Andrew Crichton

Who was Andrew Crichton?

Andrew Crichton was a Scottish biographer and historian.

Crichton, youngest son of a small landed proprietor, was born in the parish of Kirkmahoe, Dumfriesshire, December 1790, and educated at Dumfries Academy and at the university of Edinburgh.

After becoming a licensed preacher he was for some time engaged in teaching in Edinburgh and North Berwick. In 1823 he published his first work, the Life of the Rev. John Blackadder, which was followed by the Life of Colonel J. Blackadder, 1824, and Memoirs of the Rev. Thomas Scott, 1825. To Constable's Miscellany he contributed five volumes, viz. Converts from Infidelity, 2 vols. 1827, and a translation of Christoph Wilhelm von Koch's Revolutions in Europe, 3 vols. 1828.

In the Edinburgh Cabinet Library he wrote the History of Arabia, 2 vols. 1833, and Scandinavia, Ancient and Modern, 2 vols. 1838. He commenced his connection with the newspaper press in 1828 by editing the Edinburgh Evening Post. In 1830 he conducted the North Briton, and in 1832 he undertook the editorship of the Edinburgh Advertiser, in which employment he continued till June 1851.