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Thomas White (headteacher)
Thomas White (1758–1825) was a close and loyal friend of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, a mathematician of note and eventually Rector (headteacher) of Dumfries Academy. Life and character He was born at Hexham in Northumberland and settled in Dumfries in 1782, where he became a teacher of mathematics and later the Rector of Dumfries Academy, spending a total of forty-three years working at the school. John M'Diarmid, a contemporary, recalled that White was appointed "''after a comparative trial, in which he foiled every competitor, and secured by the early display of his talents the friendship and esteem of those great ornaments of letters - Dugald Stewart and Professor Robinson.''" White married Jean McNaught on the 7 July 1789 in Dumfries. He had three daughters. Jane and Henrietta never married; Eliza married John Richardson. He became a prominent and well respected member of Dumfries society. His memorial was "''Erected by attached friends and pupils to commemorate the es ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Burns
Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the List of national poets, national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is in a "light Central Scots, Scots dialect" of English, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland. He also wrote in standard English, and in these writings his political or civil commentary is often at its bluntest. He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romanticism, Romantic movement, and after his death he became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism, and a cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish diaspora around the world. Celebration of his life and work became almost a national charismatic cult during the 19th and 20th centuries, and his influence has long been strong on Scottish literature. In 2009 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Armour
Jean Armour (25 February 1765 – 26 March 1834), also known as the "Belle of Mauchline", was the wife of the poet Robert Burns. She inspired many of his poems and bore him nine children, three of whom survived into adulthood. Biography Born in Mauchline, Ayrshire in 1765, Armour was second oldest of the eleven children of stonemason James Armour (died 1798) and Mary Smith Armour. She met Robert Burns on a drying green in Mauchline around 1784 when she chased his dog away from her laundry. According to Armour's testimony in 1827, she met Burns again at a local dance. By the time Burns's first illegitimate child, Elizabeth "Bess" Burns (1785–1817), was born to Elizabeth Paton (1760 – c. 1799) on 22 May 1785, he and Jean Armour were in a relationship, and by the end of the year she was pregnant with his child. Her announcement, in March 1786, that she was expecting Robert Burns's baby caused her father to faint. The certificate of an informal marriage agreement between Burns ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1825 Deaths
Events January–March * January 4 – King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies dies in Naples and is succeeded by his son, Francis. * February 3 – Vendsyssel-Thy, once part of the Jutland peninsula forming westernmost Denmark, becomes an island after a flood drowns its wide isthmus. * February 9 – After no presidential candidate receives a majority of United States Electoral College votes following the 1824 United States presidential election, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams President of the United States in a contingent election. * February 10 – Gideon Mantell names and describes the second known dinosaur ''Iguanodon''. * February 10 – Simón Bolívar gives up his title of dictator of Peru and takes the alternative title of ''El Libertador''. * February 12 – Second Treaty of Indian Springs: The Creek cede the last of their lands in Georgia to the United States government and migrate west. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1758 Births
Events January–March * January 1 – Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné) publishes in Stockholm the first volume (''Animalia'') of the 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'', the starting point of modern zoological nomenclature, introducing binomial nomenclature for animals to his established system of Linnaean taxonomy. Among the first examples of his system of identifying an organism by genus and then species, Linnaeus identifies the lamprey with the name ''Petromyzon marinus''. He introduces the term ''Homo sapiens''. (Date of January 1 assigned retrospectively.) * January 20 – At Cap-Haïtien in Haiti, former slave turned rebel François Mackandal is executed by the French colonial government by being burned at the stake. * January 22 – Russian troops under the command of William Fermor invade East Prussia and capture Königsberg with 34,000 soldiers; although the city is later abandoned by Russia after the Seven Years' War ends ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Murdoch (teacher)
John Murdoch of Ayr was Robert Burns's most significant teacher or tutor and he was a friend of the Burnes family. He was born in 1747 and first taught Gilbert and Robert Burns in Alloway when he was only aged eighteen. He remained in contact with the Burnes family for several years after leaving Ayrshire for London. Murdoch, William Burnes and Richard Brown were amongst the most significant influences on Burns life during his early years in Ayrshire. Life and character Murdoch's parents were John Murdoch, a teacher and session clark in Auchinleck, and Margaret Robinson. The family lived in Ayr's Sandgate in a two-storey house, long demolished, but marked with a plaque. He was a member of the Dumfries Volunteers, serving as a first lieutenant. In 1800 he was a collector of cess for Dumfrieshire. In 1776 Murdoch was sacked after around three years from his position at Ayr Burgh School on 14 February 1776, following his intoxicated slanderous comments against the Rev. William ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Maid Of Orleans (poem)
