Alexander Nicolson

Alexander Nicolson (Scottish Gaelic: Alasdair MacNeacail) (1827–1893) was a Scottish lawyer and man of letters, known as a Gaelic scholar and sheriff-substitute of Kirkcudbright and Greenock, and as a pioneer of mountain climbing in Scotland.

Life The son of Malcolm Nicolson, he was born at Husabost in Skye on 27 September 1827. With an early education from tutors, he entered Edinburgh University after the death of his father, intending to study for the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland. He graduated B.A. in 1850, and later in 1859 received an honorary degree of M.A. In the absence through illness of Sir William Hamilton, Nicolson as his assistant lectured for his class on logic, and for two years he performed a similar service for Patrick Campbell Macdougall in the class of moral philosophy.

Giving up theology while at the Free Church College, Nicholson for some time worked as one of the sub-editors of the eighth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. He moved on, to the staff of the Edinburgh Guardian, a short-lived literary paper of high literary quality. For a year he edited an advanced Liberal paper, the Daily Express, which later was merged into the Caledonian Mercury. During the tour of investigation the gunboat HMS Lively, with the commissioners on board, sank off Stornoway, and he had some difficulty in saving the manuscript of his Memoirs of Adam Black, on which he was working at the time. In 1885 he became sheriff-substitute of Greenock, retiring in 1889, with a pension, on grounds of ill-health. He returned to Edinburgh, died suddenly at the breakfast table on 13 January 1893, and was buried in Warriston cemetery in Edinburgh.

Interests

Nicolson was popular in society, being known for stories and songs, such as "The British Ass" and "Highland Regiments". His interest in climbing has seen him called "arguably the first modern mountaineer". He was a pioneer of climbing in the Cuillin hills of Skye, and in 1873 made the first recorded ascent of Sgùrr Alasdair, their highest peak, which is now named after him ("Alasdair" being a Gaelic form of "Alexander"). He was also a keen athlete and a volunteer.

Works It is as a scholar of Scottish Gaelic that Nicolson has a lasting reputation, based mainly on his articles in The Gael, a Gaelic periodical, his collection of Gaelic proverbs, and his revised version of the Gaelic Bible, made for the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge. He was also a Greek scholar. His main publications were:

The Lay of the Beanmhòr: a Song of the Sudreyar, Dunedin [Edinburgh], 1867. A Collection of Gaelic Proverbs and Familiar Phrases. Based on Macintosh's Collection. Edited by Alexander Nicolson, Edinburgh, 1881; 2nd edit. 1882. An updated version of the collection by Donald Macintosh. Still available: . Memoirs of Adam Black, Edinburgh, 1885; 2nd edit. 1885. Verses by Alexander Nicolson, LL.D., with a Memoir by Walter Chalmers Smith, Edinburgh, 1893.

Nicolson also edited in 1857 a volume Edinburgh Essays, written by a number of his friends connected with the university. He wrote articles and verse for Good Words, Macmillan's Magazine, Blackwood's Magazine, The Scotsman, and other periodicals and newspapers.