ireland Shakespeare Forgeries
The Ireland Shakespeare forgeries were a cause célèbre in 1790s London, when author and engraver Samuel Ireland announced the discovery of a treasure-trove of Shakespearean manuscripts by his son William Henry Ireland. Among them were the manuscripts of four plays, two of them previously unknown...
might nevertheless have been genuine. Chalmers also took part in the controversy on the identity of Junius
Identity of Junius
Junius was the pseudonym of a writer who contributed a series of political letters to the Public Advertiser, from 21 January 1769 to 21 January 1772 as well as several other London newspapers such as the London Evening Post....
, and in The Author of Junius Ascertained, from a Concatenation of Circumstances amounting to Moral Demonstration (1817) sought to fix the authorship of the Junius letters on Hugh Boyd. In 1824 he published The Poetical Remains of some of the Scottish Kings, now first collected; and in the same year he edited and presented as a contribution to the Bannatyne Club
Bannatyne Club
The Bannatyne Club was founded by Sir Walter Scott to print rare works of Scottish interest, whether in history, poetry, or general literature. It printed 116 volumes in all. It was dissolved in 1861....
Robene and Makyne and the Testament of Cresseid, by Robert Henryson
Robert Henryson
Robert Henryson was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460–1500. Counted among the Scots makars, he lived in the royal burgh of Dunfermline and is a distinctive voice in the Northern Renaissance at a time when the culture was on a cusp between medieval and renaissance sensibilities...
.
His political writings are equally numerous. Among them may be mentioned Collection of Treaties between Great Britain and other Powers (1790); Vindication of the Privileges of the People in respect to the Constitutional Right of Free Discussion, etc. (1796), published anonymously; A Chronological Account of Commerce and Coinage in Great Britain from the Restoration till 1850 (1810); Opinions of Eminent Lawyers on various points of English Jurisprudence, chiefly concerning the Colonies, Fisheries, and Commerce of Great Britain (1814); Comparative Views of the State of Great Britain before and since the War (1817).
He had also been engaged on a history of Scottish poetry and a history of printing in Scotland. Each of them he thought likely to extend to two large quarto volumes, and on both he expended an unusual amount of enthusiasm and energy. He had also prepared for the press an elaborate history of the life and reign of David I
David I of Scotland
David I or Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim was a 12th-century ruler who was Prince of the Cumbrians and later King of the Scots...
. In his later researches he was assisted by his nephew James, son of Alexander Chalmers, writer in Elgin
Elgin, Moray
Elgin is a former cathedral city and Royal Burgh in Moray, Scotland. It is the administrative and commercial centre for Moray. The town originated to the south of the River Lossie on the higher ground above the flood plain. Elgin is first documented in the Cartulary of Moray in 1190...
.
Caledonia
Chalmers's greatest work is his Caledonia; which, however, he did not live to complete. The first volume appeared in 1807, and is introductory to the others. It is divided into four books, treating successively of the RomanRoman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, the Pictish
Picts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
, the Scottish and the Scoto-Saxon periods, from 80 to 1306 AD. In these we are presented, in a condensed form, with an account of the people, the language and the civil and ecclesiastical history, as well as the agricultural and commercial state of Scotland during the first thirteen centuries of our era. Unfortunately the chapters on the Roman period are entirely marred by the author's having accepted as genuine Bertram's forgery De Situ Britanniae; but otherwise his opinions on controversial topics are worthy of much respect, being founded on a laborious investigation of all the original authorities that were accessible to him.
The second volume, published in 1810, gives an account of the seven southeastern counties of Scotland — Roxburgh
Roxburghshire
Roxburghshire or the County of Roxburgh is a registration county of Scotland. It borders Dumfries to the west, Selkirk to the north-west, and Berwick to the north. To the south-east it borders Cumbria and Northumberland in England.It was named after the Royal Burgh of Roxburgh...
, Berwick
Berwickshire
Berwickshire or the County of Berwick is a registration county, a committee area of the Scottish Borders Council, and a lieutenancy area of Scotland, on the border with England. The town after which it is named—Berwick-upon-Tweed—was lost by Scotland to England in 1482...
, East Lothian ("Haddington")
East Lothian
East Lothian is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy Area. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Scottish Borders and Midlothian. Its administrative centre is Haddington, although its largest town is Musselburgh....
, Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
/Midlothian
Midlothian
Midlothian is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy area. It borders the Scottish Borders, East Lothian and the City of Edinburgh council areas....
(all as "Edinburgh"), West Lothian ("Linlithgow")
West Lothian
West Lothian is one of the 32 unitary council areas in Scotland, and a Lieutenancy area. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Falkirk, North Lanarkshire, the Scottish Borders and South Lanarkshire....
, Peebles and Selkirk
Selkirkshire
Selkirkshire or the County of Selkirk is a registration county of Scotland. It borders Peeblesshire to the west, Midlothian to the north, Berwickshire to the north-east, Roxburghshire to the east, and Dumfriesshire to the south...
— each of them being treated of as regards name, situation and extent, natural objects, antiquities, establishment as shires, civil history, agriculture, manufactures and trade, and ecclesiastical history.
In 1824, after an interval of fourteen years, the third volume appeared, giving, under the same headings, a description of the seven south-western counties — Dumfries
Dumfriesshire
Dumfriesshire or the County of Dumfries is a registration county of Scotland. The lieutenancy area of Dumfries has similar boundaries.Until 1975 it was a county. Its county town was Dumfries...
, Kirkcudbright
Kirkcudbrightshire
The Stewartry of Kirkcudbright or Kirkcudbrightshire was a county of south-western Scotland. It was also known as East Galloway, forming the larger Galloway region with Wigtownshire....
, Wigtown
Wigtownshire
Wigtownshire or the County of Wigtown is a registration county in the Southern Uplands of south west Scotland. Until 1975, the county was one of the administrative counties used for local government purposes, and is now administered as part of the council area of Dumfries and Galloway...
, Ayr
Ayrshire
Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...
, Lanark
Lanarkshire
Lanarkshire or the County of Lanark ) is a Lieutenancy area, registration county and former local government county in the central Lowlands of Scotland...
, Renfrew
Renfrewshire
Renfrewshire is one of 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. Located in the west central Lowlands, it is one of three council areas contained within the boundaries of the historic county of Renfrewshire, the others being Inverclyde to the west and East Renfrewshire to the east...
and Dumbarton. In the preface to this volume the author states that the materials for the history of the central and northern counties were collected, and that he expected the work would be completed in two years, but this expectation was not realized.
Chalmers' works online
- An Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Britain during the Present and Four Preceding Reigns (1782) [1794 edition available at Google Books
- The Life of Thomas Ruddiman (1794) [available at Google Books
- An Apology for the Believers in the Shakespeare Papers which were exhibited in Norfolk Street (1797) [Available at Google Books
- The Life of Mary, Queen of Scots, Derived from State Papers (1818) Volume 1 and Volume 2 available at Google Books]