Sir Walter Scott

On this day 194 years ago, Scotland lost one of its greats.

Sir Walter Scott, born 15th of August 1771 in Old Town Edinburgh, rose to be one of the most famous men to call the city home. He was the ninth child of his parents, one of only three surviving at the time, and his roots could be traced back to the Haliburton Family and Clan Swinton which made him pretty important already.

His infancy was already afflicted though as at the age of two he got Polio which left a lasting impact on him. As such he was sent to live with his grandparents on the Scottish Borders as the rural landscape was thought to have improved his lame leg. Instead his aunt Jenny taught him how to read, told him legends and tales galore, and how to speak along with speech patterns. He went back to Edinburgh two years later but continued his learning/polio therapy with his aunt which also included a visit to Somerset.

In 1778 it was deemed that the young Scott was well enough for school, so he returned to Edinburgh to first get a private education to prepare him and then a year later started the Royal High School. He was then sent to school in Kelso after being once again sent to his aunt Jenny in 1783 as his parents were concerned he wasn't strong enough to continue in Edinburgh due to his lameness. It was at Kelso Grammar School where he met his future business partners James and John Ballantyne. In the same year he started studying classics at the University of Edinburgh, this was notable as he was only 12 years old which was younger than a lot of students who enrolled there. Scott then went on to work as an apprentice at the age of 14 in his father's office which would ultimately lead to becoming a Writer to the Signet.

At some point Scott decided to become a lawyer and so returned to university to study law. He finished his studies and took up the practice before being admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1792. Five years later the threat of a French Invasion was sweeping the country and so Scott and his friends decided to join the Royal Edinburgh Volunteer Light Dragoons where he was quartermaster and secretary until the early 1800s.

During his law career and the Dragoons, Scott also began to dabble in having a literary career. A recent wave of German literature had swept across Edinburgh at the time and he was swept along with it. This prompted him to produce English versions of Der Wilde Jager and Lenore which were published as The Chase and William and Helen. This reignited his love for ballads and traditional folklore and with help from John Leyden he went on to produce a two volume book of 48 traditional ballads and two imitations in 1802.

Scott went on a trip with friends to the Lake District where he met Charlotte Charpentier, they went on to marry on Christmas Eve in 1797. Their eldest child, Sophia was born two years later and another two years after that Walter was born, they went on to have another three children. The same year in which Scott's eldest was born, 1799, he also became Sheriff of Selkirk and alongside his law work was bringing in quite the wage.

After securing his friend James Ballantyne printing work via the first edition of Minstrelsy among others, Scott offered him a loan alongside the suggestion that Ballantyne set up a printers in Edinburgh and so they became partners in 1805. Scott continued to write and the firm continued to publish and print them, but we aren't here to list all of the man's poems. He was then offered Poet Laureate in 1813 which he declined.

As those of you who are familiar with Scott will know, his literary dalliances were not just with poetry. As of 1805 Scott had started dabbling with the idea of becoming a novelist. He'd completed the first few chapters of Waverley but abandoned the project after a friend slated it and no more was thought of it until he edited and completed the posthumous romance by Joseph Strutt. It was here that the interest once again formed in his mind but he didn't resume Waverley until 1810 after the success of The Lady in the Lake. It was announced for publication the same year, and then dropped again until 1813 and published a year later. Scott then continued his novelist career with a further 26 novels.

Interestingly though, Scott didn't put his name out there for these works and instead published them under 'By the Author of Waverley' which seems to express his doubt of his fleshier works being as successful as his poetry. However his financial ruin in 1826 put a stop to this, but more on that later.

In 1817 Scott was involved in the granting of a Royal Warrant to conduct a search for the Crown Jewels. Scott had prompted the Prince Regent for the search and the prince later became George IV, he signed the warrant on the 28th of October 1817 and Scott was joined by several other officials. The jewels had been hidden by ol' Ollie Cromwell but still used to crown Charles II and hadn't been seen since. They were supposedly in a box at Edinburgh Castle but hadn't been opened for over 100 years and so rumours had been spread that they were missing. In February of 1818 Scott and a small team of military men opened the box and thus unearthed the jewels in the Crown Room of the castle. It was this event that led to Walter Scott becoming Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet as of April 1820.

When George took the throne the city council of Edinburgh decided to leave it up to Scott to organise the 1822 Scotland visit of the King. They gave him three weeks but Scott's pageant was a success, he dressed the king in tartan and it united the Scottish people and the monarchy once again.

Unfortunately, Scott's fortunes began to crumble both literally and figuratively in 1825. A British banking crisis forced the collapse of Ballantyne printing and as Scott was the only partner with financial connections it ended in his public ruin. Instead of simply declaring himself bankrupt or accepting loans from his many admirers who included the King, he put his house and his earnings in a trust that belonged to his creditors and decided to write himself out of debt. To add to his sorrows and the pressure of the situation, Scott's wife died the next year.

Scott continued to bash out literary works in spite of his situation, and greatly because of them. He produced six novels, two short stories, two plays, eleven non-fiction works, a journal, and a bunch of unfinished projects all between 1826 and his death in 1832.

His health had begun to fail in his later years and in an attempt to stave off death he went on a trip aboard the HMS Barham in 1831 for Malta and Naples. On the way home he boarded the steamboat Prins Frederik which is where he had his final stroke. From here he received medical attention and was transferred to the steamship Batavier which brought him back to England. When he landed back on dry land he was taken to Abbotsford (his home) to die, and this he did on this very day in 1832 at the ripe age of 61.

He was buried in Dryburgh Abbey alongside his wife thanks to his maternal heritage. Sadly he was still in debt when he died but his books continued to sell which wrote off his debts not too long after his death.

Following the loss of a beloved man of Edinburgh, several memorials were built. The first was in 1833 when W J Thompson painted a miniature portrait for a gold memorial locket. The second came 12 years after Scott's death and is the Scott Monument by George Meikle Kemp that we think is cursed as ultimately it claimed his life. Scott is then also featured among other Scottish writers of note on a slab outside the Writers' Museum in Lawnmarket. He also had a tower dedicated to him on Corstorphine Hill as well as Waverley Train station being named after his first novel after opening in 1854.

We then go to Glasgow where a second memorial dominates a city with Walter Scott's Monument in George Square from 1838. Across the pond Central Park in New York also has a statue of Scott.

Aside from physical monuments, Scott's influence for future generations of writers was clear, Mary Shelley even wrote to him for advice! Scotland lost a very influential man 194 years ago today, and considering he was so well loved we feel fools for not having stumbled across him sooner! Ren's added Waverley to her reading list so she can form a grander picture on this marvellous man!