Jul 252016
 

Offices of the Witness newspaper.297 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1YJ

Hugh Miller was one of the most remarkable figures in 19th-century Scotland. At this address between 1840 and 1856,  Miller edited the Witness, the newspaper of the Free Church of Scotland. It was in the Witness that he first serialised many of his geological works, including The Old Red Sandstone (1841). Having started his working life as a stonemason, this self-educated geologist went on the make important contributions to palaeontology. In particular, he was a pioneer of paleoecology. A fierce opponent of evolution on religious grounds, and plagued by mental-health problems, he tragically took his own life in 1856.

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Hugh Miller (1802-56), by Robert Adamson and Octavius Hill, 1843

Hugh Miller (1802-56), by Robert Adamson and Octavius Hill, 1843.

 

Hugh Miller Plaque at the former offices of the Witness newspaper.

Hugh Miller Plaque at the former offices of the Witness newspaper.

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The Friends of Hugh Miller