FERGUSSON, JAMES (1808–1886), Scottish writer on architecture, was born at Ayr on the 22nd of January 1808. His father was an army surgeon. After being educated first at the Edinburgh high school, and afterwards at a private school at Hounslow, James went to Calcutta as partner in a mercantile house. Here he was attracted by the remains of the ancient architecture of India, little known or understood at that time. The successful conduct of an indigo factory, as he states in his own account, enabled him in about ten years to retire from business and settle in London. The observations made on Indian architecture were first embodied in his book on The Rock-cut Temples of India, published in 1845. The task of analysing the historic and aesthetic relations of this type of ancient buildings led him further to undertake a historical and critical comparative survey of the whole subject of architecture in The Handbook of Architecture, a work which first appeared in 1855. This did not satisfy him, and the work was reissued ten years later in a much more extended form under the title of The History of Architecture. The chapters on Indian architecture, which had been considered at rather disproportionate length in the Handbook, were removed from the general History, and the whole of this subject treated more fully in a separate volume, The History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, which appeared in 1876, and, although complete in itself, formed a kind of appendix to The History of Architecture. Previously to this, in 1862, he issued his History of Modern Architecture, in which the subject was continued from the Renaissance to the present day, the period of “modern architecture” being distinguished as that of revivals and imitations of ancient styles, which began with the Renaissance. The essential difference between this and the spontaneously evolved architecture of preceding ages Fergusson was the first clearly to point out and characterize. His treatise on The True Principles of Beauty in Art, an early publication, is a most thoughtful metaphysical study. Some of his essays on special points in archaeology, such as the treatise on The Mode in which Light was introduced into Greek Temples, included theories which have not received general acceptance. His real monument is his History of Architecture (later edition revised by R. Phenè Spiers), which, for grasp of the whole subject, comprehensiveness of plan, and thoughtful critical analysis, stands quite alone in architectural literature. He received the gold medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1871. Among his works, besides those already mentioned, are: A Proposed New System of Fortification (1849), Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis restored (1851), Mausoleum at Halicarnassus restored (1862), Tree and Serpent Worship (1868), Rude Stone Monuments in all Countries (1872), and The Temples of the Jews and the other Buildings in the Haram Area at Jerusalem (1878). The sessional papers of the Institute of British Architects include papers by him on The History of the Pointed Arch, Architecture of Southern India, Architectural Splendour of the City of Beejapore, On the Erechtheum and on the Temple of Diana at Ephesus.
Although Fergusson never practised architecture he took a keen interest in all the professional work of his time. He was adviser with Austen Layard in the scheme of decoration for the Assyrian court at the Crystal Palace, and indeed assumed in 1856 the duties of general manager to the Palace Company, a post which he held for two years. In 1847 Fergusson had published an “Essay on the Ancient Topography of Jerusalem,” in which he had contended that the “Mosque of Omar” was the identical church built by Constantine the Great over the tomb of our Lord at Jerusalem, and that it, and not the present church of the Holy Sepulchre, was the genuine burial-place of Jesus. The burden of this contention was further explained by the publication in 1860 of his Notes on the Site of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem; and The Temples of the Jews and the other Buildings in the Haram Area at Jerusalem, published in 1878, was a still completer elaboration of these theories, which are said to have been the origin of the establishment of the Palestine Exploration fund. His manifold activities continued till his death, which took place in London on the 9th of January 1886.
FERGUSSON, ROBERT (1750–1774), Scottish poet, son of Sir
William Fergusson, a clerk in the British Linen Company, was
born at Edinburgh on the 5th of September 1750. Robert was
educated at the grammar school of Dundee, and at the university
of St Andrews, where he matriculated in 1765. His father died
while he was still at college; but a bursary enabled him to complete
his four years of study. He refused to study for the church,
and was too nervous to study medicine as his friends wished.
He quarrelled with his uncle, John Forbes of Round Lichnot,
Aberdeenshire, and went to Edinburgh, where he obtained
employment as copying clerk in a lawyer’s office. In this humble
occupation he passed the remainder of his life. While at college
he had written a clever elegy on Dr David Gregory, and in 1771
he began to contribute verses regularly to Ruddiman’s Weekly
Magazine. He was a member of the Cape Club, celebrated by him
in his poem of “Auld Reekie.” “The Knights of the Cape”
assembled at a tavern in Craig’s Close, in the vicinity of the
Cross; each member had a name and character assigned to him,
which he was required to maintain at all gatherings of the order.
David Herd (1732–1810), the collector of the classic edition of
Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs (1776), was sovereign of the
Cape (in which he was known as “Sir Scrape”) when Fergusson
was dubbed a knight of the order, with the title of “Sir Precentor,”
in allusion to his fine voice. Alexander Runciman, the
historical painter, his pupil Jacob More, and Sir Henry Raeburn
were all members. The old minute books of the club abound
with pencilled sketches by them, one of the most interesting of
which, ascribed to Runciman’s pencil, is a sketch of Fergusson
in his character of “Sir Precentor.”
Fergusson’s gaiety and wit made him an entertaining companion, and he indulged too freely in the convivial habits of the time. After a meeting with John Brown of Haddington he became, however, very serious, and would read nothing but his Bible. A fall by which his head was severely injured aggravated symptoms of mental aberration which had begun to show themselves; and after about two months’ confinement in the old Darien House—then the only public asylum in Edinburgh—the poet died on the 16th of October 1774.
Fergusson’s poems were collected in the year before his death. The influence of his writings on Robert Burns is undoubted. His “Leith Races” unquestionably supplied the model for the “Holy Fair.” Not only is the stanza the same, but the Mirth who plays the part of conductor to Fergusson, and the Fun who renders a like service to Burns, are manifestly conceived on the same model. “The Mutual Complaint of Plainstanes and Causey” probably suggested “The Brigs of Ayr”; “On seeing a Butterfly in the Street” has reflections in it which strikingly correspond with “To a Mouse”; nor will a comparison of “The Farmer’s Ingle” of the elder poet with “The Cottar’s Saturday Night” admit of a doubt as to the influence of the city-bred poet’s muse on that exquisite picturing of homely peasant life. Burns was himself the first to render a generous tribute to the merits of Fergusson; on his visit to Edinburgh in 1787 he sought out the poet’s grave, and petitioned the authorities of the Canongate burying-ground for permission to erect the memorial stone which is preserved in the existing monument. The date there assigned for his birth differs from the one given above, which rests on the authority of his younger sister Margaret.
The first edition of Fergusson’s poems was published by Ruddiman at Edinburgh in 1773, and a supplement containing additional poems, in 1779. A second edition appeared in 1785. There are later editions, by Robert Chambers (1850) and Dr A. B. Grosart (1851). A life of Fergusson is included in Dr David Irving’s Lives of the Scottish Poets, and in Robert Chambers’s Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Scotsmen.
FERGUSSON, SIR WILLIAM, Bart. (1808–1877), British
surgeon, the son of James Fergusson of Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire,
was born at Prestonpans, East Lothian, on the 20th of
March 1808. After receiving his early education at Lochmaben
and the high school of Edinburgh, he entered the university
of Edinburgh with the view of studying law, but soon afterwards
abandoned his intention and became a pupil of the
anatomist Robert Knox (1791–1862) whose demonstrator he was