''The Maid of Orleans'' ( French: ''La Pucelle d'Orléans'') is a satirical poem by Voltaire about Joan of Arc, circulated in private readings and in manuscript beginning the 1730's. In response to pirated prints appearing in the 1750's, Voltaire published an authorized edition (Geneva 1762) shorn of most bawdy and anticlerical passages. One English translation is that by W. H. Ireland (1824). Scandal Voltaire was undoubtedly one of the most controversial writers and philosophers of the Enlightenment Age, and ''The Maid of Orleans'' was also certainly one of his more contentious works. An epic and scandalous satire concerning the life of the not-yet-canonised Joan of Arc ("the Maid of Orleans"), the poem was outlawed, burned and banned throughout a great portion of Europe during the 18th and the 19th centuries.Heimann, p.13 Containing mockery and satirical commentary on the life and antics of its subject, the poem itself has variously been described as "bawdy" and "licentio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit and his criticism of Christianity (especially Criticism of the Catholic Church, of the Roman Catholic Church) and of slavery, Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a versatile and prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including Stageplay, plays, poems, novels, essays, histories, and even scientific Exposition (narrative), expositions. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets. Voltaire was one of the first authors to become renowned and commercially successful internationally. He was an outspoken advocate of civil liberties and was at constant risk from the strict censorship laws of the Catholic French monarchy. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Widener Library
The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, housing some 3.5million books, is the centerpiece of the Harvard Library system. It honors 1907 Harvard College graduate and book collector Harry Elkins Widener, and was built by his mother Eleanor Elkins Widener soon after his death in the sinking of the Titanic, sinking of the ''Titanic'' in 1912. Widener's "vast and cavernous" bookstack, stacks hold works in more than one hundred languages which together comprise "one of the world's most comprehensive research collections in the humanities and List of social sciences, social sciences." Its of shelves, along five miles (8km) of aisles on ten levels, comprise a "labyrinth" which one student "could not enter without feeling that she ought to carry a compass, a sandwich, and a whistle." At the building's heart are the Widener Memorial Rooms, displaying papers and mementos recalling the life and death of Harry Widener, as well as the Harry Elkins Widener Collection, "the precious group o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poems, Chiefly In The Scottish Dialect (Second Edinburgh Edition)
''Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Second Edinburgh Edition)'' was issued during the poet's lifetime ''In Two Volumes. The Second Edition Considerably Enlarged.'' It is a collection of poetry and songs by the poet Robert Burns, printed for T. Cadell, London, and W. Creech, Edinburgh. M,DCC,XCIII The date of publication for this edition was 16 February 1793 as advertised in the ''Edinburgh Courant''. The successful demand for the 1787 ''Edinburgh Edition'' seems to have encouraged Creech to publish this new edition as the 1787 volume had been sold out since around 1791. The Previous Editions and their contents Burns's first edition of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect had been printed in Kilmarnock in 1786 and unofficial editions were published in Belfast and Dublin making the 1787 ''London Edition'' the fifth collected edition of his poems followed by others in 1788 in Philadelphia and New York. Around 3,250 copies of the first ''Edinburgh Edition'' were printed a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Syme (lawyer)
John Syme (1755 – 24 November 1831) was a Scottish lawyer and one of the poet Robert Burns's closest friends during his time in Dumfries. In the summers of 1793 and 1794 he joined Burns on his two short tours of Galloway. Syme and Alexander Cunningham were amongst the most active of the friends and admirers of Burns's works who raised funds for the poet's family and for his mausoleum with the assistance of others such as James Currie. Together with Dr Willam Maxwell he arranged Burns's funeral. Life and character He was the son of the Laird of Barncailzie in the old Kirkudbrightshire, Dumfries and Galloway. He was educated in Edinburgh and had served in the 72nd Regiment of Foot as an ensign for several years, however he left to manage his father's estate only for the family to be divested of their property to pay their debts following the collapse of the Douglas, Heron & Company Bank in Ayr Bank. He had carried out experiments in agricultural improvements at Barncailzie wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PG 1063Burns Naysmith
PG, P.G., P&G, pg, or Pg, or similar, may refer to: *Parental Guidance (PG), a content rating in the following motion picture content rating systems and television content rating systems: ** Australian Classification Board ** Film Censorship Board in Barbados ** Canadian motion picture rating system/Canadian Home Video Rating System ** Canadian TV Classification System ** Cook Islands Censorship Office ** Hong Kong television rating system ** Irish Film Classification Office ** Jamaican motion picture rating system ** Kenya Film Classification Board ** Censor Board Committee in Kuwait ** Lebanese Censorship Board ** National Bureau of Classification in the Maldives ** Film Board in Malta ** Film Classification Board in Mauritius ** Classification Office (New Zealand) ** New Zealand television rating system ** National Film and Video Censors Board in Nigeria ** Movie and Television Review and Classification Board in the Philippines ** General Commission for Audiovisual M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dumfries Academy
Dumfries Academy is one of four secondary schools in Dumfries in south west Scotland. It is a state funded secondary school for both girls and boys. The schools moto is "doctrina promovet" which translates from Latin to "learning promotes" which the school emphases within their "vision, values and aims". There are two notable buildings; the Minerva Building 1895-7 by F J C Carruthers and a later building by County Architect John R Hill, 1936. History Dumfries Academy dates back to the 14th century, making it the earliest school in the Dumfries area. The school has occupied a number of different buildings, and has existed in its present form since 1804. Early records show that John of Greyfriars, a monk, was appointed rector of a new school in Dumfries in 1330. Being a church school it concentrated on the study of religious texts, but in the centuries which followed other schools built in the town which taught subjects such as brewing, mathematics, English, baking, and needlewor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
