Life

Born at Prestonpans

Prestonpans

Prestonpans is a small town to the east of Edinburgh, Scotland, in the unitary council area of East Lothian. It has a population of 7,153 . It is the site of the 1745 Battle of Prestonpans, and has a history dating back to the 11th century...

, near 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...

, he was left an orphan early, and studied drawing at the Trustees' Academy. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to Robert Scott

Robert Scott (engraver)

-Life:The son of Robert and Grizell Scott, he was born on 13 November 1777 at Lanark, where his father was a skinner. He attended the grammar school at Musselburgh, and at the age of ten was articled to Andrew Robertson, an engraver at Edinburgh; there he also worked in the Trustees' Academy. Among...

 the engraver, and worked under him for some years.

At the age of about sixty Horsburgh retired from active work, and undertook gratuitously the duties of pastor in the Scottish Baptist church. He died at 16 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, on 24 September 1869.

Works

Horsburgh engraved plates after J. M. W. Turner

J. M. W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...

, for England and Wales, William Bernard Cooke

William Bernard Cooke

William Bernard Cooke , was an English line engraver.-Life and work:Cooke was born in London in 1778. He was the elder brother of George Cooke , and became a pupil of William Angus , the engraver of the "Seats of the Nobility and Gentry in Great Britain and Wales"...

's Southern Coast of England, and Walter Scott

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

's works, and other publications. He engraved several single plates, including Prince Charlie reading a Despatch, after William Simson

William Simson

William Simson was a Scottish portrait, landscape and subject painter.-Biography:Simson was born at Dundee in 1800. He studied under Andrew Wilson at the Trustees' Academy in Edinburgh, and his early pictures of landscape and marine subjects found quick sales...

, Sir Walter Scott, after Sir Thomas Lawrence, and another portrait of Scott after John Watson Gordon

John Watson Gordon

Sir John Watson Gordon was a Scottish portrait painter and a president of the Royal Scottish Academy.-Life and work:He was born John Watson in Edinburgh, the eldest son of Captain Watson, R.N., a cadet of the family of Watson of Overmains, in the county of Berwick. He was educated specially with a...

. His pastoral addresses were published with a short memoir prefixed immediately after his death.