Alexander Geddes was a Scottish Roman Catholic divine, poet, and miscellaneous writer. He was born in 1737 at the county of Banff and died in 1802. At the age of twenty-one he was sent to the Scottish college at Paris, and, returning to Scotland in 1769, he took charge of a Roman Catholic congregation at Auchinhalrig in Banffshire, where he became known for his scholarship. In 1779 the University of Aberdeen granted him the degree of LLD., and the next year he moved to London with a view of obtaining facilities for his scheme of a new English translation of the Old and New Testaments. Two volumes of his translation and a volume of critical remarks were published, but the rationalistic views promulgated met with much censure, and his own immediate superiors suspended him. He was in the midst of a translation of the Psalms when he died. His other works include numerous pamphlets, translations, macaronic poems, etc. Research Alexander Geddes
Sir David Brewster was a British natural philosopher. He was born at Jedburgh in 1781 and died in 1868. He was educated at Edinburgh University for the church, but was attracted by the lectures of Robison and Playfair to science. In 1807 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the mathematical chair at St Andrews, but became in the same year MA of Cambridge, LLD. of Aberdeen, and member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, to the Transactions of which he contributed important papers on the polarization of light.
In 1808 he became editor of the EdinburghEncyclopaedia, and in 1819, in conjunction with Jameson, founded the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, of which he was sole editor from 1824 until 1832. David Brewster was one of the founders of the British Association, and its president in 1850. In 1832 he was knighted and pensioned, and both before and after this time his services to science obtained throughout Europe the most honourable recognition. From 1838 to 1859 he was principal of the united colleges of St Leonard's and St Salvador at St Andrews, and in the latter year was chosen principal of the University of Edinburgh - an office which he held until his death in 1868.
Among his inventions were the 'polyzonal lens' (introduced into British lighthouses in 1835), the kaleidoscope, and the improved stereoscope. His chief works are a Treatise on the Kaleidoscope published in 1829; Letters on Natural Magic published in 1831; Treatise on Optics (1831); More Worlds Than One (1854) and biographies of Euler, Newton, Galileo, Tycho, Brahe and Kepler. Research David Brewster
James Beattie was a Scottish poet and miscellaneous writer. He was born in 1735 at Laurencekirk, Aberdeenshire and died in 1803. He studied at Marischal College, Aberdeen, for four years, and received the MA degree. In 1753 he was appointed schoolmaster at Fordoun, a few miles from his native place; from whence he obtained a mastership in the Grammar School of Aberdeen, and ultimately was installed professor of moral philosophy and logic in Marischal College. In 1760 he published a volume of poems, which he subsequently endeavoured to buy up, considering them unworthy of him.
In 1765 he published a poem, the Judgment of Paris, and in 1770 his celebrated Essay on Truth, for which the University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of LLD; and George III honoured him, when on a visit to London, with a private conference and a pension. He next published in 1771 the first book of his poem the Minstrel, and in 1774 the second; this is the only work by which he is now remembered. In 1776 he published dissertations on Poetry and Music, Laughter and Ludicrous Composition, etc; in 1783 Dissertations, Moral and Critical; in 1786 Evidences of the Christian Religion; and in 1790-1793 Elements of Moral Science. His closing years were darkened by the death of his two sons. Research James Beattie
Samuel Birch was an English orientalist. He was born in 1813 at London and died in 1885. He entered the British Museum as assistant-keeper of antiquities in 1836, and ultimately became keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities. He was specially famed for his capacity and skill in Egyptology, and was associated with Baron Bunsen in his work on Egypt, contributing the philological portions relating to hieroglyphics. His principal works, besides numerous contributions to the transactions of learned societies, to encyclopaedias, etc, include Gallery of Antiquities, 1842; Catalogue of Greek Vases, 1851; Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphics, 1857; Ancient Pottery, 1858; Egypt from the Earliest Times, 1875. He edited Records of the Past, from 1873 intil 1880. He had the LLD degree from St Andrews and Cambridge, DGL from Oxford, besides many foreign academical distinctions.
LLD is an abbreviation for Legum Doctor
LLD is an abbreviation for Laser Locator Designator
LLD is an abbreviation for Lower Level Discriminator Research LLD
Abbreviations
Research Alexander Geddes
