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David Landsborough (11 August 1779 – 12 September 1854) was a Scottish minister of the Free Church of Scotland and noted amateur naturalist.
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David Landsborough (11 August 1779 – 12 September 1854) was a Scottish minister of the Free Church of Scotland and noted amateur naturalist.
Landsborough was born at Dalry, Glen Kens, Galloway, on 11 August 1779. He was educated at the Dumfries Academy, and from 1798 at the University of Edinburgh. Here, partly by his skill as a violinist, he made the acquaintance of Thomas Brown, the metaphysician, and of the Rev. John Thomson of Duddingston, 'the Scottish Claude Lorraine,' from whom he derived a taste for painting. [1]
Landsborough became tutor in the family of Lord Glenlee at Barskimming in Ayrshire, was licensed for the ministry of the Church of Scotland in 1808, and in 1811 was ordained minister of Stevenston, Ayrshire. Landsborough was a typical parson-naturalist, [2] who, in addition to his clerical duties, and while maintaining his scholarship by reading some Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, or Italian daily, early commenced the study of the natural history of his parish and that of the neighbouring island of Arran. Arran was the subject of his first book, a poem in six cantos, published in 1828. [3] (It was again published in 1847, together with (twenty-four) Excursions to Arran, with reference to the Natural History of the Island. [4] )
At the disruption of the Scottish church in 1843 he joined the Free Church of Scotland, and became minister at Saltcoats but the change involved a reduction of income from 350l., to 120l. a year, and the loss of his garden, to which he was much attached. Its place was taken by the seashore, and many hundred sets of algæ prepared by his children under his direction were sold to raise a fund of 200l. in support of the church and schools. [5]
He began his botanical studies with flowering plants, afterwards proceeding in succession to algæ, lichens, fungi, and mosses. His discovery of a new alga, Ectocarpus Landsburgii Harvey (synonym of Ectocarpus fasciculatus Harvey), [6] brought him into communication with William Henry Harvey, to whose 'Phycologia Britannica' he made many contributions. The discovery of new marine animals, such as the species of Æolis and Lepralia [7] that bear his name, introduced him to George Johnston of Berwick. [1]
For many years he kept a daily register of the temperature, wind and weather, and noted the first flowering of plants and the arrival of migratory birds. He also studied land mollusca and the fossil plants of the neighbouring coal-field, one of which, Lyginodendron Landsburgii, bears his name. In 1837 he furnished the account of his parish of Stevenston to the 'Statistical Account' of the parishes of Scotland. [1]
In 1849 Landsborough was elected an associate of the Linnean Society, [8] and in the following year he was mainly instrumental in the establishment of the Ayrshire Naturalists' Club.
In 1845 he contributed a series of articles on 'Excursions to Arran' to 'The Christian Treasury,' and in 1847 they appeared in book form as Excursions to Arran, Ailsa Craig, and the two Cumbraes, together with a reprint of Arran. A Poem in Six Cantos. [4] They were again published in 1851 under the title Excursions to Arran, Ailsa Craig, and the two Cumbraes, with reference to the Natural History of these Islands. To which are added Directions for Laying out Seaweeds and Preparing them for the Herbarium. [9]
On Harvey's recommendation Landsborough was employed to write a Popular History of British Seaweeds, and the work, on its appearance in 1849, was so satisfactory, that he was commissioned to prepare a similar Popular History of British Zoophytes or Corallines, which was published in 1852. [10]
He visited most parts of Scotland and Ireland on ministerial duty, and found opportunities of journeying through England and France. In 1852, when upwards of seventy-three, he visited Gibraltar and Tangier, returning by way of the Balearic Isles, Marseilles, Genoa, Turin, and Paris. He reached London, after five months' absence, just in time to witness Wellington's funeral.
An epidemic of cholera broke out in his district in 1854. Landsborough was most assiduous in visiting the sick and dying, but was himself attacked by the disease, and succumbed, after a very brief illness at Saltcoats on 12 September 1854. Landsborough is said to have discovered nearly seventy species of plants and animals new to Scotland, and thus well earned the title of 'the Gilbert White of Ardrossan.' He received the degree of D.D. from an American college in 1849. Besides the species already mentioned, in New Zealand genus of algæ was dedicated to him by Harvey as Landsburgia. Landsborough married in 1817 Margaret, daughter of James M'Leish of Port Glasgow, by whom he had four sons and three daughters. One son, William, an Australian explorer; and another, David, free kirk minister of Kilmarnock. has edited the work on Arran. with a memoir of the writer (Ardrossan. 1875, 8vo).
