Ramsay, EDWARD BANNERMAN BURNETT, Dean of Edinburgh, was born in Aberdeen, 31st January 1793, the grandson of Sir Thomas Burnett, Bart., of Leys. His father, Alexander Burnett, was sheriff of Kinardineshire. Edward was the fourth son, and when very young he was taken by his grand-uncle, Sir Alexander Ramsay, who sent him to school near his own house at Harlsey in Yorkshire. In 1806 Alexander Burnett succeeded to Sir Alexander's estates, assumed the surname of Ramsay, and soon after was created a baronet. Edward Burnett Ramsay took a poll degree at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1814, was ordained in 1816, and held a curacy in Somersetshire until 1824, when he removed to Edinburgh as curate of St George's. Two years later he was made incumbent of St Paul's, Carrubber's Close, but this he exchanged in 1827 for the curacy of St John's, of which Bishop Sandford was incumbent. On the bishop's death in 1830 Ramsay succeeded to the charge; and in 1846 he was appointed dean of the diocese, having already (1844) declined the bishopric of Frederickton, as he afterwards (1847 and 1862) did those of Glasgow and Edinburgh. In 1860 he received the degree of LL.D. from Edinburgh University. He died 27th December 1872. Ramsay did a very great service for the Scottish Episcopal Church by his work in connection with the Church Society, of which he was the first secretary and really the founder, and out of which grew the later Representative Church Council. But it is for the sake of his books—or rather of one of them—that his fame is secure.
Among his works, besides sermons, &c., are Memoirs of Sir J. E. Smith and Dr Chalmers, Diversities of Christian Character (1858), Faults in Christian Believers (1859), Pulpit Table-talk (1868), The Christian Life (1869), and a number of others. But the book with which his name will always be identified is the Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character, which had its origin in two lectures ('On Recent Changes in Scottish Manners and Habits') delivered in Edinburgh in 1856-57, and published in a small octavo of 64 pp. in 1857; the third edition (1859), bearing the title of the Reminiscences, extended to 211 pages. A second series (pp. xxxviii, 221) appeared in 1861. See the Memoir, by Cosmo Innes, prefixed to the 22d ed. (1874).