James Currie

James Currie FRS (31 May 1756 in Dumfriesshire, Scotland – 31 August 1805 in Sidmouth) was a Scottish physician, best known for his anthology and biography of Robert Burns and his medical reports on the use of water in the treatment of fever. A watercolour portrait by Horace Hone (1756–1825) is in the National Galleries of Scotland.

His early attempt to set up a merchanting business in Virginia was a failure and he returned to Scotland. After qualifying as a medical doctor he established a successful practice in Liverpool, England and after a few years was able to purchase a small estate in Dumfriesshire. and wrote several political letters and pamphlets, including one to William Pitt, which made him a number of enemies.

Throughout his life, he was dogged by illness and in 1804 he became seriously unwell. In an effort to find a cure, he relinquished his Liverpool practice and went to Bath, Clifton and finally Sidmouth, where he died on 31 August 1805 at age 49.

Family and education He was born in Kirkpatrick-Fleming, in Annandale, Dumfriesshire, a son of the minister, the Reverend James Currie, and Jane, the only daughter of Robert Boyd, of Dumfries. The Curries were an old Scottish family, descended from the Curries of Dunse, Berwickshire, and originally from the Corrie family of Annandale. James's first school was in the nearby parish of Middlebie, in Annandale, where his father had become Minister, and from age 13 he attended the grammar school in Dumfries, run by Dr George Chapman.

He married Lucy Wallace in 1783, with whom he had five children. Her father was a prosperous merchant, a descendant of William Wallace, nicknamed The Hero of Scotland by Sir Walter Scott.

Virginia Attracted by the stories of prosperity in America he went in 1771 to Virginia, at that time a British colony, settling as a merchant on the James River, where he spent five hard years, much of the time ill and always in unprofitable commercial business. Trade between Britain and America suffered as a result of the dissension between the two countries and he turned his attention to politics. Under the misleading pseudonym 'An Old Man' he published a series of articles in defence of the right of the mother country to tax her colonies. was a close friend of the poet. Burns visited Mrs Dunlop at her home on five occasions and over a period of ten years they exchanged a great number of letters, 186 of which survive to this day. After Burns's death, Currie was entrusted with the publication of an authoritative anthology. Although inexperienced in such a task, he had many advantages, including access through Mrs Dunlop to original manuscripts of poems and letters and help from Gilbert Burns, Robert's brother, and several of Burns's friends.