Mark Napier (historian)
Mark Napier (24 July 1798 – 23 November 1879) was a Scottish lawyer, biographer and historical author. He was called to the Bar, practised as an advocate, and was made Sheriff of
Napier was a member of the Edinburgh Calotype Club and the Photographic Society of Scotland. Founded in 1843 the club is one of the world's first photographic clubs.[1]
Life
Born on 24 July 1798, he was descended from the Napiers of Merchiston. His great-grandfather
In the 1830s Mark Napier is listed as an advocate living at 11 Stafford Street in Edinburgh's west end.[3] In 1844 he was appointed
He died at his residence at 6 Ainslie Place[4] on the Moray Estate in west Edinburgh, on 23 November 1879, as the oldest member of the Faculty of Advocates then discharging legal duties.[2] He is buried in St Cuthberts churchyard in Edinburgh.[5]
Works
Napier's reputation was literary rather than legal: his only strictly legal works were The Law of Prescription in Scotland, 1839, 2nd edit. 1854, and Letters to the Commissioners of Supply of the County of Dumfries, in Reply to a Report of a Committee of their Number on the Subject of Sheriff Courts, 1852, 2nd edit. 1852.[2]
In 1834 Napier published Memoirs of
Napier's Memorials of Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, 1859–62, included letters of Claverhouse and other documents not previously available in print. The publication raised acrimonious controversy related to the execution by drowning of the two Covenanter women, Margaret Maclachlan and Margaret Wilson, who are still known as the "Wigtown Martyrs", because Napier raised doubts as to whether the two women's execution ever took place at all; and he replied to his objectors in the Case for the Crown in re the Wigtown Martyrs proved to be Myths versus Wodrow and Lord Macaulay, Patrick the Pedlar and Principal Tulloch, 1863; and in History Rescued, in Reply to History Vindicated (by the Rev. Archibald Stewart), 1870.[2]
Napier in 1835 published a History of the Partition of Lennox; the Napiers had an historical connection with the earldom of Lennox. He also edited vols. ii. and iii. of
Family
Napier married his cousin Charlotte Ogilvy (1806-1883), daughter of Alexander Ogilvy, and widow of William Dick Macfarlane, and by her had a son and a daughter: Francis John Hamilton Scott, commander in the Royal Navy, and Frances Anne, married to Lieutenant-colonel Cecil Rice.[2]
References
- ^ "Pencils of Light". National Library of Scotland. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ "Edinburgh Post Office annual directory, 1832-1833". National Library of Scotland. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
- ^ Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1850 etc
- ^ http://waeve.co.uk/genealogy/sourcefiles/St.Cuthbert%27s_Cemetry.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Napier, Mark". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.