1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lauder, Sir Thomas Dick

LAUDER, SIR THOMAS DICK, Bart. (1784–1848), Scottish author, only son of Sir Andrew Lauder, 6th baronet, was born at Edinburgh in 1784. He succeeded to the baronetcy in 1820. His first contribution to Blackwood’s Magazine in 1817, entitled “Simon Roy, Gardener at Dunphail,” was by some ascribed to Sir Walter Scott. His paper (1818) on “The Parallel Roads of Glenroy,” printed in vol. ix. of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, first drew attention to the phenomenon in question. In 1825 and 1827 he published two romances, Lochandhu and the Wolf of Badenoch. He became a frequent contributor to Blackwood and also to Tait’s Magazine, and in 1830 he published An Account of the Great Floods of August 1829 in the Province of Moray and adjoining Districts. Subsequent works were Highland Rambles, with Long Tales to Shorten the Way (2 vols. 8vo, 1837), Legendary Tales of the Highlands (3 vols, 12mo, 1841), Tour round the Coasts of Scotland (1842) and Memorial of the Royal Progress in Scotland (1843). Vol. i. of a Miscellany of Natural History, published in 1833, was also partly prepared by Lauder. He was a Liberal, and took an active interest in politics; he held the office of secretary to the Board of Scottish Manufactures. He died on the 29th of May 1848. An unfinished series of papers, written for Tait’s Magazine shortly before his death, was published under the title Scottish Rivers, with a preface by John Brown, M.D., in 1874.