Patrick Brydone FRSE FRS FSA(Scot) FSA (1741–1819) was a Scottish traveller and author who served as Comptroller of the Stamp Office.

Brydone was born in Coldingham

Coldingham

Coldingham is a historic village in Berwickshire, Scottish Borders, on Scotland's southeast coastline, north of Eyemouth.As early as AD 660, Coldingham was the site of a religious establishment of high order, when it is recorded that Etheldreda, the queen of Egfrid, became a nun at the Abbey of...

, Berwickshire

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...

, where his father Robert Brydon was a Church of Scotland minister.

Life and work

After attending St. Andrews University

University of St Andrews

The University of St Andrews, informally referred to as "St Andrews", is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge. The university is situated in the town of St Andrews, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It was founded between...

, he went abroad as travelling tutor or companion, with William Beckford

William Beckford of Somerley

William Beckford of Somerley was a Jamaican slave-owner and writer. Illegitimate son of Richard Beckford, he was part of the influential Beckford family and inherited four sugar plantations, which he personally supervised:...

 and some other gentlemen. On his return to England from his first tour in the Mediterranean

Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

, he published an account of his travels, entitled A Tour Through Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 and Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

(1773), of which a second edition appeared in 1790 in two volumes. Brydone's observations of old lava

Lava

Lava refers both to molten rock expelled by a volcano during an eruption and the resulting rock after solidification and cooling. This molten rock is formed in the interior of some planets, including Earth, and some of their satellites. When first erupted from a volcanic vent, lava is a liquid at...

 flows led him to suggest that the Earth was much older than was then widely believed.

His work became popular for its descriptions, and earned the author admission to the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

. The connections he thereby formed gained him the post of comptroller of the British Stamp Office, which he held to his death in 1819. Besides his work on Sicily and Malta, he was the author of some papers in the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society

The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society of London. It was established in 1665, making it the first journal in the world exclusively devoted to science, and it has remained in continuous publication ever since, making it the world's...

.

Major works

• A Tour Through Sicily and Malta: In a Series of Letters to William Beckford, Esq. of Somerly in Suffolk (1st ed. 1773).