Patrick Fraser Tytler

For other uses, see Tytler.

File:Patrick Fraser Tytler by Margaret Sarah Carpenter (née Geddes).jpg

Patrick Fraser Tytler, by Margaret Sarah Carpenter, exhibited 1845

Patrick Fraser Tytler FRSE FSA(Scot) (30 August 1791 – 14 December 1849) was a Scottish advocate and historian.

Life

File:The Fraser Tytler family vault, Greyfriars Kirkyard.JPG

The Fraser Tytler family vault, Greyfriars Kirkyard

The son of Alexander Fraser Tytler Lord Woodhouselee, he was born in Edinburgh, where he attended the Royal High School.

He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh in 1813; in 1816 he became King's counsel in the Exchequer, and practised as an advocate until 1832. At this time he was living at 36 Melville Street, a large terraced townhouse in Edinburgh's fashionable west end.

He then moved to London, and it was largely owing to his efforts that a scheme for publishing state papers was carried out. Tytler was one of the founders of the Bannatyne Club and of the English Historical Society. He died at Great Malvern on 24 December 1849. His biography (1859) was written by his friend John William Burgon.

His body was returned to Edinburgh for burial in the family vault, which lies within the sealed south-west section of Greyfriars Kirkyard known as the Covenanter's Prison.

Family

Tytler first married Rachel Elisabeth Hog on 30/3/1826 at Newliston and had 3 children, including Mary Stewart Fraser Tytler (1827-1887). Rachel died 15/4/1835. He then married on 12 or 22/8/1845 in Richmond Anastasia Bonar, daughter of Thomson Bonar, Esq., (1780–1828) of Campden, Kent, by his spouse Anastasia Jessey, daughter of Matthew Guthrie of Halkerton, M.D.

Works

Tytler is most noted for his literary output. He contributed to Archibald Alison's Travels in France (1815); his first independent essays were papers in Blackwood's Magazine. His major work, the History of Scotland (1828–1843), covered the period between 1249 and 1603.

His other works include:

• contributions to George Thomson's Select Melodies of Scotland (1824)
• Life of James Crichton of Cluny, commonly called the Admirable Crichton (1819; 2nd ed., 1823)
• a Memoir of Sir Thomas Craig of Riccarton (1823)
• an Essay on the Revival of Greek Literature in Italy, and The Life of John Wycliffe, published anonymously (1826)
• Lives of Scottish Worthies, for Murray's Family Library (1831–1833)
• Historical View of the Progress of Discovery in America (1832)
• Life of Sir Walter Raleigh (1833)
• Memoirs of the War Carried on in Scotland and Ireland in 1689-1691 (1833)
• Life of Henry VIII. (1837)
• England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, from original letters (1839)
• Notes on the Darnley Jewel (1843)
• Portraits of Mary Queen of Scots (1845).

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 

• The Royal Families of England, Scotland, and Wales, with their Descendants, etc., by Messrs, John and John Bernard Burke, London, volume 1 (1848) pedigree CLXXIX.

External links

• Works by Patrick Fraser Tytler at Project Gutenberg

The contents of the missing Volume V above, from the 3rd Edition, are contained in a later edition, immediately following (which itself is from an incomplete edition of Tytler's History).

Several of his other works

Works about him and his publications

• – a review taking Tytler to task on a number of points; first printed in the North British Review (May – August 1845).
•