Findlater, ANDREW

Findlater, ANDREW, editor of the first edition of this Encyclopædia, was born in December 1810 near Aberdour, in Aberdeenshire. He was the son of a small farmer, and was bred to farm-work; but he early resolved to go to the university, and in spite of having to do daily a full day's work on the farm, he contrived to qualify himself for entering Aberdeen University. There he graduated in arts, and began theology with a view to becoming a minister; but changing his intention, became a schoolmaster at Tillydesk in the parish of Ellon, and for seven years (1842-49) was head-master of Gordon's Hospital in Aberdeen. After a short residence in Canada, he came in 1853 to Edinburgh to superintend for Messrs W. & R. Chambers a new edition of the Information for the People (1857). His next task was the chief work of his life; he devoted himself to the preparation of Chambers's Encyclopædia, and ere long was its editor. A scholar of wide and varied learning, equally at home in the physical sciences, in the history of ancient religions, and in modern comparative philology, he turned his acquirements to good account, not merely in directing the Encyclopædia as a whole and fixing its form and scope, but in contributing to it many of its most important articles; and after its completion (1861-68) he superintended a revised issue (1874). He saw through the press a new edition of the Miscellany (1869-71) and of the Etymological Dictionary (1882); and wrote short but admirable manuals on Astronomy, Language, Physical Geography, and Physiography. In 1864 Aberdeen University gave him its degree of LL.D.; and J. S. Mill, while rector of St Andrews University, made him his assessor in the University Court. Many of the articles in the review columns of the Scotsman were from his pen. He was associated with J. S. Mill, Mr Grote, and Professor Bain in editing James Mill's Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1869); and he counted Thackeray, Littre, and Dr John Brown amongst his friends. His health failing, he withdrew from active work in 1877, and died 1st January 1885.