In addition to the works above mentioned, of which the Popular History of British Seaweeds reached a third edition in 1857, Landsborough published 'Ayrshire Sketches, or Memoirs of J. Charters, H. Cuninghame, and J. Baird,' 1839. 18mo: a series of religious biographies. His contributions to the Annals and Magazine of Natural History and to The Zoologist deal with phosphorescence, the habits of the rook, and the pliocene and post-pliocene deposits at Stevenston. [1]
In 1817 he married Margaret McLeish. [11]
His daughter Isabella Landsborough married the Rev Arthur Thomson of the Free Church.
His son Rev David Landsborough LLD (1826-1912) was also a Free Church minister, serving at the Henderson Church in Kilmarnock.
His grandson Dr. David Landsborough III was a pioneer medical missionary in Taiwan.
The Islands of the Firth of Clyde are the fifth largest of the major Scottish island groups after the Inner and Outer Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland. They are situated in the Firth of Clyde between Argyll and Bute in the west and Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and South Ayrshire in the east. There are about forty islands and skerries. Only four are inhabited, and only nine are larger than 40 hectares. The largest and most populous are Arran and Bute. They are served by dedicated ferry routes, as are Great Cumbrae and Holy Island. Unlike the isles in the four larger Scottish archipelagos, none of the isles in this group are connected to one another or to the mainland by bridges.
Ayrshire is a historic county and registration county, in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. The lieutenancy area of Ayrshire and Arran covers the entirety of the historic county as well as the island of Arran, formerly part of the historic county of Buteshire. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine and it borders the counties of Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire to the north-east, Dumfriesshire to the south-east, and Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire to the south. Like many other counties of Scotland, it currently has no administrative function, instead being sub-divided into the council areas of East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire and South Ayrshire. It has a population of approximately 366,800.
Great Cumbrae is the larger of the two islands known as The Cumbraes in the lower Firth of Clyde in western Scotland. The island is sometimes called Millport, after its main town.
Millport is the only town on the island of Great Cumbrae in the Firth of Clyde off the coast of mainland Scotland, in the council area of North Ayrshire. The town is 4 miles (6 km) south of the ferry terminal that links the island to the Scottish mainland.
The County of Bute, also known as Buteshire, is a historic county and registration county of Scotland. Now replaced by Argyll and Bute for the Isle of Bute, with the Argyll and Bute Council. The Isle of Arran and the The Cumbraes are now in North Ayrshire Council area. Since the implimentation of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994, on the 1 April 1996.
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North Ayrshire and Arran is a constituency of the British House of Commons, located in the south-west of Scotland within the North Ayrshire council area. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) at least once every five years using the first-past-the-post voting system of voting.
William Thompson was an Irish naturalist celebrated for his founding studies of the natural history of Ireland, especially in ornithology and marine biology. Thompson published numerous notes on the distribution, breeding, eggs, habitat, song, plumage, behaviour, nesting and food of birds. These formed the basis of his four-volume The Natural History of Ireland, and were much used by contemporary and later authors such as Francis Orpen Morris.
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William Henry Harvey, FRS FLS was an Irish botanist and phycologist who specialised in algae.
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David Kennedy, 3rd Lord Kennedy and 1st Earl of Cassilis was a Scottish peer, the son of John Kennedy, 2nd Lord Kennedy. He was born about 1463, in Maybole, Ayrshire, Scotland. He was a Privy Councillor of King James IV and was created Earl of Cassilis by him in 1502. Killed at the Battle of Flodden, on 9 September 1513.
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David Robertson FLS, FGS (1806–1896) was a Scottish naturalist and geologist who founded the University Marine Biological Station, Millport.
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James Townsend Mackay (1775–1862) was a Scottish botanist who lived in Ireland.
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The Hamiltons of the United States are a family of Scottish origin, whose most prominent member was Alexander Hamilton (1755/57–1804), one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Their ancestors and relations in Scotland included the Lairds of Kerelaw Castle in Stevenston, North Ayrshire, of the Cambuskeith branch of Clan Hamilton.
The earldom of Arran currently exists in two forms within the Scottish nobility, in reference to the Isle of Arran. One is a peerage title in the Peerage of Scotland, held as a subsidiary title by the Duke of Hamilton.
Elections to North Ayrshire Council took place on 5 May 2022 on the same day as the 31 other Scottish local government elections. As with other Scottish council elections, it was held using single transferable vote (STV) – a form of proportional representation – in which multiple candidates are elected in each ward and voters rank candidates in order of preference.
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