William Alexander

William Alexander LLD (12 June 1826 – 19 February 1894) was a Scottish journalist and author. His most widely known novel Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk, paints a vivid picture of economic and social relations in a rural parish in Aberdeenshire during the 1840s, against the background of the Disruption in the Scottish Kirk.

Early life William Alexander was born at Chapel of Garioch, at the foot of Bennachie, in Aberdeenshire, the eldest son of James Alexander (1789–1856), a blacksmith and farmer, and his wife Anne Wilson (1802–1889). He was brought up on the farm of Damhead, Pitcaple and attended school in Daviot. He had intended to become a farmer, but the loss of a leg in an accident in his early twenties ended that prospect. While recovering, he read a lot, taught himself Latin, learned shorthand and began to write poems and stories for local periodicals.

Career in journalism Alexander established himself as a writer with the help of the Mutual Instruction movement which flourished in North-East Scotland at this time under the direction of William McCombie of Cairnballoch, farmer, philosopher, economist and newspaper editor, who gave him a job as reporter and chief clerk of the Aberdeen Free Press in the autumn of 1852.

Alexander's first substantial piece of journalism was a series entitled Sketches of Rural Life in Aberdeenshire which began in the North of Scotland Gazette on 31 December 1852 and continued in the Aberdeen Free Press until December of the following year.

His assiduous reporting on the cattle disease rinderpest after it reached Aberdeenshire in June 1865 assisted the development of effective local measures to limit its spread.

Alexander's series of essays on The Aberdeenshire Crofter, published in the Aberdeen Free Press in 1886, were written in support of the campaign by the Scottish Land Reform Alliance (SLRA) to have the provisions of the Crofters' Holdings Bill extended to Aberdeenshire and the other north-eastern counties. It is a study of changing power relationships in which representatives of traditional elites are destroyed by the rising capitalist bourgeoisie. Its portrayal of the social impacts of Scotland's burgeoning brewing and distilling industries reflects Alexander's sympathy with the temperance movement.

Alexander's later short stories, Mary Malcolmson's Wee Maggie, Baubie Huie's Bastart Geet, Francie Herregerie's Sharger Laddie and Couper Sandy, in the series Life Among my Ain Folk (1875), show the harsh consequences of economic and social change for cottars, labourers and small tenant farmers. William was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Law by the University of Aberdeen and has a plaque to his memory on his house at 3 Belvidere Street, Aberdeen. His ancestry and family history is published in The Alexanders of Bourtie, 1690-1886.

He lived his final years a 3 Belvidere Street in Aberdeen.

He died on 19 February 1894 and was buried in Nellfield Cemetery in Aberdeen. The grave lies against the east wall not far from the main north entrance.