Henry, ROBERT

Henry, ROBERT, a Scottish historian and divine, was born at St Ninians, in Stirlingshire, February 18, 1718. He studied at the university of Edinburgh, and from 1768 till his death in 1790 was one of the ministers of that city. In his History of Great Britain on a New Plan (6 vols. 1771-93) he adopted the 'new plan' of devoting chapters to the social aspects of successive periods, and thus tracing the progress of civilisation in Great Britain; but the work has no pretensions to critical acumen or even strict accuracy, and consequently is now of little value.